The Spirit in Human Evolution - Waldorf Research Institute

nature itself has outgrown the realms that such methods can investigate. Nor does the
story end here because human beings now have the further potential to increasingly
emancipate themselves even from cultural determinants through their own inner
endeavors. The developing human being can attain a state of relative inner freedom. I do
not have to follow the dictates of my selfish genes, nor even be swayed by my instinctive
reactions of fear and loathing, though unfortunately, I can and clearly do follow them at
times. I can love my neighbor—or at least aspire to.
Rudolf Steiner
In developing this train of thought I follow the ideas of Rudolf Steiner (1860–
1924), the Austrian philosopher, spiritual teacher, and founder of the worldwide
educational movement usually referred to as Steiner or Waldorf education. Steiner’s work
also forms the basis for a complementary medical approach with many hospitals, clinics
and therapeutic centres, the biodynamic agriculture movement, influential organizational
development consultancies and many other fields of human endeavour.
Steiner taught that by following a modern path of spiritual development, the
individual can attain degrees of freedom from inner and outer determination. Knowing
that this is possible is essential if we are to find not only hope but also meaning in our
lives. Only out of some degree of inner freedom can a human being make the kind of
choices that are essential to social and ecological stability, if not actually to harmony. That
is the goal. As I see it, only a conscious recognition and understanding of the spiritual
potential in each person can release the potential to do good. And the world needs us to
do good. Faith alone no longer helps. We must think it through on the basis of our own
observations. We must base our actions on insight.
The Right Methods and the Right Questions
How are we to recognize this spiritual-individual factor? Indeed how do we
know at all what it is to be human? Here lies a key problem of methodology that poses
epistemological questions. To understand the soul-spiritual aspect of human nature
requires a different methodology than that appropriate for observing the bodily processes
and instincts. Ultimately we can only know the human being intuitively through direct
mutual recognition. However this does not preclude our forming pictures of the qualities
that come to expression through the human being.
Attempting to understand human nature in the same way that we try to
understand other natural phenomena, that is by interpreting what is revealed through
the senses (and their instrumental extensions), is too limited an approach. It is like trying
to understand a painting by analyzing the chemistry of the paint and the physical forces
that cause the paint to bind to the canvas. The painting is of a pictorial nature. This means
that its content, its iconography, its message, its aura, the overall impression it makes on
us in a holistic way, is not sense perceptible. It has to be intuitively and imaginatively
grasped.
When we observe a human being, the physical appearance and behavior reveal
only certain aspects of the inner nature of that individual, not the whole being. What we
perceive are symptoms. Unlike a painting, a human being is continuously in a state of
change. The picture revealed to our insight is not a static one but one continually in the
process of becoming. Individuals develop, which, as we have seen above, means that
they are in a process in which their inner nature is actively seeking to come to expression
or, depending on the circumstances, withdrawing. Furthermore, behind what comes
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