Secrets of the Threshold
GA 147
27 August 1913, Munich
Lecture IV
The soul, as it becomes clairvoyant, will progress further, beyond the elemental world we have been describing in these lectures, and it will penetrate the actual spiritual world. On ascending to this higher world, the soul must take into account even more forcefully what already has been indicated. In the elemental world there are many happenings and phenomena surrounding the clairvoyant soul that remind it of the characteristics, the forces, and of all sorts of other things in the sense world, but rising into the spiritual world, the soul finds the happenings and beings totally different. The capacities and points of view it could get on with in the sense world have to be given up to a far greater degree. It is terribly disturbing to confront a world that the soul is not at all accustomed to, leaving everything behind it has so far been able to experience and observe. Nevertheless, when you look into my books Theosophy or Occult Science or if you recall the recent performance of Scenes Five and Six of The Souls' Awakening, it will occur to you that the descriptions there of the real spiritual world, the scientific descriptions as well as the more pictorial-scenic ones, use pictures definitely taken—one can say—from impressions and observations of the physical sense world.
Recall for a moment how the journey is described through Devachan or the Spirit-land, as I called it. You will find that the pictures used have the characteristics of sense perception. This is, of course, necessary if one proposes to put on the stage the spirit region, which the human being passes through between death and a new birth. All the happenings must be represented by images taken from the physical sense world. You can easily imagine that stage hands nowadays would not know what to do with the sort of scenery one might bring immediately out of the spiritual world, having nothing at all in common with the sense world. One therefore faces the necessity of describing the region of spirit with pictures taken from sense observation. But there is more to it than this.
You might well believe that to represent this world whose characteristics are altogether different from the sense world, one has to help oneself out of the difficulty with sense-perceptible images. This is not the case. When the soul that has become clairvoyant enters the spiritual world, it will really see the landscape as the exact scenery of those two scenes of the “Spirit Region” in The Souls' Awakening. They are not just thought out in order to characterize something that is entirely different; the clairvoyant soul really is in such scenery and surrounded by it. Just as the soul surrounded in the physical sense world by a landscape of rocks, mountains, woods and fields must take these for granted as reality if it is healthy, the clairvoyant soul, too, outside the physical and etheric bodies can observe itself surrounded in exactly the same way by a landscape constructed of these pictures. Indeed, the pictures have not been chosen at random; as a matter of fact they are the actual environment of the soul in this world. Scenes Five and Six of The Souls' Awakening did not come about in just this way because something or other of an unknown world had to be expressed and therefore the question was considered, “How can that be done?” No, this world pictured here is the world surrounding the soul that it to some degree simply forms as an image.
However, it is necessary for the clairvoyant soul to enter into the right relationship to the genuine reality of the spirit world, the spirit-land that has nothing at all in common with the sense world. You will get some idea of the relationship to the spiritual world which the soul has to acquire from a description of how the soul can come to an understanding of that world. Suppose you open a book. At the top of the page you find a line slanting from the left above to the right below, then a line slanting from bottom left to top right, another line parallel to the first and still another parallel to the second; then come two vertical lines, the second shorter than the first and connected at the top to its center. Then comes something like a circle that is not quite closed with a horizontal line in its center; finally come two equal vertical lines joined together at the top. You don't go through all this when you open a book and look at the first thing that stands there, do you? You read the word “when.” You do not describe the w as lines and the e as an incomplete circle, and so on; you read. When you look at the forms of the letters in front of you, you enter into a relationship with something that is not printed on the page; it is, however, indicated to you by what is there on that page.
It is precisely the same with the relationship of the soul to the whole picture-world of the spirit region. What the soul has to do is not merely to describe what is there, for it is much more like reading. The pictures before one are indeed a cosmic writing, a script, and the soul will gain the right inner mood by recognizing that this whole world of pictures—woven like a veil before the spiritual world—is there to mediate, to manifest the true reality of that world. Hence in the real sense of the word we can speak of reading the cosmic script in the spirit region.
One should not imagine that learning to read this cosmic writing is anything like learning to read in the physical world. Reading today is based more or less on the relation of arbitrary signs to their meaning. Learning to read as we have to do for such arbitrary letters is unnecessary for reading the cosmic script which makes its appearance as a mighty tableau, expressing the spiritual world to the clairvoyant soul. One has only to take in with an open, unbiased inner being what is shown as picture-scenery, because what one is experiencing there is truly reading. The meaning itself can be said to flow out of the pictures. It can therefore happen that any sort of interpreting the images of the spiritual world as abstract ideas is more a hindrance than a help in leading the soul directly to what lies behind the occult writing. Above all, as described in Theosophy and in the scenes of The Souls' Awakening, it is important to let the things work freely on one. With one's deep inner powers coming sometimes in a shadowy way to consciousness, there will already have been surmises of a spiritual world. To receive such hints, it is not even necessary to strive for clairvoyance—bear this well in mind. It is necessary only to keep one's mind and soul receptive to such pictures, without setting oneself against them in an insensitive, materialistic way, saying, “This is all nonsense; there are no such things!” A person with a receptive attitude who follows the movement of these pictures will learn to read them. Through the devotion of the soul to the pictures, the necessary understanding for the world of the spirit will come about.
What I have described is actual fact—therefore the numerous objections to spiritual science coming from a present-day materialistic outlook. In general, these objections are first of all rather obvious; then, too, they can be very intelligent and apparently quite logical. Someone like Ferdinand Fox,11Ferdinand Fox Reinecke. See Guardian of the Threshold, Scenes 1 and 8; The Souls' Awakening, Scene 12, where there is the remark: “Ahriman goes off and returns with the Soul of Ferdinand Fox, whose figure is a sort of copy of his own.” who is considered so supremely clever not only by the human beings but also, quite correctly, by Ahriman himself, can say, “Oh yes, you Steiner, you describe the clairvoyant consciousness and talk about the spiritual world, but it's merely a collection of bits and pieces of sense images. How can you claim—in the face of all that scenery raked together from well-known physical pictures—that we should experience something new from it, something we cannot imagine without approaching the spiritual world?”
That objection is one that will confuse many people; it is made from the standpoint of present-day consciousness apparently with a certain justification, indeed even with complete justification. Nevertheless when you go more deeply into such objections as these of Ferdinand Fox, you will discover the way to the truth: The objection we have just heard resembles very much what a person could say to someone opening a letter: “Well, yes, you've received a letter, but there's nothing in it but letters of the alphabet and words I already know. You won't hear anything new from all that!” Nevertheless, through what we have known for a long time we are perhaps able to learn something that we never could have dreamed of before. This is the case with the picture-scenery, which not only has to find its way to the stage for the Mystery Drama performance but also will reveal itself on every side to the clairvoyant consciousness. To some extent it is composed of memory pictures of the sense world, but in its appearance as cosmic script it represents something that the human being cannot experience either in the sense world or in the elemental world. It should be emphasized again and again that our relation to the spiritual world must be compared to reading and not to direct vision.
If a man on earth, who has become clairvoyant, is to understand the objects and happenings of the sense world and look at them with a healthy, sane attitude, he must observe and describe them in the most accurate way possible, but his relation to the spiritual world must be different. As soon as he steps across the threshold, he has to do something very much like reading. If we look at what has to be recognized in this spirit land for our human life, there is certainly something else that can demolish Ferdinand Fox's argument. His objections should not be taken lightly, for if we wish to understand spiritual science in the right way, we should size up such objections correctly. We must remember that many people today cannot help making objections, for their ideas and habits of thought give them the dreadful fear of standing on the verge of nothingness when they hear about the spiritual world; therefore they reject it.
This relationship of a modern human being to the spiritual world can be understood better by discovering what someone thinks about it who is quite well-intentioned. A book appeared recently that is worth reading even for those who have acquired a true understanding of the spiritual world. It was written by a man who means well and who would like very much to come by knowledge of the spiritual world, Maurice Maeterlinck;12Maurice Maeterlinck (1862 – 1949), Belgian poet who wrote his metaphysical, “Symbolistic” drama, poetry and prose in French. Dramas include “Melisande” and “The Blue Bird.” He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1911. it has been translated with the title Concerning Death. In his first chapters the author shows that he wants to understand these things. We know that he is to some extent a discerning and sensitive person who has allowed himself to be influenced by Novalis, among others, that he has specialized somewhat in Romantic mysticism and that he has accomplished much that is very interesting—theoretically and artistically—in regard to the relationship of human beings to the super-sensible world. Therefore as example he is particularly interesting.
Well, in the chapters of Concerning Death in which Maeterlinck speaks of the actual relationship of the human being to the spiritual world, his book becomes completely absurd. It is an interesting phenomenon that a well-meaning man, using the thinking habits of today, becomes foolish. I do not mean this as reproof or criticism but only to characterize objectively how foolish a well-intentioned person can become when he wishes to look at the connection of the human soul to the spirit world. Maurice Maeterlinck has not the slightest idea that there is a possibility to so strengthen and invigorate the human soul that it can shed everything attained through sense observation and the ordinary thinking, feeling and willing of the physical plane and indeed, even that of the elemental world. To such minds as Maeterlinck's, when the soul leaves behind it everything involved in sense observation and the thinking, feeling and willing related to it, there is simply nothing left. Therefore in his book Maeterlinck asks for proofs of the spiritual world and facts about it. It is of course reasonable to require proofs of the spiritual world and we have every right to do so—but not as Maeterlinck demands them. He would like to have proofs as palpable as those given by science for the physical plane. And because in the elemental world things are still reminiscent of the physical world, he would even agree to let himself be convinced of the existence of the spiritual world by means of experiments copied from the physical ones. That is what he demands. He shows with this that he has not the most rudimentary understanding of the true spiritual world, for he wants to prove, by methods borrowed from the physical one, things and processes which have nothing to do with the sense world. The real task is to show that such proofs as Maeterlinck demands for the spiritual world are impossible.
I have frequently compared this demand of Maurice Maeterlinck to something that has taken place in the realm of mathematics. At one time the university Math departments were continually receiving treatises on the so-called squaring of the circle. People were constantly trying to prove geometrically how the area of a circle could be transformed into a square. Until quite recently an infinite number of papers had been written on the subject. But today only a rank amateur would still come up with such a treatise, for it has been proved conclusively that the geometrical squaring of the circle is not possible.
What Maeterlinck demands as proof for the spiritual world is nothing but the squaring of the circle transferred to the spiritual sphere and is just as much out of place as the other is in the realm of mathematics. What actually is he demanding? If we know that as soon as we cross the threshold to the spiritual world, we are in a world that has nothing in common with the physical world or even with the elemental world, we cannot ask, “If you want to prove any of this to me, kindly go back into the physical world and with physical means prove to me the things of the spiritual world.” We might as well accept the fact that in everything concerned with spiritual science we will get from the most well-meaning people the kind of absurdities that—transferred to ordinary life—would at once show themselves to be absurd. It is just as if someone wants a man to stand on his head while continuing to walk with his feet. Let someone demand that and everyone will realize what nonsense it is. However, when someone demands the same sort of thing in regard to proofs of the spiritual world, it is clever; it is a scientific right. Its author will not notice its absurdity and neither will his followers, especially when the author is a celebrated person. The great mistake springs from the fact that those who make such claims have never clearly grasped man's relation to the spiritual world.
If we attain concepts that can be gained only in the spiritual world through clairvoyant consciousness, they will naturally meet with a great deal of opposition from people like Ferdinand Fox. All the concepts that we are to acquire, for instance, about reincarnation, that is, the truly genuine remembrances of earlier lives on earth, we have to gain through a certain necessary attitude of the soul towards the spiritual world, for only out of that world can we obtain such concepts. When there are impressions, ideas, mental images in the soul that point back to an earlier life on earth, they will be especially subject to the antagonism of our time. Of course, it can't be denied that just in these things the worst foolishness is engaged in; many people have this or that experience and at once relate it to this or that former incarnation. In such cases it is easy for our opponents to say, “Oh yes, whatever drifts into your psyche are really pictures of experiences you've had in this life between birth and death—only you don't recognize them.” That is certainly the case hundreds and hundreds of times, but it should be clear that a spiritual investigator has an eye for these things. It can really be so that something that happens to a person in childhood or youth returns to consciousness completely transformed in later life; then perhaps because the person does not recognize it, he takes it for a reminiscence from an earlier life on earth. That can well be the case. We know within our own anthroposophical circles how easily it can occur. You see, memories can be formed not only of what one has clearly experienced; one can also have an impression that whisks past so quickly that it does not come fully to consciousness and yet can return later as a distinct memory. A person—if he is not sufficiently critical—can then swear that this is something in his soul that was never experienced in his present life. It is thus understandable that such impressions cause all the foolishness in people who have busied themselves, but not seriously enough, with spiritual science. This happens chiefly in the case of reincarnation, in which so much vanity and ambition is involved. For many people it is an alluring idea to have been Julius Caesar or Marie Antoinette in a former life. I can count as many as twenty-five or twenty-six Mary Magdalenes I have met in my lifetime! The spiritual investigator himself has good reason to draw attention to the mischief that can be stirred up in all this. Something more, however, must be emphasized.
In true clairvoyance, impressions of an earlier life on earth will appear in a certain characteristic way, so that a truly healthy clairvoyant soul will recognize them quite definitely as what they are. It will know unmistakably that these impressions have nothing to do with what can arise out of the present life between birth and death. For the true reminiscences, the genuine memories of earlier lives on earth that come through scrupulous clairvoyance, are too astonishing for the soul to believe it could bring them out of its conscious or unconscious depths by any humanly possible method. Students of spiritual science must get to know what soul experiences come to it from outside. It is not only the wishes and desires, which do indeed play a great part when impressions are fished up out of the unknown waters of the soul in a changed form, so that we do not recognize them as experiences of the present life; there is an interplay of many other things. But the mostly overpowering perceptions of former earth lives are easy to distinguish from impressions out of the present life. To take one example: a person receiving a true impression of a former life will inwardly, for instance, experience the following, rising out of soul depths: “You were in your former life such and such a person.” And at the moment when this occurs, he will find that, externally, in the physical world, he can make no use at all of such knowledge. It can bring him further in his development but as a rule he has to say to himself, “Look at that: in your previous incarnation you had that special talent!” However, by the time he receives such an impression, he is already too old to do anything with it. The situation will always be like that, showing how the impressions could not possibly arise out of one's present life, for if you took your start from the ordinary dream or fantasy, you would provide yourself with quite different qualities in a former incarnation. What one was like in an earlier life is something we ordinarily cannot imagine, for it is usually just the opposite of what we might expect. The genuine reality of an impression arising through true clairvoyance may show in one way or another our relationship to another person on earth. However, we must remember that through incorrect clairvoyance many previous incarnations are described, relating us to our close friends and enemies; this is mostly nonsense. If the perception you receive is truly genuine, it will show you a relationship to a person whom it is impossible at the time to draw near to. These things cannot be applied directly to practical life.
Confronted with impressions such as these, we have to develop the frame of mind necessary for clairvoyant consciousness. Naturally, when one has the impression, “I am connected in a special way with this person,” the situation must be worked out in life; through the impression one should come again into some sort of relationship with him. But that may only come about in a second or third earthly life. One must have a frame of mind able to wait patiently, a feeling that can be described as a truly inward calmness of soul and peacefulness of spirit. This will contribute to our judging correctly our experience in the spiritual world.
When we want to learn something about another person in the physical world, we go at it in whatever way seems necessary. But this we cannot do with the impression that calls for spirit peacefulness, calmness of soul, and patience. The attitude of soul towards the genuine impressions of the spiritual world is correctly described by saying,
To strive for nothing—wait in peaceful stillness,
one's inner being filled with expectation.
(The Soul's Awakening, Scene 3)
In a certain respect this frame of mind must stream out over the entire soul life in order to approach in the right way its clairvoyant experiences in the spirit.
The Ferdinand Foxes, however, are not always easy to refute, even when inner perceptions arise of which one can say, “It is humanly not possible for the soul with its forces and habits acquired in the present earth life to create in the imagination what is rising out of its depths; on the contrary, if it were up to the soul it would have imagined something quite different.” Even when one is able to point out the sure sign of true, genuine, spiritual impressions, a super-clever Ferdinand Fox can come and raise objections. But one does not meet the objections of those who stand somewhat remote from the science of the spirit or of opponents who don't want to know anything about it with the words, “One's inner being filled with expectation.” This is the right mood for those who are approaching the spiritual world, but in the face of objections from opponents, one should not—as a spiritual scientist—merely wait in expectation but should oneself raise all those objections in order to know just what objections are possible.
One of these is easy to understand today, and it can be found in all the psychological, psychopathological and physiological literature and in the sometimes learned treatises that presume to be scientific, as follows: “Since the inner life is so complicated, there is a great deal in the subconscious that does not rise up into the ordinary consciousness.” One who is super-clever will not only say, “Our wishes and desires bring all sorts of things out of soul depths,” but will also say, “Any experience of the psyche brings about a secret resistance or opposition against the experience. Though he will always experience this reaction, a person knows nothing of it as a rule. But it can push its way up from the subconscious into the upper regions of soul life.” Psychological, psychopathological and physiological literature admit to the following, because the facts cannot be denied: When someone falls deeply in love with another person, there has to develop in unconscious soul depths, side by side with the conscious love, a terrible antipathy to the beloved. And the view of many psychopathologists is that if anyone is truly in love, there is also hatred in his soul. Hatred is present even if it is covered over by the passion of love.
When such things emerge from the depths of the soul, say the Ferdinand Foxes, they are perceptions that very easily provide the illusion of not coming from the soul of the individual involved and yet can well do so, because soul life is very complex. To this we can only reply: certainly it may be so; this is as well-known to the spiritual investigator as it is to the psychologist, psychiatrist or physiologist. When we work our way through all the above-mentioned literature dealing with the healthy and unhealthy conditions of soul life, we realize that Ferdinand Fox is a real person, an extremely important figure of the present day, to be found everywhere. He is no invention. Take all the abundant writing of our time and as you study it, you get the impression that the remarkable face of Ferdinand Fox is springing out at you from every page. He seems nowadays to have his fingers in every scientific pie. To counteract him, it must be emphasized again and again, and I repeat it in this case gladly: to prove that something is reality and not fantasy is only possible through life experience itself. I have continually said: The chapter of Schopenhauer's philosophy that views the world as a mere mental image and does not distinguish between idea and actual perception can be contradicted only by life itself. Kant's argument, too, in regard to the so-called proof of God' s existence, that a hundred imaginary dollars contain just as many pennies as a hundred real dollars, will be demolished by anyone who tries to pay his debts with imaginary and not real dollars.
Therefore the training and devotion of the soul to clairvoyance must be taken as reality. It is not a matter of theorizing; we bring about a life in the realm of spirit by means of which we can clearly distinguish the genuine impression of a former life on earth from one that is false, in the same way that we can distinguish the heat of an iron on our skin from an imaginary iron. If we reflect on this, we will understand that Ferdinand Fox's objections about the spiritual world are really of no importance at all, coming as they do from people who—I will not say, have not entered the realm of spirit clairvoyantly—but who have never tried to understand it.
We must always keep in mind that when we cross the threshold of the spiritual world, we enter a region of the universe that has nothing in common with what the senses can perceive or with what we experience in the physical world through willing, thinking, and feeling. We have to approach the spiritual world by realizing that all our ability to observe and understand the physical sense world has to be left behind. Referring to perception in the elemental world, I used an image that may sound grotesque, that of putting one's head into an ant hill—but so it is for our consciousness in the elemental world. There the thoughts that we have do not put up with everything quite passively; we plunge our consciousness into a world (into a thought-world, one might call it) that creeps and crawls with a life of its own. A person has to hold himself firmly upright in his soul to withstand thoughts that are full of their own motion. Even so, many things in this elemental world of creeping and crawling thoughts remind us of the physical world.
When we enter the actual spiritual world, nothing at all reminds us of the physical world; there we enter a world which I will describe with an expression used in my book The Threshold of the Spiritual World: “a world of living thought-beings.” Our thinking in the physical world resembles shadow-pictures, shadows of thoughts, whose real substance we find in the spiritual world; this thought-substance forms the beings there whom we can approach and enter into. Just as human beings in the physical world consist of flesh and blood, these beings of the spiritual world consist of thought-substance. They are themselves thoughts, actual thoughts, nothing but thoughts, yet they are alive with an inner essential being; they are living thought-beings. Although we can enter into their inner being, they cannot perform actions as if with physical hands. When they are active, they create relationships among themselves, and this can be compared to the embodiment in the sense world of thoughts in speech, a pale reflection of the spiritual reality. We can accustom ourselves to experience the living thought-entities in the spiritual world. What they do, what they are, and the way they affect one another, forms a spirit language. One spirit being speaks to another; thought language is spoken in the realm of the spirit! However, this thought language in its totality is not only speech but represents the deeds of the spiritual world as well. It is in speaking that these beings work, move, and take action.
When we cross the threshold, we enter a world where thoughts are entities, entities are thoughts; however, these beings of the spiritual world are much more real than people of flesh and blood in the sense world. We enter a world where the action consists of spiritual conversation, where words move, here, there, and everywhere, where something happens because it is spoken out. We have to say of this spiritual world and of the occurrences there what is said in Scene Three of The Guardian of the Threshold:
At this place words are deeds
and further deeds must follow them.
All occult perception attained for mankind by the initiates of every age could behold the significance in a certain realm of this spirit conversation that is at the same time spirit action. It was given the characteristic name, “The Cosmic Word.”
Now observe that our study has brought us to the very center of the spiritual realm, where we can behold these beings and their activities. Their many voices, many tones, many activities, sounding together, form the Cosmic Word in which our own soul being—itself Cosmic Word—begins to find itself at home, so that, sounding forth, we ourselves perform deeds in the spiritual world. The term “Cosmic Word” used throughout past ages by all peoples expresses an absolutely true fact of the spirit land. To understand its meaning at the present time, however, we have to approach the uniqueness of the spiritual world in the way we have tried to describe in this study.
In the various past ages and peoples, occult knowledge has spoken with more or less understanding of the Cosmic Word; now, too, it is necessary, if mankind is not to be devastated by materialism, to reach an understanding for such words about the spiritual world, from the Mystery Drama:
At this place words are deeds
and further deeds must follow them.
It is imperative in our time that when such words are spoken out of the knowledge of the spiritual world, our souls should feel their reality, should feel that they represent reality. We must be aware that this is just as much an exact characteristic of the spiritual world as when in characterizing the physical sense world we apply ordinary sense images.
Just how far our present age can bring understanding to bear on such words as “Here in this place words are deeds and further deeds must follow them” will depend on how far it takes up spiritual science and how well people today will be prepared to prevent the dominating force of materialism that otherwise will plunge human civilization into impoverishment, devastation and decay.
Vierter Vortrag
Wenn die hellsichtig gewordene Seele immer weiter und weiter fortschreitet, dann dringt sie aus dem, was in den letzten Tagen hier die elementarische Welt genannt worden ist, weiter hinein in die eigentlich geistige Welt. Vieles von dem, was bereits angedeutet worden ist, muß in einem noch verschärften Maße beachtet werden, wenn es sich um den Aufstieg der menschlichen Seele in die eigentlich geistige Welt handelt. Innerhalb der elementarischen Welt erinnert noch manches in den Vorgängen und Dingen, welche die hellsichtig gewordene Seele in dieser elementarischen Welt um sich hat, an Eigenschaften, an Kräfte, an allerlei in der Sinneswelt. Wenn aber die Seele in die geistige Welt hinaufsteigt, dann treten ihr die Eigenschaften, die Merkmale der Vorgänge und Wesenheiten in einer ganz anderen Art entgegen, als dieses in der Sinneswelt der Fall ist. In einem viel erhöhteren Maße muß die Seele für die geistige Welt gewissermaßen sich abgewöhnen, mit den Fähigkeiten und mit dem Anschauungsvermögen, die für die Sinneswelt taugen, auskommen zu wollen. Und zu dem Beunruhigendsten gehört es ja für die menschliche Seele, gegenüberzustehen einer Welt, an die sie ganz und gar nicht gewöhnt ist, die für sie notwendig macht, daß sie alles gleichsam hinter sich läßt, was sie bisher hat erfahren, beobachten können. Dennoch, wenn Sie in meiner «Theosophie» oder in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» oder auch jetzt wiederum in dem fünften und sechsten Bild von «Der Seelen Erwachen» die Darstellungen ins Auge fassen, die von der eigentlich geistigen Welt gegeben sind, so wird Ihnen auffallen, daß diese Darstellungen - sowohl die mehr wissenschaftlich gehaltenen wie die mehr anschaulich und szenengemäßen - in Bildermaterial gegeben sind, das sozusagen durchaus entnommen ist Eindrücken, Beobachtungen der physisch-sinnlichen Welt.
Erinnern Sie sich einen Augenblick, wie dargestellt ist der Durchgang durch das sogenannte Devachan, oder wie ich es genannt habe, das Geisterland. Sie werden finden, die Bilder, die da verwendet sind, enthalten Merkmale, die der sinnlichen Anschauung entnommen sind. Das muß von vornherein ja notwendig erscheinen, wenn man es unternimmt, das Geistgebiet, das Gebiet, welches die menschliche Seele durchlebt zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, szenisch auf der Bühne darzustellen. Da ist es notwendig, die Vorgänge, alles, was geschieht, in Bildern zu charakterisieren, die der physisch-sinnlichen Welt entnommen sind. Denn Sie können sich leicht vorstellen, daß mit dem, was man aus der eigentlich geistigen Welt bringen würde, und was in gar nichts etwas gemein haben könnte mit der Sinneswelt, daß mit dem etwa die heutigen Theaterarbeiter wenig anzustellen wüßten. So ist man in die Notwendigkeit versetzt, wenn man das Geistgebiet darstellt, sich durch Bilder auszudrücken, die der sinnlichen Beobachtung entnommen sind. Nun ist aber nicht bloß dieses der Fall. Man könnte leicht glauben, in der Darstellung müsse man so verfahren — weil dasjenige, was man da als sinnliche Bilder verwendet, hindeutet auf eine Welt, die gar nichts in ihren Merkmalen gemeinschaftlich hat mit der Sinneswelt -, man könnte glauben, derjenige, der diese Welt darstellen will, der nehme eben seine Zuflucht zu sinnlichen Bildern. Das ist aber nicht der Fall. Denn die hellsichtig gewordene Seele, wenn sie sich in die geistige Welt hineinbegibt, sieht wirklich diese Szenerie in genau den Bildern, die Sie im Drama in den beiden Bildern des Geistgebietes dargestellt sehen. Diese Bilder sind nicht ausgedacht, um etwas durch sie zu charakterisieren, was ganz anders ist, sondern die hellsichtig gewordene Seele ist in einer solchen Szenerie, die ihre Umwelt bildet, wirklich und wahrhaftig darinnen. Wie die Seele in der physisch-sinnlichen Welt in einer Landschaft ist, wo Felsen, Berge, Wälder, Felder um sie herum sind, und wie sie diese für Realität, für Wirklichkeit halten muß, wenn sie gesund ist, so ist die hellsichtig gewordene Seele, wenn sie außer dem physischen und auch dem ätherischen Leibe beobachtet, ganz genau so in einer Szenerie darinnen, die sich aufbaut aus diesen Bildern. Diese Bilder sind nicht willkürlich gewählt, sondern sind tatsächlich in der betreffenden Welt die wahre Umgebung der Seele. So ist es also nicht etwa so, daß dieses fünfte und sechste Bild von «Der Seelen Erwachen» dadurch zustande gekommen wären, daß irgend etwas hätte ausgedrückt werden sollen von einer unbekannten Welt, und dann hätte man nachgedacht: Wie kann man das ausdrücken? -, sondern es ist so, daß das eine Welt ist, welche die Seele um sich herum hat und gewissermaßen nur nachbildet.
Nun ist es aber doch notwendig, daß die hellsichtig gewordene Seele für das Geistgebiet, für das Geisterland das richtige Verhältnis gewinnt zu der wahrhaftigen Realität, die nichts gemein hat mit der Sinneswelt. Man kann sich eine Vorstellung machen von diesem Verhältnis, das die Seele gewinnen muß zur geistigen Welt, wenn man die Art, wie die Seele aufzufassen hat diese geistige Welt, in der folgenden Weise zu charakterisieren versucht. Denken Sie sich einmal, Sie schlagen ein Buch auf. Da oben, da finden Sie so etwas wie einen Strich von links oben nach rechts unten, dann einen Strich von links unten nach rechts oben, dann wieder einen Strich von links oben nach rechts unten parallel zum ersten und einen weiteren von links unten nach rechts oben parallel zum zweiten; dann kommt etwas, was oben einen Kreis hat und unten einen nicht ganz geschlossenen Kreis; dann kommt etwas, das zwei vertikale Striche hat, die oben verbunden sind, und noch einmal so etwas. Nicht wahr, so machen Sie es nicht, wenn Sie ein Buch aufschlagen und das erste, was da steht, ins Auge fassen, sondern Sie lesen das Wort: Wenn. Sie beschreiben nicht das W als Striche und das e als oben einen Kreis und unten einen nicht ganz geschlossenen Kreis und so weiter, sondern Sie lesen. Sie gewinnen, indem Sie die Formen der Buchstaben, die vor Ihnen sind, ins Auge fassen, ein Verhältnis zu etwas, was nicht auf der Seite des Buches steht, sondern worauf das, was auf der Seite des Buches steht, hindeutet.
So ist es tatsächlich auch mit dem Verhältnis der Seele zu der gesamten Bilderwelt des Geistgebietes. Das, was man da zu tun hat, ist nicht ein Beschreiben bloß desjenigen, was da ist, sondern es läßt sich vielmehr vergleichen mit einem Lesen; und das, was man an Bildern vor sich hat, ist im Grunde genommen eine kosmische Schrift, und man hat die richtige Seelenverfassung dazu, wenn man sich so stellt, daß man fühlt, man habe in den Bildern eine kosmische Schrift vor sich, und die Bilder vermitteln, bedeuten einem dasjenige, was die Realität der geistigen Welt ist, vor welche eigentlich diese ganze Bilderwelt hingewoben ist. Daher muß man im echten, wahren Sinne sprechen von einem Lesen der kosmischen Schrift im Geistgebiete.
Nun darf man sich die Sache aber nicht so vorstellen, daß man dieses Lesen der kosmischen Schrift so zu lernen hat wie das Lesen in der physischen Welt. Das Lesen in der physischen Welt beruht mehr oder weniger wenigstens heute - in der Urzeit der Menschheit war es nicht so -, auf der Beziehung von Willkürzeichen zu dem, was sie bedeuten. So lesen zu lernen, wie man für diese Willkürzeichen lesen lernt, braucht man nicht gegenüber der kosmischen Schrift, die sich wie ein mächtiges Tableau als Ausdruck des Geisterlandes für die hellsichtig gewordene Seele darstellt. Sondern man soll eigentlich nur das, was sich da darstellt an Bilderszenerie, unbefangen und mit empfänglicher Seele hinnehmen, denn das, was man daran erlebt, das ist schon das Lesen. Diese Bilder strömen sozusagen ihren Sinn von selber aus. Daher kann es leicht vorkommen, daß eine Art von Kommentieren, von Interpretieren der Bilder der geistigen Welt in abstrakten Vorstellungen eher ein Hindernis ist für das unmittelbare Hingelenktwerden der Seele zu dem, was hinter der okkulten Schrift steht, als daß es einen unterstützen könnte in diesem Lesen. Bei so etwas handelt es sich vor allen Dingen, sowohl in dem Buch «Theosophie» wie auch in den Bildern von «Der Seelen Erwachen» darum, daß man die Dinge unbefangen auf sich wirken läßt. Mit den tieferen Kräften, die manchmal ganz schattenhaft zum Bewußtsein kommen, erlebt man schon den Hinweis auf die geistige Welt. Um diesen Hinweis auf die geistige Welt zu bekommen - fassen Sie das wohl ins Seelenauge -, braucht man nicht einmal die Hellsichtigkeit anzustreben, sondern man braucht nur solche Bilder so aufzufassen, daß man für sie eine offene, empfängliche Seele hat, daß man nicht mit grobem materialistischem Sinn an die Sache geht und sagt: Das ist doch alles Unsinn, das gibt es ja gar nicht! — Eine empfängliche Seele, welche eingeht auf den Verlauf solcher Bilder, lernt sie schon lesen. Durch die Hingabe der Seele an diese Bilder ergibt sich das Verständnis, das gesucht werden sollte für die Welt des Geisterlandes. Und weil das, was ich gesagt habe, wirklich so ist, ergeben sich aus unserer gegenwärtigen materialistischen Weltanschauung heraus die zahlreichen Einwände gegen die Geisteswissenschaft.
Solche Einwände sind im Grunde genommen auf der einen Seite sehr naheliegend, auf der anderen können sie sehr geistvoll und scheinbar außerordentlich logisch sein. Man kann sagen —- und das ist wirklich ein Einwand, der nicht unberechtigt ist —, wenn man zum Beispiel ein Ferdinand Reinecke ist, der so überschlau ist, daß er nicht nur von Menschen dafür gehalten wird, sondern auch in berechtigter Weise von Ahriman, man kann sagen: Ja, ihr, die ihr uns das hellsichtige Bewußtsein beschreibt, die ihr von der geistigen Welt sprecht, ihr stellt diese ganze geistige Welt doch nur mit dem Material der sinnlichen Vorstellungen zusammen; ihr gruppiert das Material der sinnlichen Vorstellungen. Wie könnt ihr behaupten, da ihr doch wirklich nur aus lauter bekannten sinnlichen Bildern eine Szenerie zusammenstellt, daß man dadurch etwas Neues erfahren sollte, etwas, was man sonst nicht erfährt, wenn man sich nicht der geistigen Welt nähert. — Das ist ein Einwand, der sehr viele blenden muß, und der vom gegenwärtigen Bewußtsein aus, man könnte sagen, mit einem gewissen scheinbaren und doch wiederum vollen Recht gemacht wird. Und dennoch, wenn man tiefer eingeht auf solche Einwände Ferdinand Reineckes, dann ist doch das Folgende richtig. Solch ein Einwand käme ganz gleich dem anderen, den jemand machte, wenn er zu einem, der eben einen Brief bekommen hat, sagen würde: Ja, sieh, du hast da einen Brief bekommen, ich sehe da nichts anderes als Buchstaben und Worte, die ich längst kenne; wie willst du da durch diesen Brief etwas Neues erfahren! Da kannst du nur etwas erfahren, was wir längst schon kennen. — Und dennoch, wir erfahren durch das, was man längst kennt, unter Umständen etwas, wovon wir uns nichts haben träumen lassen. So ist es auch mit den Bilderszenerien, die sich nicht nur in der Darstellung einfinden müssen, sondern die dem hellsichtigen Bewußtsein ringsum geoffenbart werden. Sie sind in gewisser Beziehung zusammengestellt aus Reminiszenzen der Sinneswelt; aber wie sie sich darbieten als kosmische Schrift, stellen sie dasjenige dar, was der Mensch nicht innerhalb der Sinneswelt und auch nicht innerhalb der elementarischen Welt erfahren kann. Immer wieder und wieder soll betont werden, daß dieses Sich-Verhalten zur geistigen Welt verglichen werden muß mit einem Lesen, nicht mit einem unmittelbaren Anschauen.
Während also der Erdenmensch, der hellsichtig geworden ist, die Dinge und Vorgänge der sinnlich-physischen Welt so aufzufassen hat, wenn er mit einer gesunden Seele sich zu diesen Dingen verhalten will, daß er diese Dinge anschaut und möglichst treu beschreibt, ist das Verhältnis zum Geisterland ein anderes. Da hat man es zu tun, sobald man die Schwelle in die geistige Welt überschritten hat, mit etwas, was man mit einem Lesen zu vergleichen hat. Wenn man ins Auge faßt, was aus diesem Geisterlande heraus für das menschliche Leben erkannt werden muß, dann gibt es allerdings noch anderes, was die Einwände Ferdinand Reineckes aus dem Felde schlagen kann. Solche Einwände muß man nicht leicht nehmen; man muß sich gewissermaßen, wenn man in der richtigen Art Geisteswissenschaft verstehen will, mit diesen Einwänden auseinandersetzen. Man muß bedenken, daß die Menschen der Gegenwart vielfach gar nicht umhin können, solche Einwände zu machen, weil alles Vorstellungsleben, weil die Denkgewohnheiten der Menschen der Gegenwart eben so sind, daß sie aus Scheu, aus Furcht, vor dem Nichts zu stehen, wenn sie von der geistigen Welt hören, diese geistige Welt einfach ablehnen. Man kann da von dem Verhältnis der Menschen der Gegenwart zur geistigen Welt gute Begriffe sich machen, wenn man ins Auge faßt, was über die geistige Welt solche Menschen denken, die eigentlich in gewisser Beziehung gutmeinend in bezug auf die geistige Welt sind.
Da ist in der Literatur der Gegenwart in der letzten Zeit ein Buch erschienen, das lesenswert auch für diejenigen ist, die sich ein wirkliches Verständnis für die geistige Welt schon erworben haben, denn es rührt von einem Manne her, der eigentlich gutmeinend ist, und der sich ganz gerne eine Art Erkenntnis von der geistigen Welt bilden möchte, von Maurice Maeterlinck. Das Buch ist auch in die deutsche Sprache übersetzt und heißt: «Vom Tode.» Es rührt von einem Manne her, der in den ersten Kapiteln zeigt, er möchte etwas verstehen von diesen Dingen. Da wir wissen, daß er in gewisser Weise ein feinsinniger Geist ist, der sich unter anderem von Novalis hat anregen lassen, der in einer gewissen Weise die mystische Romantik sich zu eigen gemacht hat, der selber manches, was sehr interessant ist, theoretisch und künstlerisch in bezug auf das Verhältnis des Menschen zur übersinnlichen Welt geleistet hat, so ist gerade sein Beispiel ganz besonders interessant. In den Kapiteln des Buches «Vom Tode» des Maurice Maeterlinck, in denen er auf das eigentliche Verhältnis des Menschen zur geistigen Welt zu sprechen kommt, wird nun dieses Buch ganz töricht und absurd. Und das ist eine interessante Erscheinung, daß ein gutmeinender Mensch, der mit den Denkgewohnheiten der Gegenwart operiert, töricht wird. Ich sage das nicht, um eine schimpfende Kritik auszusprechen, sondern um objektiv zu charakterisieren, daß ein solcher gutmeinender Mensch töricht wird, wenn er das Verhältnis der menschlichen Seele zum Geisterlande ins Auge fassen will. Denn davon kann sich Maurice Maeterlinck gar keinen Begriff machen, daß es eine Möglichkeit gibt, die menschliche Seele so zu erkraften und zu erstarken, daß sie alles hinter sich lassen kann, was in sie hereinkommen kann durch sinnliche Beobachtung und durch das gewöhnliche Denken, Fühlen und Wollen auf dem physischen Plan und sogar auch noch in der elementarischen Welt. Für solche Geister, wie Maurice Maeterlinck einer ist, ist einfach, wenn die Seele alles, was die Sinneswahrnehmung und das damit verbundene Denken, Fühlen und Wollen ausmacht, hinter sich läßt, gar nichts mehr da. Daher verlangt Maurice Maeterlinck in dem genannten Buche Beweise für die geistige Welt und ihre Tatsachen. Es ist natürlich durchaus berechtigt, Beweise für die geistige Welt zu verlangen. Man hat damit ganz recht. Aber man kann sie nicht so verlangen wie Maurice Maeterlinck. Er würde sich Beweise gefallen lassen, die so handgreiflich sind wie die Beweise nach dem Muster der Wissenschaft für den physischen Plan. Er würde sich auch noch gefallen lassen weil in der elementarischen Welt die Dinge noch an die physische Welt erinnern — durch Experimente, die den physischen nachgebildet sind, sich beweisen zu lassen, daß die Dinge der geistigen Welt bestehen. Das fordert er. Aber damit zeigt er gerade, daß er für die wahre geistige Welt nicht das allergeringste Verständnis hat. Denn er will Dinge und Vorgänge, die nichts an sich haben von den Dingen und Vorgängen der physischen Welt, mit den Mitteln, die der physischen Welt entlehnt sind, bewiesen haben. Man hätte vielmehr die Aufgabe zu zeigen, wie solche Beweise, die Maurice Maeterlinck verlangt, eben unmöglich sind für die geistige Welt. Ich muß solch ein Verlangen, wie das des Maurice Maeterlinck, immer wieder vergleichen mit etwas, was sich in der Mathematik vollzogen hat. Die ‘ verschiedenen Akademien haben bis vor kurzer Zeit immer wieder und wieder Abhandlungen bekommen über die sogenannte Quadratur des Zirkels. Das heißt, man versuchte geometrisch zu beweisen, wie man einen Kreis in ein Quadrat verwandeln kann. Unzählige mathematische Abhandlungen in mathematischer Beweisführung sind darüber geschrieben worden. Heute ist jeder ein Dilettant, der eine solche Abhandlung noch versuchen wollte, denn es ist bewiesen, daß eine solche Quadratur des Zirkels mit den geometrischen Mitteln nicht ausführbar, nicht möglich ist. Dasjenige nun, was Maurice Maeterlinck als Beweis für die geistige Welt verlangt, ist auf das geistige Gebiet übertragen nichts anderes als die Quadratur des Zirkels, und ist ebenso deplaciert für die geistige Welt wie für das Mathematische die Quadratur des Zirkels. Was verlangt Maurice Maeterlinck im Grunde genommen? Wenn man weiß, daß, sobald man die Schwelle zur geistigen Welt übertritt, man in einer Welt lebt, die nichts gemein hat mit der physischen und auch elementarischen Welt, so kann man nicht verlangen: Ja, wenn du mir etwas beweisen willst, dann gehe gefälligst zurück in die physische Welt und beweise mir dort die Dinge der anderen, der geistigen Welt. - Man muß sich schon einmal für die Dinge der Geisteswissenschaft damit bekanntmachen, daß von den gutmeinendsten Menschen Absurditäten geschehen, die, wenn man sie ins gewöhnliche Leben überträgt, sogleich als Absurditäten erscheinen. Das ist so, wie wenn jemand sagen würde, man solle sich auf den Kopf stellen und dennoch mit den Beinen gehen. Wenn man das verlangt, so sieht das jeder als einen Unsinn ein. Wenn man es in bezug auf Beweise der geistigen Welt macht, dann ist es geistvoll, dann ist es wissenschaftliche Forderung, dann merkt es der Autor am wenigsten, und seine Bekenner, besonders wenn es sich um einen berühmten Autor handelt, merken es natürlich auch nicht. Der ganze Fehler solcher Forderungen entspringt eben daraus, daß Menschen, die solche Forderungen stellen, sich niemals über das Verhältnis des Menschen zur geistigen Welt aufgeklärt haben.
Wenn man Vorstellungen, die nur aus der geistigen Welt heraus gewonnen werden können, durch das hellsichtige Bewußtsein erlangt, so können diese von den Ferdinand Reineckes natürlich auch viele Anfechtungen erfahren. Alle Vorstellungen, die wir gewinnen sollen über die sogenannte Reinkarnation, über die wiederholten Erdenleben, also wirklich reale Rückerinnerungen an frühere Erdenleben, kann man nur erlangen durch dasjenige Verhalten der Seele, das eben notwendig ist, zur geistigen Welt. Nur aus der geistigen Welt heraus kann man sie erlangen. Wenn man nun Eindrücke, Vorstellungen in der Seele hat, die einen zurückverweisen auf frühere Erdenleben, so werden solche Eindrücke ganz besonders der Gegnerschaft unserer heutigen Zeit ausgesetzt sein. Es soll von vornherein nicht geleugnet werden, daß gerade auf diesem Gebiete der schlimmste Unfug selbstverständlich getrieben wird, denn gar mancherlei Leute haben diese oder jene Impression und beziehen sie auf diese oder jene vorhergehenden Inkarnationen. Da wird es der Gegner leicht haben, zu sagen: Ja, da fluten in dein Seelenleben Vorstellungen von Erlebnissen zwischen Geburt und Tod herein, die du nur nicht als solche erkennst. — Das kann gewiß — man muß das zugeben - in hundert und aber hundert Fällen der Fall sein. Man muß sich nur klar darüber sein, daß der Geistesforscher in solchen Dingen eben Bescheid wissen muß. Es kann durchaus sein, daß irgend jemand etwas im Kindheits-, im Jugendalter erlebt, und daß in vollständiger Umwandlung in einem späteren Lebensalter das, was da erlebt ist, ins Bewußtsein wieder herauftritt. Es kann sein, daß er das nicht erkennt und es dann für eine Rückerinnerung an vorhergehende Erdenleben hält. Das kann der Fall sein. Man weiß auch innerhalb der Geisteswissenschaft, wie leicht das zustande kommen kann. Sehen Sie, Erinnerungen können sich bilden nicht nur an das, was man klar erlebt hat. Man kann ein Erlebnis haben, das so vorüberhuscht, daß man es sich nicht ganz klar zum Bewußtsein bringt, während man es erlebt, und dennoch kann es später als Erinnerung auftreten und dann deutlich sein. Da wird man, wenn man sich nicht kritisch genug verhält, darauf schwören, man habe etwas in der Seele, was man niemals in diesem gegenwärtigen Leben erlebt hat. Weil das so ist, ist es begreiflich, daß mit solchen Impressionen viel Unfug getrieben wird von mancherlei Leuten, die sich mit Geisteswissenschaft — aber nicht in genügendem Ernst - befassen. Gerade bei der Lehre von der Reinkarnation kann das vorkommen, da außerdem in bezug auf diese Reinkarnation so viel von menschlicher Eitelkeit, von menschlichem Ehrgeiz in Betracht kommt. Es ist für manchen Menschen so wünschenswert, in einer früheren Inkarnation Julius Cäsar oder Marie Antoinette gewesen zu sein. Ich könnte zum Beispiel fünfundzwanzig, sechsundzwanzig wiederverkörperte Maria Magdalenen aufzählen, die mir im Leben vorgekommen sind! Da spielen so viele Dinge hinein, daß der Geistesforscher gar keine Veranlassung hat, nicht selber aufmerksam zu machen auf den Unfug, der in dieser Beziehung getrieben wird. Aber dem gegenüber muß etwas anderes betont werden.
Bei dem wahren Hellsehen, wenn es Impressionen hat von früheren Erdenleben, treten diese Eindrücke in einer Art, mit einer Charakteristik auf, wenn man als hellsichtige Seele eben eine gesunde Seele hat, daß man dann sehr deutlich erkennen kann und es unverkennbar ist, daß man es nicht mit etwas zu tun hat, was aus dem gegenwärtigen Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod herstammen kann. Denn diese Reminiszenzen, diese wahren, echten Erinnerungen des richtigen Hellsehens an frühere Verkörperungen auf der Erde haben viel mehr etwas Überraschendes, etwas Frappierendes, als daß man glauben könnte, die Seele brächte sie aus ihren Tiefen herauf mit den Mitteln, die ihr menschenmöglich sind, wenn sie nicht bloß das, was in ihrem Bewußtsein ist, sondern auch in ihren unterbewußten Tiefen ist, zuhilfe nimmt. Man muß sich eben als Geisteswissenschafter bekanntmachen mit dem, worauf eine Seele nach ihren Erlebnissen von außen kommen kann. Es werden nicht bloß die Wünsche, die Begierden sein, die eine große Rolle spielen, wenn aus den unbekannten Seelenfluten Impressionen heraufgezogen werden in verwandelter Gestalt, so daß man sie nicht als Erlebnisse des gegenwärtigen Lebens erkennt, es spielen noch viele andere Dinge mit. Aber das, was zumeist die erschütternden Eindrücke aus vorhergehenden Erdenleben sind, kann man sehr leicht unterscheiden von solchen Impressionen aus dem gegenwärtigen Leben. Um ein Beispiel anzuführen: Wenn jemand eine wahre Impression hat aus einem vorhergehenden Erdenleben, wird das zum Beispiel so der Fall sein, daß der Betreffende innerlich erlebt, wie aus den Seelenfluten herauftauchend: du warst im vorhergehenden Erdenleben der und der. - Und dann wird sich zeigen, daß in dem Zeitpunkt, in dem diese Impression herankommt, man äußerlich in der physischen Welt gar nichts anzufangen weiß mit dieser Erkenntnis. Diese kann einen vorwärtsbringen in der Entwickelung, aber sie zeigt sich in der Regel so, daß man sich sagt: Nun, du warst eben in der vorhergehenden Inkarnation mit dieser Fähigkeit ausgestattet. Wenn man aber eine solche Impression hat, dann ist man schon so alt, daß man gar nichts mehr mit dem anfangen kann, was manin dem vorhergehenden Leben gewesen ist. Und solche Umstände werden immer da sein, die einem zeigen, die Impressionen können gar nicht aus dem stammen, worauf man aus dem gegenwärtigen Leben kommen könnte, denn wenn man aus dem gewöhnlichen Traum heraus arbeiten würde, dann würde man sich ganz andere Eigenschaften für eine vorhergehende Inkarnation beilegen. Wie man in der vorhergehenden Inkarnation war, davon läßt man sich gewöhnlich nichts träumen. Es ist gewöhnlich alles anders, als man denkt. Wenn man die Impression hat, daß man dieses oder jenes Verhältnis zu einem Erdenmenschen hatte, wenn das im wahren Hellsehen als eine wirkliche, richtige Impression von einem vorhergehenden Erdenleben auftaucht, muß man natürlich wiederum darauf aufmerksam machen, daß im unrichtigen Hellsehen ja viele vorhergehende Inkarnationen so beschrieben werden, daß sie sich auf die Freunde und Feinde, die man in der unmittelbaren Umgebung hat, beziehen. Das ist meist Unfug. Wenn man eine wirkliche richtige Impression hat, dann zeigt sich, daß man ein Verhältnis hat zu einer Persönlichkeit, zu der man nicht kommen kann, wenn man die Impression hat, so daß man diese Dinge unmöglich auf das unmittelbar praktische Leben anwenden kann.
Und man muß solchen Impressionen gegenüber auch eine Stimmung entwickeln, die notwendig ist für das hellsichtige Bewußtsein. Natürlich, wenn man die Impression hat: Zu der Persönlichkeit stehst du so -, so müssen sich die Dinge ausleben, die durch die Impression gegeben sind. Man muß durch die Impression mit der Persönlichkeit wiederum in ein Verhältnis kommen. Das kann sein in einem zweiten, dritten Erdenleben. Man muß die Stimmung haben, ruhig zu warten, eine Stimmung, die man bezeichnen kann als wirkliche innere Seelenruhe, Geistesfriedsamkeit. Das gehört zur richtigen Beurteilung dessen, was man in der geistigen Welt erlebt.
Wenn man in bezug auf irgendeinen Menschen in der physischen Welt etwas erfahren will, so tut man irgend etwas, was man in dem Sinne dieser Erfahrung für nötig hält. Das kann man nicht mit der Impression von Geistesfriedsamkeit, Seelenruhe, Abwartenkönnen. Es ist eine durchaus berechtigte Schilderung der Verfassung der Seele gegenüber den wahren Eindrücken der geistigen Welt, wenn man sagt:
Erstreben nichts — nur friedsam ruhig sein,
Der Seele Innenwesen ganz Erwartung.
In einer gewissen Beziehung muß diese Stimmung über das ganze Seelenleben ausgegossen sein, wenn in der richtigen Weise an die hellsichtige Seele die Erfahrungen des Geisterlandes herantreten sollen.
Aber die Ferdinand Reineckes sind nicht immer so leicht zu widerlegen, selbst nicht in einem solchen Fall, wo Impressionen in der Seele auftreten, von denen man sagen kann: Es ist nicht menschenmöglich, daß die Seele mit den Kräften und Gewohnheiten, die sie sich im gegenwärtigen Erdenleben angeeignet hat, das vorstellen könnte, was da herauftaucht aus den Seelenfluten -, im Gegenteil, wenn es nach ihr ginge, würde sie sich etwas anderes vorgestellt haben. — Selbst wenn man das sagen kann, was ein sicheres Kennzeichen ist für die wahren, echten Eindrücke aus der geistigen Welt, so kann noch ein überschlauer Ferdinand Reinecke kommen und etwas einwenden. Und in der Geisteswissenschaft muß man durchaus auf dem Standpunkt stehen, daß man nicht gegenüber den Einwänden der der Geisteswissenschaft fernestehenden und von ihr nichts wissen wollenden Gegner sagt: Der Seele Innenwesen ganz Erwartung. — Das ist gegenüber der geistigen Welt die richtige Stimmung. Aber in bezug auf die Einwände der Gegner sollte man gerade als Geistesforscher nichts erwarten, sondern sich selber all diese Einwände machen, so daß man weiß, was eingewendet werden kann. Und da ist ein Einwand, der heute naheliegt, der wirklich auch in der psychologischen, psychopathologischen, physiologischen Literatur, in den manchmal gelehrt und wissenschaftlich sich dünkenden Schriften gemacht wird, da ist der Einwand: Nun, das Seelenleben des Menschen ist kompliziert. In den Tiefen desselben ist manches, was in das Oberbewußtsein nicht heraufdringt. - Da, wo man heute überschlau sein will, sagt man nicht nur, daß die Wünsche, die Begierden allerlei heraufbringen, was da unten in den Seelenfluten ist, sondern man sagt noch: Das Seelenleben, wenn es irgendein Erlebnis hat, erlebt im Geheimen etwas wie eine Auflehnung, wie eine Art Opposition gegen das, was es erlebt. Von dieser Opposition, die der Mensch immer erlebt, weiß er in der Regel nichts, aber sie kann dann heraufdringen aus den unteren in die oberen Regionen des Seelenlebens. - Man gibt sogar vielfach in der psychologischen, psychopathologischen, physiologischen Literatur, weil man die Tatsachen nicht leugnen kann, Dinge zu, wie die folgenden: Nun, wenn eine Seele in eine andere recht verliebt ist, so kann sie nicht anders, als in den unbewußten Seelentiefen neben der bewußten Verliebtheit eine furchtbare Antipathie gegen die geliebte Seele nebenbei zu entwickeln. - Und es liegt im Sinne mancher Psychopathologen, zu sagen: Wenn einer recht liebt, so ist in den Tiefen der Seele Haß. Dieser Haß wird nur überstimmt durch die Liebesbegierde, aber Haß ist doch vorhanden. - Wenn solche Dinge - sagen dann die Ferdinand Reineckes - aus den Tiefen der Seele heraufkommen, dann sind das Impressionen, die sehr leicht die Täuschung abgeben können, daß sie nicht in der individuell erlebten Seele ihren Sitz haben können; dennoch können sie ihn haben, weil das Seelenleben kompliziert ist sagen die Ferdinand Reineckes. Man kann immer nur sagen: Gewiß, das weiß der Geistesforscher gerade so gut wie der Psychologe oder Psychopathologe oder Physiologe der Gegenwart. Es wurzelt tief in dem materialistischen Bewußtsein unserer Zeit, solche Einwände zu machen. Dieses Erlebnis hat man schon einmal, wenn man heute die genannte Literatur durchmacht, die gerade über das Seelenleben handelt, über das gesunde und kranke, diesen Eindruck, daß Ferdinand Reinecke eine realistische, überall vorkommende, außerordentlich bedeutungsvolle Figur in der Gegenwart ist. Ferdinand Reinecke ist keine Erfindung. Wenn man all die Schriften, die heute so zahlreich erscheinen, Seite für Seite durchnimmt, wenn man die Blätter so umblättert, hat man den Eindruck: da springt überall das merkwürdige Gesicht Ferdinand Reineckes hervor. Er läuft überall herum in der heutigen Wissenschaft. Aber demgegenüber muß immer und immer wiederum betont werden, und ich stehe nicht an, demgegenüber auch eine Sache immer wiederum zu wiederholen, daß der Beweis, daß etwas nicht Phantasie, sondern Wirklichkeit, Realität ist, durch das Leben geführt werden muß. Immer wieder muß ich es sagen: Dieser Teil der Schopenhauerschen Philosophie, als ob die Welt nur Vorstellung wäre und man nicht unterscheiden könne Vorstellung von wirklicher Wahrnehmung, kann nur durch das Leben widerlegt werden. Ebenso wird die Kantsche Behauptung gegen den sogenannten Gottesbeweis, daß hundert mögliche Taler genau so viel Pfennige enthalten wie hundert wirkliche Taler, von jedem widerlegt, der seine Schuld mit möglichen Talern bezahlen will und nicht mit wirklichen. Und so muß auch das, was man Vorbereitung, Hineinleben der Seele in die Hellsichtigkeit nennt, in seiner Realität genommen werden. Da theoretisiert man nicht bloß, da eignet man sich ein Leben an, durch das man im Geistgebiete ebenso klar unterscheidet eine wirkliche Impression von einem vorhergegangenen Erdenleben von einer Impression, die das nicht ist, wie man heißes Eisen, das man an die Haut anlegt, unterscheidet von bloß eingebildetem Eisen. Wenn man das bedenkt, wird man sich auch darüber klar sein, daß die Einwände Ferdinand Reineckes auf diesem Gebiete eigentlich gar nichts besagen, weil sie eben von Leuten herkommen, die das Geistgebiet - ich will gar nicht sagen - nicht hellsichtig beschritten haben, sondern es auch niemals zu ihrem Verständnis gebracht haben.
Das also muß ins Auge gefaßt werden, daß man sich, wenn man die Schwelle der geistigen Welt überschreitet, in ein Weltgebiet hineinbegibt, welches nichts mehr gemein hat mit dem, was die Sinne wahrnehmen können, und mit dem, was man wollend und denkend und fühlend in der physischen Welt erlebt.
Man muß sich den Eigentümlichkeiten der geistigen Welt auch noch durch das Folgende nähern. Man muß sich sagen: Wodurch und wie man erfährt und beobachtet in der physisch-sinnlichen Welt, das alles muß man auch hinter sich lassen. — Ich habe beim Wahrnehmen der elementarischen Welt ein Bild gebraucht, das scheinbar ganz grotesk ist, das Bild von dem Hineinstecken des Kopfes in einen Ameisenhaufen. So ist es wirklich mit dem Bewußtsein in der elementarischen Welt. Man hat es da nicht zu tun mit Gedanken, die alles vertragen, die passiv sich vertragen, sondern man steckt das Bewußtsein in eine Welt hinein, in eine Gedankenwelt, wenn man sie so nennen will, die kribbelt und krabbelt, die Eigenleben hat. Daher muß man sich stark aufrecht erhalten in der Seele gegen die sich selbst bewegenden Gedanken. Aber in der elementarischen Welt erinnert eben so manches auch in diesem Raum kribbelnder und krabbelnder Gedanken an die physische Welt noch. Wenn man in die geistige Welt eintritt, dann erinnert nichts mehr an die physische Welt, sondern da lebt man sich ein in eine Welt - ich will den Ausdruck gebrauchen, den ich auch in der Schrift «Die Schwelle der geistigen Welt» gebrauchen werde -, in eine Welt von Gedankenlebewesen. In dieser geistigen Welt findet man das, von dem man in der physisch-sinnlichen Welt, wenn man denkt, nur etwas wie Schattenbilder, wie Gedankenschatten hat: die Gedankensubstanz, aus der die Wesen bestehen, in die man sich da hineinlebt. Wie die physisch-sinnliche Welt aus Fleisch und Blut besteht, so bestehen diese Wesen in der geistigen Welt aus Gedankensubstanz; sie sind Gedanken, lautere Gedanken, bloße Gedanken, aber lebendige Gedanken mit Innenwesenheit, sie sind Gedankenlebewesen. Daher können diese Gedankenlebewesen, in die man sich hineinlebt, auch nicht so Taten verrichten wie mit physischen Händen. Das, was die Wesen an Taten verrichten, was das Verhältnis des einen zum anderen Wesen bewirkt, das läßt sich für die geistige Welt nur vergleichen mit dem, was in der Sinneswelt als schwache Nachbilder davon existiert, mit der Verkörperung der Gedanken im Sprechen. Man lebt sich in die geistige Welt hinein, erlebt Gedankenlebewesen, und alles, was sie tun, was sie sind, wie sie aufeinander wirken, bildet ein Geistergespräch. Ein Geist spricht zum anderen, und eine Gedankensprache wird gesprochen in diesem Geisterlande. Aber diese Gedankensprache ist nicht bloß eine Sprache, sondern sie ist in ihrer Gesamtheit das, was die Taten der geistigen Welt darstellt. Indem diese Wesen sprechen: handeln, tun, agieren sie. Man lebt sich also, wenn man die Schwelle zur geistigen Welt überschreitet, in eine Welt hinein, wo Gedanken Wesen, wo Wesen Gedanken sind, aber als Wesen dort viel realer sind als der Mensch in Fleisch und Blut in der Sinneswelt. In eine Welt lebt man sich hinein, wo das Handeln im Geistgespräch besteht, wo die Worte sich hinüber- und herüberbewegen und wo etwas geschieht, indem es ausgesprochen wird. Daher muß man innerhalb dieser geistigen Welt und für die Vorgänge innerhalb derselben dasjenige sagen, was im dritten Bild von «Der Hüter der Schwelle» gesagt wird:
An diesem Orte sind die Worte Taten,
Und weitre Taten müssen ihnen folgen.
Und alle okkulte Wahrnehmung, alles das, was die Eingeweihten aller Zeiten für die Menschheit geleistet haben, erschaute auf einem gewissen Gebiete dasjenige, was dieses Geistergespräch, das zugleich Geister-Tun ist, bedeutet. Und mit einem charakteristischen Ausdruck wurde das genannt das Weltenwort.
Sehen Sie, jetzt sind wir unmittelbar mit unserer Betrachtung darinnen in dem Geisterlande, schauen uns die Wesenheiten und die Taten der Wesenheiten an. Und ihr Zusammenhang ist das vielstimmige, vieltönige, vieltatenreiche Weltenwort, in das man sich selber mit seiner eigenen seelischen Wesenheit — selber Weltenwort — tönend hineinlebt, so daß man selber Taten innerhalb der geistigen Welt verrichtet. Der Ausdruck Weltenwort, der durch alle Zeiten und Völker geht, drückt durchaus einen wahren Tatbestand des Geisterlandes aus. Verstehen in unserer Gegenwart, was mit dem Weltenwort gemeint ist, kann man nur dadurch, daß man sich in der Art, wie wir es versucht haben in dieser Betrachtung, der Eigentümlichkeit der geistigen Welt nähert. Wie man in den Okkultismen der verschiedenen Zeiten und Völker mehr oder weniger verständnisvoll gesprochen hat von dem Weltenwort, so ist es unserer Zeit notwendig, damit die Menschheit nicht durch den Materialismus veröde, daß Verständnis gewonnen werde für solche Worte, welche mit Bezug auf das Geisterland gesprochen werden:
An diesem Orte sind die Worte Taten,
Und weitre Taten müssen ihnen folgen.
Notwendig ist es für unsere Zeit, daß die Seelen Realität, Vorstellung von Realitäten empfinden, wenn solche Worte gesprochen werden aus der Erkenntnis der geistigen Welt heraus. Man muß wissen, inwiefern dieses ebenso eine Charakteristik der geistigen Welt ist, als wenn man die gewöhnlichen sinnlichen Vorstellungen anwendet, um die sinnlich-physische Welt zu charakterisieren.
Wie weit unsere Gegenwart solchen Worten: «An diesem Orte sind die Worte Taten, und weitre Taten müssen ihnen folgen», mit Verständnis entgegenkommt, davon wird abhängen, wie die Gegenwart die Geisteswissenschaft aufnimmt und wie gut die Menschen der Gegenwart vorbereitet sein werden, zu verhüten, daß durch den Materialismus, der sonst doch herrschen muß, die Menschheitskultur immer mehr und mehr in die Verödung, in die Verarmung, in den Niedergang hineinkomme.
Fourth Lecture
As the clairvoyant soul progresses further and further, it penetrates from what has been called the elemental world in the last few days into the actual spiritual world. Much of what has already been hinted at must be considered in an even more intense way when it comes to the ascent of the human soul into the actual spiritual world. Within the elemental world, many things in the processes and objects that surround the clairvoyant soul in this elemental world are reminiscent of qualities, forces, and all kinds of things in the sensory world. But when the soul ascends into the spiritual world, the characteristics and features of the processes and beings there appear to it in a completely different way than in the sensory world. To a much greater extent, the soul must, as it were, wean itself from wanting to make do with the abilities and powers of perception that are suitable for the sensory world. And one of the most unsettling things for the human soul is to be confronted with a world to which it is completely unaccustomed, which requires it to leave behind everything it has experienced and observed up to that point. Nevertheless, if you look at my “Theosophy” or my “Occult Science in Outlines” or now again at the fifth and sixth pictures of “The Awakening of the Soul,” , you will notice that these representations — both the more scientific ones and the more vivid and scene-like ones — are given in images that are, so to speak, taken entirely from impressions and observations of the physical-sensory world.
Remember for a moment how the passage through the so-called Devachan, or what I have called the spirit world, is depicted. You will find that the images used there contain features taken from sensory perception. This must seem necessary from the outset if one undertakes to depict on stage the spiritual realm, the realm through which the human soul passes between death and a new birth. It is necessary to characterize the events, everything that happens, in images taken from the physical-sensory world. For you can easily imagine that with what one would bring from the actual spiritual world, which could have nothing in common with the sensory world, today's theater workers would not know what to do. Thus, when depicting the spiritual realm, one is compelled to express oneself through images taken from sensory observation. But this is not the only case. One might easily believe that one must proceed in this way in representation—because what one uses as sensory images points to a world that has nothing in common with the sensory world in its characteristics—one might believe that those who want to represent this world resort to sensory images. But this is not the case. For the soul that has become clairvoyant, when it enters the spiritual world, really sees this scenery in exactly the images that you see depicted in the drama in the two images of the spiritual realm. These images are not invented to characterize something that is completely different, but the soul that has become clairvoyant is really and truly present in such a scenery that forms its environment. Just as the soul in the physical-sensory world is in a landscape where there are rocks, mountains, forests, and fields around it, and just as it must consider these to be reality, to be true, if it is healthy, so the soul that has become clairvoyant, when it observes outside the physical and also the etheric body, is exactly in a scene that is built up from these images. These images are not chosen arbitrarily, but are actually the true environment of the soul in the world concerned. So it is not the case that the fifth and sixth images of “The Awakening of the Soul” came about because something had to be expressed about an unknown world, and then one thought: How can this be expressed? Rather, it is the world that surrounds the soul and is, in a sense, merely reproduced.
Now, however, it is necessary for the soul that has become clairvoyant to gain the right relationship to the spiritual realm, to the spirit world, which has nothing in common with the sensory world. One can form an idea of the relationship that the soul must gain to the spiritual world by trying to characterize the way in which the soul must perceive this spiritual world in the following manner. Imagine that you open a book. At the top, you find something like a line from the top left to the bottom right, then a line from the bottom left to the top right, then another line from the top left to the bottom right parallel to the first, and another from the bottom left to the top right parallel to the second; then comes something that has a circle at the top and a circle at the bottom that is not quite closed; then comes something that has two vertical lines connected at the top, and then something else like that. You don't do that when you open a book and look at the first thing there, do you? Instead, you read the word: Wenn. You don't describe the W as lines and the e as a circle at the top and a circle that is not quite closed at the bottom, and so on, but you read. By focusing on the shapes of the letters in front of you, you gain a relationship to something that is not on the page of the book, but to which what is on the page of the book points.
This is actually how it is with the relationship between the soul and the entire world of images in the spiritual realm. What one has to do there is not merely to describe what is there, but rather it can be compared to reading; and what one has before one in images is basically a cosmic script, and one has the right soul state for this if one places oneself in such a position that one feels one has a cosmic script before one in the images, and the images convey to one that which is the reality of the spiritual world, before which this entire world of images is actually woven. Therefore, in the true sense of the word, one must speak of reading the cosmic script in the spiritual realm.
Now, however, one must not imagine that one has to learn this reading of the cosmic script in the same way as reading in the physical world. Reading in the physical world is based more or less, at least today—in the primeval days of humanity it was not so—on the relationship between arbitrary signs and what they mean. Learning to read in this way, as one learns to read these arbitrary signs, is not necessary when it comes to cosmic writing, which presents itself as a powerful tableau, an expression of the spirit realm for the soul that has become clairvoyant. Instead, one should simply accept the images that appear as a scene, with an open mind and a receptive soul, because what one experiences there is already reading. These images, so to speak, radiate their meaning from themselves. Therefore, it can easily happen that a kind of commentary, of interpreting the images of the spiritual world in abstract ideas, is more of an obstacle to the soul being immediately drawn to what lies behind the occult writing than that it could support one in this reading. In both the book “Theosophy” and the pictures in “The Awakening of the Soul,” it is above all important to let things affect you without prejudice. With the deeper forces that sometimes come to consciousness in a very shadowy way, you already experience the hint of the spiritual world. In order to receive these hints of the spiritual world — grasp them with the soul's eye — one does not even need to strive for clairvoyance, but only to perceive such images with an open, receptive soul, without approaching them with a coarse materialistic sense and saying: “This is all nonsense, it doesn't exist!” A receptive soul that responds to the course of such images learns to read them. Through the devotion of the soul to these images, the understanding that should be sought for the world of the spirit realm arises. And because what I have said is really so, numerous objections to spiritual science arise from our present materialistic worldview.
Such objections are, on the one hand, very obvious, but on the other hand, they can be very clever and seemingly extremely logical. One could say — and this is really an objection that is not unjustified — if one is, for example, a Ferdinand Reinecke, who is so cunning that he is not only considered so by humans, but also, quite rightly, by Ahriman, one could say: Yes, you who describe clairvoyant consciousness to us, you who speak of the spiritual world, you are merely assembling this entire spiritual world from the material of sensory perceptions; you are grouping together the material of sensory perceptions. How can you claim, when you are really only putting together a scene from purely familiar sensory images, that this should enable us to experience something new, something that we would not otherwise experience if we did not approach the spiritual world? This is an objection that must blind many people and which, from the perspective of the present consciousness, could be said to be made with a certain apparent and yet complete justification. And yet, if one delves deeper into such objections by Ferdinand Reinecke, the following is correct. Such an objection would be quite the same as if someone were to say to someone who has just received a letter: Yes, look, you have received a letter; I see nothing there but letters and words that I have known for a long time; how can you learn anything new from this letter? You can only learn something we already know. — And yet, through what we already know, we may learn something we never dreamed of. The same is true of the pictorial scenes, which do not have to be found only in the representation, but which are revealed to the clairvoyant consciousness all around. In a certain sense, they are composed of reminiscences of the sensory world; but as they present themselves as cosmic writing, they represent that which human beings cannot experience within the sensory world or within the elemental world. It must be emphasized again and again that this attitude toward the spiritual world must be compared to reading, not to direct observation.
So while the earthly human being who has become clairvoyant must perceive the things and processes of the sensory-physical world in such a way that, if he wants to relate to these things with a healthy soul, he looks at them and describes them as faithfully as possible, the relationship to the spirit world is different. As soon as one has crossed the threshold into the spiritual world, one is dealing with something that can be compared to reading. If one considers what must be recognized from this spiritual realm for human life, there are, however, other things that can refute Ferdinand Reinecke's objections. Such objections should not be taken lightly; if one wants to understand spiritual science in the right way, one must, so to speak, grapple with these objections. One must bear in mind that people today often cannot help raising such objections because their entire conceptual life, their habits of thinking, are such that, out of shyness or fear of facing nothingness when they hear about the spiritual world, they simply reject it. One can gain a good understanding of the relationship of contemporary people to the spiritual world by considering what people who are actually well-meaning in relation to the spiritual world think about it.
A book has recently appeared in contemporary literature that is worth reading even for those who have already acquired a real understanding of the spiritual world, because it comes from a man who is actually well-meaning and who would very much like to form some kind of understanding of the spiritual world, Maurice Maeterlinck. The book has also been translated into German and is called “Vom Tode” (On Death). It comes from a man who shows in the first chapters that he wants to understand something about these things. Since we know that he is, in a certain sense, a subtle spirit who was inspired, among others, by Novalis, who in a certain sense made mystical romanticism his own, who himself achieved many interesting things, both theoretically and artistically, in relation to the relationship between man and the supernatural world, his example is particularly interesting. In the chapters of Maurice Maeterlinck's book “On Death,” in which he discusses the actual relationship between humans and the spiritual world, this book becomes completely foolish and absurd. And it is an interesting phenomenon that a well-meaning person who operates with the thinking habits of the present becomes foolish. I am not saying this to express a scathing criticism, but to objectively characterize that such a well-meaning person becomes foolish when he tries to grasp the relationship between the human soul and the spirit world. For Maurice Maeterlinck cannot conceive that it is possible for the human soul to become so powerful and strong that it can leave behind everything that can enter it through sensory observation and through ordinary thinking, feeling, and willing on the physical plane and even in the elemental world. For spirits such as Maurice Maeterlinck, when the soul leaves behind everything that constitutes sensory perception and the thinking, feeling, and willing associated with it, there is simply nothing left. That is why Maurice Maeterlinck demands proof of the spiritual world and its facts in the book mentioned above. It is, of course, perfectly justified to demand proof of the spiritual world. One is quite right to do so. But one cannot demand it in the way Maurice Maeterlinck does. He would accept evidence that is as tangible as the evidence provided by science for the physical plane. He would also accept that, because in the elementary world things still resemble the physical world, experiments modeled on physical ones can prove that things in the spiritual world exist. That is what he demands. But in doing so, he shows that he has not the slightest understanding of the true spiritual world. For he wants to prove things and processes that have nothing in common with the things and processes of the physical world by means borrowed from the physical world. Rather, the task would be to show how such proofs, which Maurice Maeterlinck demands, are impossible for the spiritual world. I must always compare such a demand as that of Maurice Maeterlinck with something that has taken place in mathematics. Until recently, the various academies received treatises again and again on the so-called squaring of the circle. That is to say, attempts were made to prove geometrically how a circle can be transformed into a square. Countless mathematical treatises in mathematical reasoning have been written on this subject. Today, anyone who would still attempt such a treatise is an amateur, for it has been proven that such a squaring of the circle is not feasible, not possible by geometric means. What Maurice Maeterlinck demands as proof of the spiritual world is, when transferred to the spiritual realm, nothing other than squaring the circle, and is just as out of place in the spiritual world as squaring the circle is in mathematics. What is Maurice Maeterlinck demanding, basically? If one knows that as soon as one crosses the threshold into the spiritual world, one lives in a world that has nothing in common with the physical and even elementary world, one cannot demand: Yes, if you want to prove something to me, then kindly go back to the physical world and prove to me there the things of the other, the spiritual world. One must first become familiar with the things of spiritual science by realizing that even the most well-meaning people do absurd things which, when transferred to ordinary life, immediately appear absurd. It is like someone saying that one should stand on one's head and still walk with one's legs. If you demand that, everyone sees it as nonsense. If you do it in relation to evidence from the spiritual world, then it is spiritual, then it is a scientific demand, then the author notices it least, and his followers, especially if he is a famous author, do not notice it either, of course. The whole mistake of such demands stems from the fact that people who make such demands have never enlightened themselves about the relationship between human beings and the spiritual world.
When ideas that can only be gained from the spiritual world are attained through clairvoyant consciousness, they can of course be challenged by many people like Ferdinand Reinecke. All the ideas we are supposed to gain about so-called reincarnation, about repeated lives on earth, that is, real memories of previous lives on earth, can only be gained through the behavior of the soul that is necessary for the spiritual world. They can only be gained from the spiritual world. If one now has impressions or ideas in one's soul that refer back to previous earthly lives, such impressions will be particularly exposed to opposition in our present time. It should not be denied from the outset that the worst nonsense is naturally being perpetrated in this area, for many people have this or that impression and relate it to this or that previous incarnation. It will then be easy for the adversary to say: Yes, impressions of experiences between birth and death are flooding into your soul life, but you do not recognize them as such. This may certainly be the case in hundreds and hundreds of cases—one must admit that. One must only be clear that the spiritual researcher must be knowledgeable in such matters. It may well be that someone experiences something in childhood or adolescence, and that in a later stage of life, what was experienced then reappears in consciousness in a completely transformed form. It may be that they do not recognize this and then consider it to be a memory of previous earthly lives. That can be the case. We also know within spiritual science how easily this can happen. You see, memories can form not only of things that have been clearly experienced. One can have an experience that flashes by so quickly that one does not bring it clearly to consciousness while experiencing it, and yet it can later appear as a memory and then be clear. If you are not critical enough, you will swear that you have something in your soul that you have never experienced in this present life. Because this is so, it is understandable that such impressions are used to cause a great deal of confusion by people who are interested in spiritual science but do not take it seriously enough. This can happen especially with the teaching of reincarnation, because so much human vanity and ambition comes into play in relation to reincarnation. For some people, it is so desirable to have been Julius Caesar or Marie Antoinette in a previous incarnation. I could list, for example, twenty-five or twenty-six reincarnated Mary Magdalenes whom I have encountered in my life! So many things play into this that the spiritual researcher has no reason not to draw attention to the nonsense that is being spread in this regard. But something else must be emphasized in contrast to this.
In true clairvoyance, when impressions from previous earthly lives arise, these impressions appear in such a way, with such characteristics, if one has a healthy soul as a clairvoyant soul, that one can then recognize very clearly and unmistakably that one is not dealing with something that can originate from the present life between birth and death. For these reminiscences, these true, genuine memories of true clairvoyance of previous incarnations on earth, have much more of a surprising, striking quality than one might believe the soul could bring up from its depths by means available to humans, if it were not merely what is in its consciousness, but also what is in its subconscious depths. One must familiarize oneself as a spiritual scientist with what a soul can come up with from outside after its experiences. It is not only desires and cravings that play a major role when impressions are drawn up from the unknown floods of the soul in a transformed form, so that they cannot be recognized as experiences of the present life; many other things also play a part. But what are mostly the disturbing impressions from previous earthly lives can be very easily distinguished from such impressions from the present life. To give an example: if someone has a true impression from a previous earthly life, it will be the case, for example, that the person concerned experiences inwardly, as if emerging from the soul currents: “In your previous earthly life, you were so-and-so.” And then it will become apparent that at the moment this impression arises, one has no idea what to do with this knowledge in the physical world. This can help you move forward in your development, but it usually shows itself in such a way that you say to yourself: Well, you were just equipped with this ability in your previous incarnation. But when you have such an impression, you are already so old that you can no longer do anything with what you were in your previous life. And there will always be circumstances that show you that these impressions cannot possibly come from your present life, because if you were to work out of ordinary dreams, you would attribute completely different characteristics to a previous incarnation. People do not usually dream about what they were like in their previous incarnation. Everything is usually different from what one thinks. If you have the impression that you had this or that relationship with an earthly human being, if this appears in true clairvoyance as a real, correct impression from a previous earthly life, you must of course point out that in incorrect clairvoyance many previous incarnations are described in such a way that they refer to friends and enemies in your immediate environment. This is mostly nonsense. If you have a real, correct impression, then it becomes apparent that you have a relationship with a personality that you cannot reach if you have the impression, so that you cannot possibly apply these things to your immediate practical life.
And one must also develop a mood toward such impressions that is necessary for clairvoyant consciousness. Of course, if one has the impression: You stand in this way to the personality, then the things given by the impression must play themselves out. One must again come into a relationship with the personality through the impression. This can be in a second or third earthly life. You have to have the mood to wait calmly, a mood that can be described as real inner peace of mind, spiritual tranquility. This is part of the correct assessment of what one experiences in the spiritual world.
If you want to learn something about a person in the physical world, you do something that you consider necessary in the sense of this experience. This cannot be done with the impression of peace of mind, tranquility, or the ability to wait. It is a perfectly justified description of the state of the soul in relation to the true impressions of the spiritual world when one says:
Strive for nothing — just be peaceful and calm,
The soul's inner being is all expectation.
In a certain sense, this mood must pervade the entire soul life if the experiences of the spirit world are to approach the clairvoyant soul in the right way.
But the Ferdinand Reineckes are not always so easy to refute, even in a case such as this, where impressions arise in the soul of which one can say: It is not humanly possible that the soul, with the powers and habits it has acquired in its present earthly life, could imagine what emerges from the floods of the soul—on the contrary, if it were up to the soul, it would have imagined something else. Even if one can say that this is a sure sign of true, genuine impressions from the spiritual world, a clever Ferdinand Reinecke could still come along and raise an objection. And in spiritual science, one must take the stand that one does not say to opponents who are far removed from spiritual science and want to know nothing about it: The soul's inner being is full of expectation. — That is the right attitude toward the spiritual world. But with regard to the objections of opponents, one should expect nothing, especially as a spiritual researcher, but rather raise all these objections oneself so that one knows what can be objected to. And there is an objection that is obvious today, which is also made in psychological, psychopathological, and physiological literature, in writings that sometimes consider themselves scholarly and scientific. The objection is: Well, the soul life of human beings is complicated. In its depths there is much that does not rise to the conscious mind. Where people want to be clever today, they not only say that desires and cravings bring up all kinds of things that are down there in the floods of the soul, but they also say that when the soul experiences something, it secretly experiences something like a rebellion, a kind of opposition to what it is experiencing. People are generally unaware of this opposition that they always experience, but it can then rise from the lower to the higher regions of the soul life. In psychological, psychopathological, and physiological literature, because the facts cannot be denied, statements such as the following are often made: Now, when one soul is truly in love with another, it cannot help but develop, in the unconscious depths of the soul alongside the conscious infatuation, a terrible antipathy toward the beloved soul. And it is in the nature of some psychopathologists to say: When someone truly loves, there is hatred in the depths of the soul. This hatred is only drowned out by the desire for love, but hatred is still there. When such things arise from the depths of the soul, say the Ferdinand Reineckes, they are impressions that can very easily give the illusion that they cannot have their seat in the individually experienced soul; nevertheless, they can have it, because the life of the soul is complicated, say the Ferdinand Reineckes. One can only say: Certainly, the spiritual researcher knows this just as well as the contemporary psychologist, psychopathologist, or physiologist. It is deeply rooted in the materialistic consciousness of our time to raise such objections. One has this experience when one reads the literature mentioned above, which deals precisely with the life of the soul, both healthy and sick, and one gets the impression that Ferdinand Reinecke is a realistic, ubiquitous, and extraordinarily significant figure in the present day. Ferdinand Reinecke is not an invention. When you go through all the writings that appear so numerous today, page by page, when you turn the pages, you get the impression that the strange face of Ferdinand Reinecke jumps out at you everywhere. He runs around everywhere in today's science. But on the other hand, it must be emphasized again and again, and I do not hesitate to repeat this point again and again, that the proof that something is not fantasy but reality must be provided by life itself. I must say it again and again: this part of Schopenhauer's philosophy, as if the world were only imagination and one could not distinguish imagination from real perception, can only be refuted by life. Similarly, Kant's assertion against the so-called proof of God, that a hundred possible talers contain just as many pennies as a hundred real talers, is refuted by anyone who wants to pay his debt with possible talers and not with real ones. And so, what is called preparation, the soul's immersion in clairvoyance, must also be taken in its reality. One does not merely theorize here, one acquires a life through which one distinguishes just as clearly in the spiritual realm between a real impression from a previous earthly life and an impression that is not, just as one distinguishes hot iron placed on the skin from merely imagined iron. When one considers this, one will also realize that Ferdinand Reinecke's objections in this area are actually meaningless, because they come from people who have not only failed to enter the spiritual realm with clairvoyance, but have never even managed to understand it.
It must therefore be borne in mind that when one crosses the threshold of the spiritual world, one enters a realm that has nothing in common with what the senses can perceive and with what one experiences in the physical world through willing, thinking, and feeling.
One must also approach the peculiarities of the spiritual world through the following. One must say to oneself: Everything that one experiences and observes in the physical-sensory world must also be left behind. — When describing perception of the elementary world, I used an image that seems quite grotesque, that of sticking one's head into an anthill. This is really what happens to consciousness in the elementary world. One is not dealing with thoughts that can tolerate everything, that passively tolerate everything, but one sticks one's consciousness into a world, into a world of thoughts, if one wants to call it that, which tingles and crawls, which has a life of its own. Therefore, one must maintain oneself strongly in the soul against the self-moving thoughts. But in the elementary world, many things in this space of tingling and crawling thoughts still remind us of the physical world. When one enters the spiritual world, nothing reminds one of the physical world anymore, but one lives in a world—I will use the expression I will also use in the book The Threshold of the Spiritual World—in a world of thought beings. In this spiritual world, one finds what one has only as shadow images, as thought shadows, in the physical-sensory world when one thinks: the thought substance of which the beings consist, into which one lives oneself. Just as the physical-sensory world consists of flesh and blood, these beings in the spiritual world consist of thought substance; they are thoughts, pure thoughts, mere thoughts, but living thoughts with inner being; they are thought beings. Therefore, these thought beings into which one lives cannot perform actions as with physical hands. What these beings do, what the relationship between one being and another brings about, can only be compared in the spiritual world to what exists in the sensory world as weak afterimages of this, with the embodiment of thoughts in speech. One lives one's way into the spiritual world, experiences thought beings, and everything they do, what they are, how they interact with one another, forms a spiritual conversation. One spirit speaks to another, and a language of thought is spoken in this spiritual realm. But this language of thought is not merely a language; in its entirety, it is what represents the actions of the spiritual world. By speaking, these beings act, do, and interact. When one crosses the threshold into the spiritual world, one lives in a world where thoughts are beings and beings are thoughts, but as beings they are much more real than human beings of flesh and blood in the sensory world. One lives in a world where action consists of spiritual conversation, where words move back and forth and where something happens when it is spoken. Therefore, within this spiritual world and for the processes within it, one must say what is said in the third picture of “The Guardian of the Threshold”:
In this place, words are deeds,
And further deeds must follow them.
And all occult perception, everything that the initiates of all ages have accomplished for humanity, saw in a certain realm what this spiritual conversation, which is at the same time spiritual action, means. And with a characteristic expression, this was called the Word of the Worlds.
See, now we are directly involved in our observation in the spirit world, looking at the beings and the deeds of the beings. And their connection is the many-voiced, many-toned, many-deed Word of the World, into which one lives oneself with one's own soul being — oneself the Word of the World — sounding, so that one performs deeds within the spiritual world. The expression “world word,” which runs through all ages and peoples, expresses a true fact of the spirit world. In our present time, one can only understand what is meant by the world word by approaching the peculiarity of the spiritual world in the way we have attempted to do in this consideration. Just as the occultism of different times and peoples has spoken more or less intelligently about the world word, so it is necessary in our time, lest humanity be devastated by materialism, that an understanding be gained of such words spoken with reference to the spiritual world:
In this place, words are deeds,
And further deeds must follow them.
It is necessary for our time that souls perceive reality, the idea of realities, when such words are spoken from the knowledge of the spiritual world. One must know to what extent this is just as much a characteristic of the spiritual world as when one uses ordinary sensory perceptions to characterize the sensory-physical world.
The extent to which our present age responds with understanding to such words as: “In this place, words are deeds, and further deeds must follow them,” will determine how the present will receive spiritual science and how well people of the present will be prepared to prevent human culture from sinking more and more into desolation, impoverishment, and decline through the materialism that must otherwise prevail.