“as regards his own soul-being, man belongs to a world which does not reveal itself to the outward senses but lies behind this sense-perceptible world, that in his innermost soul-nature he belongs to a world which he can approach neither by means of sense-observation nor by drawing logical conclusions based upon such observation. It will be the task of our time to develop great clarity about this point, that all knowledge which the outer senses impart and a philosophy that has its foundation solely in such knowledge cannot come near to the true mystery of the human soul.” Rudolph Steiner, KALEVALA ; Public Lecture, Lecture 3 Donarch, 15 November 1914
“Something of this kind is remarkably characteristic and enormously significant; and this leads us to form a connection with the thoughts that we formulated yesterday.”
“In his life on Earth a human individual is aware only of the most insignificant part of his nature, he knows only that part of his life which is spent between waking up and going to sleep. The other part of his life is spent in sleep, and this part of human life has many, many aspects.
It would be true to say that for a great number of people this life during sleep entails that they come in contact with elemental cosmic beings who are connected with lower manifestations of human nature than the manifestations associated with the day. Between falling asleep until waking up-that is, in the realm of elemental life-people engage in all sorts of antics which would for them be unheard of in normal life. It is not an unfamiliar idea that dreams are of ten something to be ashamed of. This is a common experience that anyone can have. People do all sorts of undesirable things when they are asleep, in company that is not exactly good and which appeals to their passions and lower impulses and far worse than the company which they have cultivated during waking life.”
“In order that this habit of larking about is not extended to physical life, it is necessary that people today cultivate the ability not to attribute too much value to their dreams. They will therefore very easily forget their dreams, forget all that they had been up to in their dreams; and this will be beneficial to them, in that that they need to be prepared for entering into the spiritual world while they are awake (whereas in former times the idea was that people were enabled to enter the spiritual world during sleep).”
“neither Herman Grimm nor the other scholars knew what Albert Durer still knew, tat in sleep human beings are still able to enter a spiritual world. Today this awareness has disappeared.”
“Much art in the centuries not so very distant from our own can therefore be explained because there was then an awareness of man’s connection with the elemental world of the spirit that borders directly upon the physical world.”
“But if we now turn our thoughts to individuals who are as worthy as as Emerson, we should make it quite clear that they are not larking about when they are asleep but that what they do is above reproach. When they are are in the spiritual world with their ego and astral body, they have a relationship to truths, to what is to live amongst mankind as true anthroposophy; they become aware what is to become the physical knowledge of the future.”
“Now it would not be in accordance with the rightful path of human evolution if it were simply to remain the case that human beings should perceive what lies behind sensory appearances, the phantasmagoria of the senses, only while they are asleep; for it is of evolutionary significance that sleep life will increasingly cease to have a part to play in the quest for knowledge. It takes a great spirit such as Emerson to arrive at an idea such as repeated earthly lives from one’s sleep life. Nevertheless, it must be possible for spiritual insights to come to humanity, to gain entry to human lives. Thus whereas these truths have hitherto been proclaimed-as if in a kind of dawning light through individuals such as Emerson-in connection with the innermost life of the soul, there needs now to be a more earthly basis for understanding such truths in clear waking consciousness. The earthly aptitude must exist for feeling that it is perfectly natural to recognize these truths. You will be well aware from the fact that there are still only a handful of anthroposophists that this is not as yet perfectly natural, and all those who stand outside the anthroposophical movement regard us as fools or something of the kind.”
“Our modern culture is not capable of recognizing these truths. People’s natural temperament goes against it. The logical arguments that are put forward against spiritual science are by and large of little value; for people do not resist it on logical grounds but, rather, because the forces of the Earth have rendered them in their nature to be in general ill-disposed to receive such truths today.”
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