Course WCEC1
Evolving Consciousness 1
Introduction
The online Waldorf Certificate Studies Program Course Evolving Consciousness concerns itself with basic and underlying principles of Waldorf Education. The knowledge and understanding of these principles is essential for anyone embarking on or deepening their study and ultimately their practical application of this teaching method based on the insights and teachings of Anthroposophy.
There are the following three fundamental principles. 1. The human being (the child and the adult alike) is not only a physical being but also a being of soul and spirit relating to soul and spirit realities. 2. The child in growing up recapitulates the development of consciousness of humanity and education need to be tailored and moderated in such a way that it is truly age appropriate meaning relating to the developing consciousness of the child out of insights into the reality of the development of consciousness of humanity. 3. The Waldorf (or Steiner) Educator needs to be on a conscious path of self development, being at the same time a seeker of spiritual truth and a practitioner of a therapeutic and artistic teaching approach. Course Outline
WCEC1 Evolving Consciousness 1
Lesson 1: Intro/Prefaces Lesson 2: Chapter 1/The Character of Esoteric Science Lesson 3: Chapter 2/The Nature of the Human Being Lesson 4: Chapter 3/Sleep and Death Lesson 5: Chapter 4/Part 1/Evolution and the Human Being WCEC2 Evolving Consciousness 2 Lesson 1: Chapter 4/Part 2/Evolution and the Human Being Lesson 2: Chapter 4/Part 3/Evolution and the Human Being Lesson 3: Chapter 5/Knowledge of Higher Worlds Lesson 4: Chapter 6/Cosmic and Human Evolution Lesson 5: Chapter 7/Details from the Field of Spiritual Science Lesson 6: Final Paper |
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Rudolf Steiner's book An Outline of Occult Science or An Outline of Esoteric Science has been published over the years with different titles and covers, and the work has been translated into other languages and published.
Tasks and Assignments for WCEC11 Evolving Consciousness 1.1.
Please study and work with the study material provided for this lesson. Then please turn to the following tasks and assignments listed below.
1. Summarize the content of the Prefaces in your own words.
2. Reflect and elaborate on your expectations concerning this course (Evolving Consciousness).
Please send your completed assignment via the online form or via email.
1. Summarize the content of the Prefaces in your own words.
2. Reflect and elaborate on your expectations concerning this course (Evolving Consciousness).
Please send your completed assignment via the online form or via email.
Study Material for Lesson WCEC1 Evolving Consciousness 1.1.
"Occult Science - an Outline" by Rudolf Steiner
Preface to the 1925 Edition
Fifteen years having now elapsed since the first publication of this book, it may be suitable for me to say something more about the spiritual circumstances and my own state of mind when it originated. It had been my intention that its main content should form part of a new and enlarged version of my Theosophy, published several years before. But this did not prove possible. At the time when Theosophy was written the subject-matter of the present volume could not be brought into an equally finished form. In my Imaginative perceptions I beheld the spiritual life and being of individual Man and was able to describe this clearly. The facts of cosmic evolution were not present to me to the same extent. I was indeed aware of them in many details, but the picture as a whole was lacking.
I therefore resolved to make no appreciable change in the main content of the earlier volume. In the new edition as in the first, the book Theosophy should describe the essential features of the life of individual Man, as I had seen it in the spirit. Meanwhile I would quietly be working at a new and independent publication, Occult Science — An Outline.
My feeling at that time was that the contents of this book must be presented in scientific thought-forms — that is, in forms of thought akin to those of Natural Science, duly developed and adapted to the description of what is spiritual. How strongly I felt this “scientific” obligation in all that I wrote at that time in the field of spiritual knowledge, will be evident from the Preface to the First Edition (1909), here reproduced. But the world of the spirit as revealed to spiritual sight can only partly be described in thought-forms of this kind. What is revealed cannot be fully contained in mere forms of thought. This will be known to anyone who has had experience of such revelation. Adapted as they are to the exposition of what is seen by the outer senses, the thoughts of our every-day consciousness are inadequate, fully to expound what is seen and experienced in the spirit. The latter can only be conveyed in picture-form, that is, in Imaginations, through which Inspirations speak, which in their turn proceed from spiritual reality of Being, experienced in Intuition. (Concerning “Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition,” the necessary explanations will be found both in the present volume and in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.)
Today, however, one who sets out to tell of the spiritual world in Imaginations cannot rest content with such pictorial descriptions. He would be foisting on to the civilization of our time the outcome of a state of consciousness quite unrelated to existing forms of knowledge. It is to the normal consequences of the present age that he must bring home the truths which can indeed only be discovered by a higher consciousness of the present age that he must bring home the truths which can indeed only be discovered by a higher consciousness — one that sees into the spiritual world. The subject-matter of his exposition, namely the realities of the world of spirit, will then be case into forms of thought which the prevailing consciousness of our time — scientifically thoughtful and wide-awake, though unable yet to see into the spiritual world — can understand.
An inability to understand will at most be due to hindrances that are self-imposed. The reader may have fixed in his mind some definition of the inherent limitations of human knowledge, due to a mistaken generalization of the limits of Natural Science. Spiritual cognition is a delicate and tender process in the human soul, and this is true not only of the actual “seeing” in the spirit, but of the active understanding with which the normal “non-seeing” consciousness of our time can come to meet the results of seership. People with half-formed notions who allege auto-suggestion in this regard have little idea of the real depth and intimacy of such understanding. For the scientific understanding of the physical world there may be truth or error in our theories and concepts. For the spiritual world, it is no longer a merely theoretic issue; it is a matter of living experience. When a man's judgment is tinged however slightly by the dogmatic assertion that the ordinary (not yet clairvoyant) consciousness — through its inherent limitations — cannot really understand what is experienced by the seer, this mistaken judgment becomes a cloud of darkness in his feeling-life and does in fact obscure his understanding.
To an open mind however, though not yet “seeing” in the spirit, what is experienced by the seer is comprehensible to a very full extent, if once the seer has cast it into forms of thought. It is no less intelligible than is a finished work of art to the non-artist. Nor is this understanding confined to the realm of aesthetic feeling as in the latter instance; it lives in full clarity of thought, even as in the scientific understanding of Nature.
To make such understanding possible, however, the seer must have contrived to express what he has seen, in genuine forms of thought, without thereby depriving it of its “Imaginative” character.
Such were my reflections while working at the subject-matter of my Occult Science, and, with these premises in mind, by 1909 I felt able to achieve a book, bringing the outcome of my spiritual researches, up to a point into adequate forms of thought — a book moreover which should be intelligible to any thoughtful reader who did not himself impose unnecessary hindrances to understanding.
While saying this retrospectively today I must however admit that in the year 1909 the publication of this book appeared to me a venture of some temerity. For I was only too well aware that the professional scientists above all, and the vast number of others who in their judgment follow the “scientific” authority, would be incapable of the necessary openness of mind. Yet I was equally aware that at the very time when the prevailing consciousness of mankind was farthest remote from the world of spirit, communications from that world would be answering to an urgent need. I counted on there also being many people feeling so weighted down by the prevailing estrangement from the living spirit that with sincere longing they would welcome true communications from the spiritual world. This expectation was amply confirmed during the years that followed. The books Theosophy and Occult Science have been widely read, though they count not a little on the reader's good will. For it must be admitted, they are not written in an easy style. I purposely refrained from writing a “popular” account, so-called. I wrote in such a way as to make it necessary to exert one's thinking while entering into the content of these books. In so doing, I gave them a specific character. The very reading of them is an initial step in spiritual training, inasmuch as the necessary effort of quiet thought and contemplation strengthens the powers of the soul, making them capable of drawing nearer to the spiritual world.
Misunderstandings were soon evoked by the chosen title, Occult Science. A would-be science, people said, cannot in the nature of the case be “occult” or “secret.” Surely a rather thoughtless objection, for no man will deliberately publish what he desires to be secretive about or to keep obscure. The entire book is evidence that far from being claimed as a special “secret,” what is here presented is to be made accessible to human understanding like any other science. Speaking of “Natural Science” we mean the science of Nature. “Occult Science” is the science of what takes its course in realms which are “occult” inasmuch as they are discerned, not in external Nature — Nature as seen by the outer senses — but in directions to which the soul of man becomes attentive when he turns his inner life towards the spirit. It is “Occult Science” as against “Natural Science.”
Of my clairvoyant researches into the world of spirit it has often been alleged that they are a re-hash, howsoever modified, of ideas about the spiritual world which have prevailed from time to time, above all in earlier epochs of human history. In the course of my reading I was said to have absorbed these things into the sub-conscious mind and then reproduced them in the fond belief that they were the outcome of my own independent seership. Gnostic doctrines, oriental fables, and wisdom-teachings were alleged to be the real source of my descriptions. But these surmises too were the outcome of no very deeply penetrating thought. My knowledge of the spiritual — of this I am fully conscious — springs from my own spiritual vision. At every stage — both in the details and in synthesis and broad review — I have subjected myself to stringent tests, making sure that wide-awake control accompanies each further step in spiritual vision and research. Just as a mathematician proceeds from thought to thought — where the unconscious mind, auto-suggestion and the like can play no part at all — so must the consciousness of the seer move on from one objective Imagination to another. Nothing affects the soul in this process save the objective spiritual content, experienced in full awareness.
It is by healthy inner experience that one knows a spiritual “Imagination” to be no mere subjective picture but the expression of a spiritual reality in picture-form. Just as in sensory perception anyone sound in mind and body can discriminate between mere fancies and the perception of real facts, so a like power of discernment can be attained by spiritual means.
So then I had before me the results of conscious spiritual vision. They were things “seen,” living in my consciousness, to begin with, without any names. To communicate them, some terminology was needed, and it was only then — so as to put into words what had been wordless to begin with — that I looked for suitable expressions in the traditional literature. These too I used quite freely. In the way I apply them, scarcely one of them coincides exactly with its connotation in the source from which I took it. Only after the spiritual content was known to me from my own researches did I thus look for the way to express it. As to whatever I might formerly have read — with the clear consciousness and control above referred-to, I was able to eliminate such things completely while engaged on supersensible research.
But the critics then found echoes of traditional ideas in the terms I used. Paying little heed to the real trend and content of my descriptions, they focused their attention on the words. If I spoke of “lotus flowers,” in the human astral body, they took it as proof that I was reproducing Indian doctrines in which this term occurs. Nay, the term “astral body” itself only showed that I had been dipping into medieval writings. And if I used the terms Angeloi, Archangeloi and so on, I was merely reviving the ideas of Christian Gnosticism. Time and again I found myself confronted with comments of this kind.
I take the present opportunity of mentioning this too. Occult Science — an Outline, now to be published in a new edition, is after all an epitome of anthroposophical Spiritual Science as a whole, and is pre-eminently exposed to the same kinds of misunderstanding.
Since the Imaginations described in this book first grew into a total picture in my mind and spirit, I have unceasingly developed the researches of conscious seership into the being of individual Man, the history of Mankind, the nature and evolution of the Cosmos. The outline as presented fifteen years ago has in no way been shaken. Inserted in its proper place and context, everything that I have since been able to adduce becomes a further elaboration of the original picture.
Rudolf Steiner
Goetheanum, Dornach,
Switzerland
10 January, 1925
Preface to the 1920 Edition
For this edition I have almost entirely rewritten the opening chapter on the character of Occult Science. I think there will now be less cause for misunderstanding. How often have I heard it said: While other branches of learning offer scientific proofs, this pretended science merely declares that such and such are the findings of Occult Science. It is a natural objection. The proof of supersensible knowledge can never be as tangible and compelling as with things seen and experienced by the outer senses. It is a misconception none the less, and in the altered version I have tried to bring this out more clearly than I appear to have succeeded in doing in the earlier editions.
For the rest, I have introduced changes and additions, trying to make the explanations clearer and more cogent. In many parts of the book, the oft-repeated experience of the spiritual realities described convinced me of the need to modify the forms of expression in which I try to clothe them, and I have done my best to make the necessary changes.
Rudolf Steiner
Berlin, May 1920
Preface to the 1913 Edition
One who sets out to present results of spiritual science such as this book contains must reckon with the certain fact that in wide circles they will be held to be impossible. For in these pages many things are put forward which in our time — supposedly on good philosophic and scientific grounds — are pronounced inaccessible to man's intelligence.
The author can appreciate the weighty reasons leading so many serious thinkers to this conclusion. Therefore again and again he would renew the attempt to show up the misunderstandings underlying the all-too categorical belief that human cognition can never reach into the supersensible worlds.
Two things come into question here. The first is this: On deeper reflection no human soul can lastingly ignore the fact that the most vital questions about the purpose and meaning of life must be for ever unanswered if there is really no way of access to supersensible worlds. Theoretically we may deceive ourselves about it, but in our heart of hearts we do not share the deception. Those who refuse to listen to the voice of their inmost soul will naturally reject teachings about the supersensible worlds. But there are people — and not a few — who can no longer turn a deaf ear in this direction. They will forever be knocking at the doors which — as the others say — must remain barred and bolted, denying access to things “beyond human comprehension.”
But there is also the second aspect. The “good philosophic and scientific grounds” above-mentioned are in no way to be underrated, and those who hold to them in earnest deserve to be taken seriously. The writer would not like to be counted among those who lightly disregard the stupendous mental efforts that have been made to define the boundaries to which the human intellect is subject. These efforts cannot be dismissed with a few derogatory phrases. Seen at their best, they have their source in a real striving for knowledge and are worked out with genuine discernment. Nay, more than this. The reasons which have been adduced to show that the kind of knowledge, accepted nowadays as scientific, cannot reach into the supersensible are genuine and in a sense irrefutable.
People may think it strange that the author should admit all this and yet venture to put forward statements concerning supersensible worlds. It seems almost absurd that one should make however qualified an admission that there are valid reasons for asserting that supersensible worlds are beyond our ken, and yet go on to speak and write about these worlds.
Yet it is possible to do this, while understanding full well how contradictory it may appear. Not everyone can realize the experiences one undergoes when drawing near the realm of the supersensible with intellectual reflection. For it emerges then that intellectual proofs however cogent, however irrefutable, are not necessarily decisive as to what is real and what is not. In place of theoretical explanations we may here use a comparison Comparisons, admittedly, have not the force of proof, but they are helpful in explaining.
In the form in which it works in everyday life, also in ordinary science, human cognition cannot penetrate into the supersensible worlds. This can be cogently proved, and yet there is a level of experience for which the proof has no more real value than if one set out to prove that the unaided eye cannot see the microscopic cells of living organisms or the detailed appearance of far-off heavenly bodies. That our unaided vision cannot reach to the living cells is true and demonstrable, and so it is that our ordinary faculties of cognition cannot reach into the supersensible worlds. Yet the proof that man's unaided sight falls short of the microscopic cells does not preclude their scientific investigation. Must then the proof that his ordinary faculties of cognition cannot reach into the supersensible worlds of necessity preclude the investigation of these worlds?
We can imagine the feelings this comparison will arouse in many people. Nay, we can sympathize if doubt is felt, whether the one who has recourse to it has any inkling of all the painstaking and searching thought that has gone into these questions. And yet the present author not only realizes it to the full but counts it among the noblest achievements of mankind. To demonstrate that human vision, unaided by optical instruments, cannot see the microscopic cells would be superfluous; t become aware of the nature and scope of human thought by dint of thought itself is an essential task It is only too understandable if men who have given their lives to this task fail to perceive that the real facts may yet be contrary to their findings. Whereas this preface is certainly not the place to deal with would-be “refutations” of the first edition by most people void of sympathy or understanding — people who even direct their unfounded attacks against the author personally — it must be emphasized all the more strongly that serious philosophic thought, whatever its conclusions, is nowhere belittled in these pages. Any such tendency can only be imputed by those deliberately blind to the spirit in which the book is written.
Human cognition can be strengthened and enhanced, just as the range of vision of the eye can be. But the ways and means of strengthening the power of cognition are purely spiritual. Inner activities, entirely within the soul — they are described in this book as Meditation and Concentration, or Contemplation. Man's ordinary lie of mind and soul is tied to the bodily organs; when duly strengthened and enhanced it becomes free of them. There are prevailing schools of thought to which the very claim will seem nonsensical — a mere outcome of delusion. From their own point of view, they will prove without difficulty that all our mental and psychological life is bound up with the nervous system. The author from his standpoint can appreciate these proofs. He knows how plausible it is to maintain that it is utterly superficial to speak of any life of soul being independent of the body. Those who maintain this will no doubt be convinced that in the inner experiences, alleged to be free of the body, there is still a connection with the nervous system — a hidden connection which the would-be occultist with his “amateurish” science only fails to discern.
Such are the prevalent habits of thought for which due allowance must be made. They are so diametrically opposed in the main contents of this book that there is generally little prospect of any mutual understanding. In this respect one cannot help wishing for a change of heart in the intellectual and spiritual life of our time. People are far too ready to stigmatize a scientific quest or school of thought as visionary and fantastic merely because they find it radically different from their own. On the other hand, there are undoubtedly many who in our time appreciate the kind of supersensible research presented in this book. They realize that the deeper meaning of life will be revealed not by vague references to the soul, to the “true self,” or the like, but by a study of the genuine results of supersensible research. With due humility, the author is profoundly glad to find a new edition called for after a relatively short interval of time. He realizes only too clearly how far this edition too will fall short of the essential aim — to be the outline of the a world-conception founded on supersensible knowledge. For this edition the entire contents have been worked through again; further elucidations have been attempted and supplementary passages inserted at important points. Often however the author has been painfully aware of the inadequacy, the excessive rigidity of the only available means of presenting the revelations of supersensible research. Thus it was hardly possible to do more than suggest a way of reaching some idea, some mental picture of what this book has to relate concerning Saturn Sun and Moon evolutions. One aspect of this chapter has been briefly re-cast in the new edition. The real experience of cosmic evolution differs so widely from all our experiences in the realm of sense-perceptible Nature that the description involves a constant struggle to find passably adequate forms of expression. A sympathetic study of this chapter may reveal that the effort has been made to convey by the quality and style of the description what is impossible to express in mere prosaic words. A different style has been used for the Saturn evolution, a different style for Sun evolution, and so on.
Amplifications and additions to which the author attaches some importance will be found in the second part, dealing with “Knowledge of Higher Worlds” — the way to its attainment. As clear as possible an account has been attempted of what the human soul must do and undergo so as to liberate the powers of cognition from the confines of the sense-world and fit them or the experience of supersensible worlds.
Acquired though it is and must be by inner ways and means — by the inner activity of each one who gains it — the experience has a more than subjective significance. In our descriptions we have tried to make this clear. He who eliminates in his own soul the personal peculiarities which separate him from the World reaches a common realm of experience — a realm which other men are reaching when they too transform their subjective inner life in the true pathway of spiritual development. Only if thus conceived is the real knowledge of supersensible worlds distinguishable from subjective mysticism and the like. The latter might to some extent be said to be the mystic's merely personal concern. The inner spiritual-scientific training here intended aims at objective experiences, the truth of which has to be recognized, no doubt, in an intimate and inner way by every one who has them; yet in this very process they are seen to be universally valid. Here once again, it is admittedly difficult to come to terms with habits of thought widely prevalent in our time.
In conclusion, the author ventures to express the wish that friendly readers too should take what is here set forth on its own merits. There is a frequent tendency to give a school of thought some venerable name, failing which, its value is somehow depreciated. But it may surely be asked: As to the real contents of this book, what do they gain by being called “Rosicrucian” or given any other label? The essential thing is that with the means that are possible and proper to the human soul in the present epoch, insight be gained into the spiritual worlds, and that the riddles of man's destiny and of his life beyond the frontiers of birth and death be thereby penetrated. What matters is the quest of truth, rather than a quest that claims some ancient title.
On the other hand, the world-conception presented in this book has been given names and labels by opponents, and with unfriendly intention. Apart from the fact that some of these descriptions — meant to discredit the author — are manifestly absurd and untrue, surely an independent quest of truth deserves to be judged on its merits. It is unworthy to insinuate that it be set aside for its alleged dependence on whatsoever cult or school of thought. Nor does it matter much whether this dependence is the critic's own surmise or he is carelessly repeating an unfounded rumor. Necessary as these few words were, the author has no wish — in the present context — to answer sundry charges and attacks in detail.
Rudolf Steiner
Written in June, 1913
Preface to the First Edition
In publishing a work of this kind at the present time one must be resigned from the outset to every kind of criticism. A reader, for example, versed in the accepted theories, can be heard commenting on the way scientific themes have here been treated: “It is amazing that such absurdities can be put forward in our time. The author betrays utter ignorance of the most elementary notions. He writes of “heat” and “warmth” as though untouched by the whole trend of modern Physics. Such vagaries do not even deserve to be called amateurish.” Ore in this vein can be imagined: “One need only read a few pages to discard the book — according to one's temperament, with a smile or with indignation — shelving it with other literary curiosities such as turn up from time to time.”
What then will the author say to these damning criticisms? Will he not, from his own standpoint, have to regard his critics as without discernment or even lacking the good will for an intelligent judgment? The answer is, No — not necessarily. He is well aware that those who condemn his work will often be men of high intelligence, competent scientists and anxious to judge fairly. Knowing well the reasons for these adverse judgments, he can put himself in the critic's place. He must here be permitted a few personal observations which would be out of place save in so far as they relate to his resolve to write the book at all. For it would have no raison de'etre if merely personal and subjective. The contents of this book must be accessible to every human mind; also the manner of presentation should as far as possible be free of personal coloring. The following remarks on the author's life and work are therefore only meant to show how he could come to write this book while understanding only too well the apparent grounds of adverse judgment. Even these remarks would be superfluous if it were possible to show in detail that the contents are after all in harmony with the known facts of science. But this would need several volumes, far more than can be done under present circumstances.
The author would certainly never have ventured to publish what is here said about “heat” or “warmth,” for example, if he were not conversant with the commonly accepted view. In this student days, some thirty years ago, he made a thorough study of Physics. Concerning the phenomena of heat, the so-called “Mechanical Theory of Heat” was in the forefront at that time, and this engaged his keen attention he studied the historical development of all such explanations and lines of thought associated with such names as J. R. Mayer, Helmholtz, Clausius and Joule. This has enabled him also to keep abreast of subsequent developments. If he were not in this position, he would not have felt justified in writing about warmth or heat as in this book. For he has made it his principle only to speak or write of any subject from the aspect of spiritual science where he would also be qualified to give an adequate account of the accepted scientific knowledge. He does not mean that every writer should be subject to the same restriction. A man may naturally feel impelled to communicate what he arrives at by his own judgment and feeling for the truth, even if ignorant of what contemporary science has to say. But for his own part the author is resolved to adhere to the principle above-mentioned. Thus he would never have written the few sentences this book contains about the human glandular and nervous systems were he not also in a position to describe them in contemporary scientific terms.
Therefore however plausible the verdict that to speak of heat or warmth as in this book argues an utter ignorance of Physics, the fact is that the author feels justified in writing as he has done precisely because he has kept abreast of present-day research and would refrain from writing if he had not. No doubt this too may be mistaken for lack of scientific modesty. Yet it must be avowed, if only to forestall even worse misunderstandings.
Equally devastating criticisms might easily be voiced from a philosophic standpoint. One can imagine such a reader's question: “Has the author been asleep to all the work that has been and is still being done in fundamental theory of knowledge? Has he never even heard of Kant, who proved how inadmissible it is to make such statements as are here contained? … To a trained mind this uncritical and amateurish stuff is quite intolerable — a sheer waste of time.”
Here once again and at the risk of fresh misunderstanding, the author has to introduce a more personal note. He began studying Kant at the age of sixteen, and believes himself to be up-to-date also in this respect — qualified to judge from a Kantian standpoint what is put forward in this volume. Here too, he would have had good reason to leave the book unwritten were he not fully aware that the Kantian boundaries of knowledge are here overstepped. One can be equally well aware that Herbart would have found in it a “naïve realism” of which the concepts had not been properly worked-over; or that the pragmatic school of William James, Schiller and others would judge it to be trespassing beyond the bounds of those genuine conceptions which man is really able to assimilate, to make effective and to verify in action. (1)
In spite of all this — nay even because of it — one could feel justified in writing the book. The author himself has written critically and historically of these and other trends of thought in his philosophic work: The Theory of Knowledge implicit in Goethe's World-Conception, Truth and Science, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, Goethe's Conception of the World, Nineteenth-Century Philosophic Views of Life and of the World, Riddles of Philosophy.
Other criticisms are imaginable. A reader of the author's earlier writings — for example his work on nineteenth century philosophies or his short essay on Haeckel and his Opponents — might well be saying: “How can one and the same man be the author of these works and of the book Theosophy (published in 1904) or of the present volume? How can he take up the cudgels for Haeckel and then offend so grossly against the straightforward monism, the philosophic outcome of Haeckel's researches? One could well understand the writer of this Occult Science attacking all that Haeckel stood for; that he defended him and even dedicated to him one of his main works (2) appears preposterously inconsistent. Haeckel would have declined the dedication in no uncertain terms, had he known that the same author would one day produce the unwieldy dualism of the present work.”
Yet in the author's view one can appreciate Haeckel without having to stigmatize as nonsense whatever is not the direct outcome of his range of thought and his assumptions. We do justice to Haeckel by entering into the spirit of his scientific work, not by attacking him — as has been done — with every weapon that comes to hand. Least of all does the author hold any brief for those of Haeckel's adversaries against whom he defended the great naturalist in his essay on Haeckel and his Opponents. If then he goes beyond Haeckel's assumptions and placed the spiritual view side by side with Haeckel's purely naturalistic view of the Universe, this surely does not rank him with Haeckel's opponents. Anyone who takes sufficient trouble will perceive that there is no insuperable contradiction between the author's present work and his former writings.
The author can also put himself in the place of the kind of critic who without more ado will discard the whole book as an outpouring of wild fancy. This attitude is answered in the book itself, where it is pointed out that reasoned thinking can and must be the touchstone of all that is here presented. Only those who will apply to the contents of this book the test of reason — even as they would to a description of natural-scientific facts — will be in a position to decide.
A word may also be addressed to those already predisposed to give the book a sympathetic hearing. (They will find most of what is relevant in the introductory chapter.) Although the book concerns researches beyond the reach of the sense-bound intellect, nothing is here presented which cannot be grasped with open-minded thought and with the healthy feeling for the truth possessed by everyone who will apply these gifts of human nature. The author frankly confesses: he would like readers who will not accept what is here presented on blind faith, but rather put it to the test of their own insight and experience of life. (3) He desires careful readers — readers who will allow only what is sound and reasonable. This book would not be valid if relaying on blind faith; it is of value only inasmuch as it can pass the test of open-minded thinking. Credulity too easily mistakes folly and superstition for the truth. People who are content with vague belief in the supersensible may criticize this book for its excessive appeal to the lift of thought. But in these matters the scrupulous and conscientious form of presentation is no less essential than the substance. In the field of Occult Science irresponsible charlatanism and the highest truths, genuine knowledge and mere superstition are often separated by a thin dividing line, and it is all too easy to mistake the one for the other.
Readers already conversant with supersensible realities will no doubt recognize the author's care to keep within the bounds of what can and should be communicated at the present time. They will be well aware that there are aspects of supersensible knowledge for which a different form of communication is required, if not a later period of time should be awaited.
Rudolf Steiner
December, 1909.
Footnotes:
Fifteen years having now elapsed since the first publication of this book, it may be suitable for me to say something more about the spiritual circumstances and my own state of mind when it originated. It had been my intention that its main content should form part of a new and enlarged version of my Theosophy, published several years before. But this did not prove possible. At the time when Theosophy was written the subject-matter of the present volume could not be brought into an equally finished form. In my Imaginative perceptions I beheld the spiritual life and being of individual Man and was able to describe this clearly. The facts of cosmic evolution were not present to me to the same extent. I was indeed aware of them in many details, but the picture as a whole was lacking.
I therefore resolved to make no appreciable change in the main content of the earlier volume. In the new edition as in the first, the book Theosophy should describe the essential features of the life of individual Man, as I had seen it in the spirit. Meanwhile I would quietly be working at a new and independent publication, Occult Science — An Outline.
My feeling at that time was that the contents of this book must be presented in scientific thought-forms — that is, in forms of thought akin to those of Natural Science, duly developed and adapted to the description of what is spiritual. How strongly I felt this “scientific” obligation in all that I wrote at that time in the field of spiritual knowledge, will be evident from the Preface to the First Edition (1909), here reproduced. But the world of the spirit as revealed to spiritual sight can only partly be described in thought-forms of this kind. What is revealed cannot be fully contained in mere forms of thought. This will be known to anyone who has had experience of such revelation. Adapted as they are to the exposition of what is seen by the outer senses, the thoughts of our every-day consciousness are inadequate, fully to expound what is seen and experienced in the spirit. The latter can only be conveyed in picture-form, that is, in Imaginations, through which Inspirations speak, which in their turn proceed from spiritual reality of Being, experienced in Intuition. (Concerning “Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition,” the necessary explanations will be found both in the present volume and in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment.)
Today, however, one who sets out to tell of the spiritual world in Imaginations cannot rest content with such pictorial descriptions. He would be foisting on to the civilization of our time the outcome of a state of consciousness quite unrelated to existing forms of knowledge. It is to the normal consequences of the present age that he must bring home the truths which can indeed only be discovered by a higher consciousness of the present age that he must bring home the truths which can indeed only be discovered by a higher consciousness — one that sees into the spiritual world. The subject-matter of his exposition, namely the realities of the world of spirit, will then be case into forms of thought which the prevailing consciousness of our time — scientifically thoughtful and wide-awake, though unable yet to see into the spiritual world — can understand.
An inability to understand will at most be due to hindrances that are self-imposed. The reader may have fixed in his mind some definition of the inherent limitations of human knowledge, due to a mistaken generalization of the limits of Natural Science. Spiritual cognition is a delicate and tender process in the human soul, and this is true not only of the actual “seeing” in the spirit, but of the active understanding with which the normal “non-seeing” consciousness of our time can come to meet the results of seership. People with half-formed notions who allege auto-suggestion in this regard have little idea of the real depth and intimacy of such understanding. For the scientific understanding of the physical world there may be truth or error in our theories and concepts. For the spiritual world, it is no longer a merely theoretic issue; it is a matter of living experience. When a man's judgment is tinged however slightly by the dogmatic assertion that the ordinary (not yet clairvoyant) consciousness — through its inherent limitations — cannot really understand what is experienced by the seer, this mistaken judgment becomes a cloud of darkness in his feeling-life and does in fact obscure his understanding.
To an open mind however, though not yet “seeing” in the spirit, what is experienced by the seer is comprehensible to a very full extent, if once the seer has cast it into forms of thought. It is no less intelligible than is a finished work of art to the non-artist. Nor is this understanding confined to the realm of aesthetic feeling as in the latter instance; it lives in full clarity of thought, even as in the scientific understanding of Nature.
To make such understanding possible, however, the seer must have contrived to express what he has seen, in genuine forms of thought, without thereby depriving it of its “Imaginative” character.
Such were my reflections while working at the subject-matter of my Occult Science, and, with these premises in mind, by 1909 I felt able to achieve a book, bringing the outcome of my spiritual researches, up to a point into adequate forms of thought — a book moreover which should be intelligible to any thoughtful reader who did not himself impose unnecessary hindrances to understanding.
While saying this retrospectively today I must however admit that in the year 1909 the publication of this book appeared to me a venture of some temerity. For I was only too well aware that the professional scientists above all, and the vast number of others who in their judgment follow the “scientific” authority, would be incapable of the necessary openness of mind. Yet I was equally aware that at the very time when the prevailing consciousness of mankind was farthest remote from the world of spirit, communications from that world would be answering to an urgent need. I counted on there also being many people feeling so weighted down by the prevailing estrangement from the living spirit that with sincere longing they would welcome true communications from the spiritual world. This expectation was amply confirmed during the years that followed. The books Theosophy and Occult Science have been widely read, though they count not a little on the reader's good will. For it must be admitted, they are not written in an easy style. I purposely refrained from writing a “popular” account, so-called. I wrote in such a way as to make it necessary to exert one's thinking while entering into the content of these books. In so doing, I gave them a specific character. The very reading of them is an initial step in spiritual training, inasmuch as the necessary effort of quiet thought and contemplation strengthens the powers of the soul, making them capable of drawing nearer to the spiritual world.
Misunderstandings were soon evoked by the chosen title, Occult Science. A would-be science, people said, cannot in the nature of the case be “occult” or “secret.” Surely a rather thoughtless objection, for no man will deliberately publish what he desires to be secretive about or to keep obscure. The entire book is evidence that far from being claimed as a special “secret,” what is here presented is to be made accessible to human understanding like any other science. Speaking of “Natural Science” we mean the science of Nature. “Occult Science” is the science of what takes its course in realms which are “occult” inasmuch as they are discerned, not in external Nature — Nature as seen by the outer senses — but in directions to which the soul of man becomes attentive when he turns his inner life towards the spirit. It is “Occult Science” as against “Natural Science.”
Of my clairvoyant researches into the world of spirit it has often been alleged that they are a re-hash, howsoever modified, of ideas about the spiritual world which have prevailed from time to time, above all in earlier epochs of human history. In the course of my reading I was said to have absorbed these things into the sub-conscious mind and then reproduced them in the fond belief that they were the outcome of my own independent seership. Gnostic doctrines, oriental fables, and wisdom-teachings were alleged to be the real source of my descriptions. But these surmises too were the outcome of no very deeply penetrating thought. My knowledge of the spiritual — of this I am fully conscious — springs from my own spiritual vision. At every stage — both in the details and in synthesis and broad review — I have subjected myself to stringent tests, making sure that wide-awake control accompanies each further step in spiritual vision and research. Just as a mathematician proceeds from thought to thought — where the unconscious mind, auto-suggestion and the like can play no part at all — so must the consciousness of the seer move on from one objective Imagination to another. Nothing affects the soul in this process save the objective spiritual content, experienced in full awareness.
It is by healthy inner experience that one knows a spiritual “Imagination” to be no mere subjective picture but the expression of a spiritual reality in picture-form. Just as in sensory perception anyone sound in mind and body can discriminate between mere fancies and the perception of real facts, so a like power of discernment can be attained by spiritual means.
So then I had before me the results of conscious spiritual vision. They were things “seen,” living in my consciousness, to begin with, without any names. To communicate them, some terminology was needed, and it was only then — so as to put into words what had been wordless to begin with — that I looked for suitable expressions in the traditional literature. These too I used quite freely. In the way I apply them, scarcely one of them coincides exactly with its connotation in the source from which I took it. Only after the spiritual content was known to me from my own researches did I thus look for the way to express it. As to whatever I might formerly have read — with the clear consciousness and control above referred-to, I was able to eliminate such things completely while engaged on supersensible research.
But the critics then found echoes of traditional ideas in the terms I used. Paying little heed to the real trend and content of my descriptions, they focused their attention on the words. If I spoke of “lotus flowers,” in the human astral body, they took it as proof that I was reproducing Indian doctrines in which this term occurs. Nay, the term “astral body” itself only showed that I had been dipping into medieval writings. And if I used the terms Angeloi, Archangeloi and so on, I was merely reviving the ideas of Christian Gnosticism. Time and again I found myself confronted with comments of this kind.
I take the present opportunity of mentioning this too. Occult Science — an Outline, now to be published in a new edition, is after all an epitome of anthroposophical Spiritual Science as a whole, and is pre-eminently exposed to the same kinds of misunderstanding.
Since the Imaginations described in this book first grew into a total picture in my mind and spirit, I have unceasingly developed the researches of conscious seership into the being of individual Man, the history of Mankind, the nature and evolution of the Cosmos. The outline as presented fifteen years ago has in no way been shaken. Inserted in its proper place and context, everything that I have since been able to adduce becomes a further elaboration of the original picture.
Rudolf Steiner
Goetheanum, Dornach,
Switzerland
10 January, 1925
Preface to the 1920 Edition
For this edition I have almost entirely rewritten the opening chapter on the character of Occult Science. I think there will now be less cause for misunderstanding. How often have I heard it said: While other branches of learning offer scientific proofs, this pretended science merely declares that such and such are the findings of Occult Science. It is a natural objection. The proof of supersensible knowledge can never be as tangible and compelling as with things seen and experienced by the outer senses. It is a misconception none the less, and in the altered version I have tried to bring this out more clearly than I appear to have succeeded in doing in the earlier editions.
For the rest, I have introduced changes and additions, trying to make the explanations clearer and more cogent. In many parts of the book, the oft-repeated experience of the spiritual realities described convinced me of the need to modify the forms of expression in which I try to clothe them, and I have done my best to make the necessary changes.
Rudolf Steiner
Berlin, May 1920
Preface to the 1913 Edition
One who sets out to present results of spiritual science such as this book contains must reckon with the certain fact that in wide circles they will be held to be impossible. For in these pages many things are put forward which in our time — supposedly on good philosophic and scientific grounds — are pronounced inaccessible to man's intelligence.
The author can appreciate the weighty reasons leading so many serious thinkers to this conclusion. Therefore again and again he would renew the attempt to show up the misunderstandings underlying the all-too categorical belief that human cognition can never reach into the supersensible worlds.
Two things come into question here. The first is this: On deeper reflection no human soul can lastingly ignore the fact that the most vital questions about the purpose and meaning of life must be for ever unanswered if there is really no way of access to supersensible worlds. Theoretically we may deceive ourselves about it, but in our heart of hearts we do not share the deception. Those who refuse to listen to the voice of their inmost soul will naturally reject teachings about the supersensible worlds. But there are people — and not a few — who can no longer turn a deaf ear in this direction. They will forever be knocking at the doors which — as the others say — must remain barred and bolted, denying access to things “beyond human comprehension.”
But there is also the second aspect. The “good philosophic and scientific grounds” above-mentioned are in no way to be underrated, and those who hold to them in earnest deserve to be taken seriously. The writer would not like to be counted among those who lightly disregard the stupendous mental efforts that have been made to define the boundaries to which the human intellect is subject. These efforts cannot be dismissed with a few derogatory phrases. Seen at their best, they have their source in a real striving for knowledge and are worked out with genuine discernment. Nay, more than this. The reasons which have been adduced to show that the kind of knowledge, accepted nowadays as scientific, cannot reach into the supersensible are genuine and in a sense irrefutable.
People may think it strange that the author should admit all this and yet venture to put forward statements concerning supersensible worlds. It seems almost absurd that one should make however qualified an admission that there are valid reasons for asserting that supersensible worlds are beyond our ken, and yet go on to speak and write about these worlds.
Yet it is possible to do this, while understanding full well how contradictory it may appear. Not everyone can realize the experiences one undergoes when drawing near the realm of the supersensible with intellectual reflection. For it emerges then that intellectual proofs however cogent, however irrefutable, are not necessarily decisive as to what is real and what is not. In place of theoretical explanations we may here use a comparison Comparisons, admittedly, have not the force of proof, but they are helpful in explaining.
In the form in which it works in everyday life, also in ordinary science, human cognition cannot penetrate into the supersensible worlds. This can be cogently proved, and yet there is a level of experience for which the proof has no more real value than if one set out to prove that the unaided eye cannot see the microscopic cells of living organisms or the detailed appearance of far-off heavenly bodies. That our unaided vision cannot reach to the living cells is true and demonstrable, and so it is that our ordinary faculties of cognition cannot reach into the supersensible worlds. Yet the proof that man's unaided sight falls short of the microscopic cells does not preclude their scientific investigation. Must then the proof that his ordinary faculties of cognition cannot reach into the supersensible worlds of necessity preclude the investigation of these worlds?
We can imagine the feelings this comparison will arouse in many people. Nay, we can sympathize if doubt is felt, whether the one who has recourse to it has any inkling of all the painstaking and searching thought that has gone into these questions. And yet the present author not only realizes it to the full but counts it among the noblest achievements of mankind. To demonstrate that human vision, unaided by optical instruments, cannot see the microscopic cells would be superfluous; t become aware of the nature and scope of human thought by dint of thought itself is an essential task It is only too understandable if men who have given their lives to this task fail to perceive that the real facts may yet be contrary to their findings. Whereas this preface is certainly not the place to deal with would-be “refutations” of the first edition by most people void of sympathy or understanding — people who even direct their unfounded attacks against the author personally — it must be emphasized all the more strongly that serious philosophic thought, whatever its conclusions, is nowhere belittled in these pages. Any such tendency can only be imputed by those deliberately blind to the spirit in which the book is written.
Human cognition can be strengthened and enhanced, just as the range of vision of the eye can be. But the ways and means of strengthening the power of cognition are purely spiritual. Inner activities, entirely within the soul — they are described in this book as Meditation and Concentration, or Contemplation. Man's ordinary lie of mind and soul is tied to the bodily organs; when duly strengthened and enhanced it becomes free of them. There are prevailing schools of thought to which the very claim will seem nonsensical — a mere outcome of delusion. From their own point of view, they will prove without difficulty that all our mental and psychological life is bound up with the nervous system. The author from his standpoint can appreciate these proofs. He knows how plausible it is to maintain that it is utterly superficial to speak of any life of soul being independent of the body. Those who maintain this will no doubt be convinced that in the inner experiences, alleged to be free of the body, there is still a connection with the nervous system — a hidden connection which the would-be occultist with his “amateurish” science only fails to discern.
Such are the prevalent habits of thought for which due allowance must be made. They are so diametrically opposed in the main contents of this book that there is generally little prospect of any mutual understanding. In this respect one cannot help wishing for a change of heart in the intellectual and spiritual life of our time. People are far too ready to stigmatize a scientific quest or school of thought as visionary and fantastic merely because they find it radically different from their own. On the other hand, there are undoubtedly many who in our time appreciate the kind of supersensible research presented in this book. They realize that the deeper meaning of life will be revealed not by vague references to the soul, to the “true self,” or the like, but by a study of the genuine results of supersensible research. With due humility, the author is profoundly glad to find a new edition called for after a relatively short interval of time. He realizes only too clearly how far this edition too will fall short of the essential aim — to be the outline of the a world-conception founded on supersensible knowledge. For this edition the entire contents have been worked through again; further elucidations have been attempted and supplementary passages inserted at important points. Often however the author has been painfully aware of the inadequacy, the excessive rigidity of the only available means of presenting the revelations of supersensible research. Thus it was hardly possible to do more than suggest a way of reaching some idea, some mental picture of what this book has to relate concerning Saturn Sun and Moon evolutions. One aspect of this chapter has been briefly re-cast in the new edition. The real experience of cosmic evolution differs so widely from all our experiences in the realm of sense-perceptible Nature that the description involves a constant struggle to find passably adequate forms of expression. A sympathetic study of this chapter may reveal that the effort has been made to convey by the quality and style of the description what is impossible to express in mere prosaic words. A different style has been used for the Saturn evolution, a different style for Sun evolution, and so on.
Amplifications and additions to which the author attaches some importance will be found in the second part, dealing with “Knowledge of Higher Worlds” — the way to its attainment. As clear as possible an account has been attempted of what the human soul must do and undergo so as to liberate the powers of cognition from the confines of the sense-world and fit them or the experience of supersensible worlds.
Acquired though it is and must be by inner ways and means — by the inner activity of each one who gains it — the experience has a more than subjective significance. In our descriptions we have tried to make this clear. He who eliminates in his own soul the personal peculiarities which separate him from the World reaches a common realm of experience — a realm which other men are reaching when they too transform their subjective inner life in the true pathway of spiritual development. Only if thus conceived is the real knowledge of supersensible worlds distinguishable from subjective mysticism and the like. The latter might to some extent be said to be the mystic's merely personal concern. The inner spiritual-scientific training here intended aims at objective experiences, the truth of which has to be recognized, no doubt, in an intimate and inner way by every one who has them; yet in this very process they are seen to be universally valid. Here once again, it is admittedly difficult to come to terms with habits of thought widely prevalent in our time.
In conclusion, the author ventures to express the wish that friendly readers too should take what is here set forth on its own merits. There is a frequent tendency to give a school of thought some venerable name, failing which, its value is somehow depreciated. But it may surely be asked: As to the real contents of this book, what do they gain by being called “Rosicrucian” or given any other label? The essential thing is that with the means that are possible and proper to the human soul in the present epoch, insight be gained into the spiritual worlds, and that the riddles of man's destiny and of his life beyond the frontiers of birth and death be thereby penetrated. What matters is the quest of truth, rather than a quest that claims some ancient title.
On the other hand, the world-conception presented in this book has been given names and labels by opponents, and with unfriendly intention. Apart from the fact that some of these descriptions — meant to discredit the author — are manifestly absurd and untrue, surely an independent quest of truth deserves to be judged on its merits. It is unworthy to insinuate that it be set aside for its alleged dependence on whatsoever cult or school of thought. Nor does it matter much whether this dependence is the critic's own surmise or he is carelessly repeating an unfounded rumor. Necessary as these few words were, the author has no wish — in the present context — to answer sundry charges and attacks in detail.
Rudolf Steiner
Written in June, 1913
Preface to the First Edition
In publishing a work of this kind at the present time one must be resigned from the outset to every kind of criticism. A reader, for example, versed in the accepted theories, can be heard commenting on the way scientific themes have here been treated: “It is amazing that such absurdities can be put forward in our time. The author betrays utter ignorance of the most elementary notions. He writes of “heat” and “warmth” as though untouched by the whole trend of modern Physics. Such vagaries do not even deserve to be called amateurish.” Ore in this vein can be imagined: “One need only read a few pages to discard the book — according to one's temperament, with a smile or with indignation — shelving it with other literary curiosities such as turn up from time to time.”
What then will the author say to these damning criticisms? Will he not, from his own standpoint, have to regard his critics as without discernment or even lacking the good will for an intelligent judgment? The answer is, No — not necessarily. He is well aware that those who condemn his work will often be men of high intelligence, competent scientists and anxious to judge fairly. Knowing well the reasons for these adverse judgments, he can put himself in the critic's place. He must here be permitted a few personal observations which would be out of place save in so far as they relate to his resolve to write the book at all. For it would have no raison de'etre if merely personal and subjective. The contents of this book must be accessible to every human mind; also the manner of presentation should as far as possible be free of personal coloring. The following remarks on the author's life and work are therefore only meant to show how he could come to write this book while understanding only too well the apparent grounds of adverse judgment. Even these remarks would be superfluous if it were possible to show in detail that the contents are after all in harmony with the known facts of science. But this would need several volumes, far more than can be done under present circumstances.
The author would certainly never have ventured to publish what is here said about “heat” or “warmth,” for example, if he were not conversant with the commonly accepted view. In this student days, some thirty years ago, he made a thorough study of Physics. Concerning the phenomena of heat, the so-called “Mechanical Theory of Heat” was in the forefront at that time, and this engaged his keen attention he studied the historical development of all such explanations and lines of thought associated with such names as J. R. Mayer, Helmholtz, Clausius and Joule. This has enabled him also to keep abreast of subsequent developments. If he were not in this position, he would not have felt justified in writing about warmth or heat as in this book. For he has made it his principle only to speak or write of any subject from the aspect of spiritual science where he would also be qualified to give an adequate account of the accepted scientific knowledge. He does not mean that every writer should be subject to the same restriction. A man may naturally feel impelled to communicate what he arrives at by his own judgment and feeling for the truth, even if ignorant of what contemporary science has to say. But for his own part the author is resolved to adhere to the principle above-mentioned. Thus he would never have written the few sentences this book contains about the human glandular and nervous systems were he not also in a position to describe them in contemporary scientific terms.
Therefore however plausible the verdict that to speak of heat or warmth as in this book argues an utter ignorance of Physics, the fact is that the author feels justified in writing as he has done precisely because he has kept abreast of present-day research and would refrain from writing if he had not. No doubt this too may be mistaken for lack of scientific modesty. Yet it must be avowed, if only to forestall even worse misunderstandings.
Equally devastating criticisms might easily be voiced from a philosophic standpoint. One can imagine such a reader's question: “Has the author been asleep to all the work that has been and is still being done in fundamental theory of knowledge? Has he never even heard of Kant, who proved how inadmissible it is to make such statements as are here contained? … To a trained mind this uncritical and amateurish stuff is quite intolerable — a sheer waste of time.”
Here once again and at the risk of fresh misunderstanding, the author has to introduce a more personal note. He began studying Kant at the age of sixteen, and believes himself to be up-to-date also in this respect — qualified to judge from a Kantian standpoint what is put forward in this volume. Here too, he would have had good reason to leave the book unwritten were he not fully aware that the Kantian boundaries of knowledge are here overstepped. One can be equally well aware that Herbart would have found in it a “naïve realism” of which the concepts had not been properly worked-over; or that the pragmatic school of William James, Schiller and others would judge it to be trespassing beyond the bounds of those genuine conceptions which man is really able to assimilate, to make effective and to verify in action. (1)
In spite of all this — nay even because of it — one could feel justified in writing the book. The author himself has written critically and historically of these and other trends of thought in his philosophic work: The Theory of Knowledge implicit in Goethe's World-Conception, Truth and Science, The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, Goethe's Conception of the World, Nineteenth-Century Philosophic Views of Life and of the World, Riddles of Philosophy.
Other criticisms are imaginable. A reader of the author's earlier writings — for example his work on nineteenth century philosophies or his short essay on Haeckel and his Opponents — might well be saying: “How can one and the same man be the author of these works and of the book Theosophy (published in 1904) or of the present volume? How can he take up the cudgels for Haeckel and then offend so grossly against the straightforward monism, the philosophic outcome of Haeckel's researches? One could well understand the writer of this Occult Science attacking all that Haeckel stood for; that he defended him and even dedicated to him one of his main works (2) appears preposterously inconsistent. Haeckel would have declined the dedication in no uncertain terms, had he known that the same author would one day produce the unwieldy dualism of the present work.”
Yet in the author's view one can appreciate Haeckel without having to stigmatize as nonsense whatever is not the direct outcome of his range of thought and his assumptions. We do justice to Haeckel by entering into the spirit of his scientific work, not by attacking him — as has been done — with every weapon that comes to hand. Least of all does the author hold any brief for those of Haeckel's adversaries against whom he defended the great naturalist in his essay on Haeckel and his Opponents. If then he goes beyond Haeckel's assumptions and placed the spiritual view side by side with Haeckel's purely naturalistic view of the Universe, this surely does not rank him with Haeckel's opponents. Anyone who takes sufficient trouble will perceive that there is no insuperable contradiction between the author's present work and his former writings.
The author can also put himself in the place of the kind of critic who without more ado will discard the whole book as an outpouring of wild fancy. This attitude is answered in the book itself, where it is pointed out that reasoned thinking can and must be the touchstone of all that is here presented. Only those who will apply to the contents of this book the test of reason — even as they would to a description of natural-scientific facts — will be in a position to decide.
A word may also be addressed to those already predisposed to give the book a sympathetic hearing. (They will find most of what is relevant in the introductory chapter.) Although the book concerns researches beyond the reach of the sense-bound intellect, nothing is here presented which cannot be grasped with open-minded thought and with the healthy feeling for the truth possessed by everyone who will apply these gifts of human nature. The author frankly confesses: he would like readers who will not accept what is here presented on blind faith, but rather put it to the test of their own insight and experience of life. (3) He desires careful readers — readers who will allow only what is sound and reasonable. This book would not be valid if relaying on blind faith; it is of value only inasmuch as it can pass the test of open-minded thinking. Credulity too easily mistakes folly and superstition for the truth. People who are content with vague belief in the supersensible may criticize this book for its excessive appeal to the lift of thought. But in these matters the scrupulous and conscientious form of presentation is no less essential than the substance. In the field of Occult Science irresponsible charlatanism and the highest truths, genuine knowledge and mere superstition are often separated by a thin dividing line, and it is all too easy to mistake the one for the other.
Readers already conversant with supersensible realities will no doubt recognize the author's care to keep within the bounds of what can and should be communicated at the present time. They will be well aware that there are aspects of supersensible knowledge for which a different form of communication is required, if not a later period of time should be awaited.
Rudolf Steiner
December, 1909.
Footnotes:
- Even in the more recent schools — Bergson, the “As If” philosophy, and the “Critique of Language” — have been studied and appraised in this connection.
- Nineteenth-century Philosophic Views of Life and of the World (published in 1900)
- This does not only refer to the spiritual test of supersensible research, but to the test — unquestionably valid — of open-minded thought, the test of healthy human intelligence and reflection.