the presence of the dead on the spiritual path

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The Presence of the Dead on the Spiritual Path

By Rudolf Steiner

GA 154

Seven lectures held in various cities between April 17 and May 26, 1914. From thevolume, How Does One Gain Understanding of the Spiritual World? It is translated byChristian von Arnim and edited by Joachim Reuter. This book is a translation of Wie

erwirbt man sich Verständnis für die geistige Welt? Das Einfliessen Geistiger Impuls ausder Welt der Verstorbenen. (volume 154 in the Collected Works), published by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach, Switzerland, 1985. Presented here with the kind permission of

the Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

Copyright © 1990This e.Text edition is provided with the cooperation of:

The Anthroposophic Press

.Thanks to an anonymous donation, this lecture series is now available.

CONTENTS

Cover Sheet Contents

Lecture One: Understanding the Spiritual World (Part One)

The nature of dreaming. Hallucination. Etheric substance and increasedstrength of soul. The esoteric script. Ordinary and supersensible

thinking. The ancient founders of the religions and modern spiritualscience of the spirit. The nature of Christ. More about dreaming. Thenature of the astral body. The image of the I as the focus of experiencesin the spiritual world. Atavistic clairvoyance and healthy judgment.Clear thinking as the precondition for spiritual science.

April 18, 1914

Lecture Two: Understanding the Spiritual World (Part Two)Johann Gottlieb Fichte's relationship to the spiritual world and to hishuman environment. The distinction between physical and spiritual

perception. The destiny of a friend (Maria von Strauch-Spettini) andher elevation to guardian spirit of the Mystery Dramas. The deceasedfriend and poet (Christian Morgenstern) and his nature in the life after death. The depiction of the Dornach building in the press. Theformation of judgment on the basis of spiritual science.

May 12, 1914

Lecture Three: Awakening Spiritual ThoughtsAbout sleep. The contrast between blood and nervous system and therest of the organism in sleep. Germs and ghosts. The nature of germs.Spiritual thoughts as food for the dead. Overcoming egotism withregard to the dead. About the death of a friend (Christian Morgenstern):The founders of the religions and their significance. Modern mankindcomes of age. The deed of Christ. The nature of the physical world. The

premise underlying the Dornach building. Developing the thinking processes as the task of our times. The expulsion of a member and thereasons for this action.

May 05, 1914

Lecture Four: The Presence of the Dead in our LifeClairvoyant consciousness and dreaming. The difference between theform and the action of the deceased. Acquiring new concepts tounderstand the spiritual world. A deceased individual (Maria vonStrauch-Spettini) as protector of the Mystery Drama performances.

May 25, 1914

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Joan of Arc. Experiencing the angels (mildness) and the archangels(strength). The character of a friend and poet (Christian Morgenstern)after death. The experience of the spiritual world. Angels, archangels,Lucifer and Ahriman. The transformation of experiences in the physicaland the spiritual world. The enrichment of thinking. The Dornach

building. The essence of the anthroposophical movement. Theinauguration of the building.

Lecture Five: The Blessing of the DeadSpiritual science as “spiritual chemistry.” Concentration and

meditation. Perception of the inner word. Illusion and self-knowledge.The nature of encounters with the deceased. Inspiration of Rudolf Steiner's feeling and will through a deceased friend (Oda Waller).Thinking becomes independent. The enhancement of logical thinkingthrough clairvoyant knowledge. The concordance between intelligenceand clairvoyance. The spatial and temporal firmament. Giordano Brunoand spiritual science break through these firmaments. The limits of knowledge and their refutation. Spiritual science as synthesis of science, intellect, and clairvoyant research.

May 26, 1914

Appendix

Lecture Six: Faith and KnowledgeThe great founders of the religions and their task. Thinking thatconsumes and thinking that nourishes. The “I believe” of earlier timesand the “I believe what I know” of today. Max Müller's statement aboutthe divine proclamation. Human beings as illuminating beings after death. The significance of myths and fairy tales in life. Meeting withtwo priests. The process of seeing. Dead and living ideas. The saying “ahealthy soul in a healthy body.” The notion that our senses perceiveonly oscillations and vibrations. Midsummer and Easter.

April 17, 1914

Lecture Seven: Robert Hamerling: Poet and Thinker April 26, 1914

NotesPublisher's Note

Presence of the Dead: Lecture One: Understanding the Spiritual World (Part One)

LECTURE ONE

UNDERSTANDING THE SPIRITUAL WORLD(PART ONE)Berlin, April 18, 1914

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When you remember a dream, it will probably be quite obvious to you that during the dream you merely observed theimages weaving before your soul without having a clear awareness of yourself. Self-awareness, then, is not as clear indreaming as it is in waking consciousness. The images weaving before the soul present two types of scenes. There areeither series of images familiar to the dreamer because they relate to recent or not-so-recent events, or scenes where suchevents are changed in all sorts of ways, their form altered to such an extent that specific occurrences are unrecognizable,and we think we are dreaming of something completely new. We can indeed have dreams that are not connected with anyexperiences we have had and are therefore completely new. But in each case, we will have had a feeling that a type of living, weaving image has been revealed to the soul. This is what we remember after waking up. Some dreams remain inour memory longer and others seem to vanish as soon as we have to deal with the events of the day.

So today let us examine what we perceive in such weaving dreams. We know what we perceive when we are awake inthis world, which we call the physical. But what fills our perception when we dream, as events and material things fill our daytime experience? It is what we call the etheric world, the etheric substance permeating the world with its inner

processes and with all that lives in it. That is the essence, as it were, of our perceptions when we dream. But we usually perceive only a very small part of the etheric world when dreaming. The etheric world is inaccessible to us when we areawake and perceive the physical realm; we cannot perceive the etheric substance around us with our physical senses.Likewise we cannot perceive all of it in our ordinary dreams, but only a part of it, namely, our own etheric body.

As you know, we leave our physical and our etheric bodies behind in sleep. In our usual dreams we look back, as it were,from within our astral body and I to what we have left behind in sleep. However, we are then not aware of our physical

body and do not use our physical senses. Rather, we look back only at our etheric body. Fundamentally, therefore, processes in our etheric body reveal themselves in certain places, and we perceive them as dreams. In fact, most dreamsare nothing else but looking at our etheric body in sleep and becoming aware of some of its exceedingly complex

processes.

Our etheric body is very complex and contains all our memories, ready to present them to us when we recall them. Eventhose things that have sunk down into the depths of the soul, things we are not aware of in waking consciousness, arecontained in the etheric body in some way. Our whole life in this incarnation is retained in the etheric body, is really

present in it. Of course, this is very difficult to imagine, but it is true nevertheless. Imagine you were to talk all day long,as some people do, and everything you said was recorded on records. When the first record is full, you take a second one,then a third, and so on. The number of records would depend on how much you spoke. Now if someone collected all therecords, everything you had said would be nicely preserved on records at the end of the day. Then, if someone playedthem, everything you said during the day would be heard again. In a similar way, all our memories are retained in theetheric body. Under the special conditions of sleep one part of the etheric body appears before us, as though — to staywith this metaphor — we took one record from the collection and played it; this is the most common kind of dream. Thusour consciousness weaves in our own etheric body.

The same applies to hallucinations affecting our soul. As a rule, such hallucinations arise because the person can see withthe ego and the astral body, which are still in the physical body, a section of the etheric body that has become detached.This can happen when a part of your physical body is ill, the nervous system, for example. Your etheric body is thenunable to penetrate the physical at the point where the nervous system is diseased; it is cast out there, so to speak. Theetheric body itself is not sick, but it has been separated from the physical body in a specific place. If it could remain in the

physical body, our normal state of consciousness would prevail, and we would be unaware that our physical body is sick.When the part our etheric body cannot penetrate shines out toward it, we experience this in our consciousness as a

hallucination.This etheric substance, from which dreams or hallucinations develop, surrounds us everywhere in the world. And our ownetheric body is like a section that has been cut out of this etheric substance. After passing through the gate of death anddiscarding our physical body, we pass through this etheric substance and never really leave it on our path between deathand a new birth. It is everywhere and we have to pass through it; we are in it. Sometime after death, we discard our etheric

body, which dissolves into this surrounding etheric substance. Usually, we cannot perceive this outer etheric substance.That is why we have nothing in the etheric world that could be called perception, parallel to perception in the physicalworld. Our perceptions of the etheric in our dreams depend completely on us.

True perception of the etheric world after death or here on earth in clairvoyant Imaginations requires greater strength thanwe usually have between birth and death. We need greater inner strength of soul. We do not perceive the etheric world

around us during earthly life because we lack sufficient strength of soul. To perceive the etheric world we must becomemuch more active, work much harder than we do in ordinary life. After death, too, the soul must be filled with much moreactive strength than in ordinary life to relate to its environment. Otherwise we do not perceive the etheric world, just aswe wouldn't perceive anything if we lacked all senses in the physical world. Thus, we need a more active strength of soulto find our way after death and not to be deaf and blind, figuratively speaking, to the world we enter then.

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To get a clearer idea of how the soul perceives after death, or after it has developed the faculties to unfold its imagination,let us compare this soul faculty to writing. What you write down expresses something that stands behind your words; still,it is you who put down the letters. You have the power to make what you write true, to make it correspond to an objectivestate of affairs. If you want to inform a faraway friend about something and write it down for him, it is you who form thewords that will tell the friend about the fact when he reads them. Someone may object that this fact does not exist in theworld as an objective fact, but is only what someone has written down. This is nonsense, of course. It is possible todescribe an objective fact with the letters you wrote. The same applies to imaginative perception in the supersensibleworld. You have to be active. You have to set down the signs, the letters that express the objective processes in the

spiritual world, and you must be aware that this is what you are doing. Whether you can do that or not depends onwhether you have the strength necessary for a living relationship with spiritual reality, whether it inspires you to set downthe truth and not falsehoods. But the fact remains: You have to know you are setting it down.

Now, let us return to dreams. When we dream, we usually feel the dream images “weave” and simply unravel on their own. We should think of these dreams as images that float past the soul. Now suppose you were thinking that youyourself place the dream images in space and time just as you set down letters on paper. This is not what we normallyassociate with dreams or hallucinations, but it is the type of consciousness required for imaginative thinking. You must beaware that you are the determining power in your dreams. You put down one thing after another just as you do whenwriting something on paper. You yourself are in control. The same power is behind you that makes what you write true.The great difference between dreams or hallucinations and true clairvoyance is that in the latter we are aware that we arethe esoteric scribes, as it were. The things we see are noted down as an esoteric script. We inscribe onto the world whatwe perceive as expression, as revelation, of the world.

Here, people could object that we do not need to write these things down because they are known beforehand. But that isnot valid, for in this case it is not we who do the writing but the being of the next higher hierarchy. We give ourselves upto that being, and it becomes the force ruling us. In an inner soul process, we record what holds sway through us. Whenyou look at this esoteric script, you will read what is to be revealed.

That is why I have said so often in public lectures that the development of clairvoyance requires that all perception becomes active and does not remain the passive openness to the world that is appropriate for understanding our physicalenvironment. Gradually, then, we comprehend what we have called “learning the esoteric script,” since the beginning of our anthroposophic work. I have described it in more detail in The Threshold of the Spiritual World. [ Note 1 ] To writethe esoteric script into spiritual space and spiritual time our soul must be more active and powerful than it needs to be ineveryday life. We need this greater strength when we have passed through the gate of death. If you seek imaginativeclairvoyance, you will achieve it gradually through meditation. You will experience and perceive, knowing all the whileyou are in a world of which our dreams are but a weak reflection. You can live in that world in such a way that you cancontrol your dreams, just as you are in control when you assemble a table or a shoe.

Many people object they have tried to meditate in all kinds of ways but are still not becoming clairvoyant. This lack of clairvoyance simply shows they do not really want the activity and strength I have just described. They consider themselves fortunate because they do not need them. They do not want to develop any active strength of soul, but want to

become clairvoyant without having to acquire this strength first. They want the tableau that arises before them throughclairvoyance to appear by itself. But that would be nothing but hallucinating or dreaming. To put it bluntly, a dream is a

piece of the etheric world that we can take with our etheric feelers and move from one place to another. This has nothing

to do with true clairvoyance. In experiencing true second sight we are as active as we are in the physical world in writingon paper. The only difference is that when we want to write in the physical world, we need first to know what it is wewant to write down — at least it usually helps if we do. By contrast, in spiritual perception we allow the beings of thespiritual hierarchies to write, and only then, while we are writing, do the things appear that we are to perceive. Realclairvoyance cannot come about without our active involvement in every single aspect of our perception.

We also need the strength that enables us to write in the etheric world when we have passed through the gate of death.The kind of thinking that serves us well in the physical world is of no use for perception after death. A person may beexceedingly clever and smart about things of the physical world, but after death these capacities will be of no help. Thiskind of thinking is much too weak for writing anything into the etheric world. All ideas we have developed relating to

physical things have their origin in this weak thinking, which is useless after death. We need a stronger kind of thinking,one that is inwardly active of its own accord. We need thinking that forms thoughts which do not merely mirror the outer

sense world. We must develop this inner capacity to form thoughts independent of anything external that arise, as it were,from the depths of the soul, or we cannot have a corresponding capacity after death.

Now you might object that we could just think up all kinds of things, or create a lot of fantasies that do not reflectanything external, and then we would be well prepared for developing the strength of thinking necessary after death. It

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could be that someone wants to have a great deal of thinking ability after death and therefore imagines winged dragons,which do not exist, terrifying beasts, and so on. The person imagines all these things so as not to be tied to the apronstrings of outer images, and to be able to develop inner strength of thinking in preparation for life after death.

It cannot be denied — people who do this will have greater faculties in the world after death than those who do not.However, they would perceive only false images, distortions, just as people with impaired vision see a distorted image of the physical world and those with damaged hearing have a false impression of its sounds. People who follow this courseof action sentence themselves to perceiving nothing but grotesque things in the etheric world, instead of what is trulyrooted there.

In past periods of human development, care was always taken to ensure that human beings were given mental imagesneither borrowed from the physical world nor created in the arbitrary and fantastical manner I have just described.According to the methods available to them, the great founders of our religions handed down images not based on the

physical, but on the spiritual world. Thus, by following their religious teachers, people were able to develop mentalimages that were not tied to the sensory world but were true all the same because they originated in the spiritual world.This is the immensely great education of the human race undertaken by the founders of our religions. They had setthemselves the task of giving human beings images that would help them to develop a kind of thinking that would keepthem from arriving spiritually deaf and blind in the spiritual world after death. The founders of our religions wanted to becertain that human beings were fully alive, fully conscious, and that their consciousness would not vanish or fade in their hour of death or become a false consciousness then.

As I have often said, we are currently living at a stage of evolution when human beings are meant to come of age, as itwere. Religious founders will no longer appear as they formerly did and appeal to our faith. Those times are past,although, of course, they still reach into our time. At present, only a few people are beginning to experience this newexistence, so to speak. Most still yearn to cling to the traditional ideas of the ancient founders of religions. But humanitymust come of age and what the founders of religions provided for our faith must be replaced by the contribution of modern spiritual science. For this science of the spirit is by nature completely different from those ancient teachings. Inorder to avoid misunderstandings, we must emphasize that when we speak of the old religious founders we are notincluding Christ among them. I have often said that Christ's significance does not lie in his teachings, but in what took

place through him. The ancient religious founders were in a sense teachers, but Christ's main deed was to imbue humanitywith His own power through the Mystery of Golgotha. To this day, this has been extremely difficult for many people tounderstand. That is why they speak of Christ as only a great cosmic teacher. For those who really understand the fullsignificance of Christ, this is simply nonsense.

Humankind is coming of age through our modern spiritual science, through the concepts, ideas, and images that are linkedwith our life after death and thus with our entire soul life. For spiritual science can be understood by every person whowants to understand its findings. It strives to give people what each individual soul can truly achieve on its own, not byfollowing the religious founders, as in earlier times. And although it must be individual researchers who make the resultsof this science of the spirit available today, they do so in a form that can be understood by everyone who wants to. I haveoften emphasized that it is a complete misunderstanding to say spiritual science must also be believed. When people saythis, it is because they are so crammed full with materialistic prejudices that they do not look at what spiritual sciencereally has to offer. As soon as it is examined, everything becomes understandable. One does not need clairvoyance for this; our ordinary understanding is enough to really grasp and comprehend all this gradually — of course, “gradually” will

be inconvenient for some people.

In other words, spiritual science appeals to our understanding, making use of the opposite principle to the one used by theancient religious founders. Their ideas gave something to human souls that awakened them spiritually and gave themstrength to perceive in the etheric world, and that also means to lead a conscious life after death. Assimilating modernspiritual science will in turn give our soul the strength to develop the necessary power of thinking after death toconsciously perceive its etheric environment. Both people of ancient times who followed their religious founders andmodern people who are willing to understand spiritual science will be able to find their way after death.

Only one type of person will have difficulty in finding his or her way after death. In fact, this type will frequently noteven experience a life after death, because it will have become so dulled and obscured. This sort of person is the dyed-in-the-wool materialist who clings to images of the physical world and does not want to develop any strength to perceive theworld we enter after death. In terms of the soul-spiritual, to be a materialist really means the same as wanting to destroy

one's eyes and ears in the physical world, gradually deadening one's senses. It is no different from someone saying,“These eyes — they can't be trusted, they provide only impressions of light. Away with them! These ears — they perceiveonly vibrations, not the one single truth. Get rid of them! Get rid of the senses, one by one!” To be a materialist in regardto the spiritual world makes as much sense as this attitude in regard to the sensory world. It is basically the same, as will

be quite easy to see when we consider the reasoning presented by spiritual science.

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Today I have attempted to explain from this perspective what it means to be in the spiritual world. I want to go on toexplain a type of dream we will all recognize, because everyone has probably experienced a dream of this kind. I amspeaking about dreams where we stand face to face with ourselves, so to speak. As I described earlier, usually the dreamfabric unrolls itself before us, so to speak, and we have no clear awareness of ourselves at the time. It is only afterwardthat we reflect on the dream with self-consciousness.

There are also other dreams where we face ourselves objectively. And beyond simply seeing ourselves, as sometimeshappens, we can also have the dream students often have, of sitting in school, trying to work out an arithmetic problem,

but unable to solve the equation. Another person comes and easily finds the solution. The student really dreams that thishappens. Well, you will understand that it was he himself who came and solved the problem. Thus, it is also possible thatwe face ourselves in this way without, however, recognizing ourselves. But that is not the important thing. In such asituation the I divides in two, as it were. It would be nice, wouldn't it, if in the physical world as well, the other egoappeared and immediately produced the right answer when we do not know something. Well, it does happen in dreams.

When we are dreaming, we are actually outside our physical and etheric bodies and only in the astral body and ego. Whilethe type of dream described earlier gives us a glimpse of the etheric body, the ones where we face ourselves result fromthe astral body we took along revealing a part of itself to us and facing us with it. We perceive a portion of ourselvesoutside the physical body.

We do not perceive the astral body in ordinary life, but we can quite easily see part of it in sleep. It contains things we arenot at all aware of when we are awake. I spoke earlier about the nature of the etheric body; it contains everything we haveexperienced. But now I have to tell you something quite strange — the astral body contains even those things we have notexperienced. You see, our astral body is a rather complicated structure. It is in a certain sense built into us out of thespiritual world, and it contains not merely those things we already have in us now but also those we will learn in thefuture! They are already present there as a disposition. This astral body is much cleverer than we are. Therefore, when itreveals something of itself in our dreams, it can confront us with our self in a form that is much cleverer than we have

become through physical life. If you bear this in mind — I say this now only as an aside and not as part of the lecture — itwill throw some light on the “cleverness” of animals. They also have an astral body. It can bring out things that do notemerge in the ordinary lives of the animals. Many surprising things can reveal themselves there. For example, the astral

body contains, believe it or not, all of mathematics, not only as far as we know it today, but also everything that stillremains to be discovered. Nevertheless, if we wanted to read the mathematics contained there and read it consciously, wewould have to do so actively by acquiring the necessary faculties.

Thus, it is a revelation of part of our astral body when we come face to face with ourselves in a dream. And many of thethings that come to us as inner inspiration spring from these revelations of the astral body. In the same way hallucinationscan occur under the circumstances I described earlier. The part of us that is cleverer than we usually are can, through aspecial disposition in our constitution, take on a voice of its own. Then we can be inspired, which would not happen if weused only our ordinary judgment in our physical body. But it is dangerous to give ourselves over to such things, becausewe cannot control them until we are able to penetrate them with our judgment. And since we cannot control them, Lucifer has easy access to all these developments, and we cannot keep him from directing them according to his intentions, rather than in accordance with the aims of the proper world order.

When we develop our inner forces, we learn to lead an inner life that makes us clairvoyant in the astral body. But you willsee from what I have said that becoming clairvoyant in the astral body requires that we are always aware of facingourselves, our own being. Just as we do not lead a healthy physical life if we are not fully conscious, so we do not lead ahealthy soul life in the supersensible world if we do not see ourselves at all times. In the physical world we are ourselves;in the higher, spiritual world we have the same relationship to ourselves as we have here to a thought representing a pastevent. We inwardly look at such a thought and treat it as a memory. As we deal with a thought in this world, so we knowin the spirit realm that we are looking at and observing ourselves. Our self must always be present when we experiencethings in the spiritual world. Basically, this is the only principle applying also to those things over which we have nocontrol. In fact, in the realm of the spirit this principle allows us to master things, to become the controlling power. Our own being is the center of everything. Our own being shows us how we act in the spiritual world, revealing to us who wereally are in the spiritual world.

If we are in the spiritual world and perceive something is incorrect, that means we are using the esoteric script incorrectly.Well, if we use the esoteric script incorrectly but perceive ourselves as the center of everything going on, we experiencein our own being: You look like this because you did something wrong; now you have to put it right! We can see how wehave acted by what we have become. We can compare this to how you would feel here in the physical world if you werenot inside but outside yourself. For example, if you said to someone, “It is now half past eleven” — something that is not

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true — and look at yourself, you see how you stick your tongue out at yourself. You say, “This isn't you!” And then youstart to correct yourself and say what is true, “It is now twenty past nine.” At that moment your tongue goes back in.Similarly, you can tell whether you are acting correctly in the spiritual world by looking at yourself.

Such grotesque images may serve to characterize these things, which should be taken much more seriously thaneverything said about the physical world. The point is to gain an understanding of the supersensible realm through the

power of thinking we already possess in the physical world. That way we free our thinking, which otherwise remains bound to our physical environment.

In earlier times people had a basic, atavistic clairvoyance. It was possible for them to have Imaginations, evenInspirations. But in contrast to this earlier stage, we have now reached an advanced stage and can form ideas about the physical world. When people still possessed an atavistic clairvoyance, they could not think properly. For proper thinkingto develop, the strength used earlier in clairvoyance had to be applied to thinking. Some people nowadays developclairvoyant faculties at certain times in their life by methods other than those described by spiritual science. This is

because they have inherited these faculties from earlier times and they have not yet achieved sound judgment in thoseareas of life where they are clairvoyant. But we are approaching the time when sound judgment must be present beforeclairvoyance can be developed on the basis of such mature and balanced judgment.

In other words, when people these days show certain psychic abilities, a certain clairvoyance, without having done seriousexercises, without having studied spiritual science — which, if applied in the right way, can be the best exercise to bringout the old clairvoyance — this does not mean that they are more advanced than everyone else, but rather that they arelagging behind. Having atavistic abilities today does not mean one has reached the stage of clear thinking. The moreadvanced soul is clearly the one that comes to sound judgments out of its ordinary understanding — and this ordinaryunderstanding is completely sufficient to grasp spiritual science if one is free of preconceived notions.

We are making a great mistake if we allow atavistic clairvoyant abilities to impress us. We are on the wrong track if we believe such a person's soul is particularly advanced. That this soul shows such abilities means that it has failed to gothrough certain things that had to be experienced in the age of clairvoyance. Therefore, that soul is now catching up onwhat was missed earlier. It is quite grotesque when people involved in spiritual science believe that someone whodisplays a certain clairvoyance without having studied spiritual science must have been someone important in a previouslife. Such a person was quite certainly less important than someone displaying sound judgment about things.

Now it is very important that our movement should try to build a certain circle of people who see through these things,who truly and thoroughly understand them and can reach the following insight: We need spiritual science in our time

because only by understanding it can we progress.

This is very important. There are, of course, childhood illnesses in all areas of life, and naturally also in spiritual streamsentering the world. And one can understand easily enough why spiritual science has childhood illnesses because it tries togive human beings the results that were achieved by clairvoyant consciousness. But you can see how we have to describethis. We have to say that becoming clairvoyant in the way humanity needs it now and in the future does not appeal to

people's love of comfort and convenience. It requires a great deal more than just waiting for things to happen.Participation at every moment, self-control and the capacity for self-observation are required to reach the spiritual world.This must be widely understood. It is much easier to wait for clairvoyance to approach us like a dream, streaming to andfro. People want to experience the spirit realm in the same way they experience the world of the senses. This is a remnant

from past periods of our history. In ancient clairvoyance, things were experienced in such a way that people did not really“know” them. This is probably why even today people want to experience the spirit realm in such a way that they do notactually “know” it. We do not properly appreciate what we know for sure. When we do arithmetic, for example, wefollow certain set methods, without being much involved in what we are doing. When we add up five and seven, we arenot really participating in the sense referred to here; we are not fully present in what we do. That is why people do not likeit if others have developed their own view of the world. As soon as you can show people something you have come toknow without this inner participation, they are happy, exceedingly happy! But when someone demonstrates knowledge of the spiritual world and knows of it in such a way that he is involved, then people say, “Oh, he knows it! That is acompletely conscious process and not objective.” But if someone comes along and has had a vision whose origin hecannot explain, people say, “That is objective, completely objective! We can believe this person.”

The most important aspect of our spiritual science is to develop clear ideas. Spiritual science is still relatively new;

therefore, now that people's longing for the spiritual world and knowledge of it has awakened, they want to connect witheverything still coming up from the old world of clairvoyance. They gather all these old things and believe they are doingsomething quite special in preserving them.

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However, our task is to see clearly in this field! It must be clear to us that there is nothing inferior about giving advice infull consciousness on a matter of spiritual healing. But most people will appreciate indications given by someone “above”the situation, who yields himself to quite obscure feelings and does not “know” things, much more because his statementsresult in the dark, blissful feeling: This is the result of something unknown! Everywhere we hear people saying that thingsthey can grasp are of no interest to them. They have come for the inexplicable — that is supreme, divine!

Believe me, the individual truths of spiritual science must gradually enter our souls, and at the same time we must have aclear and sure sense for the conditions I have just touched upon. I have spoken about these conditions to show, beginningwith the nature of dreams, that true clairvoyance requires the kind of active work by the soul we can compare with

writing. I wrote The Threshold of the Spiritual World with the aim of clarifying these matters more and more. Those whounderstand my book will grasp the vital nerve, the keynote of our movement. I have to emphasize again and again — inspite of having said it frequently over the years — because so much depends on this: Those who really want to gainaccess to spiritual science have to acquire a healthy sense for the things that truly belong to it. Then we will graduallydevelop into a Society that can set itself the task of having a genuinely healing effect on everything belonging to culturallife.

Next time, we will continue to talk about what we began today as a description of the world of dreams based on thespiritual world.

Presence of the Dead: Lecture Two: Understanding the Spiritual World (Part Two)

LECTURE TWO

UNDERSTANDING THE SPIRITUAL WORLD(PART TWO)Berlin, May 12, 1914

Out of his conviction that we live in and are always surrounded by the spiritual world, the German philosopher JohannGottlieb Fichte said: [ Note 1 ] “I do not need to wait until I am removed from the things around me in the physical worldto gain entry into the spirit realm. I already exist and live in the latter much more truly than in the former. It is my onlyfirm basis, and the eternal life I took possession of long ago is the sole reason why I still wish to continue the earthly one.Heaven does not lie beyond the grave; it is here already, pervading all of nature and its light rises in every pure heart.”

[ Note 2 ]

It is good to draw attention to such a statement, for in our time many people would have us believe that only stupid,superstitious characters or at least those inclined to fantasy speak of the spiritual world and have views on it. Interestinglyenough, even those people who want to make us believe it is silly to talk of the spiritual world constantly speak of Fichteand others like him. So it is good if at least some people know that those with an anthroposophical outlook are of onemind with all the people who have carried throughout history a true knowledge and understanding of the spiritual world intheir hearts, or at least a striving — in the highest and most noble sense of the word — for these things. And whenmaterialists mention Fichte and pull this or that passage from his writings as it suits them, it is good whenanthroposophically inclined souls know where Fichte's confidence in life, his courage for living, and his belief in lifecome from — they have their origin in his loyal adherence to the conviction that the human soul lives in the spiritualworld and has a spiritual existence. When you hear a man such as Fichte quoted — as you know, he wrote the Addressesto the German Nation in difficult times — you should always be aware in your hearts that he had the strength to say whathe said because he knew: The best part of me always lives in the spiritual world even while I am living in my physical

body. [ Note 3 ] The spiritual world surrounds me everywhere. This is true for others too; Fichte is only an example.People like Fichte were aware that their words were filled with a strength gained through a knowledge of the spiritualworld that supported and worked on their souls.

There is another reason why it is good to recall such facts from time to time. After Fichte had delivered his lectures TheWay toward the Blessed Life, which can be said to contain his life's teachings, to a small group of people, his audienceasked him to have the lectures printed. The lectures had made a great impression on them, and they asked him to publishthem because more people ought to have access to Fichte's encouragement for living, to his beautiful and noble strivingfor knowledge. And Fichte, strong, forceful, fired with the highest enthusiasm for his cause, made the followinginteresting remark in the foreword to these lectures:

I was, I might almost say, persuaded to publish these lectures by friends among the audience who had a favorable opinionof them. And because of the way I work, the most certain way never to complete them would have been to revise themonce more for publication. Let it be my friends' responsibility, then, if they are not received as anticipated. I for my parthave become so confused by the public at large when I see the endless bewilderment that greets every powerful idea, and

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also the thanks accorded to everyone who endeavors to do right, that I am unable to make a decision in matters of thiskind and no longer know either how to speak to this public or whether it is even worth the effort to address it by means of the printing presses. [ Note 4 ]

I want to quote this remark particularly because it shows how very alone Fichte felt then — 108 years ago now — withhis tidings of the spiritual world in view of the general attitudes and spirit of the times. And yet, we cannot help but feelthat anthroposophy is the fulfillment of what the great minds in human history longed and strove for in their endeavors. Inview of the apathy and lack of judgment shown spiritual science today, we must evoke in our souls the harmony we canachieve with these great minds through our spiritual science to encourage and strengthen us. Nevertheless, it may take a

long time even for those who are sympathetic with spiritual science to find the right inner energy to develop a feeling for the impulse it should give our culture. I mention this again only because I would like to see your hearts filled not onlywith the right kind of ideas about the spiritual world itself but also with the right kind of attitudes and feelings about our relationship to the spirit realm and our entire environment.

It is easy to see why spiritual science meets with incomprehension and misunderstanding in trying to establish itself in theworld at large. Just try to understand how an ordinary citizen, a product of modern thinking, who has not really come intocontact with anything spiritual, might relate to spiritual science. He has heard claims of one kind or another about thespiritual world. What must he do? Well, people have no choice but to try and make sense of these ideas on the basis of their own concepts. However, the ordinary person of our time does not possess any concepts that could help him graspwhat true spiritual science says about the realm of the spirit. To begin with, he lacks the thoughts, concepts, and ideas todo this. He tries to penetrate what he is told with his ideas, which, of course, originated on quite a different level. How,then, is he supposed to avoid misunderstanding? How can we expect him to understand?

The central point in our relationship to spiritual science is to acquire new concepts, new ideas that we did not have beforewe encountered spiritual science and that we cannot bring with us from the outside, but have to learn gradually. Thisrealization is fundamental for a right attitude of soul toward this spiritual stream. Consider the basic fact, namely, thatspiritual science is to enable us to understand the spiritual world outside us. In the course of this year, we have heardmany descriptions and all kinds of information about the spiritual world. We have always tried to enlarge our conceptsand ideas so that we can really grasp properly what is going on in the realm of the spirit. For example, we speak about

beings of the higher hierarchies, and you know what we say about them. We also speak of the souls of the dead as theyexist between death and a new birth, and you know what we say about them. However, we must never forget that inspeaking about these things we cannot use the concepts we learn in today's world or we will run into misunderstandings.Therefore I want to draw your attention to a concept you have already learned about, but I would like us to consider it indetail by examining how essential it has been to our various talks.

The physical world makes its impressions on our senses, and we try to understand this world with ideas and concepts tiedto our nervous system, to our brain. When we look at this process, we find the central element is that we perceive theworld. By looking at things, we perceive the human realm, human beings as physical beings, the animal, plant, andmineral kingdoms, clouds, mountains, rivers, oceans, stars, sun, and moon. We perceive these things to the extent thatthey are physical entities. We look at them, see their colors, hear their sounds, feel their warmth — in short, we perceivethem. This is a perfectly correct description of our relationship to the physical world. But as soon as we look at the worldof the spirit, we should feel the need for another expression than “I perceive,” because it is not quite correct to say “I

perceive the beings of the spiritual world.” We need to understand that all so-called perception of the spiritual world isquite different from that on the physical plane. As we grow into the realm of the spirit and approach it, we have the

impression that we are perceived. Here on earth we are, in a certain sense, the highest physical beings. A stone, a plant, or an animal might say they are perceived by human beings. And in terms of our physical body, we can say we are perceived by beings of our own kind. We are also perceived from the moment we grow into the spiritual world. The spiritual beingslook down at us, and in a certain sense we become objects to them. It is indeed a first sign of having entered the spiritualworld when we are perceived.

As I said in my last lecture, the way to rise toward the spiritual beings is to grow up to the level of their capabilities sothat our being is perceived by them. [ Note 5 ] That is how it is with regard to the higher hierarchies. We learn to seeourselves grow into a state of mind allowing us to feel we are perceived by the higher beings of the hierarchy of angels.Then as we develop further, we are perceived by those of the hierarchy of archangels, and so on. This feeling that we arelooked at, that the will of spiritual beings is affecting us, is what I mean when I say “We are perceived.” We have to bequite clear about this and must not think that growing into the spiritual world is just a continuation of the panorama

surrounding us in the physical world. Our whole soul mood changes because we become aware that we are living in thespiritual world, and that what we experience there is the feeling that the beings of the higher hierarchies perceive us. Their forces flow into us and are at work in us when we do something, when we act.

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These things can best be explained with specific descriptions. So without any presumption — let me stress it again:without any presumption — and in all modesty, let me present the following example to show you what our relationshipto the spiritual world is really like. When we undertake some work here on earth — whether it is spiritually inspired or not — we need forces coming to us from the physical realm. And these forces are outside our ordinary consciousness, of course. We cannot give them to ourselves; they are not really within our control. If you don't believe this, you can go toDornach, to our building, and watch our friends there transforming large blocks of wood into capitals for the pillars andusing their physical strength for this. Then you will have to admit that such forces come purely from the physical world.For my part, I admit quite openly that sometimes I wish I had more of this physical strength so I could help more with thework there. So, just as the strength of our hand muscles and other physical forces are involved in what we do physically,

spiritual forces can also enter into our actions, flow into our souls from the spiritual world, and act from above downward,so to speak.

One of our tasks in past years was to express in our mystery plays what streams through our spiritual world view. [ Note 6] Spiritually perceived facts had to be projected onto a physical stage; to use the common expression, they had to be“staged.” Such a production required new things compared with conventional stage productions. Over the years we havehad to put on such plays with ever greater strength, one might say. But what I mean now refers not so much to externalthings, to what happens when everything is already there, but to the spiritual aspect of the matter.

In the early days of our work in spiritual science, a certain individual visited us. [ Note 7 ] This person not only developeda profound and warm-hearted interest in our teachings as we had to present them then at the start of our work, but wasalso imbued with a wonderful artistic spirit, which was fused completely with her personality. One could say in the truesense of the word that she was an objectively kind person. She quickly assimilated everything we could say about thecontent of spiritual science at that time. Then, and this was in the early years of our work here, she left the physical world.In the years that followed, she worked in the subconscious depths that our souls reach after death and tried to integratewhat she had learned about our spiritual science with her artistic sensibility. A spirit body was being built up in whichthese two forces were at work: the fruitful views of spiritual science and her kind, energetic and understanding artisticspirit. Many years passed, and then recently, when we were working in Munich, whenever I had to make decisions aboutinner matters of the Munich performances, I was always aware that this individual was looking down on everything that ishappening. It is, of course, not true that such a being would tell us how to do things. We must have our own abilities for that. But through the blessing flowing to us from such an individual, we can feel strengthened for the task at hand. We canfeel her radiant spiritual eye and her warm, sincere interest flowing into the things we have to do.

Things like this can show us that after death the soul gradually changes into a being involved and active here on the physical plane. Once we are conscious of this, we feel the presence of such beings as guardian spirits supporting us in thetasks we have to do here in connection with the spiritual world. Then we can set about our tasks knowing that there is a

being in the spiritual world who protects our work.

Now you can see the concrete insight that should permeate our life in regard to the spiritual world. We gradually come toknow that the dead do not really die, but merely move to another place. They still participate in what we do. This insightwill be more than a vague feeling for us; we will gradually learn to point to the areas where they are active. We will learnto feel them with us when we need forces we cannot find on the physical plane, when we need support from higher regions. For the souls who have passed through death possess forces different from those on the physical plane, becausethey take the material for their development at that stage from another world. We can feel the true inner deepening we cangain by taking up spiritual science, not just in the form of abstract theories, but in lively understanding of concrete

particulars. We can then realize the blessing our theories of spiritual science and also the whole spiritual stream connectedwith it bestow upon all human life.

Of course, I assume such explanations in a group like this are taken with the necessary reverence, for that is the only waywe can proceed from the abstract to the concrete.

Let us look at the example of another person who left the physical world a short time ago. This man had been associatedwith us for five years and had gradually united the best of his being with the knowledge resulting from spiritual science.[ Note 8 ] For many years, he was physically ill and had to fight against the attacks from his sick body. He trulydemonstrated the triumph of mind over matter, particularly considering the strength he needed to create his last poems.From samples you have heard you already know the wonderfully poetic, intimate characterization of the spiritual worldthis man achieved. People will get many valuable insights when his last volume of poems appears in a few weeks. [ Note

9 ] The author of this volume cannot witness its publication; yet it will show us how wonderfully his spiritual lifetriumphed over the physical body. When I spoke about his poetry in Leipzig late last year, I used an expression in a waysimilar to a person, or even a child, saying “the rose is red.” [ Note 10 ] Such a statement can be quite correct withoutanyone needing to “know” the rose is red. In the same way, I knew then in Leipzig that I could use the expression I choseand that it was correct. Out of an inner necessity, I said his poetry not only reveals a wonderful expression of our world

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view, but one could almost say these poems have an aura! Something had entered this man's soul and taken hold of his personality so that words not only flowed from him but also contained something akin to an aura. In a nutshell, that iswhat I said and what I felt to be true. It is only now that I know why I said this. Of course, we can only know after deathwhat the individual who wrote these poems intended to do in the spiritual world, what he was preparing for. He sufferedmuch because his physical organism was deteriorating. But while his body was deteriorating, something developed in thesoul far beyond the physical body, something that turned out to be quite different from what he initially thought it was.This new quality lived in the depths of his soul, and its light became ever brighter the closer his physical body came todestruction. And now we can see something shining in the spiritual world that prepared itself here on earth.

Let me use a picture to explain what I mean. Nature is everywhere around us in all its beauty and glory. Surely, anyonesensitive to the beauty of nature will think I was justified when I said here some time ago that a person may visit all theart galleries of Italy, finally go up to the Swiss mountains to see a sunrise, and then have the feeling that the spiritual

beings who paint the sunrise are greater painters still than those who paint on canvas. [ Note 11 ] Even though this is true,we must also admit that while we may admire the beauty of nature with complete abandon, we find it infinitely preciouswhen we see how a painting by Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, or another artist, presents the content of the artist's soul aswell as nature's beauty. [ Note 12 ] In art, we see a physical expression of what the soul can give us, enriching what wetake from nature. I want to use this analogy to prepare your heart to understand what I want to say next.

The individual I have just mentioned is now in the spiritual world, and the spiritual formations once trapped in his bodyare now free of it. Here on earth we have his wonderful poetry, but in the spiritual world we find lighting up what grewout of the Imaginations that were prepared here during his long illness, and that now form the basis of his spirit body. Asplendid cosmic image! In these Imaginations lives a wonderful element from the cosmos that is to the direct perceptionsof spiritual research what a wonderful painting is to a direct experience of the beauty of nature. When the spirit realm

presents itself to the inner gaze in the Imaginations of a human soul, and we ourselves perceive it also, infinitely muchwill be revealed to us. In fact, it is almost as though the cosmos is perceived twice; once as it appears directly to our clairvoyant gaze, and then again as it is revealed to the clairvoyant gaze through what a human soul attained on earththrough much suffering and vigorous striving for spiritual knowledge. I do not have to remind you that all these thingsmust be understood as karma; no soul can acquire anything of this sort merely by force of will. Whether such things aregranted us lies in the grace of the wise cosmic powers. During the time we spend on earth, we, and others as well, musttake care to remain on earth as long as possible and in as healthy a condition as possible. This should go without saying,

but these things are so easily misunderstood. No one should ever attempt to do anything to cause suffering. That must nothappen, and, in any case, nothing could be achieved this way. Therefore, no worse and more false conclusion can bedrawn from all this than to decide to make oneself suffer in some way just to achieve something.

With these specific examples I wanted to present two ideas. The first is that spiritual beings send their powers to usthrough the gaze of their spiritual eyes, as I tried to show with the example of the guardian soul of our artistic work. Theother idea demonstrates the inner wisdom of the cosmic powers, which allows us to see in the spiritual world what anindividuality has drawn from his earthly existence. This can then in turn enrich our perception of the spiritual world, justas artistic perception enriches our experience of the physical world.

I could say much more now about individualities who are blessed to carry what they absorbed from the anthroposophicalworld view into the spiritual world. However, the time for that has not yet come. I quoted these two cases because I

believe such concrete and familiar examples can help us better understand the thoughts and ideas necessary for real accessto the spiritual world. We must adhere to those concepts from the beginning, if we really do want such access. After all,

we meet in smaller groups so that we can, in a sense, speak the language we have gradually developed for the descriptionof spiritual life. Through spiritual science, we can progress to where we no longer talk in general terms about the spiritaround us, just as we do not talk of nature around us in general terms, either. We speak not only of nature this and naturethat, but of grass in the meadows, corn in a field, trees on a hillside, clouds, and so on. Gradually we have to learn tospeak of the spiritual world in equally specific terms. Therefore, I like to talk of the spiritual world in concrete terms bydiscussing a guardian soul such as the one I mentioned today in connection with our artistic work, or by mentioning a soulwhose form after death mirrors the forces emanating from the spiritual cosmos itself, forces this soul gathered while the

body was overtaken by infirmity here on earth. This soul teaches us things we would not easily learn otherwise.

People like this friend, whom you knew, become the best helpers to aid spiritual science in fulfilling its task in the world.Since spiritual science is received in many quarters with misunderstanding, contempt, and hostility, we may feel that itwill truly be very difficult to make any progress toward achieving its real purpose. However, the insights we discussed

today evoke the encouraging thought that those who have passed through the gate of death become true witnesses for thetrue nature and purpose of spiritual science. I would like this thought to speak to our hearts and souls.

With this in mind, we cannot help believing that even if it takes longer than our lifetime, spiritual science will become part of the spiritual progress of humanity. This thought can give us courage to face what confronts us in certain quarters;

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it can give us courage in our conviction that more and more people will come to see the need to develop new concepts,new ideas, sentiments, and attitudes for a true understanding of the spiritual world.

I hope explanations like these also provide a proper context for our role in our spiritual movement. Let us acceptexamples such as those with reverence, and let us also draw from them what is relevant for our convictions so that we will

be strong enough to bear the brunt of attacks from the outside. People outside our movement approach us only with theconcepts they have learned in the world, and we should not be terribly surprised that they impose those concepts on whatthey find out about us. There are major problems in the relationship between spiritual science and the outer world'sstatements and judgments about it.

As you know — and as one of our dear members told you last time out of firsthand experience and an enthusiastic heart — we want to begin a real, true work of art in Dornach, near Basel; a work of art that is a result of our world view.Everything depends on there being a few people in the world who really understand what we intend to do. It is crucial thatwe do not let only those people judge this endeavor who want to describe it in terms derived from the outside world. Nomatter how good people's intentions are, if they approach our building with conventional concepts, they will only get aconventional description.

For instance, we can see now that newspapers in every language are saying things about the building in Dornach that caneasily sweep away in a short time what we have struggled for many years to achieve — by not telling the public what itdoes not understand anyway. The newspapers have asked, What age are we living in? Is this still the age of materialism?An enormous temple is being built — and so on. And they have described the columns in this temple as supposedlylinked by pentagrams and such. Seeing this, we can only wonder where such descriptions of the things that shoulddevelop out of our spiritual stream will lead. Such descriptions are now circulating through the media — it's terrible!

We do not need to go into detail, but the most painful thing is that the original article, which was the basis for all theothers, was the work of a good-natured soul who wanted to understand us and do a great service to the movement bywriting about it. We even showed him around to avoid the worst excesses of reporting. We showed him, for example, thatthere is really no pentagram to be seen, but that in one place the seeker's mind has to feel its way cautiously and subtly toa perception of a pentagram. Then we found that although we had asked this person not to write anything that smacks inany way of journalism, he could not do anything else, and did not use the concepts and ideas learned from us but insteadonly those that can be picked up on the streets of our modern culture! It is deeply painful to me to see how our originalintentions and aims are now presented in the newspapers. The articles and clichés are passed on from one paper to thenext and are translated into every language, and in each language another distortion and more stupidity are added. Of course, it is not hard to understand what happens when the aims of our serious and sincere spiritual science clash withwhat the outer world can understand. But I want to show you how solemnly and reverently we must approach our cause.It is important that we be aware how deep our understanding for the tasks of spiritual science in the world must be.

You may want to ask why we could not continue to work with our concepts modestly and anonymously even amongthose who cannot understand us, as we did before we started the building in Dornach. Well, people in the present agehave their eyes focused on the physical level. Spiritual things go unnoticed, but that a building is being erected inDornach cannot be ignored. Such questions are, of course, completely unproductive and also irrelevant. What matters isthat we should have a proper appreciation for and understanding of our cause in our hearts. I do not say this to accuse or criticize anyone, but to remind you once again how earnestly we must try to understand the new that is to grow in us tocounterbalance what comes from the world outside, particularly in the opinions of other people. What comes from outside

is not part of what our souls really need and thirst for. They need spiritual science and yearn for it. Therefore, we must putthe temptations and seduction of materialistic thinking, particularly that due to spiritual arrogance, in proper perspective.We must not be blinded when we encounter such views and attitudes everywhere in the external world, but must find thestrength within ourselves to participate fully in this world and to seek in ourselves the impulse for a proper relationship tothe world around us. Then spiritual science can really become something that warms and strengthens us inwardly. It cangive us foundations for our judgment so that we are not blinded by external influences, which may approach us withauthority and power and therefore can deceive us again and again about the ability of our age to understand spiritualscience.

This is what I wanted to present again to your souls today. For now as summer approaches and our meetings will becomeless frequent, we want to be certain of one thing: The impulses of spiritual science should live in our souls independentlyof time and space. They should be alive in us regardless of whether we meet more often or less often. What is important is

the character of our meetings that we really bring them to life in us. That is what I wanted to discuss with you today.

Presence of the Dead: Lecture Three: Awakening Spiritual Thoughts

LECTURE THREE

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AWAKENING SPIRITUAL THOUGHTSBasel, May 5, 1914

I am very glad that we can meet here today and take a break, so to speak, for a while from the work on our new buildingin Dornach. [ Note 1 ] But I thought it would be impossible to gather here so near our building without also discussinganthroposophical matters. I hope we can do this more often in the course of the year; otherwise our friends working on the

building will not have as many opportunities to attend such meetings as they do when they are not working on our building.

Let us start with some thoughts on the life of the spirit that might be useful in considering what meaning spiritual scienceand living with anthroposophy can have for us, for our soul. People new to anthroposophical thinking, feeling, and

perception may think we should not worry about the life of the spirit, about the spiritual world, since we enter the spiritualworld anyway after death (even a materialist might say this) and will there learn all we need to know about it. Why shouldwe not be satisfied in this life between birth and death simply to do what is necessary for life in the physical world; why isit wrong when we just fulfill our duties in the physical world, and leave matters concerning the spiritual world in therealm of the uncertain and indefinite? One could hear these words often during the time when the tide of materialismengulfed human development, especially in the last third of the nineteenth century. And it was by no means the mostmorally reprehensible souls who said: While on earth, let us concentrate on our tasks here and leave the rest for the worldwe enter after death.

Now, let us talk about something that can be grasped immediately by anyone who begins to concern himself with — I donot even want to say spiritual science — but with truly logical thinking. We actually spend only part of our time between

birth and death in the physical world, namely, our waking time. And even people who have not yet thought much aboutthe spiritual world, but who can think logically, would have to admit that with our conscious mind we know as little aboutlife in sleep as we do about life after death. And certainly no one can deny that we continue to live in sleep — unless sucha person were prepared to accept that we really die every evening and are created anew each morning. That is unlikely,

but the truly logical person will be equally unable to accept that the whole human being is really present in a sleeping body lying in bed.

The fact that we sleep regularly should at least make people think. And then they will be motivated to reflect on whatspiritual science has to offer. In particular, the natural sciences will more and more realize that our soul is not present in

our physical body when we sleep. In fact, they will reach this conclusion on their own before the end of this century of scientific development. Then they will look to spiritual science for answers to their questions. They will be forced by their own conclusions to realize that our soul-spiritual being is really not connected with our physical body when we aresleeping. It will then become ever more important for people in the twentieth century to know something about sleep.Therefore let us begin today and get an idea of what people in our century will have to know about the nature of sleep.

We know from our studies in spiritual science that when we fall asleep, two members of our being, the ego and the astral body, leave the physical and etheric bodies. Where are the ego and the astral body when we are asleep? To begin with, wecan say they are in the spiritual world. Of course, we are always in the spirit realm, because the latter is not separatedfrom the physical world, but surrounds us just as air envelops us everywhere. We are always in the spiritual world, evenwhen we are awake.

However, we inhabit it in a different way when we are asleep than when we are awake. Now, it may be sufficient for theimmediate needs of spiritual science to describe this situation by saying that in sleep our ego and astral body are outsideour physical and etheric bodies. But then we would actually be telling only half the truth. It is the same as saying the sunsets here at night; because the sun in fact sets then only for us in Europe. We know this does not apply to all theinhabitants of the earth. Fundamentally, the ego and astral body leave our physical and etheric bodies properly, we mightsay, completely, only after death. In sleep they actually leave only the blood and nervous system. But when the “sun” of our being, namely, the ego and astral body, sets in relation to our blood and nervous system, which they penetrate duringthe day, it rises for the other half of our being, that is, for the other organs.

Our ego and astral body do just what the sun does, which shines here during the day and when it sets for us, it rises for the people on the other side of the earth. When ego and astral body “set” for our blood and nervous system, they rise for theother organs and are linked all the more strongly with them.

These other organs, to which our ego and astral body are connected when we sleep, have been constructed out of thespirit, as has everything else in the world. And the remarkable fact is that while we are sleeping, we strongly influencethese other organs of our body with our ego and astral body. During the day, our ego and astral body work strongly upon

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our blood and nervous system, but they influence our other organs, all those not part of the blood and nervous system butwhich affect the blood from the nerves, when we are asleep.

From this follows that it is of some consequence how we enter sleep with our ego and astral body. Materialists will notcare much about what happens in sleep to their ego and astral body, which they never mention anyway. However, thosewho understand these things will know that the organs that are not part of the blood and nervous system and do notmanifest in our conscious existence are dependent on those aspects of our ego and astral body that are active in sleep.

Let me illustrate this with an obvious example. As we know, people today are haunted by a fear we can compare with the

medieval fear of ghosts. It is the fear of germs. Objectively, both states of fear are the same. Both fit their respective age:People of the Middle Ages held a certain belief in the spiritual world; therefore quite naturally they had a fear of spiritual beings. The modern age has lost this belief in the spiritual world; it believes in material things. It therefore has a fear of material beings, be they ever so small. Objectively speaking, the greatest difference we might find between the two

periods is that ghosts are at any rate sizable and respectable. The tiny germs, on the other hand, are nothing much to writehome about as far as frightening people is concerned. Now of course I do not mean to imply by this that we shouldencourage germs, and that it is good to have as many as possible. That is certainly not the implication. Still, germscertainly exist and ghosts existed also, especially as far as those people who held a real belief in the spiritual world areconcerned. Thus, they do not even differ in terms of reality.

However, the important point we want to make today is that germs can become dangerous only if they are allowed toflourish. Germs should not be allowed to flourish. Even materialists will agree with this statement, but they will no longer agree with us if we proceed further and, from the standpoint of proper spiritual science, speak about the most favorableconditions for germs. Germs flourish most intensively when we take nothing but materialistic thoughts into sleep with us.There is no better way to encourage them to flourish than to enter sleep with only materialistic ideas, and then to work from the spiritual world with the ego and the astral body on those organs that are not part of the blood and the nervoussystem. The only other method that is just as good is to live in the center of an epidemic or endemic illness and to think of nothing but the sickness all around, filled only with a fear of getting sick. That would be equally effective. If fear of theillness is the only thing created in such a place and one goes to sleep at night with that thought, it produces afterimages,Imaginations impregnated with fear. That is a good method of cultivating and nurturing germs. If this fear can be reducedeven a little by, for example, active love and, while tending the sick, forgetting for a time that one might also be infected,the conditions are less favorable for the germs.

These issues are not raised in anthroposophy merely to play on human egotism, but to describe the facts of the spiritualworld. This concrete case demonstrates that in real life we cannot avoid dealing with the spiritual world, because it is the

basis for our actions between going to sleep and waking up. If people were given thoughts that lead them away frommaterialism and spur them on to active love out of the spirit, it would serve the future of humanity better. Then infinitelymore productive work could be achieved than through all the preparations now being developed by materialistic scienceagainst germs. In the course of this century, the insight has to spread more and more widely that the spiritual world is byno means irrelevant to our physical life, but is of essential importance to it because we are in the spiritual world betweengoing to sleep and waking up, and continue to affect the physical body from there. Even if this is not immediatelyobvious, it is nevertheless true.

Now, we will have to get used to the fact that the direct healing powers of spiritual science have to work through thehuman community if we are to see these matters in the right light. What does it mean that some individual here or there

enters the spiritual world in sleep with thoughts turned toward the realm of the spirit, while all around other peoplenourish and nurture the germ world with their materialistic thoughts, materialistic feelings, and with fears, which arealways connected with materialism? What is the real nature of germs? Well, here we come to a subject essential for human life. When we see the air around us filled with different species of birds and the water filled with fishes, when weobserve the life forms that creep along the earth and others frolicking on it and revealing themselves to our senses, we arelooking at beings we can correctly describe as creatures of the developing Godhead in one form or another, even if theyare occasionally harmful. But in the case of germ-like creatures resident and active in other living beings, in plants,animals, or humans, we are dealing with creations of Ahriman. To understand the existence of such creatures correctly wemust know that they express spiritual facts, namely the relationship between human beings and Ahriman. Thisrelationship is established through a materialistic attitude and purely egotistical states of fear. We see the conditionsallowing the existence of such parasitic beings correctly if we realize that they are a symptom of Ahriman intervening inthe world.

Clearly, then, it is not a matter of indifference whether we take materialistic or spiritual ideas with us into the spiritualworld when we fall asleep. As soon as we realize this, we can no longer claim it is irrelevant whether or not we know of the spirit in this world. We have to start at a specific point if we really want to understand the great importance of spiritualscientific research for our life between birth and death.

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It will become increasingly clear to us how this earthly life is connected with spiritual life. We rely on nature, which is ona lower level than we are, for our nourishment. For some time after death, the dead derive their nourishment from theideas and the unconscious emotions that we here on earth take into sleep with us. Those who have died perceive atremendous difference between people who in their waking life are filled only with materialistic feelings and ideas andalso take them into sleep, and others who are wholly filled with spiritual ideas while awake and who continue to be filledwith them in sleep. The two types of people are as different in their effect on the dead as a barren region where no foodcan grow, where people would starve, and a fruitful area that offers nourishment in abundance. For many years after death, the dead draw a vitality from the souls sleeping here on earth filled with spiritual content, a vitality that is similar,

only transposed into the spiritual realm, to what we draw in our physical life from the beings of the kingdoms of nature below us. We literally turn ourselves into fruitful pastures for the dead when we fill ourselves with the ideas of spiritualscience. And we turn ourselves into barren ground and starve the dead if we take only materialistic ideas and attitudes intosleep.

It is not out of the enthusiasm that leads to the establishment of many other associations and societies that we speak of spiritual science in these times. Rather, the urge to speak about it comes out of necessity and the heartfelt realization thatin the twentieth century people will need it. Regardless of outer circumstances, those who fully understand how much theworld needs spiritual science cannot help but talk about its results and share it with their fellow human beings. The power of the words at our disposal seems much too weak to meet the necessity of making spiritual science ever more available tothose who would otherwise sink deeper and deeper into materialism.

Let us think about the nature of our relationship to the dead we were connected with in life, whom we can clearlyvisualize, and of whom we often think. What is our relationship to those who have died, apart from offering them spiritualnourishment by taking spiritual thoughts into sleep? What is our relationship with the dead in waking life?

If the dead draw nourishment from the content of our souls in sleep, then every thought that enters the spiritual world andis concerned with it and its beings can be perceived by the dead. On the other hand, if we do not cultivate such thoughts,the dead are deprived of them. Ideas related only to the material world, to things in nature, live in our souls in such a waythat the dead cannot perceive them. These ideas, however scholarly or wise, are meaningless for the dead. As soon as wehave thoughts about the spiritual world, not only the living but also the dead have immediate access to them. That is whywe have often recommended that our friends read silently to an individual with whom they were closely connected andwho has passed on to the spiritual world. One forms an image of the person and then, while thinking about him or her,one reads on a subject related to the spiritual world. The dead can then participate in the process, which is important.Although the dead are in the world we know through spiritual science, thoughts about the spiritual world must be

produced on earth. The dead must perceive more than the spiritual world around them; they need the thoughts of thosewho live on earth, thoughts that for them are like perceptions.

The most important and the most beautiful thing we can give the dead is to read to them in the way I have just described.We can give something to the dead by reading on a spiritual subject. And if you doubt that this is useful, since thedeceased is in the spiritual world anyway, just think that we can be surrounded by things and beings in the physical world,yet may not understand them. The understanding has to be acquired. Thus, although the deceased is in the spiritual world,thoughts from earth have to flow to him. Illuminating thoughts must flow up to those regions where the dead dwell, justas rain streams down from the clouds as a blessing to the physical world.

All these examples show that it is infinitely important even for the physical world to experience the spiritual world inthought. Obviously, we cannot wait until after death for knowledge about the spiritual world. In truth, a thorough study of the spiritual world shows us that we are not on earth for nothing; we are here to learn something that can be learned onlyon earth — a possession of such value that the living can give it even to the dead.

The close connection between our earth existence and life immediately after death also manifests in many other respects, but it is difficult to talk about this connection in concrete terms, because the words can so easily be misunderstood. Peopleare greatly inclined to prejudice, and whenever a subject, such as the spiritual world and its beings, is discussed, certainmotives of the heart provoke misunderstandings. When I tell of an individual case where there is this or that connection

between a person's life here on earth and after death, people all too easily jump to the wrong conclusions out of a veryunderstandable self-centeredness and apply the description of a particular case to themselves. They are tempted to think that things are quite different in their case; therefore, they will not experience something this beautiful after death. Instead

of deriving satisfaction from the events described, the listeners out of egotism feel that their experience will not beequally exceptional after death.

As soon as we do more than just speak in general terms and deal with specific cases, we must develop selflessness so wecan observe someone else's destiny without drawing conclusions about our own life. Then we will not worry that if the

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same does not happen to us, we are missing out on what is being described. These and similar reactions provide groundsfor misunderstandings, which I want to avoid.

A short time ago, a very dear friend of ours died, and many of us attended his cremation. [ Note 2 ] He would havecelebrated his forty-third birthday tomorrow, on May 6. In the final years of his life, he suffered much. I would like to tellhere, parenthetically as it were, a wonderful story from his last years as his wife told it to me. [ Note 3 ] During his greatsuffering, our friend fought not against admitting to himself that he had to suffer, but against saying that he was ill. Hewas not ill, he said. He suffered, yes, but he was not ill, and he was adamant that such a statement should not be taken asquibbling but as something meaningful. This definition, “I suffer, but I am not ill,” arose from his awareness that what he

carried within him as spiritual science, what supported and carried him inwardly, defeated all attacks of illness. He wasaware that he suffered, but the health of his soul is so great that, when he compared it to his physical condition, he couldnot call himself ill. This definition is very important and well-suited to permeate our soul as a feeling.

Anyway, we saw how the person concerned spent his last years on earth in a sick body, in a suffering body. Yet he did notsee himself as sick but only as suffering. If we compare that with the spiritual life that has now begun for our friend, wewill have a worthy image of what connects our earth existence with life after death. It is a fact of the spiritual world that aseries of Imaginations was prepared in his body, a body that showed the symptoms of illness. A series of Imaginations,

powerful Imaginations, lived, so to speak, in the sick limbs. He was completely filled with the content of the spiritualworlds. They lived in him in such a way that they worked on all those organs we are usually not as aware of as we are of our brain and nervous system, that is, organs we experience on a more subconscious level. These powerful Imaginationslived in these organs, and all the more so, the more outwardly ill these organs became. They prepared themselves and nowface the soul of the deceased as a mighty tableau of the spiritual world. Now he is living in the images that were trappedin his sick organs, especially in his final years. They prepared themselves in such intensity that they now surround him ashis spiritual world.

It is impossible to see more beautiful worlds, or to see the spiritual cosmos more perfectly and more beautifully, thanthose that blossom and unfold in spiritual art, which cannot be observed better anywhere else than through such asituation. Here, on the physical plane, an artist can create in beauty a piece of the world, so that the image on canvas or inmarble lets us see more of the world than we do on our own. All of this, however, pales into insignificance in comparisonto the spiritual world seen as it is and also as it arises and blossoms forth from the soul of the deceased who has been

prepared by his karma in the way I have described. How he was prepared will be clear from his poetic works, which arenow being printed and will appear soon. [ Note 4 ] His poetry reveals that this kind of spiritual life and passage into thespiritual world after death are intimately connected with what we have for many years called the Christ-Impulse. TheChrist-Impulse, in the sense spiritual science speaks of it, is beautifully alive in our friend's poetry.

In this connection I want to add something that can truly lead us to feel the relationship between the world of our earthlylife and the one we pass through between death and a new birth. I will not present this connection with abstract thoughts,

but so you can grasp it at the level of feeling. You see, one can be either stupid or clever here on the physical plane; onecan even be a scholar — in the life after death it is of little importance whether one was stupid, clever, or learned if allthese qualities relate only to the things of the physical world. Our thoughts about the material world may be ever soclever; they will be of no use to us once we have passed through death. They will then no longer have any meaning. After death we need thoughts, ideas, and feelings that do not relate to the physical world, because only those have meaningthen.

Now, I would like to put this in a somewhat grotesque, paradoxical way. Do not be put off by the paradox; what I want tosay will become clear immediately. Let us assume that someone refuses to have any thoughts that are not called forth bysensory perception. As soon as anything impinges on him and thoughts begin to develop, he says: I do not want you. I

proceed only on the basis of what my eyes see and my ears hear. That is what I want to think about. Stop bothering mewith anything else; I will not bother with it ... Such a person does not accumulate any strength that can be used after death. He is blind when entering the world between death and new birth.

Let us assume now that someone else has a lively imagination, but cannot be bothered to approach spiritual science andlearn things slowly and gradually. He finds it much easier to develop ideas about the spiritual world from his imagination,to fantasize about the spiritual world. This person has ideas concerning the sense world as well as all kinds of fantasiesabout the realm of the spirit. Such an individual would not enter the spiritual world as a blind person, but will have soulforces that will enable him to see in the spiritual world. However, such people will be as we are when our vision in the

physical world is impaired and we see things inaccurately as a result. Such inaccurate vision is a lot worse in the spiritualworld than on the physical plane because there it leads to confusion at every turn. What I have just said, even if it seemsgrotesque at first, shows us that we need ideas reaching beyond the life of the senses if we really want to become citizensof the spiritual world, as we must. And unless we get our bearings from beyond the sense world, we will live in the

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spiritual world in a crippled state, as do those who take in only ideas related to the sensory realm and those who allowtheir imagination to run wild.

Various founders of religions appeared throughout history to prevent people from having thoughts triggered purely by physical objects or by fantasies about the spiritual world. If we look at these personalities and the teachings they gavehumanity, we find that the aim of all these religious founders was to offer people ideas about the supersensible world thatwould allow them to enter it healthy and whole, not crippled. The founders of our religions provided ideas that met theneeds of their particular time and culture.

Our age is different from the past and requires us to grow up into mature human beings. Please do not take this in asuperficial, merely external sense, but in a deeply inward one. We have to reach maturity and find the path into thespiritual world through our souls. The ancient founders of our religions spoke to a humanity that was not yet mature. Theyaddressed people at a stage through which all our souls have also passed. These ancient religious leaders knew their times,and also knew that they could not speak in the same way to a humanity moving further toward the future. For humanitymust develop toward maturity and independence.

If people of ancient times had either restricted themselves to sense impressions or had reached for the products of their imagination, in both cases they would have entered the spiritual world crippled or at the very least in a confused state. Atthat point a leader appeared, bringing true ideas from the spiritual world. People then said that they themselves did notgain access to the spiritual world through sensory perception or use of the imagination, but rather through Zarathustra,Buddha, or Krishna, who stimulated thoughts in them that allowed them to enter the realm of the spirit. [ Note 5 ] In our time human beings must come of age, regardless of whether the ego causes confusion or blindness. The Mystery of Golgotha took place so that we can find the way into the spiritual world as independent beings. Religious leaders nolonger appear in history as they did in earlier times.

Those who compare Christ to the ancient religious teachers do not understand anything about him. In the first place,Christ worked through a deed, the ancient religious leaders through their teachings. To describe him merely as a teacher of humanity means not knowing at all who Christ is. The essential thing about him is the deed he performed, which beganas a consequence of his baptism by John and ended with the crucifixion on Golgotha. What was done there for humanityis spiritually all-important. What happened there is what can permeate human souls ever since then, namely, theexperience St. Paul described as “Not I, but Christ in me.” Indeed, Christ has become the path into the spiritual world

because he brought it into this world. He brought us the spiritual world we need if we are not to be crippled or blind after death.

It is quite possible these days to deny Christ and claim that there is no evidence that Christ lived in the physical world inthe body of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, people have even produced evidence showing there was no historical Christ. Butwith that they merely prove that they missed the point. If Christ had chiseled into a rock for all future generations, “I washere,” then those future generations would have known he existed from the sensory world, and they would not haveneeded to believe it. His deep significance, the possibility of redemption, is precisely that this was not the case, that wecannot comprehend him through our senses but have to accept him with the forces of the spirit. Seen in this light, we findChrist intimately connected with those things that even here on earth lift human beings beyond the sense-perceptibleworld into the spiritual realm. None of this exists for those who cannot raise themselves to the spiritual world, becausethey cannot escape their doubts.

In this context it can be a great relief for someone fully involved in modern culture, in science and art, to come across aview of Christ that is appropriate to our modern civilization, namely the anthroposophical view of Christ presented inspiritual science. Much can be learnt from it, for example, how to view the physical world correctly. Oh, the physicalworld — where is it headed these days? I hinted at some of these things recently in a public lecture, but now I can bemore explicit. [ Note 6 ] Of course, we have to admire materialist civilization and all the achievements of technology,industry, and so on. An immense amount of intellectual energy has flowed into these things; they have taken up a greatdeal of human energy. But who benefits from these intellectual efforts? Insofar as they satisfy the material needs of modern humanity, they serve Ahriman. Christ Jesus experienced the temptation by Ahriman. Ordinary human souls couldcertainly not survive the sudden shock of such an experience. For us the temptation has to be diluted. But as aconsequence of this dilution of temptation, Ahriman can say to us: Yes, think only with the power of your science, withall those things you can discover through science applied to technology, industry, and so on. Use only those things for your thinking and apply them to nothing but physical experience; that suits me fine. It fits in well with my aims, says

Ahriman, if you are unable to see me. You might well despise reason and knowledge, the supreme achievements of human beings; thus you are absolutely mine — at least as long as you do not see me. I will instill the drive in you to usereason and knowledge only for earthly things!

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Something else is required to counterbalance the service we render Ahriman. It is therefore important that we gather everything modern technology and so on can accomplish to build something with it that is not to serve our outer existence, but only our spiritual life.

In ancient times, people presented sacrifices to the gods, the first fruits of the field and of the herd. I do not intend to talk about the meaning of sacrifice today, but you can see what it could signify presented in a form appropriate to moderntimes. When the first fruits had been sacrificed to the gods, the people partook of the remainder. Spiritual science iscertainly not based on false asceticism. It will not be guilty of the absurdity of ranting and raving against modern culturewith all its material blessings. On the contrary, it recognizes their value. But if it wants to avoid serving only Ahriman, it

has to sacrifice something of the first fruits of this external material culture to the gods.

So you see, there is a profound thinking underlying the building that is growing outside on the hill at Dornach: We wantto offer the first fruits of modern civilization to the gods. Everything is different now from the way it was in the times our souls passed through in previous incarnations. And we have to understand the nature of our current task just as weunderstood what we had to do in our earlier incarnations when we were guided by spiritual luminaries. That is especiallydifficult now because we have to take into account not only the nature of our time but also our soul qualities. In addition,we can no longer rely on the external authority that supported the founders of religions; we have to work with quitedifferent forces. Christ was the Word; in the same way true spiritual science wishes to work only through the word andmust not use any other means.

Such reflections give us an insight into the connection between the spiritual world and our world here on earth. And nomatter where we begin, we see the Mystery of Golgotha radiating toward us as the heart and soul of such reflections. Butwe must not forget that we have to become mature, truly mature, so that we can understand what spiritual science ismeant to be. We must never forget that it must exist because humanity must come of age.

It is completely true that humanity descended from higher spiritual regions and has moved away from the old atavisticclairvoyance by developing a world view based on reason and systematic thinking. We have to take this progress inevolution seriously. We must realize we live at a time when it is our mission to develop our thinking, to advance throughour thinking, and to learn through studying. Spiritual science is our basis, our point of departure. We must try to immerseourselves in these ideas so that they stimulate within us what our souls need in the future. What spiritual science offerscan be understood by everyone. Those who claim one cannot understand the contents of spiritual science, but must

believe it, speak without knowing how these things really are.

We must not be misled when we meet people who have not advanced by means of intellectual understanding, but havecertain psychic abilities that seem to appear spontaneously. Based on our understanding of the mission of spiritualscience, we know that souls can now think only because the clairvoyance of an earlier age has been suppressed. Peoplewith natural clairvoyance, which was not acquired through inner effort, must be seen as persons who have remained at anearlier evolutionary stage and who should therefore receive special care in our Society, rather than be considered

particularly advanced. It would be an incorrect judgment if we were to consider such souls particularly mature, as havingexperienced particularly high incarnations. People with a natural gift of clairvoyance have gone through far less thanthose who are thinkers nowadays. These things have to be properly understood in our Society. Then it would be possible(and it is my duty to say this) for our Society to be a place where such souls with psychic powers can find care and beguided on the right path. Our Society could give them what they cannot get anywhere else: order in their soul. But tomake that possible most of the members of our Society must have a profound inner knowledge of the mission of true

spiritual science in the present. If that happened, then the case that so saddened us in recent days could not recur. I amreferring to a member, who joined in the belief our Society would care for clairvoyant psychic forces, but then found herea captive audience and took on the role of a prophet. Such an event opens the door to all those things that, if they were to

prevail, would turn our Society into the exact opposite of what it should be according to the intentions of the spiritualforces supporting it.

Unfortunately, we have had to suffer the case of ..., who came from a country in the north. He might have become a goodmember if he had worked quietly on developing his psychic powers. Instead, he was immediately surrounded by a kind of aura. He presented himself everywhere as a healer in a way we can only consider regrettable. It became necessary toannounce that he could no longer be considered a member of our Society. For it would be turned into the exact oppositeof what it should be if we failed to carefully draw attention to psychic phenomena that are not imbued with true spiritual

power, which, after all, is the true power of Christ. Christ, not psychic powers, must work in us. These circumstances

must be handled so as to make it clear that our Society will have nothing to do with this. It knows no other sanction thanthe one used in the last few days. Unfortunately, a step had to be taken we otherwise oppose in principle: a member had to be expelled.

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This cannot be separated from a serious and worthy concept of the mission of the Anthroposophical Society. Andcertainly you will understand that it is only with great sorrow one lives through the events that had to be lived throughhere in the last few days. We are in principle opposed to all expulsions and yet could not avoid expelling someone in sucha case. It will happen less and less frequently if our dear friends continue to take to heart the things that have been said sooften and that were also the subject of tonight's talk. With that I will conclude my remarks, my dear friends, and entrustthem to your souls.

LECTURE FOUR

THE PRESENCE OF THE DEAD IN OUR LIFEParis, May 25, 1914

First of all, my dear friends, I want to say that I am very glad we are meeting here at this branch of the AnthroposophicalSociety today. I remember with great pleasure our meeting last year, and my greeting at the beginning of this lecture is assincere and heartfelt as that memory. [ Note 1 ]

Today I want to talk about a subject closely connected with the core of our anthroposophical movement. All the results of our spiritual movement are based on research that may be called clairvoyant. While I have often emphasized that our

heart, mind, and feelings are primarily affected by anthroposophical truths, we cannot ignore that these truths depend onclairvoyant research, which is an expression of a soul condition different from that of everyday life. It appears to lead usaway from the things that seem so important to us in daily life, but in reality, clairvoyant research leads us right into theheart of truly human life.

Today, I do not want to speak about the paths to clairvoyant research since I have already described them in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment . [ Note 2 ] Rather, I would like to characterize the condition and mood of soul thatdevelops as a consequence of this research.

Indeed we must bear in mind that if we follow the paths to clairvoyant research, we will feel completely different fromour usual self. What happens to our soul when it becomes clairvoyant can be compared with our dreams, which are likesurrogate clairvoyance. When we dream, we live in a world of images, which contains nothing of what we call “thesensation of touching an object outside us.” In our dreams there is usually nothing we can compare with normal egoconsciousness. If any aspect of our ego does appear in our dreams, it seems to be separate from us, almost like another

being outside us. We face our ego like a separate entity. Thus, we can speak of a doubling of the ego. However, in dreamswe perceive only the part of ourselves that has separated, not the subjective ego. All statements apparently contradictingwhat I have just said can be traced to the fact that most people know of their dreams only from memory, and cannotremember that in the actual dream the subjective ego was extinguished.

The images of clairvoyant research resemble dreams because in both the sense of touch and the subjective ego are absent.A clairvoyant recalling his or her experiences must feel that the clairvoyant reality is permeable and, unlike physicalobjects, offers no resistance to touch. In the physical world we have ego awareness because we know: I am here, theobject is outside me. However, in clairvoyant perception we are inside the object, not separated from what we perceive.

Consequently, the individual objects are not fixed and distinct as physical ones, but are in continuous movement andtransformation. Objects in the physical world are fixed because we can touch them and because they offer us boundaries,which objects of clairvoyant perception do not have. The same thing that causes our ego to fuse with the objects of clairvoyant perception also forces us to be very careful when we encounter what we call in the physical world another ego, another human being.

Let us first look at what happens when we encounter a person who has died through our clairvoyant faculties. Such anencounter can come about when the figure of the deceased approaches us in clairvoyant perception like a very vividdream image, looking every bit as we remember the person looked in life. However, this is not the usual type of suchencounters, but a rare exception.

Another possibility is that we clairvoyantly perceive a dead person who has taken on the form of either a living or another dead individual, and thus does not appear in his own form. The appearance of the deceased, then, is of very littlerelevance in identifying him. Perhaps we were particularly fond of another dead person or have a particularly closefriendship with a living one; the deceased approaching us can then take on the form of either of those other individuals. Inother words, we lack all the usual means of identifying the ego and appearance of a person in the physical world. It willhelp us find our way to remember that the appearance or form is not at all important; a being is meeting us in one form or

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another, and we need to note what this being does. If we take our time and carefully observe the image before us, we willrealize that, based on everything we know about the individual in question, this person could not act the way he does inthe clairvoyant sphere; his actions are totally out of character. We will often encounter a contradiction between the personappearing to us and his actions.

If we allow our feelings to accompany these actions, ignoring the individual's appearance, we will get a sense in thedepths of our soul telling us what being we are actually dealing with. Let me repeat that we are guided by a feeling thatrises up from the depths of our soul, for that is very important. The individual's appearance in the clairvoyant sphereseems to resemble a physical figure but can be as different from the being really present as the signs for the word “house”

are from the actual house. Since we can read, we do not concentrate on the signs that make up the word “house” and donot describe the shape of the letters, but instead we get right to the concept “house.” In the same way, we learn in trueclairvoyance to move from the figure we perceive to the actual being. That is why we speak of reading the occult script,in the true sense of the word. That is, we move inwardly and actively from the vision to the reality it expresses just aswritten words express a reality.

How can we develop this ability to go beyond the appearance, the immediate vision? We do so, above all, by looking atnew ideas and concepts we will need if we want to understand the clairvoyant sphere — new, that is, in contrast to theideas we use in the physical world.

In the physical world we look at an object or a being and say, quite rightly, I perceive that being, that object. We perceivethe plant, mineral, and animal kingdoms, the realm of physical human beings, as well as clouds, mountains, rivers, stars,sun, and moon. The feeling expressed in the words “I perceive” undergoes a transformation when we enter the clairvoyantsphere.

Let me try to explain this with an analogy, though it may sound simplistic. If you were a plant, how would you relate to people perceiving you? If this plant had consciousness and could speak, it would have to say: People look at me, I am perceived by them. Of course, we say: I perceive the plant, but at its level of consciousness, the plant would have to saythat it was perceived by human beings. It is this feeling of being perceived, being looked at, we must acquire in relation tothe beings of the clairvoyant sphere. For example, concerning the beings of the first hierarchy, the angels, we must beaware that strictly speaking it is not correct to say “I perceive an angel,” but we have to say “I feel an angel perceivingme.”

Based on our Copernican world view, we know full well that the sun does not move. Nevertheless, we say that it rises andmoves across the sky, thus contradicting our better knowledge. Similarly, in everyday language we can say that we see anangel. But that is not the truth. We would actually have to say that we feel ourselves seen or perceived by an angel. If wesaid we experience the being of an angel or of a dead person and can feel it, we would speak the truth from theclairvoyant point of view.

Perhaps an example from clairvoyant observation will help you understand this. More than ten years ago, at the beginningof our work with spiritual science, a dear friend of ours worked with us for a short time. [ Note 3 ] This individual

possessed not only enthusiasm for what we could give her in the early stages of spiritual science, but also a profoundartistic sensitivity and understanding. One could not help but love this person, a love that may well be described asobjective because of her qualities. Having worked with us for a relatively short time and having learned a great deal aboutthe results of spiritual science, she left the physical world. There is no need to go into the next four or five years after her death, so let me get directly to what happened after that. In 1909, we presented our mystery plays in Munich, preceded, toour great delight, by Children of Lucifer by our highly respected friend Edouard Schuré. [ Note 4 ] Whatever you may think about the way the plays were produced then and later, we had to present them the way we did. The circumstances under which we had to work on the performances were such that we needed an impulse from the spiritual world, an impulse thatalso included the artistic aspect we wanted to incorporate. Now, I can assure you that even at that time, in 1909, and evenmore so in later years, I always felt a specific spiritual impulse as I was working on the arrangements for the

performances.

You see, when we have work to do in the physical world, we need not only intellect and skills but also the strength of our muscles. Our muscles objectively help us; they are given to us, unlike the intellectual capacities we ourselves dwell in.

Now, in dealing with matters of the spirit we need forces from the spiritual world to combine with our own, just as we

need the strength of our muscles for physical action. In the case I mentioned, the impulse from the individual who had leftthe physical world in 1904 entered more and more into our artistic work on the Munich plays. To describe whathappened, I would have to say the impulses from this individual came down from the spirit plane and flowed into myintentions, into my work. She was the patron of our work.

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We develop the right feelings toward the dead if we become aware that their spiritual gaze — if I may use that expression — and their powers focus on us; they look at us, act in us, and add to our strength.

To experience such a spiritual fact in the right way, we need to develop a very specific type of selflessness and a capacityfor love. That is why I stressed that one could love that person objectively, as it were, because of her qualities; one had tolove her because she was as she was. A subjective love, a love arising out of personal needs, can easily be egotistical andcan potentially keep us from finding the right relationship to such a dead individual. The difference between the rightlove, the selfless love we have for such a person, and selfish love becomes perfectly obvious in clairvoyant experience.

Let us assume such a person would want to help us after her death, but we cannot develop true selfless love for her. Her spiritual gaze, her spiritual will streaming toward us would then be like a burning sensation, causing a piercing, burningfeeling in our soul. If we can feel and maintain a selfless love, this stream, her spiritual gaze as it were, flows into our soullike a feeling of warm mildness and pours itself into our thoughts, imagination, feeling, and willing. It is out of thisfeeling that we recognize who the dead person is and not on the basis of his or her appearance, because the dead maymanifest in the guise of a person we feel close to at the moment. The form in which the beings of the higher world appear to us — and after death we are all beings of a higher, spiritual world — depends on our subjective nature, on what wehabitually see, think, and feel. The reality is what we feel for the being manifest before us, how we receive what comes tous from this being. Regardless of what Joan of Arc said about the appearance of the higher beings in her visions, theoccultist who is able to investigate these things knows that it was always the genius of the French nation who stood

behind them. [ Note 5 ]

I described how we can feel the gaze of spiritual beings resting upon us and their will flowing into our souls. To learn thisis analogous to learning to read on the physical plane. Those who merely want to describe their visions would be like

people describing the shape of the letters on a page rather than their meaning. This shows you how easy it is to have preconceived notions about the experiences in the spiritual realm. Naturally, it seems most obvious to attach greatimportance to the description of what the vision looked like. However, what really matters is what lies behind the veil of

perception and is expressed in the images of the vision.

Thus, in the course of occult development, the soul immerses itself in specific moods and inner states different from thoseof our everyday life. We have entered the world of the hierarchy of angels and the hierarchy, or we could also sayhierarchies, of the dead as soon as our occult exercises have brought us to the stage where the sense of touchcharacteristic of the physical world no longer exists, and where a person's appearance is no longer characteristic of the I

concerned. Then our thinking changes and we no longer have thoughts in the sense we have them here in the physicalworld. In that world, every thought takes on the form of an elemental being. In the physical world, our thoughts can agreeor contradict each other. In this other world we enter, thoughts encounter other thoughts as real beings, either loving or hating each other. We begin to feel our way into a world of many thought beings. And in those living thought beings, wereally feel what we usually call “life.” Here life and thinking are united, whereas they are completely separate in the

physical world.

When we speak on the physical plane and tell our thoughts to someone, we have the feeling that our thoughts come fromour soul, that we have to remember them at this particular moment. Speaking as a true occultist and not someone who justtells his experiences from memory, we will feel that our thoughts arise as living beings. We must be glad if we are blessedat the right moment with the approach of a thought as a real being.

When you express your thoughts in the physical world, for example, as a lecturer, you will find it easier to give a talk for the thirtieth time than you did the first time. If, however, you speak as an occultist, thoughts always have to approach youand then depart again. Just as someone paying you the thirtieth visit had to make his way to you thirty times, the livingthought we express for the thirtieth time has to come to us thirty times as it did the first time; our memory is of absolutelyno use here.

If you express an idea on the physical level and someone is sitting in a corner thinking, “I don't like that nonsense, I hateit,” you will not be particularly bothered by it. You have prepared your ideas and present them regardless of the positiveor negative thoughts of someone in the audience. But if as an esotericist you let thoughts approach you, they could bedelayed and kept away by someone who hates them or who hates the speaker. And the forces blocking that thought must

be overcome because we are dealing with living beings and not merely with abstract ideas.

These two examples show that as soon as we enter the sphere of clairvoyance, we are immersed in living and weavingthoughts. It is as if these thoughts are no longer subjective and as if you yourself are no longer within yourself, as if youare living outside in the wide world. When you are in this world of living and weaving thoughts, you are in the hierarchyof angels. And just as our physical world is everywhere filled with air, the world of the hierarchy of angels is filled withthe mild warmth I spoke about earlier that the beings of this hierarchy pour out. When our inner development has brought

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us to the stage where we can live in this spiritual atmosphere of streaming mildness, we feel the spiritual eyes of thehierarchy of angels resting on our souls.

Now, in our earthly life, we have certain ideals and think about them abstractly. As we think of them, we feel obligated to pursue these ideals. In the clairvoyant sphere, however, there are no abstract ideals. There ideals are living beings of thehierarchy of angels and flow through spiritual space, looking at us with warmth.

In the physical world, we may have ideals, know them well, and yet we may not do anything to apply them. Our emotions, and perhaps passions, can tempt us to shirk them. However, if we knowingly ignore an ideal in the clairvoyant

sphere, we feel the spiritual gaze of a being of the hierarchy of angels directed at us with reproach, and this reproach burns. In the spiritual world, ignoring an ideal is thus a reality, and a being of the hierarchy of angels reproaches us. Their gaze makes us feel the reproach; it is the reproach we feel.

You see, learning to develop a real feeling for ideals is one way of entering the world of the hierarchy of angels. Limitingour consciousness to the physical plane may lead us to think that nothing will happen if we are too lazy to act on our ideals. However, we can learn to feel that if we do not act on an ideal, then, regardless of other consequences, the world

becomes different from what it would have been had we followed our ideal. We are on the way to the hierarchy of angelswhen we begin to see that not acting on our ideals is something real, and when we can transform this insight into agenuine feeling. Transforming and vitalizing our feelings allows our souls to grow into the higher worlds.

Through continued esoteric training, we can rise to an even higher level, that of the hierarchy of archangels. If we ignorethe angels, we feel reproach. With the archangels we feel reproach as well as a real effect on our being. The strength and

power of the archangels works through our I when we live in their world.

For example, a few months ago we lost a very dear friend when he left the physical plane. A profound poet, he hadquickly found his way into the anthroposophical world view in the last five years, and the feelings it evoked in him are

beautifully reflected in his recent poetry. [ Note 6 ] From the time he joined us, and even before that, he had been strugglingwith an infirm and deteriorating body. The more his body deteriorated, the more his soul was filled with poetry thatreflected our world view. Only a short time has elapsed since his death, and so one cannot yet say that this individual

possesses a clearly existing consciousness. Nevertheless, the first stages of his development in the existence after deathcan be seen. The astral body, now separated from the physical and living in the spiritual world, reveals the mostwonderful tableaux of cosmic development as we understand it in spiritual science. Having left the deteriorated physical

body, the astral body has become so illuminated, comparatively speaking, that it can present the clairvoyant observer witha complete picture of cosmic evolution.

Let me use an analogy to explain what I mean. We can love nature and admire it, and still appreciate a beautiful paintingthat recreates what we have seen in nature. Similarly, we can be uplifted when what we have seen in the clairvoyantsphere lights up again, as a cosmic painting, so to speak, in an astral body of a person who has died. The astral body of our departed friend reveals after death what it absorbed, at first unconsciously but later also consciously, in the course of his anthroposophical development when the beings of the hierarchy of archangels worked actively on the poeticaltransformation of his anthroposophical thoughts and ideas.

Our progress in our esoteric development can be called mystical, because it is initially the inner progress of the soul. Wetransform our ordinary personality and gradually reach a new state. This step-by-step growth of the soul is mystical

progress because at first it is experienced inwardly. As soon as we can perceive the mildness looking down from thespiritual world, we are objectively in the world of the angels, which reveals itself to us. And as soon as we can recognizethat real forces of strength and power enter into us, we are in the realm of the archangels. With each stage of inner mystical progress we have to enter another world.

However, if we fail to develop selflessness and reach the stage of living in the world of the angels while remaining selfishand unloving, then we carry the self intended for the physical world into their realm. Instead of feeling the mild gaze andwill of the angels upon us, we feel that other spiritual powers are able to ascend through us. Instead of gazing at us fromoutside, they have been released by us, shall we say, from their underworld while we were raised to a higher world.Instead of being overshadowed, or rather illuminated, by the world of the angels, we experience the luciferic beings thatemerge from us.

Then, if we reach the stage of mystical development allowing us to enter the world of the archangels — without, however,having first developed the wish to receive by grace the influences of the spiritual world, we carry our self up into their realm. As a result, instead of being strengthened and imbued with the power of the archangels, the beings of the ahrimanicworld emerge from us and surround us.

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At first glance, the idea that the world of Lucifer appears in the realm of the angels and the world of Ahriman in that of the archangels seems terrible. However, there is really nothing awful about this. Lucifer and Ahriman are in any casehigher beings than we are. Lucifer can be described as an archangel left behind at an earlier stage of evolution, Ahrimanas a spirit of personality also left behind at an earlier stage. The terrible thing is not that we encounter Lucifer andAhriman, but that we encounter them without recognizing them for who they are. Encountering Lucifer in the world of the angels really means encountering the spirit of beauty, the spirit of freedom. But the all-important thing is that werecognize Lucifer and his hosts as soon as we enter the world of the angels. The same is true of Ahriman in the realm of the archangels. Lucifer and Ahriman unleashed in the higher worlds is terrible only if we do not recognize them as werelease them, because then they control us without our knowledge. It is important that we face them consciously.

When we have advanced in our mystical development to the level of living in the world of the angels and want tocontinue there with really fruitful occultism, we have to look for Lucifer as soon as we expect the spiritual gaze of theangels to rest on us. Lucifer must be present — and if we cannot find him, he is within us. But it is very important thatLucifer is outside us in this realm, so that we can face him.

These facts about Lucifer and Ahriman, angels and archangels, explain the nature of revelation in the higher worlds. Fromour viewpoint in the physical world, we are easily led to believe that Lucifer and Ahriman are evil powers. But when weenter the higher world, this no longer has any meaning. In the clairvoyant sphere, Lucifer and Ahriman have to be present

just as much as the angels and archangels. However, we do not perceive them the same way. We identify the angels andarchangels not by their appearance, but we know the angels by the mildness that flows from them into us, and recognizethe archangels by allowing their strength and power to flow into our feeling and will. Lucifer and Ahriman appear to us asfigures, merely transposed into the spiritual world; we cannot touch them, but we can approach them as spiritual

projections of the physical world. Clearly, it is important that we learn in our mystical clairvoyant development to seeforms in the higher world and to be aware that we are seen, that a higher will focuses on us.

You see, higher development does not consist merely in acquiring clairvoyant faculties, but in developing a certain stateof soul, a certain attitude or relationship to the beings of the higher world. This new attitude and state of soul must bedeveloped hand in hand with the training of our clairvoyant faculties. In other words, we must learn not only to see in thespiritual world but also to read in it. Reading is not meant here in the narrow sense of a simple learning process, but assomething we acquire through transforming our feelings and sensations. It is important to keep in mind that a split of our

personality occurs when clairvoyance begins, and we reach a revelation of the higher worlds. Our earthly personality isleft behind, and a new one is acquired on ascending into a higher world. And just as the beings of the higher hierarchies

look at us in the higher world, so we perceive our own ordinary personality from a higher perspective. Our higher self discards the lower one and observes it. So, to make valid statements about the higher worlds we had better wait until weare able to say: That is you; the person you see in your clairvoyant vision is yourself. “That is you” on the higher levelcorresponds to “this is I” on the physical one.

Now remember when you were eight or thirteen or fifteen years old and try to reconstruct from your memory a small partof your life at that time. Try to recall as vividly as possible your thinking in those years. Then concentrate on your currentfeelings about the girl or boy you were at eight, thirteen, or fifteen. As soon as we move from the physical level to thehigher world, the present moment we live in now becomes a memory of the kind we have just recalled. We look back atour current existence on the physical level and at what we may still become during the remainder of our physical life inthe same way you look back to your experiences at eight, thirteen, or fifteen from your vantage point in the presentmoment.

Everything we consider part of ourselves on the physical level, such as our feelings, thoughts, ideas, and actions, becomesa memory as soon as we enter the higher world. We look down at the physical world and become a memory to ourselveswhen we live in the higher world. We have to keep our experiences in the higher worlds separate from those in the

physical realm, just as we distinguish between our present situation and an earlier one. Imagine a person who is fortyyears old and vividly remembers the feelings and abilities he or she had as an eight-year-old boy or girl. For instance, the

person might be reading a book now, at the age of forty, and all of a sudden he or she begins to relate to the book as aneight-year-old would. That would be a confusion of the two attitudes, the two states of soul, and is analogous to whathappens when we confuse our state of soul on the physical level with what is required in the higher worlds.

Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that every unbiased person can understand what I say about the higher worlds; in other words, we do not merely have to believe these descriptions, but we can understand them if we approachthem without preconceived ideas. People may object that we cannot describe the higher worlds with concepts, thoughts,and ideas from the physical world because the former are completely different from the latter. This objection makes asmuch sense as saying that we cannot give people an idea of what we mean by writing h-o-u-s-e; for them to understandthat concept, we have to bring them a house.

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We talk about physical facts and objects by means totally independent of the object or fact. So we can also describe phenomena of the spiritual world with what we understand on the physical plane. However, we cannot understand thehigher worlds with our everyday concepts and ideas, but need to acquire others and expand our thinking. People whohonestly tell us about the higher world must also extend our concepts beyond our everyday life; they must give usconcepts that are new and different and yet comprehensible on the physical plane.

People find it difficult to understand genuine spiritual science and serious esotericism because they are so reluctant toexpand their concepts. They want to understand the higher world and its revelations with the ideas they already have anddon't want to create new ones. When people in our materialistic age hear lectures on the spiritual world, they believe all

too easily that the esoteric world can be understood simply by looking at it. They think the shapes there may be slightlymore delicate and more nebulous than in the physical world, but similar nevertheless. It may seem inconvenient to somethat the serious occultist is expected to do more than merely follow instructions on how to see angels. A change inthinking is necessary, and the concept “angel” must include that we are perceived by them, that their spiritual gaze isfocused on us.

Mystical development, or ascending to the higher worlds, cannot be separated from enriching and giving greater scope toour ideas, feelings, and soul impulses. To understand the higher worlds, we must not let our life of ideas remain asimpoverished as it is on the physical plane.

To provide esoteric help for this enrichment, we are constructing our modest building in Dornach in a completely newstyle. That building is, of course, nowhere near the ideal, but it is a humble beginning. After all, we have only limitedmeans at our disposal, despite the fact that our friends have done everything within their power for this project.

The spiritual impulses behind the building styles that developed in the third, the fourth, and in the current fifth post-Atlantean epoch included the task of guiding humanity to knowledge of the physical world. For example, Egyptianarchitecture initiated this development with its succinct geometrical forms. Greco-Roman architecture is like a marriageof soul and spirit with etheric and physical body. Here soul and spirit on the one hand and etheric body and physical bodyon the other connect in a state of complete equilibrium. The rising, pointed arches of the Gothic style are the firstarchitectural attempt to rise again from the physical into the spiritual world.

If anthroposophy is to be represented in a building the next step must be to bring to life the living and weaving thought patterns themselves, flowing, and pouring into space. Then we will see in physical form what Imagination and Inspiration

reveal directly of the spiritual world. That is why the forms of the Dornach building are such that it is pointless to ask inmaterialist fashion what they symbolize and what their shapes stand for. They have to be taken on their own merit, sincethey are nothing more than immediate spiritual experiences poured out into spatial forms. We have attempted to transformeverything that can be seen and experienced in the spirit into artistic form. So if people ask what a form stands for, theyhave misunderstood the building; for every form signifies only itself, just as our hands or head stand only for themselvesand nothing else. Such a question also indicates a complete misunderstanding of our position in regard to occultism. Wewill be glad to leave behind the old theosophical nonsense of examining every fairy tale, every figure, and every myth for what it signifies and symbolizes.

All our forms really exist in the spiritual world and therefore express only themselves and nothing else. They are notsymbols, but spiritual realities. You will not find a single pentagram throughout the building, no form of a pentagram,nothing to make you wonder what this or that form means. At most, there is one place where subtle forms could beinterpreted as a pentagram, but so can every five-petaled flower. People may ask what our fourteen pillars mean, whichare not shaped as pentagrams, but are five-sided for aesthetic reasons. They may wonder what the pillars supporting thecupolas mean besides representing spatial relations perceptible in the spiritual world. In reply we can only point out howmaterialistic our age is when even spiritual intentions must be clothed in materialist garments.

Our building will be understood if people stop asking what it symbolizes and instead think about what it is. They willunderstand our building when they realize it is better not to use any of the usual terms and the old verbal images to helpour materialist age comprehend it. Spiritual science can at most be a synthesis of religions; unlike the ancient religions, itdoes not build temples, but rather a structure that expresses its innermost nature. This building can only be understoodgradually, and only if we do not apply old words to this new development.

We know only too well that we can realize our intentions in Dornach only in the most modest, rudimentary way. But I ask only that you make a real effort to understand this humble beginning from the perspective and significance of our spiritualscience. Try to understand what this simple beginning, paid for with considerable sacrifices, is aiming at. Any other attitude would be most disheartening.

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Enough grand words and pompous phrases have been bandied about in the so-called occult movement. All we want is thateven if our way of expressing things no longer exists fifty years from now, people will still say of our movement that itendeavored with every fiber to be totally sincere and honest. And the more modestly and simply, but thus perhaps themore objectively, we discuss what we wish to do, the better we serve our cause. Every word that is superfluous or returnsto the old, convenient concepts does untold damage to what we are striving to achieve — please excuse me for saying this

— honestly. If people understand us in this way, then perhaps the mood will arise that we need if we are really, inDecember at the earliest, to inaugurate our modest building without pomp and fuss. [ Note 7 ] The mood we need will bethere only if we concentrate on our goals, even if we do not create a stir in our materialist age.

Please accept these words in the spirit of the serious intentions of our movement. They must fill our souls if this spiritualimpulse is really to take root in our age. There is a real need for an honest spiritual movement that truly promotes themystical life of the soul and allows revelations of the higher worlds to flow into this materialist age. Only when our friends understand this purpose and attitude of our spiritual movement, then and only then shall we be able to fulfill thetask given us by the wise, guiding individualities in the spiritual world.

Based on what I have tried to explain today, I will speak to you the day after tomorrow about the progress in our understanding of Christ through the ages and about the position of our movement concerning the Christ. [ Note 8 ]

LECTURE FIVE

THE BLESSING OF THE DEADParis, May 26, 1914

We have now reached a stage in human development where the study of spiritual matters must be based on the samefoundations as the study of nature was three or four centuries ago. [ Note 1 ] Spiritual science intends to achieve similar things for knowledge of the spirit as Copernicus, Galileo, and Giordano Bruno did for the understanding of physicalnature in their own time. [ Note 2 ] Of course, the systematic exploration of the spirit in our age encounters the same kindof resistance and hostility as the study and the concepts of the natural sciences did then. Spiritual science will beassimilated into our culture as slowly and with just as much difficulty as the natural sciences were.

We will investigate the spirit with processes of the human mind that are still unknown today, or at least unpopular withmost people. Clairvoyant research, as we can call these processes, provides the foundation for spiritual science, and I amspeaking to you today on that basis.

Clairvoyant research is discredited by the countless prejudices people have against it, and also by the widespread misuseof the term “clairvoyant investigation.” That is why I want to say right now that I am not speaking from the standpoint of

the occult knowledge so often promoted by charlatans these days, but based on the kind of clairvoyant, esotericknowledge that can be supported even by people firmly grounded in serious research in the natural sciences who basetheir knowledge on genuine scientific facts. In terms of its inner logic, its mode of thinking, spiritual science belongs tothe stream of modern thinking that includes the natural sciences. The two differ only in the areas they research. Thenatural sciences examine the world of nature, the physical phenomena around us, while spiritual science studies an areathat must necessarily remain hidden to the natural sciences, namely, spiritual experience, and spiritual beings. It isimpossible to investigate spiritual facts and spiritual beings with the same abilities and methods that have allowed thenatural sciences to celebrate ever greater triumphs in the course of the last few centuries. To investigate nature, we useonly those mental powers and abilities we have because of the way we are put into this world, and because other peoplehave taught them to us.

This combination of innate and acquired abilities is totally sufficient for the natural sciences, but it cannot provide

knowledge of the spiritual world. For that we must use faculties that slumber, that are latent, to use a scientific term, inthe depths of our soul during our everyday life.

We do not immediately apply the methods and procedures used to explore the outer world in our investigations asspiritual researchers. Rather, we work with them on the abilities and forces in the depths of our soul to make them

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effective in the spiritual world. These capabilities help us to understand the higher worlds only when they have beendrawn out by ordinary human efforts.

For example, in everyday life and in conventional science, we learn about the external world through ideas we develop inour soul, but as researchers of the spirit, we first have to work with our thinking deep within us to develop abilities thatare quite different from those we normally have. Spiritual science is basically in accord with the natural sciences, as wecan see in its attempt to enter the spiritual world through spiritual chemistry. We cannot tell from the looks of it that water can be split into hydrogen and oxygen. Though water is liquid and does not burn, hydrogen is a combustible gas — clearly something quite different from water. We can use this as a metaphor for the spiritual process I am about to

explain.

People are a combination of soul-spiritual and material-physical elements, just as water is a combination of hydrogen andoxygen. In “spiritual chemistry,” we must separate the soul-spiritual from the material-physical elements just as water can

be separated into hydrogen and oxygen. Clearly, just looking at people will tell us little about the nature of the soul-spiritual element.

The methods we use to separate the soul-spiritual from the material-physical in us — and this experiment of spiritualchemistry can be carried out only within us — are concentration and meditation. Meditation and concentration are notsome kind of miraculous mental performance, but the highest level of mental processes whose lower, elementary levelswe find also in our everyday life. Meditation is a devotion of the soul, raised to limitlessness, as we may experience in themost joyful religious feelings. Concentration is attentiveness, raised to limitlessness; we use it at a more basic level inordinary life. By attentiveness in everyday life we mean not allowing our ideas and feelings to range freely over anythingthat catches our attention, but pulling ourselves together so that our soul focuses our interest on something specific,isolating it in our field of perception. There are no limits to how far this attentiveness can be increased, particularly byvoluntarily focusing our soul on certain thoughts supplied by spiritual science. Ignoring everything else, all worries andupsets, sense impressions, will impulses, feeling, and thinking, we can center our inner forces completely on thesethoughts for a certain amount of time. The content of what we are concentrating on is not as important as the inner activity and exercise of developing our attentiveness, our powers of concentration.

Focusing, concentrating the forces of the soul in this way is crucial. And regular training, often involving months, years,or even decades, depending on individual predisposition, is necessary for the soul to become strong enough to developinner forces. Qualities otherwise merely slumbering in the soul are now called up by this boundless enhancement of

attentiveness, by concentration. In the process we must develop the capacity in our soul to feel that through this inner activity the soul is increasingly able to tear itself away from the physical body. Indeed, this tearing away, this separationof the soul and spirit from the physical-material element, will happen more and more often as we continue the activities Ihave described. In the limited scope of a lecture, I can only briefly outline this principle of concentration, but you willfind detailed descriptions of the individual exercises in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment , translated into French as L'Initiation. . [ Note 3 ]

Through practicing these methods we will learn to understand the meaning of the sentences, I experience myself as a soul- spiritual being. I am active in myself without using my senses or my limbs. I have experiences independent of my body . Wehave made progress when we can perceive our own body with all its physical attributes as separate and independent of our soul and spirit, just as we see a table or a chair in physical life. This is how we can begin to separate the soul's abilityto think and form ideas from its physical tools, namely, the nervous system and the brain. Thus, we learn to live inthinking and the forming of ideas, fully aware that we are outside the nervous system and the brain, the physicalinstruments we normally use for these processes.

To put it more concretely, let me add that our first experience in this self-development is the realization that in thinkingwe live as though outside our head. We live in our weaving thoughts just as we do when we use our brain, but we knowfor sure that these thoughts are outside our head. The experience of immersing ourselves again in the brain and thenervous system after having been outside the head for some time remains indelibly with us. We feel the resistance of thesubstance of brain and nervous system such that the soul-spiritual that emerged from those physical organs needs to useforce to reenter them. This is an unforgettable moment.

The method I have described also allows us to release the feeling and will activities of the soul, which is necessary for

true spiritual research. To achieve this, we must raise devotion to the infinite. This enhanced devotion, which is alsocalled meditation, is similar to what happens when we sleep. The sense organs are laid aside in sleep; there is no activityof the senses, and the limbs are at rest. While we sleep, we are given over to the general course of the world withoutcontributing anything through our I, thinking, feeling, and willing to the course of events. We are unconscious in sleep;our consciousness dissolves into general darkness and obscurity. In meditation, we must voluntarily create the state sleepcauses as natural necessity. The only difference is that sleep leads to a loss of consciousness, but intensified devotion

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leads to an enhanced awareness. As spiritual researchers, we must be able to silence our senses at will. We must divertthem from all impressions of the external world and suppress the activity of our organs and limbs as we do in sleep. Interms of our body, we have to behave just as in sleep. However, in sleep we sink into unconsciousness, but in enhanceddevotion controlled by our will we awaken into the divine-spiritual stream of cosmic forces. To this level of consciousness we then reach, our everyday consciousness is what sleep is to our ordinary state of consciousness.

If we persevere and patiently train our soul, we will be able to separate out, through a kind of spiritual chemistry, another soul capacity, namely, our thinking, so that it continues only in the soul-spiritual sphere. Similarly, through devotion wecan gradually separate out that power of the soul we use in language, in speaking. As I am speaking to you now, I am

using a soul-spiritual force that flows into my nerves and speech organs and uses them. Through the exercises describedabove, we can unfold this same power when the entire speech and nervous system are completely inactive. In this way,we discover in the depths of our soul a faculty we know nothing of in our everyday life, because it is employed in speechand the use of our speech organs. When we are not using this faculty, it lies dormant deep within our soul, but in spiritualresearch, it is drawn up and separated by spiritual chemistry, so to speak, from our physical speaking. If we learn to livein this weaving, hidden activity of language creation, we can recognize what we may call, perhaps inaccurately, the

perception of the inner word, the spiritual word. As soon as we can control this hidden power, we can also detach our thinking and feeling from our personality, leave ourselves behind, and enter the spiritual world. Then we can perceivefeeling and willing outside ourselves just as we did within us. We begin to know beings of will and feeling in the spiritualworld, and we can perceive our own willing and feeling only when they are immersed in these beings.

Clairvoyant perception begins with the emancipation of the power of our thoughts from the physical body and continueswith the freeing of our thinking and feeling. Clearly, then, we can know and truly experience encounters with other spiritual beings only by leaving our body and by immersing our own feeling and willing soul in the spiritual world. Inview of the widespread opposition to spiritual science in our time, it is risky to give concrete examples; yet it is a risk Iam willing to take. I am sure you will not mind that it is an example from my personal experience. After all, our ownexperiences are the examples we know best since they are the only ones where we are actually present for every detail.

Some time ago I had to solve a problem in my work. [ Note 4 ] I knew very well that the capacities I can develop inaccordance with my constitution in this life would not suffice to perform the task, which was to understand the mentalityof a certain historical period. I knew exactly what questions I had to answer, but I also realized that no matter how much Iexerted my thinking, my thoughts were not strong enough to gain insight into this problem. It was like wanting to lift aweight but lacking the strength to do so. I tried to define the issue as clearly as possible and to develop the active will to

find a solution one way or another. As far as I could, I tried to feel vividly the particular qualities of that period. I tried toget a vivid sense of its greatness, its color, and to project myself completely into that period. After I had repeated thisinner soul activity often enough, I could feel a foreign willing and feeling enter my own. I was as sure of its presence as Iam that the external object I see is not created by my looking at it, but exists independent of me and makes an impressionon me.

From a materialistic point of view, people can easily object that this was nothing but an illusion, a deception, and that Idid not know I was drawing out of my own soul what I thought were external influences. To avoid falling prey to illusion,hallucination, and fantasies in this field, we need true self-knowledge. Then we will begin to know what we can andcannot do. Self-knowledge, particularly for the researcher of the spirit, means knowing the limits of our abilities. We cantrain ourselves in self-knowledge in the way described in my above-mentioned book, and then we will be able todistinguish between our own feeling and will and the external feeling and will entering them from the spiritual world. We

will reach the stage where not being able to tell the difference between our own feeling and willing and that from outsidewill seem as absurd as not being able to distinguish between hunger and bread. Everyone knows where hunger stops and

bread begins; just as everyone knows that hunger itself does not make bread appear — desirable as this would be from asocial standpoint. True self-knowledge enables us to differentiate between the hunger of our own feeling and willing andwhat comes to meet them from the spiritual world (as hunger is met with bread). Once the outside feeling and will have

penetrated our own, the two will continue to exist in us side by side.

In my case, the close relationship between my feeling and willing and what I recognized as external feeling and willingfertilized my thinking. As a result, thoughts appeared in my mind as gifts of the external feeling and willing and solvedthe original problem of investigating a certain historical epoch.

What happens there in our spiritual experience runs counter to a similar process in the physical world. When we meet people in the physical world and get together with them, we first see them, then speak to them, and exchange ideas. Theopposite happens in the spiritual experience I have described; there we observe thoughts in ourselves and have the feelingthat a foreign feeling and will are present. Then we perceive a separate spiritual individuality as a real, separate being, butone that lives only in the spiritual world. Then, we gradually get to know this individuality in a reverse process to meeting

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someone in physical life. In the spiritual sphere, we approach the individual through the foreign feeling and willing wefind within us, and get closer to the personality by being together with it.

I found out that in my case the foreign feeling and willing that fertilized my own thinking came from an individual I hadknown well and who had been torn from our circle of friends by her death a little more than a year ago. [ Note 5 ] She haddied at a relatively early age, in her best mid-life years, and had taken unused life energy into the spiritual worlds. Thefeeling and willing that entered my own originated in the intensity of this unused life energy. Generally, people live to aripe old age and use up their vitality during their lifetime. However, if they die relatively young, this strength remains asunused potential and is available to them in the spiritual world. These life forces that were not used in our friend's short

life enabled me, because of our friendship, to solve a problem which required her strength.

What I earlier called “the capacity of the inner word” leads to such revelations of the spiritual world as this one of a dead person. At the same time, this capacity allows us to look beyond our life enclosed between birth and death, or betweenconception and death, and gain insight into human life extending into infinite periods of time through repeated earth lives.Then we can understand the life of those we were very close to, as I was to our dead friend.

As we get to know ourselves or another person through the soul faculties I have described, we discover not only the physical life between birth and death, but the spiritual human being who structures his own body, lives in repeatedincarnations on earth, and between each death and new birth in the spiritual world. Now you will easily understand that Icould gain deeper insight into the soul-spiritual being of our dead friend because she stood before my soul as a spiritual

being.

The process of getting to know another being in the spiritual world is the reverse of that in the physical realm. At first, welearn how to be together spiritually with the other being, and then we come to know the being itself as a spiritual being.And then entering the spiritual world becomes a reality.

To return to our example, it became clear that during an earlier incarnation in the first Christian centuries, the friendwhom we knew in her short life here had taken in much of that Christian culture. However, she had not been able todigest it all because of the restrictions of the time, and entered this life with the undigested material. It burst the confinesof this incarnation, but remained present as life energy. And now through my connection with her, I was blessed withinsight into the period my work was concerned with, the age in which our friend had lived in a past incarnation.

It doesn't matter that many people in our age make fun of what I have just described and belittle an attitude that guides usthus into the spiritual world. If you have developed yourself along these paths, you know that when you accomplishedsomething you could not possibly have done by yourself, it was because specific spiritual beings helped you. In addition,your view of the world will expand because you will know that you cannot expect hunger to produce bread, and becauseyou know that the power of spiritual beings has entered into your own abilities. As our view into the sphere of the deadwidens, our insight into the spiritual world also deepens through the methods I have described and finally encompassesconcrete events and beings that are just as real as the physical world around us.

People do not mind our talking about the spiritual world in general terms; they admit there is a spiritual realm behind thesensory one. But they are less tolerant if we talk about concrete beings in the spiritual world whom we perceive just as wedo beings of the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms. However, if we do not shy away from developing our slumbering soul forces, we find that it is just as wrong to talk about the spirit in general terms, or in vague pantheisticterms, as to speak about nature in general terms. For example, if walking across a meadow and looking at flowers,

perhaps some day lilies here, violets there, and so on, we would point to them and not say their names but instead just“this is nature, that is nature, and there is nature; everything is nature and more nature” — that is no different from talkingabout spirit, spirit, and more spirit in a vaguely pantheistic way. We can understand the spiritual world only if we reallyknow the individual beings living there and what happens between them.

In objection to the possibility of knowing the spiritual world people often claim that harboring such fantasies about therealm of the spirit simply runs counter to intelligent behavior in the physical world. Although this conclusion seems

justified on the basis of the capacities of human intelligence, it can be sustained only as long as one is ignorant of theextensive power of the intellect, that is, the power of human thinking, as we can know it through spiritual research.

To return to our example, imagine someone has the task to develop certain ideas here on earth. He learns how toencounter a spiritual being, in this case, a dead person who adds his or her thinking — now modified by the spiritualworld almost into willing that thinks and thinking that feels — to the human individual's thinking and feeling. Theintelligent ideas the dead individual wants to produce emerge in the human being on earth. The deceased possessesfeeling and willing, just as on earth, as well as other soul capacities not developed on earth. Therefore, the dead have the

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desire to connect their thinking and feeling with human thoughts. That is why they unite with the person on earth. As thethinking, feeling, and willing of the dead penetrate the living person, ideas are stimulated. Thus, the dead can experiencethese ideas, something they could not do on their own. That is why they communicate with human beings on earth.However, this communication and stimulation of ideas is possible only if our thinking has been freed from the nervoussystem and the brain, that is, if we have developed thinking independent of the brain.

As we liberate our thinking from the body, we feel as though our thinking were snatched away from us, as though itexpanded and spread out in space and time. Thinking, which we normally say takes place inside us, unites with thesurrounding spiritual world, streams into it, and achieves a certain autonomy from us similar to the relative independence

of the eyes, which are set in their sockets rather like autonomous organs. Thus, although our liberated thinking isconnected with our higher self, it is so independent as to act as our spiritual organ of perception for the thoughts andfeelings of other spiritual beings. Its function is thus similar to that of our eyes. Gradually, the thinking processes,normally limited by our intelligence, become independent from our being as spiritual organs of perception.

To put it differently, what we experience subjectively, what is comprised by our intelligence, namely, our outer thinking,is nothing but shadowy entities, thought entities, mere ideas reflecting external things. When thinking becomesclairvoyant and separates from brain and nervous system, it begins to develop inner activity, a life of its own, and tostream out, as our own experience, into the spiritual world. In a sense, we send the tendrils of our clairvoyant thinking outinto the spiritual realm and, as they become immersed in this world, they perceive the will that feels and feeling that willsof the other beings in that realm.

After what we have said about self-knowledge as a necessity on the path of spiritual development — and from this itfollows that modesty is a must — allow me to comment on clairvoyant thinking, and please do not think me

presumptuous for saying this. When we enliven our thinking through clairvoyant development, it becomes independentand also a very precise and useful tool. True clairvoyance increases the precision, accuracy, and logical power of our thinking. As a result, we can use it with more exactness and close adaptation to its subject; our intelligence becomes more

practical and more thoroughly structured. Therefore, the clairvoyant can easily understand the scope of ordinary scientificresearch, whereas conventional science requires bringing out ... [text missing] of the mind. It is easy to see why modernnatural science cannot comprehend the findings of clairvoyant research, but those who have developed true clairvoyancecan comprehend the full significance of the achievements of the natural sciences. There can be no question, therefore, of spiritual science opposing conventional science; the other way around is more likely. Only clairvoyant development canorganize the power of the mind, making it inwardly independent, alive, and comprehensible. That is why the materialistic

way of thinking cannot penetrate to the logic that gives us the certainty that clairvoyant knowledge really does lead to perception of the spiritual world.

The example of my clairvoyant experiences with a dead person shows that intelligence and thinking are specific qualitiesof souls living in a physical body, of human beings on earth. The deceased wanted to connect herself with a human beingso that what lived in her in a completely different, supersensible way could take the form of intelligent thoughts. The deadindividual and the living person were thinking their thoughts together in the head of the latter, as it were.

As specifically human qualities, intellect and thinking can be developed only in human beings on earth, and they alloweven people who are not clairvoyant to understand the results of clairvoyant research. You see, our independent thinking

becomes the spiritual eye, as it were, for the perception of the spiritual world. Supersensible research, which uses thisspiritual eye for clairvoyant thinking, has found that this eye is active, that the spiritual feelers are put out in all directions,

but our physical eyes only passively allow impressions to come to them. When we as spiritual researchers have taken therevelations of the supersensible world into our thinking, they continue to live in our thoughts. We can then tell other

people about what we have taken pains to bring into our living thought processes, and they can understand us if they donot allow materialistic prejudices to get in the way.

There is a sort of inner language in the human soul that normally remains silent. But when concepts enter the soul, whichthe spiritual researcher acquires by allowing his or her will and feeling to be stimulated by the spiritual world and its

beings, this language responds immediately with an echoing sound. Careful and thorough study of spiritual science willgradually silence the objection that the spiritual researcher's reports of the realm of the spirit can only be believed becausethey cannot really be understood. People will see that human intelligence is indeed able to understand information fromthe spiritual world, but only if it is the result of true spiritual experiences and true spiritual research. They will realize thatit is wrong to say human intelligence does not suffice to comprehend revelations from the spiritual world and thattherefore they have to be accepted on authority. They will come to know that the only obstacle to such understanding is tohave preconceived notions and prejudices.

Eventually, people will treat information from the spiritual world as they treat the insights of, say, astronomy, biology, physics, and chemistry. That is, even if they are not astronomers, biologists, physicists, or chemists, they accept the

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scientists' findings about the physical world on the basis of a natural feeling for truth, which we may call a silent languageof the soul.

The harmony between intelligence and clairvoyance will become much more obvious, and then people will admit thatclairvoyant research approaches the world of spiritual beings and processes with the same attitude that also motivates thenatural sciences. In view of the considerable opposition to spiritual science, it will comfort us to know that our modernculture will eventually come to the point Giordano Bruno did. Looking up to the blue vault of the sky, which people thenconsidered to exist exactly as they perceived it, Bruno declared that they saw the blue dome of the sky only because thatwas as far as their vision reached. They themselves in a way imposed that limit; in reality space extends into infinity. The

limits people saw so clearly, based on the illusion of their senses, were created by the limitation of their vision.

You see, now and in the future, the spiritual researcher will have to stand up before the world and say that there is also afirmament with regard to time, the time between birth and death. We perceive this firmament of time through the illusionof the senses. In fact, we create it ourselves because our spiritual vision is limited, just as in earlier times people “created”the blue firmament of space. Space extends endlessly beyond the blue dome of the sky, and time also continues infinitely

beyond the boundaries of birth and death. Our own infinite spiritual life is embedded in this infinite time together with therest of spiritual life in the world.

The time will come when people will realize that clairvoyant research strengthens and deepens our intelligence, producinga more subtle and refined logic. Such improved understanding will silence many, seemingly justified, current opinions onspiritual science claiming that the philosophical writings of several authors prove that our cognitive and intellectualcapacities are limited. After all, aren't the reasons these philosophers present to prove the limits of human cognitionconvincing? Are they not logical? How can researchers of spiritual science hope to refute these convincing, logicalarguments for the limits of our capacity to know?

The time will come when people will see the lack of substance and precision in such logic, when they will understand thatsomething can be irrefutably correct as philosophical argument, and yet be completely refuted by life. After all, before thediscovery of the microscope or the telescope people might very well have “irrefutably” proven that human eyes can never see a cell. Still, human ingenuity invented the microscope and the telescope, which increased the power of our eyes.Similarly, life has outdistanced the irrefutable proof of the philosophers. Life does not need to refute the arguments of thisor that philosopher. Their proofs may be indisputable, but the reality of life must progress beyond them by strengtheningour cognitive capacity and spiritual understanding through spiritual instruments.

In the present state of our culture with its prevailing belief in the incontrovertibility of the philosophers' proofs, thesethings are not generally or readily accepted. However, as our culture continues to develop, it will reach a higher logic thanthe one supporting these proofs of purely external philosophy. This higher logic will be one of life, of life of the spirit, of insights based on spiritual science. A time will come when people, while still respecting the accomplishments anddiscoveries of the natural sciences as much as we do now, will nevertheless realize that for our inner life these marvelousachievements have brought more questions than answers. If you study biology, astronomy, and so on, you will see thatthey have reached their limits. Do these sciences provide answers? No, they are really only raising questions. The answerswill come from what stands behind the subject matter of the natural sciences. The answers will come from the sources of clairvoyant research.

To summarize, let me repeat that the world extends beyond the realm of the senses, and behind the sensory world we findspirit. In spiritual science, the spirit reveals itself to clairvoyant perception, and it is only then that we can see the divinenature of the magnificent sensory world around us. The world is vast, and the spirit is the necessary counterbalance to the

physical world. A proper perspective on our future cultural development reveals that in trying to understand the world inits entirety, people will strive not for a one-sided exploration of the natural world, as many now assume. Instead, peoplewill seek to unite science, intellect, and clairvoyant research. Only in this union will people truly come to understandthemselves and their own spirit. Only then will they realize solutions to the world's future riddles, never to be solvedcompletely, and feel satisfaction in that knowledge.

Those who have taken the true impulse of spiritual science to heart can sense even now in our culture the yearning and thelatent urge in many souls to go beyond the immediate and sensory in science. Through use and inner assimilation of thecapacities the sciences have created in recent centuries, these souls long to be strengthened so that they can live in the

spiritual worlds from where alone can come true satisfaction for the human soul.

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APPENDIX

The following two lectures differ in character and content from the preceding five. In both, Rudolf Steiner approaches thecentral theme from a much wider perspective. In addition, “Faith and Knowledge” is not a complete, word for word,record of a lecture but notes summarizing what Steiner said. Therefore, the two lectures have been placed in the appendix.

LECTURE SIX

FAITH AND KNOWLEDGENotes from a lecture given in Prague,

April 17, 1914

Given the large amount of literature available, it is always possible to learn about the findings of spiritual science,

particularly when anthroposophical groups work together. Since we are together now, I would like to discuss someguiding ideas out of spiritual impulses, ideas that continue in a more esoteric way what we spoke about more generally inyesterday's public lecture. [ Note 1 ]

Many people today still believe in the contrast between faith and knowledge, faith and cognition. They say science cantell us about the world outside us, the only one we can know of with certainty. However, concerning the spiritual world,we must have faith. This attitude appears to contradict spiritual science, which strives to give us real knowledge of andinsight into the spiritual world. In fact, it has to enter souls in our time in just this form, as insight and knowledge. Inearlier incarnations our souls were in a completely different condition than now. They were more primitive, but in thosetimes there were great individuals and many people connected with them. Those individuals conveyed ideas of thespiritual world, which we can still find in certain tribes and peoples and trace to individuals such as Hermes, Zarathustra,Moses, Buddha, and Krishna. [ Note 2 ] Spiritual ideas had to be poured into people's souls.

In the physical world life is not just toil and work, but slaving and drudgery. Most of this toil and work is not in the senseof “it's been a hard day's work,” but in the sense of unconscious occurrences caused by our thinking — in fact, our wholesoul life as it takes its course.

We are all much more alike when we are born than we think. We do not resemble each other in our appearance, but in our structure. The forces at work in a child are active at an unconscious level. The spirit takes hold of the body and structuresit. Only then does the sculpting and elaborating of the nerves begin. This happens independently of our mind, at a timewhen we are not yet able to use it. Then we become aware of ourselves as an I. That is when the wisdom we have broughtwith us from the gods, from the spiritual world, ceases.

In the first period after birth, we have only life forces, so to speak; our life then is nothing but a continuation of thespiritual world. Death in infancy is due to external bodily causes, and the child's soul plays no part in it.

Then we begin to deplete our physical bodies with every thought, every feeling. We must sleep to make up for what wehave depleted during the day. If we did not thus eat away at our physical organization, we would have a budding and

burgeoning life. Our etheric body always wants to bud and to sprout, but the astral body needs to consume what theetheric body builds up, and thus suppresses it. When we are sleeping, compensation for what has been eaten away andkilled off flows into us from the spiritual world to reestablish the balance. The normal amount of sleep replaces exactly asmuch as has been depleted. If we decided to sleep more, as some retired people do, we would sleep too much. Of course,that is no objection to sleeping a lot. Since intellectual work takes a lot out of our physical organization, people doing thatkind of work need much sleep. But if we sleep too much, we have too many new life forces and these then begin to

proliferate; the human being then abounds with life forces. This surplus of life forces leads to illness. So if we want to do

more than merely make up for what we depleted through our daily work and advance spiritually, we have to consciouslytake what we need from the spiritual world.

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The founders of our religions believed it was their task to lead their people, to use up life forces, which will then becompensated for. However, what has to develop within us for the progress of humanity must be consciously drawn fromthe spiritual world so that it will not die in our physical existence.

That is why the founders of our religions provided ideas they had received from the spiritual world. These truly spiritualthoughts nourish our soul and maintain it. It would be the death of our soul if it always had to live in thoughts taken onlyfrom the physical world. In earlier times, religious beliefs were such spiritual thoughts human souls need. That phase of our development has been completed, and we live now in a time when we on earth will gradually lose the ability to takein what speaks only to our emotions, our faith. We can still preserve this faith for a time, galvanizing it, so to speak, but

we cannot keep it for the future. The principle “I believe” has to be replaced with “I believe what I know.” People will begin to feel that this new principle must be applied. Otherwise we deny ourselves any possibility of knowing somethingabout the life between death and a new birth. Then we would return to pitiful conditions in our next incarnation.Enthusiasm for other ideals, all clearly justified, is certainly a good thing and has to exist. However, in comparison withthe foundations of spiritual science, these ideals cannot be put into practice directly. Lacking its knowledge, they can only

be precursors of spiritual science.

As we progress in our spiritual research, we will feel the need to remain silent rather than to speak. If we speak nevertheless, it is out of insight into the conditions necessary for our time. Knowledge alone will make us free, and it isthe task of the future to win the freedom of the human soul.

Thoughts of great spiritual power came from the founders of our religions. They were thoughts of faith that couldwonderfully illuminate the region beyond death. These ideas were transformed into a true, spiritual light that revealed theenvironment beyond death to human beings. But the time will come when we will have to live in freedom. And even if new religious leaders were still to proclaim the old teachings of faith with the voice and the power of the gods, we wouldno longer understand them. We are experiencing this now. The sciences concerned with the outer world have arrived, asthey had to. A great contemporary scientist, Max Müller, said that if an angel were to come down and proclaim news of the spiritual world, people would not understand or believe him. [ Note 3 ]

That is the development of humanity. It seems to lead inevitably to the loss of our ability to imbue ourselves withthoughts related to the spiritual worlds. That would mean we would have less light after death to illuminate our spiritualenvironment by ourselves. After all, no sun will shine from the outside on the world around us then, the light has to comefrom us. We then take the place of the sun and illuminate our surroundings after death. People unable to do this will have

to return and repeat life on earth to assimilate thoughts and ideas that are fruitful for their existence after death. When weunderstand this, more than the usual enthusiasm for spreading spiritual science will loosen our tongue and prompt us tospeak. Believing in what we know — that will be the need of humanity in the future.

In ancient times, religious ideas, myths, and fairy tales gave souls light for the spiritual world. It is easy to say that mythsand fairy tales developed in the childhood stages of the human race. Of course, people did not physically meet the angelsthat myths and fairy tales speak about. But thinking based on philosophy will be of little use in the spiritual world wheresuch knowledge has no meaning. It is easy to say fairy tales are not based on truth. Spiritual researchers are not so naive,and know that fiery dragons do not really fly through the air. However, they always knew it was necessary to form theImagination of the fiery dragon, for when it lives in the soul, it casts light on the spiritual world. These are powerfulImaginations. That is the principle behind all myths; they are not intended to reflect external reality accurately, but toenable us to live in the spiritual world.

Materialists say myths and fairy tales originated in the childhood stage of the human race. But in its childhood, humanitywas taught by the gods. In the process of our evolution, myths and fairy tales are gradually lost, but children should notgrow up without them. It makes a tremendous difference whether or not children are allowed to grow up with fairy tales.The power of the fairy tale images, which give wings to the soul, becomes apparent only at a later age. Growing upwithout fairy tales leads later to boredom, to world-weariness. Indeed, it can even cause physical symptoms — fairy talescan help to prevent illnesses. The qualities that seep into our soul from fairy tales later emerge as a zest for life,enthusiasm for being alive, and an ability to cope with life, all of which can be seen even in old age. Children have toexperience the power of the content of fairy tales while they are young and can still do so. People who cannot live withideas that have no reality on the physical plane will be dead to the spiritual world. Philosophies based only on the materialworld are the death of our soul. Physical evolution leads to the death of the spiritual world. We must reach a view of theworld based not on appearances, but resting solidly on its own inherent structure. We have to move toward the principle: I

believe what I know.

We have to learn to pay attention to the symptoms of our cultural life. For example, I once gave a lecture in a town insouthern Germany, and afterward two Catholic priests came up to me and said that I was only speaking to educated

people, while they spoke so everyone could understand them. In reality, the opposite is the case. Anthroposophy can32 din 117





reach everyone provided we find the way to the simple, ordinary people. The farmer would understand it much better thanthe so-called educated person if only the way were not blocked by social conventions. In these matters, we must be able toleave ourselves completely out of the picture and not ask what we think best. Instead, we must ask what human soulsrequire in a given era. So I replied to the priests that while their feeling tells them they speak to everyone, the facts willtell them they do not, because not everyone comes to hear them. And it is to those who do not come to them that I speak.

On earth we gain knowledge and insight through our physical and etheric bodies. Let us examine carefully how much of what is in our soul comes from the physical world. Light, for example, reaches us through the eyes. The process of seeingis one of deterioration right from its start in the eyes. The deterioration starts directly at the retina. The process detaches

itself from life. In the morning, after sleep, our eyes have been restored and are filled with pure life. However, as we perceive, something forms in the living tissue that is no longer alive but only mineral. And we perceive the outer world,which is mirrored in us, because this process continues in the nerve tissue. Thus, insofar as the physical body is the bearer of these processes, it is not alive.

The etheric body is the bearer of thoughts that are also mirror images. People could easily discover that our thoughtsreflect the supersensible. Thoughts will never lend themselves to inspection under the microscope because in reality theylive in the etheric body. They are formed by our thinking, which is mirrored in the physical body. We can see from thisthat understanding and knowledge are dependent on the physical and etheric bodies, which are affected only by theimpressions of the physical world. Completely different thoughts have to take hold in our soul, in our astral body, and allour feeling, willing, and thinking not limited to the physical plane. Otherwise we will remain inwardly dead. All thoughtsthat represent objects are meaningful only on the physical plane. This is implied in the very question, “Are thoughts thatdo not represent objects justified?” Only with the thoughts living freely in the spirit, living freely in the astral body andthe I can we gain insight, only with those thoughts can we live. These thoughts not only represent things, but are alsoinwardly active and alive; they create something out of themselves and out of us.

In modern art, naturalism predominates these days. In ancient times the soul was filled with images that brought activityinto the thoughts of the astral body. Everything depicting only outer things is meaningless in the spiritual world. We mustimbue ourselves with new images that can once again meaningfully permeate our soul. Often we take hold of somethingwe believe to exist only in our imagination, to be only fantasy. This is frequently only a memory of something originatingon the physical plane. We can revitalize what would otherwise die in our soul only by enlivening our images withthoughts that do not originate on the physical level and are not created by that kind of imagination.

People increasingly misuse the phrase: A beautiful soul in a beautiful body, a healthy soul in a healthy body. This phrasewas appropriate for the understanding of earlier times. Unfortunately, today it is seen as a statement of cause; if someonehas a healthy body, people conclude that a healthy soul lives in it. Whatever makes the body healthy will do the same for the soul.

If people do not develop thoughts that keep the astral body inwardly agile, they will suffer from mineral deposits even inchildhood and as a result become ill later in life. And the world they enter after death will remain dark, because they donot radiate any light themselves. The rays of the sun strike a surface and that is how we see things. But in the spiritualworld we are the source of light; we illuminate the surroundings we are supposed to see. Souls feeling the need to pursuespiritual science may not be aware of these circumstances, but they live in the depths of the soul. Just as in the physicalworld sunlight comes from the outside, so we must make ourselves sunlike in the spiritual world. We have to light inourselves the spiritual fuel, the inner flame, to illuminate the realm of the spirit.

Physicists imagine the red of a rose can be traced to oscillation, to variations in wavelength. People say there is really nosound, only vibrations of air. They claim what we hear as sound exists only in our ears. Well, a simple experiment canteach us otherwise, namely, if we have someone wake us up by knocking on the door. We will notice that we were notconscious during the night when we were asleep, but that on waking up we were already living in the knocking. Weourselves have to enter into the knocking sound. We use the other person to do the knocking because our soul itself cannot do it. If we resolved firmly to wake up, we could do so, but this way we are only using the other person as a tool.

If materialist views continue to persist for several generations more, the red of roses will really disappear. People willactually see little gray atoms vibrating as an atomic whirl, not because they have to see them or because they exist, but

because they will have trained themselves to see them. That is why it is necessary to spread spiritual science, to prevent

having to live in a future filled with nothing other than physical atoms swirling around.

We are not talking about the physical ether but the one that is living thought. We must realize first of all that a rose is nota mass of whirling atoms, but that behind it there are real living and interweaving elemental beings. The theory of thespiritual world is secondary; the main thing is to concentrate our feeling, to feel ourselves living and weaving in our new

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perception of the reality of the spiritual world. This is the resurrection of the spiritual world in our souls, the trulyecumenical Easter event.

Our ancestors required a different event that was connected to the time when the sun reaches its zenith. When everythingin nature was budding and blossoming, they experienced an ecstasy that reaffirmed for them the existence of the spiritualworld. What they experienced then at St. John's Tide we now have to experience in the spring, at Easter. We have to beable to celebrate the awakening of the soul, the resurrection of the soul, when spiritual science speaks to us not merely asa theory, but as living knowledge.

LECTURE SEVEN

ROBERT HAMERLING: POET AND THINKER Berlin, April 26, 1914

On July 15, 1889, I was standing in the St. Leonhard cemetery near Graz with the writer Rosegger and the sculptor HansBrandstetter as the body of the Austrian poet Robert Hamerling was lowered into the grave. [ Note 1 ] Robert Hamerlinghad been called from the physical plane a few days earlier. He died after decades of unutterable suffering that grew to anunbearable level at the end of his life. Prior to the burial, the body had been laid out in the beautiful Stifting House on theoutskirts of the Austro-Styrian town of Graz. The physical form left behind by his great soul lay there, a wonderfulreflection of a life of striving to reach the highest levels of the spirit: so expressive, so eloquent was this physical form. It

also bore the imprint of the unspeakable suffering this poet had had to endure in his life!

On that occasion a little girl of ten could be seen among the closest mourners. She was Robert Hamerling's ward and had brightened and cheered the poet's last years with the promise of her character. She was the girl to whom RobertHamerling had dedicated the lines that fundamentally reveal his mood in the last years of his life. [ Note 2 ] And becausethey let us see so deeply into Hamerling's soul, please permit me to read you these lines:

To B.(ertha)

Child, like a butterfly harmlesslyFluttering past the pain-racked invalid,When having seen me begin the homeward journey,In the wake of sufferingDo not think of me in your flush of youth:A fleeting thought is all that you would give;

Nor when happily in love, in marriage or in motherhood:Your memory would be only a pale reflection in the bustle of your life.Only at sixty years of age, please think of me:The poor sick man you sawYear after year stretched on a bed of suffering,Who, tortured by unceasing pain,Spoke little, save laborious groans;

Nothing was he to you and nothing could he be.At sixty years of age, child, think of him:Then you will muse on him, muse long,And late, deep compassion will rise in youFor him then long at rest from suffering.A teardrop fills your eye as offeringFor him long paled in death,Who nothing was to you, and nothing could be.

It is not necessary to describe the situation of a poet who could write lines that speak so powerfully of his suffering invirtually the entire second half of his life. There was much gossip, even after Hamerling had already been confined to his

bed for a large part of his life, and allegations about the sybaritic life the author of “Ahasver” supposedly led. It was evenrumored that he lived in a sumptuous house in Graz, and that he had a large number of girls for his pleasure, who had to

perform Greek dances day after day and other such things. All these stories were told at a time when illness kept him laidup while the sun was shining outside. He was forced to stay in bed in his small room, knowing that outside the sun wasshining on the meadows, on the glorious nature he had enjoyed so much in the brief periods he was able to leave hissickbed.

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And this same bright sun was shining gloriously when we accompanied the deceased to his last resting place on July 15,1889. There are few indeed who lived under such outward constraints and yet were devoted with every fiber of their soulto what is great, beautiful, monumental, magnificent, and joyous in the world.

I remember one time sitting with a young musician in Vienna who was a great friend of Hamerling's. This young man wasessentially a poor fellow who soon succumbed to a mental illness. He was deeply pessimistic and never tired of complaining about life. And since he loved Hamerling a great deal, he loved to cite the poet in his complaints about life.On this occasion, the young musician once again wanted to quote Hamerling as a pessimist. As we were sitting together in a cafe, I was able to call for a newspaper that contained a small occasional poem by Hamerling entitled “Personal

Request.” I showed it to the young musician.

Personal Request

Say that I write bad verses,Say that I steal the silverware,Say I'm a rotten GermanBecause my diet says I can't eat JewsAnd Slavs for breakfast;Or that I betray our AustriaBecause I sing the praise of Bismarck.Say that I'm stricken with grief becausePraise for me is sadly lacking,Slandered I am basely on occasion — But I ask one thing only:Do not say that I'm a pessimist,That the last word in my singingBelongs to blasé-modernStupid, dull unhappiness with living!What? The poet is a pessimistBecause he makes complaining noises?Just because the world is lovelyAnd life seems so charming to himHe would painfully regret itIf his part he were to forfeit.If you call pessimists all personsWho complain, then pessimisticIs the man from whom a cryEscapes while he is at the dentist!Everything the critics say, believe them,Except that I'm a pessimist!I hate this word. To me it smellsRather like its final syllable. [ Note 3 ]

These words characterize Hamerling's attitude and show that he lived in greatest pain (he wrote as much to Rosegger) at

the time of writing this poem “Personal Request.” He wrote to Rosegger: “I am not worried about becoming a pessimist, but I do fear going mad or becoming an imbecile, as sometimes I can manage only a few minutes respite from the never-ending pain!” [ Note 4 ] The man who began his poetic career with words truly sounding like a lifetime's program wasworried about going mad or becoming an imbecile, but not about becoming a pessimist. For when Robert Hamerling senthis first major poem, “Venus in Exile,” out into the world, he gave it the motto:

Go on your way, a holy messenger,And sing in joyful tonesOf the dawning day,Of the realm of beauty to come.

That was his attitude throughout his life. We must recall one very memorable scene if we want to fully understandHamerling's unique nature. A few months or weeks before his death, he moved from his flat in Graz — where he lived onthe street then called Realschulstrasse; now it is Hamerlingstrasse — to a small summer house, called Stifting House,situated in a secluded area on the outskirts of the town. Two servants had to carry the invalid down; his flat was threefloors up. Several times he almost fainted. But on either side of him he had a parcel tied up with a broad ribbon, whichwent round his neck like a stole; they contained the wrapped manuscript of his last work, The Atomistic Will . [ Note 5 ] This

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was characteristic of the way this poet lived and of what he loved. He did not want the manuscript of this philosophicalwork to leave his hands for even a minute! He was so ill that two servants had to carry him down; yet he had to hold on tothe thing that filled his life. So he was carried down and taken out to Stifting House in the most beautiful sunshine,sighing, “Oh, what pleasure to ride like this; if only I were less ill, less ill!”

The soul and spirit at work under these physical conditions remained open to all that is great and beautiful, all that is filledwith spirit in the world. It worked out of the wellsprings of greatness, beauty, and spirituality in such a way that wecannot really be surprised by his attitude to pessimism. We cannot be surprised to see in Hamerling's spirit living cosmicevidence that the spiritual forces in us can triumph over material and natural forces, however obstructive they may be, in

every situation.

Fifty-nine years earlier, that is in 1830, Robert Hamerling was born in Austria in an area called Waldviertel. [ Note 6 ]

Because of its special natural configuration that region is eminently suited — and was probably more so then than nowwhen it is crisscrossed by railroad lines — to concentrate the soul inwardly if it is awake and to deepen the soul. TheWaldviertel region is basically a backwater of civilization, although someone was born and lived there in the first half of the nineteenth century who was also widely known in Austria this side of the river Leitha. He has probably been forgotten

by now, and at most continues to live in the memory of the people in the Waldviertel, in numerous folk legends. I have toadd that I often heard tell of this person's fame because my parents came from the Waldviertel area. Thus, I could at leasthear about the remnants of his peculiar fame, which is characteristic of the atmosphere of cultural isolation in that region.This famous person was none other than one of the “most famous” robbers and murderers of the time, namely, Grasel.This Grasel was certainly more famous than anyone else who came from the Waldviertel region.

In his later years, Hamerling wrote about the Waldviertel area, and I want to read you just a few lines from what he saidabout his native region where he lived for the first ten or fifteen years of his life, because I believe these words can throwmuch greater light on Hamerling's nature than any academic characterization. He writes:

I do not know how much the construction of a railroad skirting the Waldviertel area has affected the latter'sisolation from the world. In 1867, the appearance of a stranger still created quite a stir there. If such a personcame along on foot or by coach, the oxen plowing the fields came to a halt and turned their heads to gawk at thenew apparition. The farmer made one or two feeble attempts to drive them on with his whip — but in vain, andfinally, he did likewise, and the plow rested until the stranger had disappeared behind the next hill or forest. That,too, is the image of an idyllic atmosphere! [ Note 7 ]

Hamerling's life and personality are an example of a soul growing out of and beyond its environment, and of anindividuality's development. He was the son of a poor weaver. Since they were completely impoverished, his parents wereevicted from their home at a time when Hamerling was not yet capable of even saying “I.” His father was forced to goabroad while his mother remained in the Waldviertel area, in Schonau, with the young boy. There the child experiencedthe beauties of the Waldviertel region. A scene from that time remained always in his memory of an experience he

believed actually gave him his own being. The seven-year-old boy was going down a hill. It was evening, and the sun wassetting in the west. Something came toward him, golden, out of the golden sunshine, and Hamerling describes what wasshining forth in the golden light as follows:

Among the most significant memories of my boyhood, but also most difficult to convey, are the often strangemoods that passed through my soul when I was a roaming boy. In part they came from the moment's livelyimpressions and stimulation, usually from nature around me, in part they were waking dreams and premonitions.Speaking about himself, the mystic Jakob Böhme used to say that the higher meaning, the mystical life of thespirit was awakened in him miraculously at the moment when he was dreamily absorbed in gazing at a pewter

bowl sparkling in the sunlight. [ Note 8 ] Perhaps every spiritual person has a pewter bowl like Böhme's as theorigin of his real inner awakening. I vividly recall a certain evening when I was about seven years old. I wasgoing down a hill, and the sunset shone toward me like a miracle, a spiritual vision. It filled my heart with anunforgettably strange mood, with a presentiment that today seems to me like a calling, reflecting my futuredestiny. In high spirits, I hurried toward an unknown destination; yet, at the same time my soul was filled with amelancholy that made me want to cry. If that moment could have been explained out of the surroundingcircumstances, if it had not been so completely unique, it would surely not have remained so indelibly in mymemory. [ Note 9 ]

Thus, in the poet's seventh year the poetic and spiritual muse drew near. At that time, the seed for everything that waslater to become of this soul was laid into it from out of the cosmos, so to speak. The nice thing is that Hamerling ascribeshis poetic calling to such an event, as if it were a miracle the cosmos itself performed on him.

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Because of his parents' poverty, the boy had to be educated at the Cistercian monastery of Zwettl. [ Note 10 ] In return for his school lessons, he had to sing in the monastery choir. At that time, Hamerling was between ten and fourteen years old.He formed a close relationship to a strange personality at the monastery, namely, Father Hugo Traumihler, a personcompletely given over to mystical contemplation and a strict ascetic life. At that time the boy already possessed a thirstfor the beauty of the cosmos and an urge to deepen his soul. You can imagine that he was inspired by the inner experiences Father Traumihler described from his inner contemplation of the secrets of the heart and soul. He was amystic of a very elementary, primitive kind who nevertheless made a deep impression on Hamerling's soul.

But it is impossible to talk about the poet Hamerling without mentioning what was such a great part of his longing: the

longing to be a great human being. When he returned on a trip to the Waldviertel long after he had left the area, peoplewho knew that he came from there asked him what he wanted to be. [ Note 11 ] But although he was already well pasttwenty, Hamerling had not thought about what he wanted to be. This realization brought it home to him that at that ageyou cannot avoid the question “What do you want to do?” The only thing he could tell himself was: “Well, I cannot reallytell them what I want to be, because they would not understand. For when I am asked what I want to be, I want to answer:I want to become a human being!” So sometimes he said he wanted to be a philologist or an astronomer or something likethat. People could understand that. But they would not have understood that someone who had finished his studies mightintend to become a human being.

Well, much could be said about the development of Hamerling as a poet and, above all, about the unfolding of threethings in his soul. The first he later described in The Atomistic Will by saying that the Greeks called the universe“cosmos,” a word connected with beauty. [ Note 12 ] That, to him, was characteristic of the Greek spirit, for his soul wasfilled with the beauty that resonates throughout the universe. And his heart's desire was to see humankind in turn

permeated by that beauty; that was what he wanted to express in poetic form. So everything in him strove toward beauty,toward the beauty-filled world of the Greeks. Yet he saw so many aspects of life that cast a pall over the beauty intended

by nature. For him beauty was identical with spirituality. He would often survey everything he knew about Hellenism andthen look with sadness at modern culture, the readers of his poetry. He wanted to write poetry for this modern culture inorder to fill it with sounds that would encourage people to bring beauty and spirituality back into life, and thus returnhappiness to life on earth. Hamerling found it impossible to speak of a discrepancy between the world and beauty inhuman life. He was inspired by the belief that life should be infused with beauty, that beauty should be alive in the world,and from his youth on he would have preferred to live for that alone. It was like an instinct in his soul. But he had metwith much that showed him the modern age must struggle through many things that frustrate our ideals in life.

Hamerling was a student in 1848. He was a member of the liberation movement and was arrested by the police for this“great crime” and given a special punishment, as happened to many who had been part of the liberation movement inVienna at that time. If they went beyond what the police thought permissible, they were taken to the barber where their hair was cut as a sign that they were “democrats.” These days you no longer risk having your hair cut just because youhold liberal views — progress indeed! The other thing not allowed at that time was the wearing of a broad-brimmed hat.This again was taken as a sign of liberal views. One had to wear a so-called “topper,” a top hat, which had full policeapproval.

Hamerling had to put up with this and much else. Let me just mention one more event as a small indication of how theworld treated the great poet; I believe it leads to a much better characterization than an abstract description. The event Iam referring to happened when Hamerling had concluded his years at university and was about to take his teachingexamination. He had good grades in Greek, Latin, and mathematics. Indeed, he received excellent grades on his Greek

and Latin. But if we read further in his report card, we find that although Hamerling claimed to have read some grammar books, his performance in the examination did not indicate a thorough study of the German language. This was said of theman who has enriched the German language so immeasurably through his unique style!

I would like to draw your attention to another experience Hamerling had. In 1851, he became acquainted with a familyand one evening was invited to stay for a party. He would have gladly joined them, but he could not stay. Then thedaughter of the family had a glass of punch sent over to his student quarters. What were his feelings then? He suddenlyhad the urge to take pencil and paper, and he felt himself transported into another world. At first he saw images of worldhistory, presented as if in a large tableau. Then these images were transformed into a chaos of blossoms, rot, blood, newts,golden fruits, blue eyes, harp music, destruction of life, the thunder of cannons, and quarreling people. Historical scenesalternated with blossoms and salamanders. Then, as if crystallizing from out of the whole, a pale, serious figure with

penetrating eyes appeared. At the sight of this figure, Hamerling came to. He looked at the piece of paper. The paper, blank before the vision, had written on it the name Ahasver and below, the outline for the poem “Ahasver.”

Hamerling's interest in everything that moves the human soul to its heights and depths was of rare profundity, andcombined with a drunkenness with beauty, so to speak. That is why the ten years he spent teaching high school in Triesteon the glorious Adriatic and taking his vacations in neighboring Venice may be described as a happy time for him. He got

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to know Venice so well that years later he still knew all the nooks and crannies and little alleys where he had walkedmany times on beautiful evenings. There he saw radiant nature and southern beauty, for which his soul had such ayearning. This southern beauty blossomed in “Greeting in Song from the Adriatic.” Like his early works, this poem showsHamerling's extraordinary talent. It was followed by “Venus in Exile.” Hamerling conceived of Venus not only as theembodiment of earthly love, but as the bearer of the beauty that rules and holds sway in the cosmos, a beauty that is inexile as far as modern humanity is concerned. Robert Hamerling's longing as a poet was to liberate beauty and love fromtheir exile. Hence the motto I read to you:

Go on your way, a holy messenger,

And sing in joyful tonesOf the dawning day,Of the realm of beauty to come.

But Hamerling's soul could not sing of the “dawning day, / Of the realm of beauty to come” without looking into all thedark recesses of the human soul. The vision of Ahasver shows what Robert Hamerling saw in those recesses. It continuedto stand before his soul until he found the poetic form for the personality of Ahasver. Ahasver became the thread runningthrough human life as the personification of an individuality who wants to escape life but cannot. This individuality isthen contrasted with that of Nero in Rome, a man always seeking life but unable to find it in sensual saturation andtherefore eternally searching.

We can see how life's contradictions confronted Hamerling. This becomes even clearer in his poem “The King of Sion”where he describes a person who wants to bring spiritual salvation from lofty heights to his fellow human beings but falls

prey to human weaknesses in the process, to sensuality and so on. Hamerling was always reflecting on the proximity of opposites in life, and he wanted to give this poetic form. Greece arose before his soul in the form to which he wanted torestore it. In Aspasia , he described the Greece of his imagination, the country of his yearning, the world of beauty,including the negative aspects such a world of beauty may also bear. In the form of a three-part novel, Aspasia became awonderful poem about cultural history.

Robert Hamerling was not understood, as I learned when I met a man in a godforsaken place whose eyes burned withresentment and whose mouth had an ugly expression. I do not mean physical ugliness, of course; physical ugliness canactually radiate beauty of the highest degree. This man was one of the most vicious critics of Aspasia . In comparison withthe beauty-filled poet, that man appeared to be one of the ugliest men, and it was clear why his bitter soul could not

understand Hamerling.

All of Robert Hamerling's endeavors were of this order. There would be much to tell if I were to recount the whole of his progress through history. He sought to deal with Dante and Robespierre, ending with Homunculus, in whom he wished toembody all of the grotesqueness of modern culture. There would also be much to tell if I were to describe howHamerling's lyrical muse sought to find the reflective sounds permeating his works in the beauty and colors of nature andin the spirit of nature. Again, there would be much to say if I wanted to give you even just an idea of how Hamerling'slyrical poetry is alive with everything that can comfort our souls regarding the small things in the great ones, or how his

poems can give us the invincible faith that the kingdom of beauty will triumph in the human soul however much thedemons of discord and ugliness might try to establish their rule. Hamerling's soul suffered in life; yet in the midst of thedeepest, most painful suffering, his soul could find joy in the beauty of spiritual activity. His soul could see the discordsof the day all around, and yet could immerse itself deeply in the beauty of the night when the starry heavens rose abovethe waters. Hamerling was able to give meaningful expression to this mood.

I wanted to describe briefly, by means of a few episodes out of Hamerling's life, an image of Robert Hamerling as a poetof the late nineteenth century who was filled with an invincible awareness of the better future of humanity because he wassteeped completely in the truth of the beauty of the universe. At the same time, he was a poet who could describe how thespirit can be victorious in us over all the material obstacles and hindrances to our spiritual nature.

It is impossible to understand the poet Hamerling without reference to his lifelong effort to answer the question: How do I become a human being? Everything he created has human greatness, though not always poetic excellence, for Hamerling's stature as a poet is a consequence of his human greatness. When he saw disharmony in life, Hamerlingalways felt an invincible urge in his soul to find the corresponding harmony, to find the way in which all things ugly must

dissolve into beauty when we look at them rightly.

In conclusion, I want to read you a small, insignificant poem typical of Hamerling. In conception and thought it belongsto his early years, but it does characterize the mood, albeit in primitive poetic simplicity, that accompanied himthroughout his life:

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The Lion and the Rose

On a deep red roseThe angry lion trodHis paw caught fast the thornOf this delicate bud.

His paw swelled large;In angry pain he died.

Refreshed, the red rose drank The early morning dew.

Be the delicate ever so delicate,The rough ever so rough,That which is fragile, gentle, pure — Beauty, triumphs over all. [ Note 13 ]

This mood — we can see it in everything he wrote — accompanied Hamerling through his life:

Be the delicate ever so delicate,The rough ever so rough,That which is fragile, gentle, pure — Beauty, triumphs over all.

NOTES

LECTURE ONE

1. Rudolf Steiner, A Road to Self-Knowledge & The Threshold of the Spiritual World , (London: Rudolf Steiner Press,1975).

LECTURE TWO

1. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, 1762–1814, German philosopher.2. In Fichte, Die Bestimmung des Menschen (“The Vocation of Man”), vol. 3, section III, Berlin 1800.3. Fichte gave these lectures in Berlin in the winter of 1807/08.4. Fichte, “On the Publication of Same,” from the foreword to Die Anweisungen zum seligen Leben , Berlin 1806.5. Rudolf Steiner, “Understanding the Spiritual World (I),” lecture of April 18, 1914, Lecture One in this volume.6. Rudolf Steiner, Four Mystery Plays , (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1982). The four Mystery Dramas were

premiered m Munich between 1910 an 1913 under Steiner's direction.7. Steiner here refers to the actress Maria von Strauch-Spettini, 1847–1904. See Hella Wiesberger's short biography

of Maria von Strauch-Spettini and her letters to Marie von Sivers in Aus dem Leben von Marie Steiner-von Sivers ,Dornach 1956, p. 15ff.8. Steiner here refers to Christian Morgenstern, May 6, 1871 – March 31, 1914. German poet, wrote lyrical verse as

well as grotesque and nonsense verse. Also translated works of Ibsen, Strindberg, and Hamsun.9. Morgenstern, Wir fanden einen Pfad . (“We Found a Path”), first published by Piper Verlag, Munich, in autumn of

1914.10. This lecture was given on December 31, 1913, as part of the lecture cycle Christ and the Spiritual World: The

Search for the Holy Grail (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1963) at which Morgenstern was present. Rudolf Steiner's comments are in Die Kunst der Rezitation und Deklamation , volume 281 in the Collected Works,(Dornach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1967), pp. 208–210.

11. See Steiner, Background to the Gospel of St. Mark , (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1968), Lecture Six, pp. 96– 113.

12. Raphael, 1483–1520, Italian painter. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, Italian painter.

LECTURE THREE

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1. Work on the construction of the first Goetheanum in Dornach. Started in 1913, it was destroyed by arson on NewYear's Eve 1922/23.

2. Christian Morgenstern May 6, 1871 – March 31, 1914. See Lecture Two, note 8.3. Christian Morgenstern, Alles um des Menschen Willen: Briefe , (Munich, Germany: Piper, 1962), letter of January

22, 1914, to a young girl, p. 398.4. Morgenstern, Wir fanden einen Pfad . See Lecture Two, note 9.5. Zarathustra, 628–551 B.C. Persian religious leader. Buddha, Siddharta Gautama, 563–483 B.C. Founder of

Buddhism. Krishna, Indian deity, appears in Bhagavad-Gita as teacher of Arjuna.6. Rudolf Steiner, “Homunkulus,” public lecture, Berlin, March 26, 1914, in Geisteswissenschaft als Lebensgut , vol.

63 in the Collected Works, (Dornach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1959).

LECTURE FOUR

1. See Rudolf Steiner, Die Welt des Geistes und ihr Hereinragen in das physische Dasein , Vol. 150 in the CollectedWorks, (Dornach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1972), lecture of May 5, 1913. There are no transcripts of the lectures of May 4 and 9, 1913, in Paris.

2. Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment , repr., (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press1986).

3. Steiner here refers to the actress Maria von Strauch-Spettini, 1847–1904. See Lecture Two, note 7. 4. Edouard Schuré, French writer. His play Children of Lucifer was performed in German in Munich on August 22,

1909, under Rudolf Steiner's direction. See Steiner The East in the Light of the West and Schuré, Children of Lucifer , both in one volume, (Blauvelt NY: Spiritual Science Library, 1986).5. Joan of Arc, 1412–1431, French national heroine and saint.6. Morgenstern, see Lecture Two, note 8. 7. Due to complications and delays caused by World War I (1914–1918), the building neared completion only in

1920. The inauguration ceremony never took place because of the fire that destroyed the Goetheanum. A“provisional inauguration” took place on September 26, 1920, on the eve of the first event held in the building,the “first anthroposophical academic course,” which lasted from September 27 to October 16, 1920.

8. Rudolf Steiner, Vorstufen zum Mysterium von Golgotha , Vol. 152 in the Collected Works, (Dornach, Switzerland:Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1964), Lecture of May 27, 1914.

LECTURE FIVE

1. At the beginning of this lecture, Rudolf Steiner apologized for giving the lecture in German rather than French.His comments were not recorded.

2. Nicolaus Copernicus, 1473–1543, Polish astronomer. Made astronomical observations of orbits of sun, moon, and planets. Gradually abandoned accepted Ptolemaic system of astronomy and worked out heliocentric system.

Galileo Galilei, 1564–1642, Italian astronomer and physicist. Advocated Copernican system. Instrumental inlaying foundations of modern science.

Giordano Bruno, 1548–1600, Italian philosopher. A critic of Aristotelian logic and defender of Copernicancosmology, which he extended with notion of infinite universe. Arrested and burned at the stake by the

Inquisition.3. Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment , repr., (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press,1986).

4. Steiner here refers to his investigation of events in the fourth century on the basis of spiritual science. He presented his insights in a lecture on May 9, 1914 (“Words of Remembrance for Oda Waller”) in Unsere Toten ,vol. 261 in the Collected Works, (Dornach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1963); lecture on May 26, 1914(Chapter Four, in this volume); lecture of March 23, 1921, in Naturbeobachtung, Mathematik, wissenschaftliches

Experiment und Erkenntnisergebnisse vom Gesichtpunkt der Anthroposophie , vol. 324 in the Collected Works,(Dornach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1972). He also mentioned these investigations and their results inhis lecture on August 31, 1923, in The Evolution of Consciousness , (London: Pharos Books, 1979); and in hislecture on April 5, 1924, in Karmic Relationships , vol. 5, (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1966).

5. Steiner here refers to Oda Waller, sister of Mieta Pyle-Waller (who took the role of Johannes Thomasius in theMystery Drama performances in Munich). See also his lecture of May 9, 1914, in Unsere Toten . Oda Waller diedin March 1913.

LECTURE SIX

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1. Lecture of April 16, 1914, entitled “Wie findet die Menschenseele ihre wahre Wesenheit?” (“How Can theHuman Soul Find Its True Essence?”).

2. Hermes, the ancient Greek herald and messenger of the gods. See also Lecture Three, note 5.3. Max Müller, 1823–1900, German orientalist, linguist, and religious scholar, professor of philology at Oxford.

Literally: “A change is to take place, a transformation of such magnitude that even if angels came down andannounce it, we would understand it as little as an infant would understand what we told it about the world in our language,” in Leben und Religion (“Life and Religion”), Stuttgart, n.y.

LECTURE SEVEN

1. PeterRosegger, 1843–1918, Austrian poet and novelist. Hans Brandstetter, 1854–1925, Austrian sculptor. RobertHamerling, pseudonym of Rupert Hammerling 1830–1889, Austrian poet. Best known for his epics Ahasverus inRom 1865 and Homunculus (1888).

2. “An B(ertha),” Hamerling's last poem; written in the Stiftin House on June 18, 1889, three weeks before hisdeath. In Letzte Grüsse aus Stiftinghaus , in Hamerlings Sämtliche Werke (Hamerling's Collected Works), Leipzig1893, 16 volumes, edited by Michael Rabenlechner, vol. 15, p. 90.

3. “The Pessimist” in Letzte Grüsse aus Stiftinghaus , p. 91. Translator's note. The final syllable of the German word“Pessimist” ( mist ) means “dung” in English.

4. Letter of June 11, 1888, in Peter Rosegger, Persönliche Erinnerungen an Robert Hamerling , Vienna 1891, p. 177.5. Hamerling's philosophical work, published in 1891.

6. The Waldviertel is a region in northwestern Lower Austria.7. Robert Hamerling, “Die schönste Gegend der Erde,” vol. 16 in his Collected Works, p. 134, and “Stationenmeiner Lebenspilgerschaft,” same volume, p. 17.

8. Jakob Böhme, 1575–1624. German mystic. He was first a shoemaker, then had a mystical experience in 1600.9. Hamerling, “Stationen meiner Lebenspilgerschaft,” p. 17.10. “Stationen meiner Lebenspilgerschaft”, p. 45.11. “People still have the bad habit of asking me what I want to become — well, a human being!” from “Lehrjahre

der Liebe,” in Tagebuchblätter und Briefe (Diaries and Letters), entry of April 13, 1851. Volume 14 inHamerling's Collected Works.

12. Literally: “The Greeks called the universe ‘beauty’ (cosmos).” In Atomtstik des Willens , Hamburg 1891, vol. 11, p. 226.

13. In Letzte Grüsse aus Stiftinghaus , vol. 15 in Hamerling's Collected Works, pp. 34–35.

PUBLISHER's NOTE

The lectures printed here were given by Rudolf Steiner to audiences familiar with the general background andterminology of his anthroposophical teaching. It should be remembered that in his autobiography The Course of My Life , he emphasizes the distinction between his written works on the one hand, and on the other, reports of lectures which weregiven as oral communications and were not originally intended for print. For an intelligent appreciation of the lectures itshould be borne in mind that certain premises were taken for granted when the words were spoken. “These premises,”Rudolf Steiner writes, “include at the very least the anthroposophical knowledge of Man and of the Cosmos in its spiritual

essence; also what may be called ‘anthroposophical history,’ told as an outcome of research into the spiritual world.”

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http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA028/TSoML/GA028_index.html







February 10, 1918 Nuremberg

OUR studies in Spiritual Science contain much that we cannot, perhaps, put to direct application in everyday life, and wemay sometimes be inclined to feel it all rather remote from everyday life. But this is only seemingly the case. What wereceive into the sphere of our knowledge concerning the secrets of the spiritual world is at every hour, at every moment,

of vital and profound significance for our souls; what seems to be remote from us personally is often what the soulinwardly needs, In order to know the physical world we must make ourselves acquainted with it. But to know the spiritualworld it is essential that we ourselves think through and make mental pictures of the thoughts and conceptions imparted tous by that world. These thoughts then often work quite unconsciously within the soul. That upon which the soul isworking may seem to be quite remote, while in reality it is very near indeed to the higher domains of the life of soul.

And so we will study again to-day the life that takes its course between death and a new birth — that life that seemsso far removed from the human being in the physical world. I will begin with a simple narration of what is found byspiritual investigation. These things can be understood if they are thought over and pondered time and again; through their own power they make themselves comprehensible to the soul. Anyone who does not understand them should realise thathe has not thought them through often enough. Such matters must be investigated by means of Spiritual Science, but theycan be understood if the soul will ponder them time and again. They will then be confirmed by the facts which meet us inlife; if only life is properly studied, they will be substantiated by the facts of life.

You will realise from many of the Lecture Courses that have been given that consideration of the life between deathand a new birth is fraught with difficulty, because its conditions are so entirely different from those of the life that can be

pictured with the help of the organs of the physical body here within the physical world. We have to become acquaintedwith completely different conceptions.

When we enter into relationship with the things in our physical environment we know that only a small proportion of the beings around us in the physical world react to our actions, our manifestations of will, in such a way that pleasure or

pain is caused by these actions of ours to beings in our environment. Reaction of-this kind takes place in the case of theanimal kingdom and the human kingdom; but we are justified in our conviction that the mineral world (including what is

in air and water) and also, in essentials, the world of plants are insensitive to what we call pleasure or pain when actionsare performed by us. (Spiritually considered, of course, the matter is a little different, but that need not concern us at this point.) In the environment of the dead all this is changed. In the environment of the so-called dead conditions are suchthat everything — including what is done by the dead themselves — arouses either pleasure or pain in the wholeenvironment. — The dead can do no single thing, he cannot, if I may speak pictorially, move a single one of his limbswithout pleasure or pain being caused by what he does. We must try to think our way into these conditions of existence.

— We must assimilate the thought that life between death and a new birth is so constituted that everything we do awakensan echo in the environment. During the whole period between death and a new birth we can do nothing, we cannot evenmove, pictorially speaking, without awakening pleasure or pain in our environment. The mineral kingdom as we have itaround us on the physical plane does not exist for the dead, neither does our plant world. As you can gather from the book “Theosophy” these kingdoms are present in quite a different form. They are not present in the spiritual world in the formin which we know them here, namely, as realms devoid of feeling. The first kingdom of those we know on the physical

plane, which has significance for the dead because it can be compared with what the dead has in his environment, is theanimal kingdom. I do not of course mean the individual animals that are here on the physical plane, but the wholeenvironment is such that its effect and influence are as if animals were there. The reaction of the environment is such that

pleasure or pain proceeds from what is done. On the physical plane we stand upon mineral soil; the dead stands upon a‘soil’, lives in an environment which may be compared with the animal nature in this sense. The dead, therefore, starts his

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The Dead Are With Us

A lecture byRudolf Steiner

Nüremberg, February 10, 1918GA 182

The lecture presented here was given in Nüremberg on February 10, 1918. In the collected edition of Rudolf Steiner'sworks, the volume containing the German texts is entitled, Death as a Metamorphosis of Life , [ Der Tod als

Lebenswandlung ] – 1917. (Vol. 182 in the Bibliographic Survey, 1961). Translated from the German by D. S. Osmond.

Copyright © 1963This e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:

The Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co.London

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/English/AP1971/GA009_index.html

http://wn.rsarchive.org/Books/GA009/English/AP1971/GA009_index.html



life two kingdoms higher. On the Earth we get to know the animal kingdom only from the outside. The most externalactivity of the life between death and a new birth consists in acquiring a more and more intimate and exact knowledge of the animal world. For in this life between death and a new birth we must prepare all those forces which, working in fromthe Cosmos, organise our own body. In the physical world we know nothing of these forces. Between death and a new

birth we know that our body, down to its smallest particles, is formed out of the Cosmos. For we ourselves prepare this physical body, bringing together in it the whole scope of animal nature; we ourselves build it up.

In order to make the picture more exact, we must acquaint ourselves with a concept, an idea, that is rather remotefrom present-day mentality. Modern man knows quite well that when a magnetic needle lies with one end pointing

towards the North and the other towards the South, this is not caused by the needle itself, but that the Earth as a whole is acosmic magnet of which one end points towards the North and the other towards the South. It would be considered purenonsense to assert that the direction is brought about merely by forces contained in the magnetic needle. In the case of aseed or germ which develops in an animal or in a human being, all science and all schools of thought deny the factor of cosmic influence. What would be described as nonsense in the case of the magnetic needle is accepted without further thought in the case of an egg forming within the hen. But when the egg is forming within the hen the whole Cosmos is, infact, participating; what happens on Earth is merely the stimulus to the play of cosmic forces. Everything that takes shapein the egg is an imprint of cosmic forces and the hen herself is only a place, an abode, in which the Cosmos, the wholeWorld-System, is developing this work. And it is the same in the case of the human being. This is a thought with whichwe must become familiar.

Between death and a new birth, in company with Beings of the higher Hierarchies, the human being is working at thiswhole system of forces which permeates the Cosmos. For between death and a new birth he is not without employment;he works perpetually. He works in the Spiritual. The animal kingdom is the first realm with which he makes acquaintance

— and in the following way. If he makes some mistake, he immediately becomes aware of pain, of suffering, in theenvironment; if he does something right, he becomes aware of pleasure, of joy, in the environment. He works on and on,calling forth pleasure or pain, until, finally, the soul-nature is such that it can descend and come together with what willlive on Earth as a physical body, The being of soul could never descend if it had not itself worked at the physical form.

It is the animal kingdom, then, with which acquaintance is first made. The next is the human kingdom. Mineral Nature and the plant kingdom are absent. The dead's acquaintance with the human kingdom is limited — if we may use afamiliar phrase. Between death and a new birth — and this begins immediately or soon after death — the dead has contactand can make links only with those human souls, whether still-living on Earth or in yonder world, with whom he has

already had karmic connection on Earth, in the last or in an earlier incarnation. Other souls pass him by; they do not comewithin his ken. He becomes aware of the animal realm as a totality; only those human souls come within his ken withwhom he has had karmic connection here on Earth; with these he grows more and more closely acquainted. You must notimagine that their number is small, for individual human beings have already passed through many Earth lives. In everyEarth life a whole host of karmic connections has been made and of these is spun the web which then, in the spiritualworld, extends over all the souls whom the dead has known in life; only those with whom acquaintance has never beenmade remain outside the circle.

This indicates a truth which should be emphasised, namely, the supreme importance of the Earth life for theindividual human being. If there had been no Earth life we should be unable to form links with human souls in thespiritual world. The links are made karmically on Earth and then continue between death and a new birth. Those who areable to see into that world perceive how the dead gradually makes more and more links — all of which are the outcome of

karmic connections formed on Earth,

Just as concerning the first kingdom with which the dead comes into contact — the animal kingdom — we can saythat everything the dead does, even when he simply moves, causes either pleasure or pain in his environment, so we cansay concerning everything experienced in the human realm in yonder world that the dead is in much more intimateconnection with human beings in the domain of soul-life. When the dead becomes acquainted with a soul, he gets to knowthis soul as if he himself were within it, After death knowledge of another soul is as intimate as knowledge here on Earthof our own finger, head or ear — we feel ourselves within the other soul. The connection is much more intimate than itcan ever be on Earth. There are two basic experiences in the community among human souls between death and a new

birth: we are either within the other souls, or outside them. Even in the case of souls with whom we are alreadyacquainted, we are now within, and then again outside them. Meeting with them consists in feeling at one with them,

being within them. To be outside them means that we do not notice them. If we look at some object here on Earth, we perceive it; if we look away from it, we no longer perceive it. In yonder world we are actually within human souls whenwe are able to turn our attention to them; and we are outside them when we are not in a position to do so.

In what I have now told you, you have as it were the fundamental form of the soul's communion with other soulsduring the period between death and a new birth. Similarly, the human being is also within or outside the Beings of the

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other Hierarchies, the Angels, Archangels and so on. The higher the kingdom, the more intensely does a man feel boundto them after death; he feels as though they were bearing him, sustaining him with great power. The Archangels bear himmore mightily than the Angels, the Archai again more mightily than the Archangels, and so on.

People to-day still find difficulty in acquiring knowledge of the spiritual world. The difficulties would more or lesssolve themselves if men would take a little more trouble to grow acquainted with the secrets of the spiritual world. Thereare here two methods of approach. One way of becoming acquainted with the spiritual world leads to complete certaintyof the Eternal in one's own being. This knowledge, that in human nature there is an eternal core of being which passesthrough births and deaths — this knowledge, remote as it is to modern humanity, is relatively easy to attain; and it will be

attained by those who have enough perseverance, along the path described in the book “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds” and in other writings. It is attained by treading the path there described. That is one form of knowledge of thespiritual world. The other is what may be called concrete, direct intercourse with beings of the spiritual world, and we willnow speak of the intercourse that is possible between those who are still on Earth and the so-called dead.

Such intercourse is most certainly possible but it presents greater difficulties than the first form of knowledge, whichis easy to attain. Actual intercourse with an individual who has died is possible but difficult, because it demandsscrupulous care on the part of the one who seeks it. Control and discipline are necessary for this kind of intercourse withthe spiritual world, for it is connected with a very significant law. The very same thing that we recognise in men on Earthas lower impulses is, from the other, the spiritual side, higher life; and it may therefore easily happen when the human

being has not attained true control of himself, that he experiences the rising of lower impulses through direct intercoursewith the dead. When we make contact with the spiritual world in the general sense, when we acquire knowledge about our own immortality as beings of soul and spirit, there can be no question of the ingress of anything impure. But when it is amatter of contact with individuals who have died, the relation of the individual dead — strange as it seems — is always arelation with the blood and nervous system. The dead enters into those impulses which live themselves out in the systemof blood and nerves, and in this way lower impulses may be aroused. Naturally, there can only be danger for those whohave not purified their natures through discipline and control. This must be said, for it is the reason why it is forbidden inthe Old Testament to have intercourse with the dead. Such intercourse is not sinful when it happens in the right way. Themethods of modern spiritualism must, of course, be avoided. When the intercourse is of a spiritual nature it is not sinful,

but when it is not accompanied by pure thoughts it can easily lead to the stimulation of lower passions. It is not the deadwho arouse these passions but the element in which the dead live. For consider: what we here feel as ‘animal’ in qualityand nature is the basic element in which the dead live. The kingdom in which the dead live can easily be changed when itenters into us; what is higher life in yonder world can become lower when it is within us on Earth. It is very important toremember this, and it must be emphasised when we are speaking of intercourse between the living and the so-called dead,for it is an occult fact. We shall find that precisely when we are speaking about this intercourse the spiritual world can bedescribed as it really is; for such experiences reveal the complete difference of the spiritual world from the physicalworld.

First of all, I will tell you something that may seem to have no meaning for man so long as he has not developed hisclairvoyant faculties; but when we think it over, we shall realise that it concerns us closely, leading on as it does tomatters in actual life. Those who are able to have intercourse with the dead as the result of developed clairvoyance, realisewhy it is so difficult for human beings to know anything about the dead through direct perception. Strange and grotesqueas it may seem, the whole form of intercourse to which we are accustomed in the physical world has to be reversed whenintercourse is set up between the Earth and the dead. In the physical world, when we speak with a human being from

physical body to physical body, we ourselves are speaking, When we speak, we know that the words come from us; when

the other man speaks to us, we know that the words come from him. The whole relationship is reversed when we arespeaking with a dead man. The expression ‘when we are speaking’ can truthfully be used, but the relationship is reversed.When we put a question to the dead, or say something to him, what we say comes from him, comes to us from him. Heinspires into our soul what we ask him, what we say to him. And when he answers us or says something to us, this comesout of our own soul. It is a process with which a human being in the physical world is quite unfamiliar. He feels that whathe says comes out of his own being. In order to establish intercourse with the dead, we must adapt ourselves to hear fromthem what we ourselves say, and to receive from our own soul what they answer.

Thus abstractly described, the nature of the process is easy to grasp; but really to become accustomed to the totalreversal of the familiar form of intercourse is exceedingly difficult. The dead are always there, always among us andaround us, and the fact that they are not perceived is largely due to lack of understanding of this reversed form of intercourse. On the physical plane we think that when anything comes out of our own soul, it comes from us. And we arefar from being able to pay intimate enough attention to whether it is not, after all, being inspired into us from the spiritualenvironment. We prefer to connect it with experiences familiar on the physical plane, where, if something comes to usfrom the environment, we ascribe it at once to the other person. This is the greatest error when it is a matter of intercoursewith the dead.

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I have here been telling you of one of the fundamental characteristics of intercourse between the so-called living andthe so-called dead. If this example helps you to realise one thing only, namely, that conditions are completely reversed inthe spiritual world, that there one has as it were to turn right round, then you will have taken hold of a significant conceptthat is constantly needed by those who wish to enter the spiritual world. The concept is extremely difficult to apply in theactual, individual case. For instance, in order to understand even the physical world, which is permeated through andthrough with the spiritual, it is essential to grasp this idea of complete reversal. And because modern science fails to graspit and it is altogether unknown to popular consciousness, therefore there is today no spiritual understanding of the

physical world. One experiences this even with people who try very hard indeed to comprehend the world, and one isoften obliged simply to accept the situation and leave it so. Some years ago I spoke to a large number of our friends at a

General Meeting in Berlin about the physical organism of man, with special reference to certain of Goethe's ideas. I triedto explain how the head, in its physical form, can only be understood aright when it is conceived as a completetransformation of the other part of the organism. No one was able to understand at all that a bone in the arm would have to

be turned inside out like a glove, in order that a head-bone might be produced from it. It is a difficult concept but onecannot really understand anatomy without such pictures. I mention this in parenthesis only. What I have said to-day aboutintercourse with the dead is easier to understand. The happenings I have described to you are going on all the time. All of you sitting here now are in constant intercourse with the dead, only ordinary consciousness knows nothing of it because it

proceeds in the sub-consciousness. Clairvoyant consciousness does not charm anything new into being; it merely bringsup into consciousness what is present all the time in the spiritual world. All of you are in constant intercourse with thedead.

And now we will consider how intercourse with the dead takes place in individual cases. When someone has died andwe are left behind, we may ask: How do I approach the dead so that he experiences me in himself? How does the deadcome near me again so that I can live in him? These questions may well be asked but they cannot be answered if we haverecourse to concepts familiar to us on the physical plane. On the physical plane ordinary consciousness functions onlyfrom the time of waking until the time of falling asleep; but the other part of consciousness which remains dim in ordinarylife between falling asleep and awaking is just as important. In the real sense, the human being is not unconscious whenhe is asleep; his consciousness is merely so dim that he experiences nothing of it. It is a dim consciousness. But the wholeman — in waking and sleeping life — must be held in mind when we are studying the connections of the human beingwith the spiritual world. Think of your own biography. You consider the course of your life always with interruptions;you describe only what has happened in your waking life. Life is thus broken: waking-sleeping; waking-sleeping. But youare also there while you sleep; and in studying the whole human being, waking life and sleeping life must be taken intoconsideration. A third thing must also be considered in connection with man's intercourse with the spiritual world. For

besides waking life and sleeping life there is a third state, even more important for intercourse with the spiritual worldthan waking and sleeping life as such. I mean the actual act of waking and the actual act of going to sleep, which last onlya moment, for we immediately pass on into other conditions. If we develop delicate, sensitive feelings for these momentsof waking and going to sleep, we shall find they shed great light on the spiritual world. In remote country places — suchcustoms are gradually disappearing, but in the time when we who are older were still young — people were wont to say:When you wake up it is not good immediately to go to the window through which light is pouring; you should remain alittle while in the dark. Country folk used to have some knowledge about intercourse with the spiritual world, and they

preferred in this moment of waking not immediately to come into the bright daylight but to remain inwardly collected inorder to preserve something of what sweeps with such power through the human soul at the moment of waking. Thesudden brightness of daylight is disturbing. In the cities, of course, this is hardly to be avoided; there we are disturbed notonly by the daylight but also even before waking by the noise of the streets, the clanging of tramcar bells and so forth.The whole of civilised life seems to conspire to hinder man's intercourse with the spiritual world. This is not said in order

to decry material civilisation, but the fact must be borne in mind. Again at the moment of falling asleep the spiritual worldapproaches us with power; but we immediately fall asleep, losing consciousness of what has passed through the soul.Exceptions can, however, occur.

These moments of waking and of falling asleep are of the utmost significance for intercourse, for example, with theso-called dead — and with other spiritual Beings of the higher world. In order however to understand what I have to sayon this matter you must familiarise yourselves with an idea which it is not easy to apply on the physical plane and whichis therefore practically unknown. The idea is this. In the spiritual sense, what is ‘past’ has not really passed away but isstill there. In physical life men have this conception in regard to Space only. If you stand in front of a tree, then go awayand look back at it later on, the tree has not disappeared; it is still there. In the spiritual world it is so in regard to Time. If you experience something at one moment, it has passed away the next so far as physical consciousness is concerned;spiritually conceived, it has not passed away. You can look back at it just as you looked back at the tree. Richard Wagner

showed that he had knowledge of this, in the remarkable words: “ Time here becomes Space ”. It is an occult fact that inthe spiritual world there are distances which do not come to expression on the physical plane. That an event is past meanssimply that it is farther away from us. I want you to bear this in mind. For man on Earth in the physical body, the momentof falling asleep is ‘past’ when the moment of waking arrives. In the spiritual world, however, the moment of fallingasleep has not gone; we are only, at the moment of waking, a little farther distant from it. We confront our dead at the

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moment of falling asleep, and again at the moment of waking. (As I have said, this happens continually, only it usuallyremains in the sub-consciousness.) So far as physical consciousness is concerned, these are two quite different moments;for spiritual consciousness the one is only a little farther distant than the other. I want you to remember this in connectionwith what I am now going to say; otherwise you may find it difficult to understand.

As I told you, the moments of waking and falling asleep are of particular importance for intercourse with the dead. Inour whole life there are no single moments of falling asleep or of waking when we do not come into relation with thedead.

The moment of falling asleep is especially favourable for us to turn to the dead. Suppose we want to ask the deadsomething. We can carry it in our soul, holding it until the moment of falling asleep; for that is the time to bring our questions to the dead, Other opportunities exist, but this moment is the most favourable. When, for instance, we read tothe dead we certainly draw near to them. But for direct intercourse it is best of all if we address our questions to the deadat the moment of falling asleep.

On the other hand, the moment of waking is the most favourable for what the dead have to communicate to us. Andagain there is no one — did people but know it — who does not bring with him at the moment of waking countlesstidings from the dead. In the unconscious region of the soul we are speaking continually with the dead. At the moment of falling asleep we put our questions to them, we say to them what, in the depths of the soul, we have to say. At the momentof waking the dead speak with us, give us the answers. But we must grasp the connection that these are only two different

points and that, in the higher sense, these things that happen after each other are really simultaneous, just as on the physical plane two places are simultaneous.

Now, for intercourse with the dead, some things in life are more favourable, others less so. And we may ask: Whatcan really help our intercourse with the dead? The manner of our intercourse with the dead cannot be the same as themanner of our speech with the living; the dead neither hear nor take in this kind of speech. There is no question of beingable to chatter with the dead as we chatter with one another at five o'clock teas and in cafes. What makes it possible to putquestions to the dead or to communicate something to the dead, is that we unite the life of feeling with our thoughts andideas. Suppose a man has passed through the Gate of Death and you want your subconsciousness to communicatesomething to him in the evening. For it need not be communicated consciously. You can prepare it at some time duringthe day; then if you go to bed at ten o'clock at night having prepared it, say, at noon, it passes over to the dead when youfall asleep. The question must, however, be put in a particular way; it must not merely be a thought or an idea, it must be

imbued with feeling and with will. Your relationship with the dead must be one of the heart, of inner interest. You mustremind yourself of your love for the dead when he was alive, and address yourself to him not abstractly, but with realwarmth of heart. This can so take root in the soul that in the evening at the moment of going to sleep, without your knowing it, it becomes a question to the dead. Or you may try to realise vividly what was the nature of your particular interest in the dead. It is very good to do the following. Think about your life with the one who is now dead; visualiseactual moments when you were together with him, and then ask yourself: What was it that particularly interested meabout him, that attracted me? When was it that I was so deeply impressed, — liked what he said, and found it helpful andvaluable? If you remind yourself of moments when you were strongly connected with the dead and were deeply interestedin him, and then turn this into a desire to speak to him, to say something to him — if you develop the feeling in purity andlet the question arise out of the interest you took in the dead, then the question or the communication remains in your soul, and when you go to sleep it passes over to him. Ordinary consciousness as a rule will know little of the happening,

because sleep ensues immediately; but what has thus passed over often remains present in dreams. In the case of most

dreams — although from the point of view of actual content they are misleading — in the case of most dreams we have of the dead, all that happens is that we interpret them incorrectly. We interpret them as messages from the dead, whereasthey are nothing but the echoing of the questions or communications we have ourselves directed to the dead. We shouldnot think that the dead is saying something to us in our dream, but we should see in the dream something that goes outfrom our own soul to the dead. The dream is the echo of this. If we were sufficiently developed to be conscious of our question or communication to the dead at the moment of going to sleep, it would seem to us as though the dead himself were speaking — hence the echo in the dream seems as if it were a message from him. In reality it comes from us. This

becomes intelligible only when we understand the nature of clairvoyant connection with the dead. What the dead seems tosay to us is really what we are saying to him.

The moment of waking is especially favourable for the dead to approach us. At the moment of waking, very muchcomes from the dead to every human being. A great deal of what we undertake in life is really inspired into us by the deador by Beings of the higher Hierarchies, although we attribute it to ourselves, as coming from our own soul.

What the dead say comes out of our own soul. The life of day draws near, the moment of waking passes quickly by,and we are seldom disposed to observe the intimate indications that arise out of our soul. And when we do observe themwe are vain enough to attribute them to ourselves; Yet in all this — and in much else that comes out of our own soul —

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there lives what our dead have to say to us. What the dead say to us seems to arise out of our own soul. If men knew whatlife actually is, this knowledge would give rise to a feeling of reverence and piety towards the spiritual world in which weand our dead continually live. We should realise that in much of what we do, it is the dead who are working. Theknowledge that round about us, like the air we breathe, there is a spiritual world, the knowledge that the dead are roundabout us and that it is only we who are not able to perceive them — this knowledge must unfold in Spiritual Science, notas external theory but permeating the soul as veritable inner life. The dead speak to us in our inner being but we interpretour own inner being incorrectly.

If we were to understand it aright, we should know ourselves to be united in our inmost being with the souls who are

the so-called dead.

Now there is a great difference according to whether a soul passes through the Gate of Death in relatively early yearsor later in life. When young children who have loved us die, it is a very different thing from the death of people older thanourselves. Experience of the spiritual world describes this difference in the following way. The secret of communion withchildren who have died can be expressed by saying that in the spiritual sense we do not lose them, they remain with us.When children die in early life they continue ever present with us — spiritually — to a very marked degree. I should liketo give it to you as a theme for meditation to be thought through and developed, that when children die they are not lost tous; we do not lose them, they stay with us spiritually. Of older people who die, the reverse may be said. Those who areolder do not lose us. We do not lose little children; older people do not lose us. Older people when they die are stronglydrawn to the spiritual world, but this also gives them the power so to work into the physical world that it is easier for themto approach us. True, they withdraw from the physical world much farther than do children who remain with us, but older

people are endowed with higher faculties of perception than are children who die young. Those who are older retain us.Knowledge of different souls in the spiritual world reveals that those who died in old age live, through being able to enter more easily into souls on Earth; they do not lose the souls on Earth. And we do not lose the children, for the childrenremain more or less within the sphere of earthly man. The meaning of this difference can also be considered in another connection.

We have not always sufficiently deep or delicate perceptions in regard to the experiences of the soul on the physical plane. When friends die, we mourn and feel pain. When good friends in the Society have passed away, I have often saidthat it is not the task of Anthroposophy to offer people shallow consolation for their pain or try to talk them out of their sorrow. Sorrow is justified; one should grow strong to bear it, not let oneself be talked out of it. In regard to the pain andthe sorrow, people make no distinction as to whether it is caused by the death of a child or of an older person. Spiritually

perceived, there is a great, great difference. When little children have died the pain of those who have remained behind isreally a kind of compassion — no matter whether such children were their own or other children whom they loved.Children remain together with us and because we have been united with them they convey their pain to our souls; we feeltheir pain — that they would fain still be here! Their pain is eased when we bear it with them. The child feels in us. It isgood when a child can share his feeling with us; his pain is thereby relieved.

On the other hand, the pain we feel at the death of older people — whether it be our own parents or our friends — thiscan be called egotistical pain. An older person who has died does not lose us and the feeling he has is therefore differentfrom the feeling present in a child. One who died in later life retains us, does not lose us. We here in life feel that we havelost him — the pain is therefore only our concern. It is egotistical pain. We do not share his feeling as we do in the case of children, we feel the pain for ourselves.

It is really so that a clear distinction can be drawn between these two forms of pain: egotistical pain in regard to theold, a pain fraught with compassion in regard to little children. The child lives on in us and we actually feel what) thechild feels. In reality, our own soul mourns only for those who died in the later years of their life.

Just such a matter as this can show us the great significance of knowledge of the spiritual world. For you see, DivineService for the Dead can be adjusted in accordance with these truths. In the case of a child who has died, it will not bealtogether appropriate to emphasise the specifically individual aspect. Because the child, as we saw, lives on in us andremains with us, it is good that the service of remembrance should take a more universal form, giving the child, who isstill living with us, something that is wide and universal. Therefore, in the case of a child, ceremonial in the service for the Dead is preferable to a specific funeral oration. The Catholic ritual is better here in one respect, the Protestant in theother. The Catholic service includes no funeral oration but consists in ceremony, in rite. It is general, universal; and it isalike for all. And what can be alike for all is especially good for children. In the case of one who has died in later years,the individual aspect is more important. The best funeral service here will be one in which the life of the individual isremembered. The Protestant service, with the oration referring to the life of the one who has died, will have greatsignificance for the soul; the Catholic ritual will mean less in such a case. The same distinction holds good for all our thought about the dead. For the child it is best when we enter into a mood where we feel bound up with him; we try toturn our thoughts to him, and these thoughts will then draw near to him when we go to sleep. Such thoughts may be of a

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more general kind — such for example as may be directed to all those who have passed through the Gate of Death. In thecase of an older person, we must direct our thoughts of remembrance to him as an individual, thinking about his life onEarth and what we experienced together with him. In order to enter into the right intercourse with an older person it isvery important to visualise his being, to make his being come to life in ourselves — not only by remembering things hesaid which meant a great deal to us but by thinking of what he was as an individual and what his value was for the world.If we make these things inwardly living, they will enable us to come into connection with an older person who-has diedand to have the right thoughts of remembrance for him. So you see, for the unfolding of true piety it is important to knowwhat attitude should be taken to those who have died early and to those who have died in the later years of life.

Just think what it means at the present time when so many human beings are dying in their youth, to be able to say tooneself: They are really always present, they are not lost to the world. I have spoken of this from other points of view, for such matters must always be considered from different angles. If we succeed in becoming conscious of the spiritualworld, one realisation at least will light up for us out of the infinite sorrow with which the present days are fraught — that

because those who die young remain present with us, a living spiritual life can arise through community with the dead. Aliving spiritual life can and will arise, if only materialism does not unfold its strength to such a degree that Ahriman isable to stretch out his claws and gain the victory over all human powers.

Many a man may say, speaking purely on the physical plane, that indications such as I have been giving seem to himquite remote, he would prefer to be told something definite he can do morning and evening to bring him into a rightrelation with the spiritual world. But this is not quite correct thinking. Where the spiritual world is concerned the firstessential is that we should develop thoughts about it. And even if it seems as though the dead were remote, while presentlife is near and close at hand, the very fact that we have such thoughts as have been described to-day, that we let our minddwell on things seemingly remote from external life — this very fact uplifts and develops the soul, imparts to it spiritualforce and spiritual nourishment. What brings us into the spiritual world is not what is seemingly near at hand, but first andforemost, what comes from the spiritual world itself. Do not, therefore, be afraid of thinking these thoughts through againand again, continually bringing them to life anew within the soul. There is nothing more important for life, even for material life, than the strong and sure realisation of communion with the spiritual world. If modern men had not soentirely lost their connection with the spiritual, these grave times would not have come upon us. Only a very few men to-day have insight into this connection; but insight will most surely come in the future. To-day men think: When a human

being has passed through the Gate of Death, his activity ceases so far as the physical world is concerned. But it is not so,in reality. There is a living and perpetual intercourse between the so-called dead and the so-called living. Those who have

passed through the Gate of Death have not ceased to be present, it is just that our eyes have ceased to see them. They arethere, nevertheless. Our thoughts, our feelings, our impulses of will are connected with the dead. The Gospel words holdgood for the dead as well: “ The Kingdom of the Spirit cometh not with observation (that is to say, external observation);neither shall they say, Lo here, lo there, for behold, the Kingdom of the Spirit is within you.” For we should not seek for the dead through externalities but should become conscious that they are always present. All historical life, all social life,all ethical life, proceed by virtue of co-operation of the so-called living with the so-called dead. The whole being of mancan be infinitely strengthened when his consciousness is filled not only with the realisation of his firm stand here in the

physical world but with the inner realisation that comes to him when he can say of the dead whom he has loved: The deadare with us, they are in our midst. This too is part of a true knowledge and understanding of the spiritual world, which has,as it were, to be pieced together from many different fragments. We can only say that we know the spiritual world whenthe way in which we think and speak about it comes from the spiritual world itself.

The dead are in our midst — this sentence is in itself an affirmation of the spiritual world; and only the spiritual world

can awaken within us the consciousness that the dead are, in very truth, with us.

Selected Lectures for GA 168 ...

Date Name of Lecture Place Year

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1916-02-16 pm Relationships Between the Living and the Dead Hamburg 19161916-02-22 pm The Ego-consciousness of the So-called Dead Leipzig 19161916-02-22 pm The Moment of Death and the Period Thereafter Leipzig 19161916-10-10 pm Social Understanding Liberty of Thought Knowledge of the Spirit

From: How Can the Destitution of Soul in Modern Times Be Overcome? Zurich 1916

1916-10-24 pm The Problem of Destiny Zurich 1916

1916-11-09 pm On the Connection of the Living and the Dead Berne 19161916-12-03 pm The Influence of the Dead on the Life of Man on Earth Zurich 1916

Total On-site Lectures for GA 168: 7

Thanks to an anonymous donation, this lecture has been made available.

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Relationships Between the Living and the Dead

Relationships Between the Living and the Dead

Lecture by Rudolf Steiner

Hamburg, February 16th, 1916GA 168

Copyright © 1935

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Relationships Between the Living and the Dead.

Lecture by Rudolf Steiner.

Hamburg, 16th of February, 1916.

My dear friends:

Let us, first of all, turn our thoughts to those who stand out there upon the battlefields, where historic events are beingenacted, and who must be answerable with body, soul and spirit for these tremendous happenings of the present time.

Spirits ever watchful. Guardians of their souls,May your vibrations waft,to the Earth-men committed to your charge.Our souls' petitioning love:That, united with your power,Our prayer may helpfully radiateTo the souls it lovingly seeks.

And for those who, in consequence of these events, have already passed through the gate of death: —

Spirits ever watchful. Guardians of their souls,May your vibrations waft,To the Men of the Spheres committed to your charge,

Our souls' petitioning love:That, united with your power,Our prayer may helpfully radiateTo the souls it lovingly seeks.

And that Spirit whom we seek to know through our Spiritual Science, who passed through the Mystery of Golgothafor the salvation of the earth, for the progress and freedom of mankind — may He be with you and your difficult duties.

It is our striving to penetrate, knowingly and at the same time livingly, in so far as this is possible, into those worldswhich are closed to the usual everyday knowledge, the usual intellectual knowledge — bound to the physical plane.

For, in the life in which man is enclosed in his physical body, he stands in a world, as we have become accustomed tothink during the course of years, which is only a part, a small part, of the entire actual world. As we come together soseldom, it is not possible, at these meetings, to explain everything from its foundations. How well founded these thingsare, that must be spoken of at such meetings, which take place only at less frequent intervals, and by what means they areestablished — this we must assume to be known from other meetings and through our books. For particularly at such agathering it may, indeed, be our desire to learn something more important and more essential about what has just beenreferred to, about the greater, real world, which embraces both the physical and the spiritual world.

Since we last gathered here, many things have taken place within the circle which nurtures our spiritual science. Alarger number of our dear friends have passed through the portal of death. Also, since the beginning of this hard war time,friends have passed through the portal of death who had to take part directly in these great events. In other words, withinour circle, we are ourselves touched by the great spiritual world, because souls who were among us have entered this

spiritual world after laying aside their bodies. It lies within the attitude which results from our Spiritual Science that, for us, the souls who have left the physical plane, who are received by another world, remain united with us, as they wereunited with us while they still looked at us with physical eyes and could speak to us by means of the instrument of the

physical body.

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Precisely when we approach the world which has received into itself our dead, in this moment, as we draw nearer tothe souls of the so-called dead, we learn to know all those shattering experiences which must heap themselves upon our soul where it seeks to look across the threshold which separates us from the spiritual world, when it seeks to enter theworld which can only be seen in the disembodied state of the soul. And you will perhaps understand that many of thewords spoken here to-day resound out of the many feelings which have passed through my own soul in the course of theyear, since we last saw one another.

Particularly during the last year, I have often had to say to our friends, that the right confidence can be gained onlygradually, by one who sees into the fundamental conditions of existence, when he knows that those who have passed

through the portal of death and who were faithful fellow-workers here on earth, will remain so also after death; so that inour work we quite certainly do not lose those souls who have won an understanding of our work, because they werealready united with us here before they passed through the portal of death. And just among such souls there are suchfaithful fellow-worker that we may say: Even if the enemies and the lack of understanding here on the physical plane aresometimes so strong in opposition to our work, and become ever stronger, as we can well see, yet we may still have faiththat Spiritual Science will penetrate into the evolution of mankind, because we can win this faith through our connectionwith the disembodied souls who have reached an understanding of the whole significance of our work for the course of man's development.

Of course, just when the human being, by means of his opened soul, approaches the world in which the so-called deadare — we can speak in this way, although it is, of course, the entire spiritual world in which the dead are to be found —

precisely then, when the human being is able to approach this world as a visitor, as one who accompanies the dead intothe spiritual world, he learns to know again and again that which has also been emphasised here: that, in reality, theconcepts, the percepts and ideas which we form concerning the world, since we form them as we do because we are in a

physical body, must be changed, must be made pliant, flexible, so that they can also encompass the secrets of the spiritualworld. The man of to-day is adapted very strongly to the purely material perception of his surroundings, and thus he alsoforms concepts according to a purely material perception. For this reason, it becomes especially difficult for him to

penetrate into the spiritual world even by means of concepts. In fact, many people believe that it is not possible to attainto an understanding of the spiritual world, if we are not able to see into it. They believe this, however, only because their ideas have become stiff and dead, through the fact that they have too strongly accustomed themselves to think only aboutthe physical world.

Now that I have made these introductory remarks, I should like to speak to you to-day particularly about certain

things in connection with the life of the so-called dead.

We know that, if we wish to consider the life between death and a new birth, we must consider and notice carefullyhow the human being forms himself of four parts, which are well known to us: physical body, etheric body, astral bodyand Ego.

If we consider, to begin with, the most outward fact regarding the dead a fact visible even from the physical plane , wefind it to be the fact that man lays aside his physical body. We do not need to go into the different ways by which this

physical body becomes united with the earth, be it by means of fire or decay — these differ, after all, only in regard to thetime which they require.

But, even when we consider this fact, that the physical body falls away from the whole being of man in the momentof death and unites itself with the earth, as we say, — if we consider even this fact only with regard to its meaning for the

physical plane, we shall have considered it, in reality, in a very inadequate way. And, in fact, it is often considered in amost inadequate way by persons of all manner of spiritual-scientific tendencies, who allow themselves still to be ledastray by all sorts of moral conceptions, which do indeed penetrate into spiritual realms, to a certain extent, but areunfitted, in many respects, to understand in the right way the penetration of the spiritual into the physical world.

All physical events have also their spiritual significance. There is no physical event which has not, at the same time, aspiritual significance. In this case, then, the physical event is that our physical body falls away from us and is at the sametime separated into its parts, into its molecules, into its atoms, and given over to the earth.

Now, it is a great prejudice of the modern materialistic world-conception, which has, however, held mankind more or

less in its grip already for a long time, that the human body, as we carry it about from birth until death, or let us say fromconception until death, that this human body simply falls into the smallest possible parts, into atoms, and that these atomsare then incorporated in the earth, or the sphere of the earth, and thereafter remain atoms, and then pass over as such intoother beings.

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Through the modern materialistic mode of investigation one comes very easily to such a preconception. But this modeof conception is, after all, nothing but nonsense, in view of spiritual science. It is nonsense. For, in reality, there are nosuch things as atoms, in the sense in which the chemists assume them. What the smallest parts of our bodies finally

become, under all circumstances, regardless of the way in which we, as bodies, are united with the earth, is warmth . Our whole physical organism finally transforms itself, in reality, in one way or another, in a short or a long time, into warmth.

For this reason, we often speak, as you know, in spiritual science of warmth as a fourth physical state of aggregation,whereas physics does not acknowledge it as such, but only as a kind of characteristic. But it is this warmth which is, inreality, given to the earth; this is given over to the earth. Thus, from our physical body, we give to our earth — Warmth.

The warmth which is to be found in the earth, is, in reality, intimately connected with what human beings leave behind. Man does not transform himself into air, water, etc. These are only transitional stages through which he passes.Those parts of him which become air and water become at last warmth. Yes, even though it may be after a long time,even though the last remnants of matter may pass over into warmth only after hundreds of years, indeed, even thoughwhat belongs to the bone-system may pass over into warmth only after thousands of years, it is transformed finally intowarmth.

If you go into Museums to-day, you will find skeletons of ancient men who lived upon earth in bygone ages, yet thetime will indeed come when what is present there to-day as skeletons, will exist only as warmth within the body of theearth.

In any case, however, the way in which we are united with the earth, through warmth, is the materialistic way. Thefact that even our physical body remains connected with the earth, has a great, an essential, importance for the one whohas passed through the gate of death. He passes into the spiritual world. He leaves his body to the earth. This is anexperience, an event, for the so-called dead. He has the experience: — “Your body passes away from you”. We mustrealise that this is an experience.

What is an experience? Well, you can form a conception of what it is, if you consider the experiences on the physical plane. It is an experience, if you have some new sensation, or feeling which you have never had before, and you learn tounderstand this. You have added something to your soul which you did not possess before a new concept, a new

perception.

But now imagine such a small experience increased into a very great one. It is something mighty, somethingunfathomably mighty, that the human being experiences, which gives him the possibility between death and birth to see,to realise, to grasp the fact that he lays this physical body aside, that he gives over to the planet which he is leaving. It is avery great experience, an experience which naturally cannot be compared with any experience on earth — a mightyexperience. The value of an experience lies in the fact that something remains in our soul as a result, as a consequence, of this experience. We may, therefore, ask the question: — What then remains as a result, as a consequence of thisexperience of the falling away of the physical body from the entirety of our being?

Indeed, if we were not able to have this experience when we pass through the gate of death, of knowingly participating in the falling away of our physical body, we should never be able to develop an Ego-consciousness after death. The Ego consciousness is aroused after death through this experience of the falling away of the physical body. For the dead it is of the greatest significance that he is able to say: — “I see my physical body slipping away from me anddisappearing.” And, on the other hand: — “I see growing within me, out of this event, the feeling — I am an Ego.”

We may express this with the paradox words: — “If we were unable to experience our death from the other side, wewould not have an Ego-consciousness after death.”

Just as the human soul entering existence through birth or, let us say, through conception — gradually becomesaccustomed to the use of the physical apparatus and thereby acquires the Ego-consciousness within the body, so does thehuman being acquire the Ego consciousness after death, from the other side of existence, through the fact that heexperiences the falling away of the physical body from the whole human being.

Consider now, for a moment, what this means. When we contemplate Death from the physical side of existence, we

may say that it appears to us as the end of existence — as that which has beyond it, as far as the physical outlook isconcerned, “Nothing”. Viewed from the other side, Death as such is a most wonderful thing, which can ever anew stand

before man's soul. For it signifies that man can always have the feeling of the victory of spiritual life over physical life.And just as long as we can always have before us the conception of our birth here, in physical life — for no one can havethe conceptual nature of his birth through physical means alone, indeed, no one knows anything about his birth through

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his own physical experience — just so surely do we always have before us, when we become fully conscious after death,a direct experience of the event of our death.

At the same time, this event of our death contains nothing which is in any way depressing; on the contrary, this deathevent, viewed from the other side, is the greatest, most wonderful and beautiful event which can appear before our soul.For it always places before us, in its entirety, the greatness of the idea that in the spiritual world, consciousness, self-consciousness is the result of death — that death stimulates this self-consciousness, in the spiritual world.

Secondly, we must observe the second member of our human existence, the etheric body. We find, with the help of

the elementary presentations which we have all shared in, in the interval since we last met together, that this ether-bodyremains with us for a brief — a relatively brief — period after death, but after this, it is also laid aside. We know, too, thata certain importance must be attributed to the fact that our etheric body — the same one we possessed on earth — remainsstill united with us after death, for several days.

So long as we still carry this etheric body, after having laid aside our physical body, we can still think everything thatwe were able to think during our physical existence. We can, therefore, survey all the thoughts which we carry in us, as ina mighty picture. We see those thoughts which we experienced during life, in the life-picture which has often beendescribed to you. Our whole life lies before us like a panorama, during the days in which we still carry our etheric bodywith us; and we have it before us simultaneously, i.e. we see it all at one glance. For, what we call memory, here, in the

physical world, arises, to be sure, in the etheric body, but it is bound, nevertheless, to the physical body. This physical body we have laid aside. We see our thoughts. We do not draw them out of the depths that are connected with the physical body, but we see them; and we survey, as if in a panorama, the life which we have just passed through.

We then lay aside this etheric body. But this etheric body which we lay aside, remains visible for us, throughout our entire remaining life after death. It is outside, but it remains visible to us. It unites itself with the whole universe;nevertheless, whatever happens to it there, remains visible to us — we see it.

And this is one of the mysteries of death: that, so long as we carry our etheric body, we see in a panorama what wehad in us in the form of thoughts while we were alive — we survey, as it were, what is outside us as being united with,woven into, the world; we see that, after death, it forms part of our surrounding world, not of our Ego. In this experience,it actually is as if that which weaved and lived in us as our etheric body, during life, were now entering the life of theetheric world outside.

Then comes the time, as you know, when we carry with us — of that which we carried here on the physical plane — only the Ego and the astral body, and when we, of course, look back. upon what we were. We then experience ourselvesin an entirely different way from the way we did in the physical body — we experience ourselves with an enhancedconsciousness, with a consciousness which death has founded in us.

We must never think, for instance, as the fanatics so easily do, that this life between death and a new birth is anunconscious experience for the soul. Connected with this life, is a stronger, more intensive consciousness, than is theconsciousness belonging to the physical body — only that it has an entirely different form. And, of course, we canapproach the way in which we should imagine the dead, only by taking all that Spiritual Science can give us, to help us totransform those conceptions which are suited to purely physical objects and events here on the physical plane.

Thus we now live, as we see, within our Ego and our astral body. We have cast off our etheric body. It is united withobjective existence.

For one who is able to enter the spiritual world, it is a moving experience, indeed — and from this standpoint also, Imay say — to visit and accompany the dead with whom one is able to find a contact; it is a moving experience to follow,not only the individual life of the dead between death and a new birth, but also, for instance, to follow what the dead

beholds: that part of himself which is now contained, as his etheric body, in the woof of the world, which is now for himan exterior world, an objective world. It is deeply moving to observe what, the dead has just given over to the ethericworld. Thus we may experience the dead in a twofold way, as it were. We can experience that part of him which he has

passed on to the etheric world; and we can experience also that part which contains his consciousness after death.

I repeat, that this first contact with what the dead leave behind in the etheric world, is deeply moving. It would moveus even if we were unable to come into contact with the Being itself, which continues to live between death and a new

birth, and which carries both the consciousness and the self-consciousness of the deceased, but could come into contactonly with what he had left behind. Even then this kind of experience would move our souls most deeply — it would havethat moving quality peculiar to all contacts with the spiritual world.

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And a part of what especially moves us is the actual, living experience that such spiritual substance as has here beenindicated — indeed, that etheric spiritual thing which has been left behind by the dead — is, in reality, always roundabout us. Just so truly as we are living in the air which surrounds man everywhere, just so truly are we, at the same time,surrounded by what the dead have left behind them, as etheric spirituality. In this world, in which we stand, even with our

physical bodies there is also that spiritual element which I have just mentioned. Just as we are surrounded by the air, soare we, in the same way, surrounded by what the dead leave behind. It is only states of consciousness that sever us fromthe spiritual world — we are not separated from them through spatial conditions, but only through conditions of consciousness.

Consider, for instance, the following fact: — Let us imagine a human being who is striving to carry out the followingsoul exercises. But I should like to emphasize that such soul-exercises must be carried out in perfect calmness of soul. If anyone becomes in any way excited through these exercises, he will damage himself. If soul-exercises are carried on inthe way described here and in our literature, so that they are real soul-exercises, and our physical being does not take partin them, then they can never damage a human being in the very least — they cannot even damage his soul. Yet we shouldnot on the other hand, be able to penetrate into spiritual knowledge, did we not call attention to such things, now andagain.

Let us suppose that someone does the following exercise, and that he says to himself: — With my eyes I see red, blue,etc. And now he proceeds by experiencing something that is in a certain sense alive — when he sees red, blue green, etc.

Gradually, we begin to realise that, after all, we live in the physical world — especially our modern materialistic age — in a very coarse way — that we do not notice the finer experiences which come to us.

This finer element may be experienced if we take notice of the more purely soul-impression made upon us — let ussay by colours — but also by other sense-impressions. Of course everybody knows, roughly speaking, that when he looksupon a blue surface, the impression it leaves will not be the same as that left by a red surface. A red surface — and I mustemphasize this particularly — even when a person is not made nervous by looking at it, has something that attackssomething which comes out of the surface, as it were, and thrusts itself at us. Whereas blue, for instance, awakens theopposite sensation — it remains quietly in its place; nothing comes toward us, out of the blue. On the contrary, we feel — if we are able to accompany colour-impressions with a fine feeling — that we can penetrate into this blue with our soulforces, that we can press through it.

Green is, as it were, in a rythmical state of balance. This is why it has so beneficent an effect upon us, as the plant'scovering of the earth. Green works upon us in such a way that we are able, in part, to penetrate into it, while at the sametime it comes back again toward us. When we look out upon the wide green field, we have this impression, that we enter into something; yet, at the same time, that it comes toward us. This is what constitutes the refreshing effect made upon us

by a wide green field.

You will be able to convince yourselves of this fact: that human beings have noticed that it is possible to live withcolour as it were, and if you read in Goethe's Theory of Colours — which, to be sure, is understood by very few personsof to-day — the chapter on the ethical effects of colours, you will find indicated the corresponding feeling to beexperienced through each colour. Thus we find that we can experience colours ... we can also experience other sense-impressions; but, for the moment, we are speaking about colours, in order to have an example.

We can live with colours in such a way that blue, for example, calls to life in our souls a force that resembles thelonging which goes forth from us and which is taken up kindly by blue.

In the case of red, something always arises which seems to come toward us and will not leave us alone — somethingthat wishes to overpower us, as it were.

When we thus feel colours, we may have a soul-experience — a moral soul-experience, as it were. Of course, notevery human being can carry on such experiences in any one incarnation; but I am describing them to you, in order thatyou may see how the different worlds are interrelated.

If, accordingly, a man were to carry on these exercises, he would live far more purely in the world of colours. And if

he did them in connection with other sense-impressions, he would likewise live more purely in the other sense-impressions. In that case, however, something else would very soon have to arise — something different would take

place.

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Suppose that such a person were to experience the blue sky in this living way; he would in this case, not simply havethe blue above him, (this is, moreover, a very subjective blue; for, in reality, there is no vault above us) but he would feelit above him as the inner surface of a beneficent, inner hemisphere, everywhere receiving his soul-life — a hemisphere,

behind the apparent surface of which the soul's experience could penetrate.

It is because of this that human beings who experience the world in a deeper sense, speak as did Jacob Böhme, for instance, who did not say: — “When we see the blue vault of heaven ...”, but, rather: — “When we see the depths”. Inthese words, “When we see the depths”, we find contained the whole experience of “blue”.

But there is another parallel phenomenon which arises, if we so completely penetrate into the life of colour, that soul-experiences begin to light up when we see colours. There is then awakened in us the ability to make use of a very brief space of time, which we should otherwise not use at all.

When you face an exterior object in ordinary physical life, you see it — you see a certain colour. And, indeed, this isthe starting-point of your impression. Then you are able to think about it. You can form a conceptual idea of the colour.But it is with the act of vision that you begin to live with the object. Yet, nevertheless, this is not the actual beginning of what takes place. Even the modern physiologist, working in the laboratories, knows that a certain time elapses betweenthe effect upon our eye, and the arising of the idea connected with the colour blue. Thus, we see that, first of all, the bluecolour works upon our eye. We do not immediately perceive it, but a certain time elapses, and only then do we becomeconscious of it.

You may read, even in ordinary books, how experiments connected with these things are carried on nowadays in thelaboratories. Certain kinds of apparatus are constructed; and then the attempt is made to cause a certain impression — thestudent is the experimental rabbit. He must register, by means of another apparatus, when he receives the impression, sothat one can establish the small fraction of time which elapses between the moment an impression strikes our sense-organs, and the moment we grow conscious of this. A certain space of time elapses. In this short interval, we do not asyet, for instance, experience the blue colour, (in the case of an impression of blue), but we do experience the moral effectof the colour. This works in us. Thus, the whole process of how the soul pours itself into the blue colour, how it isaccepted with a kindly pleasure — all this lives in us already — the soul-element of the colour is active in us beforeanything else. Only, this activity remains unconscious; man does not perceive it. Man does not begin to develop hisconsciousness of the colour, until the colour arises. He does not notice what precedes the colour-sensation.

Now, let us think for a moment: when one is impelled to notice more particularly this moral impression of colours,this soul-experience of colours, then something special appears. We notice this when we should colour some sort of asurface — i.e. when we paint, or transmit colours in any way at all, which ought first to arise out of thoughts. In any real

painting, the artist works out of the soul-impression of the colours. In this case, it is not as it is with the artist who simplyuses a model — who simply imitates the model; but, rather the real artist knows that, because he has called forth a

particular soul-impression, he must therefore use red; whereas, on some other surface, he uses blue, because he has calledforth this or that soul-impression.

This is the way, you see, in which all of the painting has been worked out in our Dornach Building. The application of the colours has here arisen entirely out of the soul-element — which indeed must then shine through the colours. Yet, inorder to achieve this, it was necessary, in the deepest sense of the word, first of all to have the Building in ourselves — asa Soul Being. The way in which the Building faces the world will be identical with the way in which it has grown out of “the Building”, as a Soul-Being.

People would perceive the thing out of which this Dornach Building has grown, were they able to make use of thatshort interval of time elapsing between the moment in which the Building strikes their sense-organs, and the moment inwhich the impression reaches their consciousness.

Any one, moreover, who has a share in the erection of the Building, must himself create all that is in it — its formsand colours — out of that short interval of time.

I have led you in a more scientific way, I might say, to something which may appear difficult to you. But we mustalso overcome difficulties such as these. Moreover, the possibility may arise, even in this modern Age, as if through an

act of grace — and, in a certain sense, we are constantly being favoured by an act of grace, through the simple fact thatwe are in the world — for man to hold fast, in some way, to this moment. He will see something, and will at times be ableto feel that something reciprocal has taken place between himself and the object which he sees outside — if he succeedsin bringing it to his consciousness. He will say to himself, when he sees something: — When I am looking at it, it seemsalmost as if I had already seen it before this moment.

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Perhaps you have all become familiar with the experience of facing a being or an object, and then feeling, as it were,as if, after all, it is not there before you for the first time, when it makes an impression on your consciousness, but that ithad already come nearer — indeed, it had come quite close. This creeping nearer — as one might call it — can indeed attimes be observed. But, in ordinary life, what here takes place within this brief space of time, lies beyond our consciousness — beyond the threshold.

The moment we are able to bring into our consciousness what thus lies just beyond the threshold, we make animportant spiritual discovery. I shall again bring it to your minds by citing a special case. Many of you have already heardabout this. Perhaps I have also mentioned it here, in this place. Last year, a little boy died in close proximity to the

Goetheanum Building; he was crushed by a furniture-van. The etheric body of this little boy is now united with theDornach Building — forms the aura of the Dornach Building and lives in this aura. And when some artistic work must becarried out, in connection with this Building, forces come out of this etheric body, which then, of course, appearsenlarged. We can feel these forces in us, in the same way that we feel the Building within our souls.

Why is this so? Because the world of which I have just spoken — that world which is always round about us, butwhich we do not perceive because it remains unnoticed until its impressions reach us — contains the etheric bodies of thedead, and the dead are looking on these bodies. What the dead see of our world — what the dead look upon — iscontained in the etheric world which surrounds us. And we should always see it, if we could, so to speak, look into it

before we look out into the physical world — if we were able to take even a little step across the threshold.

This does not, however, prevent the dead from being active in this world, through what they have left behind. We aresurrounded by a world in which the etheric bodies of the dead are living. In some way or other, they are connected withthat world. And only because what lives in the etheric must first come into contact with our physical body, and must setthe physical apparatus into movement, do we fail to perceive this powerful weaving around us, of what the dead leave

behind them, in etheric form, in our world. But we must acquire the feeling that it is our duty to enrich our world, in our conceptual ideas, by including in it, in the first place, what is contained in the whole etheric world, through the etheric

bodies of the dead.

The dead themselves are not in this world — but only the etheric bodies which they have left behind. We cannot findthe dead themselves in so easy a way — although even this “easy way” is difficult.

The dead, after they have laid aside their etheric bodies, continue to live in their astral bodies and their Egos. You can

gauge to what extent we must transform our conceptions, if you bear in mind that everything pertaining to thought, isstripped off with our etheric bodies, which pass over into the exterior etheric world. After death, we do not keep thethoughts which we have collected here, in our physical body. All that pertains to thought becomes an exterior world. Theone who has died, does not look upon his thoughts after death in the same way in which he looked upon thoughts whichhe formed during his life, and which he then remembered and drew up out of his sub-consciousness. After death he looksupon his thoughts as if they were an etheric painting; he sees his thoughts in the world outside. Thoughts are somethingexterior for one who has passed through the portal of death — they are outside. What reveals itself here through feelingand will, remains connected with our individuality. It continues to live in our astral body and in our Ego.

Our Ego lights up in self-consciousness through the contemplation of the moment of death. Our astral body is kindled because the thoughts contained in the picture before us, penetrate into the astral body. Thus we experience them in our astral body.

In the physical body, on the other hand, we experience thoughts by drawing them up from within us. After death, weexperience thoughts by looking at them as we look at the stars, or as we look out at the world and the mountains, and theymake an impression upon us; we take up this impression and experience it in our astral body and our Ego. Thus we seethat just the opposite thing takes place: Whereas here on Earth we look upon thoughts as something within us, we mustconsider them as being something external, after death. Our life then dissolves in the world, flows out in the world.

It is important for us to bear this in mind and not to adopt the idea that the world after death is like a fine, thinrepetition of the physical world here — an idea which is often accepted in spiritist circles. It is in fact something entirelydifferent. And it is different, for the reason that our thoughts are Beings outside of us. Now, at the moment we begin tocall up before our souls, conceptual ideas like these, we notice not only that we need a certain freedom from prejudice, as

I might say, in order to accept Spiritual Science, but also that we must have a certain kind of ability to render our conceptsmore fluid, to transform our concepts — and that we cannot claim to be able to picture what is in the spiritual world withthe same concepts and ideas which we have here, in the physical world.

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Consequently, one who is in a position to visit — let us say — a so-called dead person, must first learn how to carryon this intercourse with the dead. Whereas, here, when we meet a person, we come into contact with his inner life throughthe fact that he expresses this inner life in words or gestures, we find instead, in the case of the dead, that if we wish tocome into contact with him, he shows us what he wishes to tell us in the objective world. We see, as it were, in the formof imaginations, which he shows us, what it is that he experiences, and what he wishes to say to us. I might say that thedead person, when we ask him something, says to us: Look over there — it is there that you will find what I am nowexperiencing.

But all of this is a rapid process. The dead, accordingly, as you see from what I have said, have the capacity to see

supersensibly the thoughts which we, here on earth, can experience only in an inward, invisible way. Only if we acquirethe capacity to behold thoughts in union with him, are we able to share in his experience, for this reason, he has thespecial capacity, as a dead person — as a so-called dead person — to share with us the experience of our thoughts.

We are particularly struck by this in the case of a certain phenomenon which I should like to touch upon. Whensomeone whom we have loved has departed from us, we continue, as we all know, to cherish our thoughts of him withinour souls. We think about the experiences we have had in common, about the feelings we have shared with him, and soforth. The dead person, as I have said, beholds thoughts. He can also see our thoughts, and he can even distinguish verysoon the thoughts which he himself has, in the form of impressions of the spiritual world — these are Imaginations of what is contained in the spiritual world, and thoughts living in the soul of a human being who is still dwelling in a

physical body. He can distinguish these thoughts. His own inner experience enables him to make this distinction. For, yousee, the difference is really very great. When a deceased person (and exactly the same thing applies to an initiate) has toexperience a thought about something which exists only in the spiritual world, he must himself experience this thought,actively. He must himself first follow the thought — every position of it, as it were. It is difficult to make this processclear; but I might explain it as follows: — Suppose a painting were hanging before us, here. But supposing you were tosee this painting only when you yourself had traced its lines and painted its colours — followed all the details. This iswhat the dead can do. He paints every thought he sees; he himself creates the thoughts anew, as it were, and experienceshis own activity. A large portion of the life between death and a new birth consists in this — in a creative copying of whatexists in the spiritual world as thought-formations. We must learn to create these anew, with the dead — then we knowthat these are forms of thought which pertain only to the spiritual world.

The experience is different when we look down from the spiritual world upon the thoughts living in the human beingswho have been left behind in the physical world. In this case, it is not necessary to re-create them; but these thoughts

actually come to meet us, so that the dead person can remain passive. Just as a flower does not need first to be drawn or painted by us, but immediately makes an impression upon us, so it is with the thoughts coming from those who are stillalive. These thoughts actually arise in a way similar to the way in which impressions arise, here in the physical world.

And this is just what uplifts, gladdens and warms the dead, in the thoughts of the living whom they have loved. For itis a very special sphere of activity for the dead — this being able to look into the thoughts of those whom they have left

behind and who loved them. This is a special world for them.

It would be possible — would it not — for us to experience the physical world, as if it contained only what arises inthe mineral, animal and vegetable kingdom and in the kingdom of man. In this case, for example, the physical worldwould contain no Art. Art would have to be added to all this — it would have to be created in addition to what weactually need. Yet Art is the very element which, from a soul-aspect of human evolution, must not be absent in the world,in spite of the fact that Nature would be just as perfect as it is, even if there were no Art. Thus, the dead could go onliving, if necessary — although it would be like the human being living in a barren, lifeless, naked world of Nature, aworld devoid of Art — were the peculiar circumstance to arise that everyone who had died were to be immediatelyforgotten, after death, by those who had loved him. Whatever can be seen as thoughts, remaining in the souls of thosewho love the dead, is something which is, to be sure, an additional element, going beyond the immediate requirements of the world of the dead; yet, at the same time, it uplifts and beautifies the life of the dead. It cannot be compared with Art inthe physical world — that is to say, it can be compared, but the comparison is a lame one — for it means for the dead, as Ihave said, an uplifting, a beautifying element, yet in a far higher sense than the beautifying influence of Art is for us, here,in the physical world.

Thus it is deeply significant for the whole existence of the world, if we unite our thoughts with the thoughts of thedead, and especially if we do this in the form which we have often spoken about, here. Above all, we should approach thedead with thoughts clothed in that language, in that language of concepts which is common both to the living and to thedead — in the language which we speak here, in Spiritual Science. For the dead understand what constitutes the contentsof Spiritual Science, just as well as do the living. And, moreover, it never becomes alien to the dead.

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It is precisely through the bringing together of conceptual ideas such as these, I believe, that we shall be ablegradually to form a plastic picture of the spiritual world. We can thus find our way into what lies beyond the threshold — whence, in reality, there flows forth all that exists for us on this side of the threshold.

In the face of these phenomena, we must bear in mind that present-day humanity is shortsighted in its vision of theworld — and this is justified, to be sure, because it forms part of the universal plan — at the same time, it really is moreshortsighted than it needs to be. For, you see, when a materialistic person of the present day forms his ideas, hisconceptions of the world, he thinks that these are the universally-accepted human ideas and conceptions. You know howdifficult it is to convince a materialistically-minded person that there are also other ways of thinking than his own. The

standpoint taken by the materialist causes him to say that anyone who does not think as he does is a fool. There is nogreater inward intolerance than that of a materialist.

Hence, a materialistic person actually thinks, generally speaking: — “Oh, of course, in the past, men thought allmanner of things as to the existence of the spiritual; they could hardly move a step, in their daily life, without suspectingthe presence of spirits everywhere, or indeed without seeing them. But all this was sheer fancy — now, at last, we have

progressed so far that we have discarded this childish play of the human race.”

And yet it would seem as if human beings ought to be able to see at each step how nonsensical such a conceptionreally is.

I shall try to make this clear to you, by citing an example, which may appear to be far-fetched, and from an entirelydifferent side than the one we have discussed to-day in essence.

Let us think, for a moment, about that picture, which we have often discussed from various aspects, relating to thefirst stage of human evolution on earth — of man's life in Paradise, as we find it described in the Bible. Let us think aboutthis picture of Adam and Eve in Paradise, the first human beings — Eve biting into the apple and giving the apple toAdam. Let us think of the picture of the Serpent on the Tree, tempting Eve.

When the painter of our day paints this picture — and even to-day, the modern painters still occasionally do paint it — he paints it, to be sure, in such a way that the picture will show a woman as true to Nature as possible, and a still morenaturalistic man, because this is modern ... Impressionism, Expressionism, and I do not know what else; in any case, avery naturalistic woman and a still more naturalistic man, then a naturalistic landscape, and a naturalistic serpent showing,

of course, greedy naturalistic teeth, etc. This is actually the way it is painted.

Painters have not always painted in this way, however; for such a picture would not render the true facts, as we knowthem. We know that in the Serpent, we may recognize a symbol of the real Tempter, Lucifer. Moreover, Lucifer is aBeing who, as we know, remained behind during the Moon Period, and who — in the way in which he appears during theEarth Period — may be symbolized by the Serpent. Nevertheless, the Serpent is not Lucifer, and this must somehow

become evident, spiritually. In other words, this Lucifer must also be seen with the forces of the soul — he must be seenfrom within, through the effort of inner forces.

How is it possible to see him, my dear friends? Indeed, we bear within us all the impressions of Lucifer. We actuallycarry them about within us. Just as we carry about the impressions of Ahriman, so we carry these in us, also.

Now I shall explain to you as briefly as possible, without any proofs or detailed explanations — these you must findfor yourselves, in our already existing literature on this subject — how it is possible to form a conception of Lucifer.

Man carries about within him the impulses of Lucifer. They live in him in such a way that they are centred in hishead, and from there they permeate the astral body where the Luciferic principle has remained within him; that is to saythey force their way into his head — whereas otherwise it is the Spirits of Form which have moulded his head — and theyalso force their way into what is formed by the astral force into the spinal cord.

Thus, if we were to draw the head of a man and prolongation, the spine, the result would be a Serpent, a serpent likeform, with a human head. Of course, the whole thing should be imagined as an astral form — the head to some extent stillresembling a human head, and the spinal cord appended to it and turning around like a serpent. Imagine this projected

objectively — and you will have a serpent with a human head. That is, Lucifer viewed externally, in the form of animage, assumes the aspect of a serpent with a human head. Not a serpent with a serpent's head, for that would no longer

be a Lucifer — that would be an earthly serpent, which has already, as an earthly creature, been subjected to the influenceof the Spirits of Form.

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Hence, if a painter wished to paint Lucifer on the Tree, he would have to imagine the Serpent coiled around the Treewith a human head looking out above. He would then be painting out of the knowledge gained through our SpiritualScience.

Thus, we should have to picture Adam and Eve by the side of the Tree, and — coiled into the Tree — the astral shapeof the spinal cord, resembling, as I have said, a serpent body, together with the image of the human head. If the womanEve, sees it first, it will, of course, take on the form of a woman's face.

If you go into the Museum here, and look at the painting of Master Bertram, you will see there, that in the Middle

Ages this kind of serpent was still portrayed coiled on the Tree, as I have explained. It is most striking and sublime; for it proves to us that a painter living in the very heart of the Middle Ages could paint from out of the true and real concepts of the spiritual world. This is an undeniable proof for the fact that we need not go back so very many centuries; and there aremany documents, still existing to-day, to show us that in those days people still knew something of what our presentmaterialistic humanity has already forgotten.

Of course, in an exterior history of Art, this fact which I have just mentioned is never touched upon. Nevertheless,anyone — by adopting not only the modern materialistic attitude, but also the materialistic standpoint or conception — can convince himself that both the vision of the spiritual, and the disappearance of this vision, are events of only a fewcenturies ago. Anyone here in Hamburg can convince himself of this, by going to the Museum and looking at thisParadise-picture of Master Bertram, he will find, there, the irrefutable proof, furnished on the physical plane, that it wasnot at all so long ago that men were able, by means of atavistic clairvoyance — as we may call it — to look into thespiritual world, and to have knowledge of its mysteries in a way that was entirely different from the way of to-day.

We need only think how blindly people go through the world to-day; how, if they only wished to do so, they couldconvince themselves, even externally, on the physical plane that evolution takes place, in the human race.

The significant fact is that during the course of the last three to four centuries, the formerly extant, more atavistic andunconscious clairvoyance has been disappearing. For, naturally, Master Bertram would not have been able to developSpiritual Science. He merely saw, still saw in the etheric world, what Lucifer was really like, and then painted himaccordingly. It was an unconscious, instinctive clairvoyance.

In order that man should acquire the external form of vision, the old way of looking at the spiritual world had to

disappear. But it must be acquired anew by man. And the time must gradually come, only of course, this must be in thesphere of consciousness — when what has been lost, must be striven after anew. For this reason, the way must be

prepared by Spiritual Science. People can approach the spiritual world again only if they study Spiritual Science. But thisSpiritual Science must really bring an insight into the spiritual world.

To-day it is possible to prove scientifically, as it were how far natural science can bring the world forward. When ascientifically-trained person to-day speaks about such matters, he really speaks about the soul-apparatus, about the bodilyinstrument of soul-life. Now, if you try to investigate in the descriptions available to-day — they are generally called

psycho-physiology — even those written by the most significant modern scientists, you will find there, what they have tosay about the soul-instrument. You will find that these people express themselves, everywhere, in a most peculiar way.They say, for instance: — Let us consider the life of impressions and reactions, and the life of conceptual ideas; to thislife of impressions and conceptual ideas belongs, in every case, the soul-apparatus. And then they describe what happensin the brain and in the nervous system when a man has impressions or forms conceptions. The parallel bodily process canalways be found. But when these scientists approach feeling and the will, they cannot find a parallel bodily process. Theycannot find anything.

That a thing like this does not come to light, but remains unnoticed, is due only to the fact that natural science and itsrear-guard — we cannot really say rear-guard, because a rearguard is useful, and the monistic rear-guard of naturalscience is entirely superfluous — because natural science and its rearguard, the Monists, simply crow about the fact thatfor every process of thought and sensation, a certain physical parallel process is to be found, and that thought andsensation are bound to the brain. But they do not speak of shades of feeling or will. At the most, they speak of shades of feeling — in other words, a certain nuance of conceptual thought. But they do not go as far as feeling and will.

And the honest scientists say: — Our science does not extend as far as feeling and will. You can read for yourselveswhat I have just said, in the natural-scientific literature. It is possible to corroborate it in all spheres of science. For instance, in the case of Dr. Th. Ziehen, the well known modern psychiatrist and psycho-physiologist — in his book, youcan find most easily of all a confirmation of what I have just said. He points out the single processes which correspond to

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thought and to sensation. He goes as far as certain shades of feeling; but he does not reach to actual feeling and will. Thushe disavows feeling and will. They do not exist at all, he says.

Now could we really find any clearer scientific proof than this, for the fact that natural-scientific thought extends onlyover the sphere of the temporal — only over that which we lay aside with death; whereas, at the same time, there issomething that extends beyond this, living, precisely, as I have indicated, in feeling and will, and yet so far removed fromthe body that the scientist simply does not find it, indeed he rejects it and disavows it!

This is, accordingly, the reason why the scientists boast that feeling and will do not exist: because they cannot be

found by the ordinary science. Indeed, it is natural science itself, as we see, that proves to us today that feeling and willare not bound to the body as such, like thought and sensation.

This is connected with the fact that our thoughts separate themselves from us; after death they appear spread out,outside of us. Feeling and will remain ours. And out of feeling and will springs forth the power to create the thought-tableau. He who wishes to do so to-day, can show by means of what is strictly scientific, that feeling and will are notconnected with what we call “Nature”, but that, on the contrary, they pass out after death, as astral body and Ego, andremain united with the human individuality — kindling themselves to a new consciousness, in the way that I havedescribed, through the fact that what spreads itself out is all etheric, that is, mirrors itself first in the astral body and thenin the Ego when the astral body has been laid aside.

This is all as it should be. Modern science does not refute Spiritual Science, but confirms it. It really does confirm it.If it were possible to arouse even a little understanding, it would be seen that, for a right understanding, it is precisely anhonest natural science that points to a justification of Spiritual Science, even in all its separate details.

Spiritual Science is, as you see — in view of all that has been said — something which must in our day begin to enter into the development of humanity, which must begin to have a grip on humanity, because otherwise the human race willreach the point where it will understand only the temporal, and when it will know nothing of the eternal, which lives in us.The time will come, when people will first recognise this, and when they will also concern themselves more with thedevelopment of their feeling-life. For only through feeling and will do we unite ourselves with the world which is notdevoid of thought.

The objection might be made: — Very well, then, you feel the spiritual world, but you do not will it. But no, it is

precisely through feeling and will that we are united with the objective thought-world — with the thoughts that live, andwhich we do not merely think. And just as truly as in the past mankind possessed a power of seeing into the spiritualworld, just so truly will it have to win this power again in the future. Man will be able to win it again, however, only if hedetermines first to enter a little way into the thought-world which is no longer recognised by our generation, as comingfrom the spiritual world.

In order to attain this, a very great deal of what is rumoured about to-day as concept and percept will have to becorrected. Indeed, it would be hard to believe how thoughtlessly, as a matter of fact, human beings of to-day — allow meto use a paradox — how thoughtlessly human beings think. This really would be hard to believe. They make definitionswhich they are unshakably convinced are right, and cannot be refuted in any way. It belongs to the task of the spiritualscientist, however, to test all the more carefully what it is that convinces people so unshakably — just because it appearsto them to be entirely logical and thus they are convinced of it. What, for instance — they think — could be a better definition than this, when someone is asked, in this modern materialistic Age of ours “What is a true concept?” — that heanswers by saying: — “It is a true concept, when I form an inner picture of an object which is actually present, outside inthe world. This is then a true picture of an object which exists outside.” In other words, everyone, in our day, would givethis definition: “Truth consists in the conformity of a picture which we form in thought, to something actually existingoutside.” We can now very easily show, however, if we examine concepts, that true concept has nothing to do with whatwe usually call by this name — has nothing whatever to do with it, in so far as it is supposed to be a picture of somethinghaving actual existence. It can easily be shown that actual existence goes along quite another path than does the picturewhich we fancy to be concept. You see, if this were true: that a concept is only true when it conforms with somethinghaving actual existence, naturally, then, it would also be true only so long as that which has actual existence verifies it.

Thus a concept might be compared with a portrait which someone has made of a human being. The portrait is good, if

it resembles the person in question. Yet it has nothing to do with his being. The fact that the picture corresponds to the person, does not lead to an inner truth in the picture. Imagine to yourself that you have painted the picture of some manwho then dies, soon afterwards. At first, the picture corresponded to what was there, but afterwards to what no longer exists. There is no connection between actual existence or life, and the portrait; as far as life is concerned, it is an entirelyindifferent matter whether the picture is a true one or not. Such a connection is quite imaginary, when we look at things

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really logically. The essential thing is to experience things inwardly. It is this inner experience which humanity mustagain acquire.

In order to acquire this, however — and it is just during these hard, sorrowful days that we can be brought to realisein a special measure how necessary this is — in order to acquire this, it is necessary above all that humanity shouldacquire again a feeling for Truth, for real Truth.

Materialism gradually estranges us completely from Truth. We have gone astray through materialism — andespecially where the idea of Truth is concerned. Compare for yourselves, for instance, the journalistic descriptions of

today — and how many people read nothing but the newspapers, nowadays — compare these with the real events, whichyou may happen to have seen yourself! When you read this again, in the newspapers, you will find that the reporter haswritten it up in the way that he believes will make an impression on his readers. All feeling that such descriptions shouldcorrespond to the Truth grows weaker and weaker. And so long as this feeling for Truth does not permeate humanity, theimpulse that leads from the sense-world into the spiritual world cannot be awakened to activity in human souls. For, withthis want of any concepts of Truth in our thoughts, our concepts become falsified. How often, for instance, do we comeacross the following case:

Someone writes about Spiritual Science — let us suppose about what I have published in connection with SpiritualScience. He writes about this, and he cannot help saying — owing to his materialistic mentality — that everything isinvented, and that it is not permissible to invent such things. And then he continues by investigating the question of how itcan be possible for a man to be so fantastic.

As a matter of fact, this article actually appeared not so very long ago. The writer tries to find out how it is possiblethat a man can be so fantastic! And then he relates where this man comes from — in this case, it was I — where he usedto live (not his recent abode, but where the writer reports him to have lived) and how it is because of his peculiar race-mixture that he can invent such fantastic things. And then this reporter himself invents the most incredible things,impelled by his materialistic mentality. And here you have an example of what I mean: People simply take hold of lies,and allow truth to become inwardly distorted.

Of course, no direct proof can be supplied for this. Yet what could be more false than to accuse someone of inventingfantastic things, and then to invent the most incredibly fantastic things about him, oneself! If you will study our modernlife carefully, you will find that there is a very widespread lack of any feeling of responsibility, which would see to it that

everything one says should correspond to the Reality. Unless we possess this feeling for Truth most intensively, wecannot gain access to the spiritual world. Nor can we understand why we must believe to be true, what Spiritual Science

brings down for us as Truth, from the spiritual world.

But our thinking is far too inadequate for a true contemplation of this sort — and we cling too much to our own personal interests, to be able to see how untruthfulness glitters in everything and how its fragments can be found in all thehappenings of life.

A true feeling, a true conception of this is what should occupy our thoughts, and should constitute the first preparatory steps in Spiritual Science. Thoughts like these should be, I might say, a kind of conscious preparation for what Man's future really should be. For, the welfare of the human race can become a reality only if our souls becomeunited again with the spirit. Spiritual Science is not something that we seek in the form of a new kind of sensation, butsomething whereof we know that it must arise, because humanity needs it. And we ought to feel indebted, as it were, toSpiritual Science, if we observe, in a clear and lucid way the course of human evolution.

How much richer we grow, through what Spiritual Science can give us, because the world widens out for us more andmore, through the fact that spiritual reality is added to physical reality, in human evolution! Human beings have beenmore and more cut off, in this materialistic age, from the world in which man lives between death and a new birth.Spiritual Science must give back to them, again, that life which comprises the whole human being — including that partwhich remains when man no longer possesses a physical body. In this respect, the physical world has nothing to give us.

It can weigh heavily, very heavily, upon our souls — especially just at the present difficult time — to see a volumelike the one by Ernst Haeckel, which has just appeared. He calls it “Thoughts of Eternity”. Now, Ernst Haeckel is one of

the most distinguished men of our day. This book, “Thoughts of Eternity”, starts out with the present Great War. What isthe chief content of this book? The chief content of this newest book by Haeckel, “Thoughts of Eternity”, is expressed inthese words: What can this particular war teach us? Thousands and thousands of people die a death of external violence,without any necessity whatsoever. “Must we not see” — asks Haeckel — “in this very war, the proof for the fact that all

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thoughts on eternity and infinity are absurd? Does not this same war, which ruins men's lives through outer chance, suchas a bullet, for example — does it not show us that there is nothing beyond ordinary physical life?”

Of course, there will be other people of our day, who will be led to a different kind of thinking about eternity, throughthese events — to quite the opposite kind of thoughts of eternity, to thoughts which, in any case, call up in us the feelingthat those who pass through the portal of death in times such as these continue their tasks for humanity in other worlds,and that the very sacrifice which they make, partly constitutes, in their new life, the starting point for what they have tofulfil when they no longer carry a physical body.

It is possible to prove all sorts of things, through ordinary science: it is possible to prove, for instance, that ordinaryscience enables man to construct all sorts of excellent kinds of apparatus, which raise the standard of human life andadvance human civilisation — in a peaceful sense. Yet this same science can also construct the most terrible things — for the destruction of human life. External science enables man to construct both good and destructive things, and to prove allsorts of facts.

In order really to penetrate into the world where the eternal lives, there is need for Spiritual Science. And thisSpiritual Science — I have already spoken to you about this, at least to some of you — shows us, among other things, andmakes it quite clear to us, that those who leave their physical body at an early age, before the ordinary span of life on the

physical plane has elapsed, give over their etheric body to the etheric world, and continue to live as individualities. Then,the spirit and the sense of Spiritual Science show us that such an etheric body, which would still have been able to supporta physical body for a long time, still contains vital forces, when it is handed over to the etheric world — forces whichwould have been able to keep the physical body alive for decades. It exists in the etheric world, as illustrated by theexample I have already cited to you.

What a human being acquires, through his sacrificial death continues to live in his individuality. It continues to live inhim, especially at a time like the present; and we are able to gain an insight into the significance of what is taking placeonly when we look at things with our spiritual eyes, through Spiritual Science. Then our attention will be drawn to thefact that the spiritual counterpart of what is now happening on European soil, as the spiritual correlation, the spiritual

parallel process of the mighty and sorrowful events taking place on the physical plane, here in Europe — since all physical events are under the guidance of the spiritual world — must flow through physical events, into the future of human evolution.

But this will bear fruit only if human souls, living in physical bodies on the earth, acquire a consciousness of the factthat an active and helping influence is going out to them — from those forces which live in the spiritual world as theresult of thousands and thousands of sacrificial deaths: and that they can submit themselves to this influence, in a sense, inorder to be able to continue in the future their activity on this earth — united with the dead through that consciousness of the reality of a spiritual world, which can be acquired by the human soul.

This is what Spiritual Science must give to men — also in connection with these events now taking place. And human beings will then be able to render fruitful for the future, in the right way, the spiritual counterpart of this mightiest of allworld-events, and they will be able also to think and to feel, in the right way.

From the courage of fighters,from the blood of battles,from the sorrow of those who are left behind,from a nation's sacrifice,will ripen spiritual fruit — if, toward the spirit-kingdom,souls will spirit-conscious turn.

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The Ego-consciousness of the So-called Dead

The Ego-consciousness of the So-called Dead

A Lecture ByRudolf Steiner

Leipzig, February 22, 1916GA 168

A lecture delivered by Rudolf Steiner at Leipzig on the 22nd of February, 1916. From stenographic notes, unrevised by the lecturer. Lecture 3 of 8from the volume: The Relation between the Living and the Dead , from Steiner's Lectures to Members series. This lecture is also known as: The

Moment of Death and the Period Thereafter . The volume of the Complete Edition of the works of Rudolf Steiner containing the original text of thethis lecture, among seven others, is entitled: Die Verbindung Zwischen Lebenden und Toten . (No. 168 in the Bibliographical Survey , 1961).

This English edition of the following lecture is published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung , Dornach, Switzerland.


The General Anthroposophical SocietyDornach, Switzerland

Thanks to an anonymous donation, this lecture has been made available. This document was literally crumbling in your hand when it was found ... is now saved in electronic media.

[ Be sure to read another version of the Lecture:The Moment of Death and the Period Thereafter .]

Anthroposophic News SheetPUBLISHED BY THE GENERAL ANTHROPOSOPHIC SOCIETY, DORNACH, SWITZERLAND

FOR MEMBERS ONLY

31st of March, 1940. No. 13/14 8th Year.

Copyright and all other Rights of reproduction and translation reserved by General Anthroposophic Society, Dornach, Switzerland. Responsibility for thecontents of the articles in the “Anthroposophic News Sheet” attaches only to the writers

All subscriptions, communications, notices, advertisements, etc. should be addressed to Miss DORA BAKER,“Anthroposophic News Sheet” Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland.Yearly subscription: 17.–Swiss Francs. — Single Copies: 35 cents.

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http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/MomDea_index.html






Lecture by Dr. Rudolf Steiner

delivered at LEIPZIG, on the 22nd of February, 1916.

[From stenographic notes unrevised by the lecturer.]

Let us first send our thoughts to those who are outside on the battlefields, where the great events of the present aretaking place, to those who must stand for these serious events with their life, body and soul:

Geister ihrer Seelen, wirkende Wächter!Eure Schwingen mögen bringenUnserer Seelen bittende LiebeEurer Hut vertrauten Erdenmenschen,Dass, mit Eurer Macht geeint,Unsre Bitte helfend strahleDen Seelen, die sie liebend sucht!

(TRANSLATION)

Spirits of their Souls, working Guardians!May your pinions bringOur souls' beseeching loveTo the human beings on this earth, entrusted to your care,That, united with your might,Our prayer may helpfully ray outTo the souls whom it lovingly seeks!

And let us remember those who have already passed through the portal of death, as a result of these events:

Geister ihrer Seelen, wirkende Wächter!Eure Schwingen mögen bringenUnsrer Seelen bittende LiebeEurer Hut vertrauten Sphärenmenschen,Dass, mit Eurer Macht geeint,Unsre Bitte helfend strahleDen Seelen, die sie liebend sucht.

(TRANSLATION)

Spirits of their Souls, working Guardians!May your pinions bringOur souls' beseeching loveTo the human beings of the spheres, entrusted to your care,That, united with your might,

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Our prayer may helpfully ray outTo the souls whom it lovingly seeks!

And the Spirit Whom we seek through our spiritual-scientific endeavours, the Spirit Who passed through the Mysteryof Golgotha for the welfare of the earth and for mankind's freedom and progress, may He be with you and with your difficult tasks!

*

The time in which we live, reminds us daily and hourly of death, this significant event in human life, it reminds us of man's passage through the portal of death. For only in the light of spiritual science, death becomes a real event, in the truemeaning of the word, because spiritual science shows us the eternal forces that are active within us, that pass through

births and deaths and take on a special form of existence between birth and death, in order to assume another form of existence after their passage through the portal of death. In the light of spiritual science, death becomes an event , insteadof being merely the abstract end of life (only a materialistic world-conception can look upon death as the end of life), it

becomes a deep and serious event within the whole compass of human life. Even from our own ranks, dear friends of ourshave left us in order to pass through the portal of death, chiefly as a result of the present historical events, but also for other reasons, and so it may perhaps be particularly appropriate just now to say a few things on death, on this great event,and on the facts of human life that are connected with it.

Explanations have often been given in our spiritual-scientific lectures on the life between death and a new birth, sothat we were able to gain many essential facts, particularly in regard to this subject. The course which spiritual sciencehas followed up to now, will have shown you that in every single case it can only speak of things from one definitestandpoint, so that a more accurate knowledge can gradually be acquired by speaking of things repeatedly and throwinglight upon them from many points of view. To-day I shall therefore add to the facts that you already know in connectionwith this subject, a few things that may be useful to our comprehension of the world as a whole.

Through spiritual science, we consider, to begin with (and that is a good thing) the human being such as he stands before us, here, in the physical world as an expression of his whole being. We must depart first of all from the manner inwhich the human being presents himself to us in the physical world, and for this reason, I have frequently pointed out thatwe obtain, as it were, a general view of man's whole being if we contemplate him so that we first take, as a foundation, his

physical body, which we learn to know externally in the physical world through our senses and the scientific-dissection of

what we perceive through the senses. We then proceed, by studying that form of organisation which we designate as our etheric body: this already possesses a supersensible character and cannot, therefore, be contemplated with the aid of theordinary intellect, which is bound to the brain, and is consequently also inaccessible to our ordinary science. The etheric

body is an organism having supersensible character, concerning which we may say that it was already known to men suchas Immanuel Hermann Fichte, son of the great thinker Johann Gottlieb Fichte, to Troxler and others. Indeed, man's etheric

body can only be grasped through imaginative knowledge owing to its supersensible character, but as far as imaginativeknowledge is concerned, it can be contemplated externally, just as the physical-sensory body can be contemplatedexternally through our ordinary sensory knowledge.

We then ascend in our contemplation to the astral body. The astral body in man cannot be contemplated in anexternal-sensory manner, in the same way in which we contemplate the physical body through our external senses, or inthe same way in which we contemplate our etheric body through our inner sense; the astral body is something that canonly be experienced inwardly. We must experience it inwardly and in order to experience it, we must be within it. Thesame thing applies to the fourth member which must be grasped in the physical world, to the Ego. With these four members of human nature, we build up our whole being.

Past lectures showed us that what we designate as man's physical body is a very complicated structure, formed duringlong periods of development that passed through the stages of Saturn, the Sun and the Moon [ See Rudolf Steiner's ‘ANOUTLINE OF OCCULT SCIENCE.’ ]; also the evolution of the earth contributed to this development of the physical body, fromthe very beginning of earthly existence up to our time. A complicated process of development therefore built up our

physical body.

That form of contemplation which is, to begin with, accessible to us in the physical world, merely sees the external

aspect of everything that lives within the physical body. Even ordinary science merely sees this external aspect. We mightsay: Our ordinary physical contemplation and ordinary science, in the form in which it now lives in the world, merelyknow of the physical body as much as we would know of a house, if we would only go round it outside, without ever going inside, so that we would never learn to know what it is like inside, nor what people live in it.

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http://www.rsarchive.org/Books/GA013/English/






Of course, those who stand upon the foundation of ordinary science, in the usual materialistic meaning, will argue:“We are thoroughly acquainted with the interior of the physical body! We know what it is like, because we havefrequently studied the brain inside the skull, when dissecting corpses; we have frequently studied the stomach and theheart.” This interior, however, that can thus be studied from outside, this spatial interior is not what I mean when I speak of man's inner being. Even this spatial interior is nothing but an external thing. Indeed, in the case of the physical body,this spatial interior is far more external than the real spatial exterior.

This must sound strange. But our sense-organs — you know this from other descriptions contained in our spiritualscience — were formed already during the Saturn period and we carry them on the surface of our body. Spatially

speaking, they are outside. Nevertheless, they were built by forces that are far more spiritual than those that formed our stomach, or everything that exists, spatially speaking, inside our body. What is inside our body, is built up by the leastspiritual of forces. Strange though it may sound, I must nevertheless point out that we really speak of ourselves in anentirely mistaken manner — upside down, we might say. Since we live on the physical plane, it is natural to speak in thatway; nevertheless the way in which we speak of ourselves is quite wrong. We should really designate the skin of our faceas our interior, and the stomach as our exterior. This would lead us far closer to the truth! It would lead us closer to thereal truth if we were to say: We eat in such a way that we send the food out of us; when we send food into our stomach,we really send it out, we do not send it into our body, as we generally say at the present time. The more our organs lie onthe surface, the more spiritual are the forces from which they come; and the more they lie inside our body, the lessspiritual are the forces that gave rise to them,

The descriptions that were given so far in our spiritual science enable you to grasp this with a certain ease. If youcarefully remember the descriptions of spiritual science, you will no doubt remember what it says in regard to the Moonstage of development, namely, that something split off during the Moon stage of development, and that something alsosplit off during the Earth-development; it went out into the world's spaces from the Saturn, Sun and Moon stages of development. A very strange thing is connected with this splitting-off process: namely, we were turned inside out! Our inside became our outside, and our outside became our inside. During the Saturn and Sun periods, our humancountenance, that is now turned towards the outer world, was really turned towards our inner being. Of course, this wasonly the case during the early stages of development; but even during a part of the Moon period, during the Moonexistence, the foundation of the inner organs which we now possess was still formed from outside. Since that time, wehave really been turned inside out, like an overcoat that can be turned. We should bear in mind that many supersensiblefacts are connected with our physical body; its whole structure is supersensible; the supersensible world has formed it,and when we look upon the physical body as a whole, it merely shows us its external aspect,

If we now come to the etheric body, we shall find that it is neither visible nor accessible to the physical-sensorycontemplation. But when the human being passes through the portal of death, it becomes all the more important. The timethrough which the human being now passes, the first days after his death, are particularly important as far as the etheric

body is concerned. But we must learn to think differently, even in regard to the physical body, if we wish to grasp in theright way all that we encounter after our passage through the portal of death.

You already know (for you can observe this even in the physical world) that when we pass through the portal of death, we lay aside our physical body, as we generally say. We lay aside our physical body. Through decomposition or cremation (the only difference between these two processes lies in the length of time that they take up) the physical bodyis handed over to the elements of the earth. Now we might think that the physical body simply ceases to exist for thosewho have passed through the portal of death. But this is not the case, in this meaning. For we can hand over to the earth

only those parts of our physical body that come from the earth itself. We cannot, however, hand over to the earth that partof our physical body that comes from the ancient Moon existence, nor that part which comes from the ancient Sunexistence, or from the ancient Saturn existence. For those parts that come from the ancient Saturn existence, from the Sunexistence, from the Moon existence, and even from a great portion of the Earth existence, are super-sensible forces. Thesesupersensible forces contained in our physical body, of which only the external part is accessible to our sensorycontemplation, as explained just now, — where do these supersensible forces go to, after we have passed through the

portal of death? As stated, we hand over to the earth, we return to the earth, only that part of our physical body, of thatmost wonderful structure which exists in the world, to begin with, as a form, — we return to the earth only what the earthitself has given to the physical body. And where is the other part, when we have passed through the portal of death? Theother part withdraws from the one that sinks down into the earth, as it were, through the process of decomposition or cremation; the other part is taken up by the whole universe.

If you now think of everything you can at all imagine in the environment of the earth, including the planets and thefixed stars, if you imagine this in the most spiritual form, this spiritually conceived idea would give you the place wherethe spiritual part of our physical body abides after death. Only a portion of this spiritual part, a portion contained in theelement of heat, separates and remains with the earth. But every other spiritual part of our physical body is borne out intothe spaces of the universe, into the whole cosmos.

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Where do we go to, when we abandon our physical body? Where do we dive down? Through our death, we divedown with lightning speed into that which forms our physical body, from out [of] all the supersensible forces. Imaginethat all the constructive forces that have worked upon your physical body, ever since the time of Saturn, were to stretchthemselves into infinity, in order to prepare the place in which you live between death and a new birth. Between birth anddeath, all this is drawn together, I might say, within the space enclosed by your skin; it is merely drawn together.

When we are outside our physical body, we experience something that is of utmost importance for the wholesubsequent life between death and a new birth. I have often mentioned this. This experience is of opposite character to thecorresponding experience during our life here, upon the physical plane. During our life upon the physical plane, we

cannot look back as far as the hour of our birth; we cannot look back upon it with the aid of our ordinary cognitive power.There is not one person who can remember his own birth, nor look back upon it. The only thing we know, is that we were

born; in the first place, because we have been told so by others, and in the second place, because all the other human beings that came to the earth after us, were also born, so that we infer from this that we too, were born. But we cannot pass through the real experience of our own birth.

Exactly the opposite is the case with the corresponding experience after death. Whereas, during our physical life, theimmediate contemplation of our birth can never rise up before our soul, the moment of death stands before our soulthroughout our life between death and a new birth, if we only look upon it spiritually. We must realise that we then look upon the moment of death from the other side. Here, on earth, death has a terrifying aspect only because we look upon itas a kind of dissolution, as an end. But when we look back upon the moment of death from the other side, from thespiritual side, then death continually appears to us as a victory of the spirit, as the spirit that is extricating itself from the

physical. It then appears as the greatest, most beautiful and significant event. Moreover, this experience kindles thatwhich constitutes our Ego-consciousness after death. Throughout the time between death and a new birth, we have anEgo-consciousness that not only resembles but far exceeds that which we have here, during our physical life. We wouldnot have this Ego-consciousness, if we could not look back incessantly, if we would not always see — but from the other side, from the spiritual side — that moment in which our spiritual part extricated itself from the physical. We know thatwe are an Ego only because we know that we have died, that our spiritual has freed itself from our physical part. Whenwe cannot contemplate the moment of death, beyond the portal of death, then our Ego-consciousness after death is in thesame case as our physical Ego-consciousness here upon the earth, when we are asleep. Just as we know nothing of our

physical Ego-consciousness when we are asleep, so we know nothing concerning ourselves after death, if we do notconstantly have before us the moment of death. It stands before us as one of the most beautiful and loftiest moments.

You see, even in this case we must set about thinking in an entirely different way of the spiritual world, than of thesensory-physical world. If we indolently remain by the thoughts which we have in connection with the physical-sensoryworld, it will be impossible for us to grasp the spiritual in any way more precisely. For the most important thing after death is that the moment of death is viewed from the other side. This kindles our Ego-consciousness on the other side.Here, in the physical world, we have, as it were, one side of Ego-consciousness; after death, we have the other side of Ego-consciousness. I explained just now where we should look for the supersensible part of our physical body after death.We should seek this physical body in the shape of a relation of forces, of an organism of forces, as a cosmos of forces,within the whole world. This physical essence prepares the place through which we must pass between death and a new

birth.

Within our physical body, which is so small in comparison to the whole world, our skin really encloses a microcosm,something that is, in reality, a whole world. Trivially speaking, I might say that this world is merely rolled together and

that afterwards it unrolls again and fills out the universe, with the exception of one tiny space, that always remains empty.

Between death and a new birth, we really exist everywhere in the world; we live in it with that part which, here onearth, lies at the foundation of our physical body in the form of supersensible forces. We are everywhere, except in thatone place. This remains empty. It is the space enclosed by our skin, the space which we take up in the physical world.This remains empty.

Yet we constantly look upon this empty space. That is to say, we look upon our own self, from outside; we look into aconcavity. This remains empty. It remains empty to such an extent that a fundamental feeling rises up in connection withit. Namely, we do not contemplate things in an abstract manner, we do not simply stare at them, but our contemplation isconnected with a powerful inner life-experience, with a mighty experience. It is connected with the fact that when wecontemplate this emptiness, a feeling rises up in us, a feeling that accompanies us throughout our life between death and anew birth and constitutes a great deal of what we generally designate as our life beyond. It is the feeling, that there issomething in the world which must again and again be filled out by us. And then we acquire the feeling: “I exist in theworld for a definite purpose, which I, alone, can fulfil.” Thus we learn to know our place within the world. We feel thatwe are building stones, without which the world could not exist. This is what arises through the contemplation of that

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empty space. When we gaze at it, we are overcome by a feeling telling us that we stand within the world as somethingthat forms part of it.

All this is connected with the further development of our physical body. The more elementary forms of descriptiononly enable us to explain schematically as it were, a reality of the spiritual world that really requires to be explained in theform of images. In order to rise gradually to those concepts which penetrate more deeply into the reality of the spiritualworld, we must first have those images.

We know that our next experience is a kind of retrospective memory, that lasts for days. But this retrospective

memory is inappropriately designated (but nevertheless with a certain right) as a retrospective memory, for we have before us now, for a few days, something that resembles a tableau, or a panorama, woven out of all we have experiencedduring our past life. It does not, however, rise up in the same way in which an ordinary memory rises up in our physical

body. You see, the memories that live in our physical body are of such a kind that we draw them out of our memory.Memory is a force that is connected with our physical body. Our recollections rise up in the form of thoughts; through the

power of memory, we draw them out successively, within the stream of time. But the retrospective memory after death isof such a kind that everything that occurred during our earthly life, now surrounds us simultaneously, as if it were a

panorama. Our life-experiences now rise up in the form of imaginations. We can only say that we now live, for wholedays, within our experiences. What we experienced just before death, and what we experienced during our childhood,stands before us simultaneously, in powerful pictures. A panorama of our life, a life-picture stands before us and itreveals, simultaneously, in a woof woven out of the ether, what normally occurs successively, within the stream of time.Everything that we now see before us, lives in the ether.

We feel, above all, that we are now surrounded by something that is alive. Everything within it lives and weaves. Andthen we experience that it resounds spiritually, that it shines forth spiritually and gives warmth spiritually.

We know that this life-tableau disappears after a few days. What makes it cease and what is the essence of this life-tableau?

If we study the true essence of this life-tableau, we must really say: Everything that we have experienced during our life, is woven into it. How did we experience these things? — In the form of thoughts, connected with our experiences.Everything that we experienced in the form of thoughts and concepts is contained in this picture of our life.

In order to grasp this concretely, let us now say: During our earthly life, we lived together with another human being,we spoke with him and in speaking with him, his thoughts communicated with our thoughts. We received love from him,we allowed his soul to influence us and experienced all this inwardly. In this manner, we shared the experiences of the

person we lived with. He lived and we lived, and through him we experienced something. What we experienced throughhim, now appears to us woven into this etheric life-tableau. It is the same thing that constitutes our memories. Think, for instance, of the moment, ten or twenty years ago, when you first met him and experienced something through him.Imagine that this memory now rises up before you, but that you do not remember it in the same way in which you wouldremember things during your ordinary life. The ordinary memories are grey and faded, but now you remember things insuch a way that they rise up within you as LIVING memories; you see your friend standing before you in exactly thesame way in which he stood before you during the real experience.

Here, on earth, we are often very dreamy and what we experience upon the physical plane in a living and heartymanner, becomes dulled and loses its vitality. But when we pass through the portal of death, when our experiences rise up

before us in the life-tableau, they are no longer dull and lifeless, but exist there, in the original freshness and vitalitywhich they possessed when we passed through them, during our earthly life. In this form they become inwoven with our life-tableau; in this form we experience them after death, for whole days.

In regard to the physical world, we have the impression that our physical body falls away from us when we die; in asimilar way we now have the impression that also our etheric body falls away from us after a certain number of days, butit does not fall away from us in the same way in which our physical body falls away, for it becomes inwoven with thewhole universe, with the whole world. It lives in the world and stamps its impressions upon the whole world, while weare experiencing our life-tableau. What we thus have before us in the form of a life-tableau, has now been handed over tothe external world: it lives in our surroundings and has been taken over by the world.

During those days, we have an important and impressive experience in this connection. For, after death, our experiences do not merely resemble the memories which we have during our earthly life, but they are in every waysubstance for new experiences. Even the manner in which we grasp our Ego, through the fact that we constantly look

back upon our death, is a new experience, for our earthly senses do not enable us to experience anything similar. This can

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only be grasped through the knowledge of initiation. But even what we experience during the days in which we aresurrounded by this life-tableau, by this etheric life that frees itself from us and becomes inwoven with the universe, evenwhat we experience in this manner, is impressive and lofty, it is an overwhelming and powerful experience for the humansoul.

You see, during our physical life on earth, we face the world: we face the mineral, vegetable, animal and humankingdom. It enables us to experience what our senses are able to experience, what our intellect, that is bound to the brain,obtains through the sense-experiences, what are our feelings, that are connected with our vascular system, experience: weexperience all these things, here on earth.

But in reality, and from a loftier standpoint, we human beings are extremely great dunces (excuse this expression!),gigantic dunces between birth and death. In regard to the wisdom of the great world, we are fearfully stupid if we believethat here on earth, when we experience something in the manner described and bear it along in the form of memories,everything is finished; we are fearfully stupid if we think that our experiences are finished, when we take them up in thismanner, as human beings. For while we experience things, while we form concepts and feelings rise up in our experiences, the whole world of the Hierarchies is active within this process through which we acquire our experiences;the Hierarchies live and weave in it.

When we face a human being and, look into his eyes, then the Spirits of the Hierarchies, the Hierarchies themselves,the work of the Hierarchies, live in our gaze and in what is sent towards us through the gaze of the other human being.Our experience merely shows us the external aspect of things, for, in reality, the Gods work within our experiences. Wethink, that we only live for our own sake; yet the Gods work out something through our experiences; they obtain fromthem something that they can weave into the world. We form ideas, we have feeling experiences; the Gods take them upand communicate them to their world. And when we die, we know that the purpose of our life is to give the Gods theopportunity to spin out of our life this woof coming from our etheric body and to hand it over to the whole universe. TheGods gave us the chance to live, in order that they might spin out something for themselves, thus enriching the world.

This is an overwhelming thought. Every one of our strides is the external expression of an event connected with theGods; it forms part of that woof which the Gods use for their plan of the world and which they leave to us only until we

pass through the portal of death. After our death, they take it away from us and incorporate with the universe these, our human destinies. Our human destinies are, at the same time, the deeds of Gods, and the form in which they appear to ushuman beings is merely their outward aspect. This is the significant, important and essential fact which we should bear in

mind.

What we acquire inwardly, during our earthly life, through the fact that we can think and have feelings, whom doesthis belong to, after our death? Whom does it now belong to? After our death, it belongs to the universe. We look back upon our death, and in the same way we now look back with that part which remains to us, namely, with our astral bodyand our Ego, upon that which has become inwoven with the universe, with the world. During our earthly life, we bear within us what thus becomes inwoven with the universe after our death; we bear it within us, as our etheric body. But nowit is spun up and becomes inwoven with the world. And we now look upon it, we contemplate it. After our death, we look upon it in the same way in which we experienced it inwardly, here on earth. It now lives in the world outside. Just as hereon earth we see stars, mountains, rivers, so after our death, we see, in addition to what our physical body has become withlightning speed, also that part of our own experiences which has become inwoven with the universe. That part of our ownexperiences which now incorporates with the whole world-structure, is reflected in those members which we still possess,in our astral body and in our Ego; it is reflected in the same way in which the external world is reflected, here on earth, inour physical organs and through our physical being.

While this is reflected in us, we acquire something that we cannot acquire during our earthly life, something that weshall only acquire later on, during the Jupiter period, in the form of a more external, physical impression. Now we acquireit spiritually, through the fact that our etheric being, outside makes an impression upon us. The impression which is thusmade upon us, is, to begin with, a spiritual one; it is made in the form of images; in its image-character it is, however, the

prototype of what we shall one day possess upon Jupiter: namely, the Spirit-Self.

A Spirit-Self is therefore born to us, through the fact that our etheric part becomes inwoven with the universe; thisSpirit-Self comes to birth spiritually, not in the form in which we shall have it later on, upon Jupiter.

The etheric body has now detached itself, so that we now have the astral body, the Ego and the Spirit-Self.

The astral body and the Ego therefore remain to us from our earthly life.

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You already know that our astral body, in the earthly form in which it was subjected to us, remains with as for a longtime after death. The astral body remains with us, because it is permeated with all those things that only pertain to theearthly-human life, and because it cannot immediately expel this. We now pass through a time during which we can onlycast off little by little what has become of our astral body as a result of our earthly life.

You see, here on earth, we can only experience, in regard to the astral body, one half at the most of everythingthrough which we pass. We really experience only half of what takes place in every one of our experiences. Let us take anexample: Imagine — this applies, both to good and to evil thoughts and actions — but let us take as an example an evilaction: Imagine that you say something bad to another person and that your words hurt him. When we say something

unkind, we only experience that part which concerns us personally; we only experience the feelings that prompted us tosay those evil words: This is the soul-impression which we gather when we say bad and unkind things. But the other

person to whom we addressed our unkind words, has an entirely different impression; he has, as it were, the other half of the impression and feels hurt. The second half of the impression lives in him. What we ourselves experience during our

physical life on earth is one thing, and what the other person experiences is another thing.

Now imagine the following: After our death, when we pass retrogradely through our life, we must once more livethrough everything that other people, outside, have experienced through us. As we go backwards through our life, weexperience the effects of our thoughts and actions. Between death and a new birth, we therefore pass through our life bygoing through it retrogradely. And when we have gone back as far as our birth, we are ripe for the moment when also that

part of our astral body may be cast off, which is permeated with earthly things. It abandons us, and a new state of-existence begins for us when we have cast off our astral body.

The astral body always kept us connected, I might say, with the earth; it maintained this connection in all our experiences. When we pass through our astral body — not in a dreamy condition, but by living through our earthlyexperiences backwards — we are still connected with our earthly life; we still stand within our earthly existence. Nowthat we have cast off — but this is not the right expression; it is, however, impossible to use another one — now that wehave cast off our astral body, we are quite free of all that pertains to the earth, and we live in the real spiritual world.

A new experience now sets in. This casting-off of the astral body is, again, merely one aspect of the wholeexperience; the other aspect is an entirely different one. When we have passed through our earthly experiences and nolonger have our astral body, we feel, as it were, inwardly filled and permeated with — we cannot say with material — butwith Spirit; then we really feel that we are in the spiritual world and the spiritual world rises up within us. In former times,

it rose up before us in the outer world when we contemplated the universe and saw our own etheric body inwoven withthe universe. But now it rises up within us; we now experience it inwardly. And our Ego rises up within us, as a prototypeof what we shall possess physically only upon Venus; our Ego rises up as a prototype of the Life-Spirit.

We now consist of Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit and Ego.

Just as here on earth, we live in a rather dreamy state from our birth until that moment of bur childhood in which weacquire self-consciousness, which is the earliest moment of life that we can recall, so we now lead a form of life that isfully conscious, indeed more conscious and higher than our earthly life. However, we experience a purely spiritual life,only when we have detached ourselves from our astral body, from our astral life, retaining only that part of our astralwhich permeates us inwardly. Consequently, we are, from that time onwards, Spirits among Spirits.

Now another important and essential experience rises up. During our life in the physical world, we carry on our work,do this or that thing and [have] experiences in connection with all these things. (We just spoke of this). Our experiencesare, however, not limited to the physical world; simultaneously and in connection with them, we also experiencesomething else. Although the expression which I shall now use for these simultaneous experiences is just an ordinary,more general expression, let me nevertheless use this word: while we experience these things, we grow tired, we get usedup. This is constantly the case: we grow tired. Although our weariness is eliminated for our next state of consciousnessthrough the fact that we sleep, or rather, through the fact that we rest during our sleep, this elimination, or adjustment, isnevertheless only a partial one, for we know, of course, that during our life we gradually become used up, we grow older,and our strength gradually dwindles. Consequently, we also grow tired in a wider sense. When we grow older, we knowthat we cannot adjust everything by sleeping. Thus we wear out our strength, we grow tired, during our life on earth.

Indeed, we are now able to view this problem from another aspect. After our preceding explanation, we can nowadvance this problem in a different way; we can ask: Why do the Gods allow us to grow weary? The fact that here onearth we get tired and wear out our strength, gives us something that is really most significant for our whole life. Let us,however, grasp the idea that we get tired, in a wider sense than the usual one. Let us place it clearly before our soul.

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You will grasp it best of all if you imagine it in the following way: Ask any one of those present: Do you knowanything concerning the interior of your head? — Probably only a person who is suffering from headache would answer that at the present moment he does know something concerning the interior of his head. He alone would feel what theinside of his head is like; all the others would not feel it.

We can feel our organs only when they are not quite in order; we are then to some extent aware of their existencethrough our feelings. As a rule, we only have a more general feeling of our physical body, and this feeling increases whenanything is out of order. But when we only have this general feeling, we know very little concerning the interior of our

body. Those who suffer from bad headaches know a little more concerning the inside of their head than an anatomist, who

is merely acquainted with the head's vessels. I explained this just now. In growing more and more tired, during the courseof our life, we acquire an ever stronger feeling in regard to the body's interior, its spatial interior.

Consider the fact that the more weary we grow, the more the infirmities of life arise, for instance the infirmities of oldage. Our life consists therein that we gradually begin to feel and to sense our physical body. We learn to sense this

physical part of our being, because it becomes hardened within us and because it pushes itself, as it were, into our being.Just because it develops so slowly, we regard it, I might say, as an insignificant feeling. Its real significance could begauged, if we could feel (excuse this trivial expression, but it conveys what I wish to say) in the pink of health, like anexuberantly healthy child, and immediately afterwards, for the sake of comparison, like an old man of 80 or 85, whoselimbs have grown fragile. This would enable us to experience that feeling more strongly; simply because it develops soslowly and little by little, we do not notice the fact that we gradually spin ourselves into the feeling experience of our

physical part, while we grow weary; we do not notice this feeling simply because it develops so slowly. Yet growingweary is a real process. At first, it does not exist at all, for a child is full of exuberant vitality. But later on, fatiguegradually begins to drown the vital forces, and then the process of getting tired breaks through. We have the possibility of growing weary, and during this process (even though it only gives us, let us say, a dim feeling of our body's inner structure), during this process, something takes place within us, something really takes place within us.

Our life in the physical world only shows us the outer aspect of deep, significant and lofty mysteries. The fact thatthis dim, insignificant feeling of growing weary accompanies us throughout our life, so that we are able to feel the inner structure of our body, is merely the outer aspect of something that becomes inwoven with us; it is wonderfully woven outof pure wisdom, a complete woof of pure wisdom.

While we thus grow weary during our life and begin to experience ourselves inwardly, a delicate knowledge becomes

inwoven with us, a knowledge of the wonderful constitution of our organs, of our inner organs. Our heart grows tired, yetthis weariness means that a knowledge of the heart's structure becomes inwoven with us, a knowledge of how the heart is built from out the universe. Our stomach gets tired — most of all, when we spoil it by eating too much — yet during this process that tires the stomach, an image of wisdom from out the cosmos is woven into us, and this image shows us howthe stomach is built up.

The lofty, wonderful structure of our organism, of this great work of art, arises within us in the form of an image. Butthis image only comes to life when we cast off that part of our astral body which is bound to the earth. What now liveswithin us, what now fills us as LIFE-SPIRIT, is the wisdom connected with our own being, it is the wisdom connectedwith the wonderful structure of our inner being and this wisdom now lives in us.

Now begins a time in which we compare, as it were, what fills us in the form of Life-Spirit from out the wisdom of our inner being, with the etheric woof that has already been woven into the universe. Our task is now to compare how onething fits in with the other, and we then build up, in the form of an image, our inner being; we give it the shape which itshould have during our next incarnation.

This is how we begin, but little by little our life approaches the World-Midnight, which you will find described in oneof the Mystery Plays, in “The Souls' Awakening”. Particularly after the World-Midnight, we are engaged in a work thatconsists therein that we now participate in the world's creative work; we call into life what we afterwards enjoy here,DURING OUR LIFE BETWEEN DEATH AND A NEW BIRTH, WE SHARE IN THE WORK, WE PARTICIPATE INTHE WEAVING OF THE GODS' IMAGES. We have the privilege of sharing in a divine task, in what the Gods aimedat, when they placed man into the world. We are allowed to prepare our next incarnation.

Of course, this is not only connected with processes that exclusively and egoistically concern our own being, for allmanner of other processes take place as well. This may be evident particularly from the following:

If we gradually succeed in experiencing, in spiritual contemplation, this wonderful process — which is, above all, far higher than the one which takes place on earth, when summer and winter alternate, or when the sun rises and sets — and

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when all that takes place which occurs in the form of earthly work, then something occurs in the spiritual world finallyleading to our earthly incarnation, to human existence. This is a lofty, heavenly process, which has not only an externalsignificance, but a deep significance for the whole world.

We also encounter something else, when we contemplate this process. It may sound strange to say this, but you see,the higher mysteries at first necessarily appear strange in the light of a physical-Sensory contemplation. What rises up

before our soul in connection with these mysteries must move us. The more it moves us, the better it is, for these things,the very nature of these things, should not approach our soul so that we remain dry and indifferent. They should not betaken up in such a way that we remain indifferent, dry and cool; but they should, instead, give us a soul-impression of the

loftiness and greatness of the divine spiritual world.

We can say: If anybody would undertake to present spiritual science in such s dry way that it does not take hold of our WHOLE being, and so that we do not gain an impression of the loftiness and greatness of the divine-spiritual that

pulses and weaves through the world — if, after all these descriptions, we would live on indifferently and dryly, then wewould be born without heads, in accordance with the present conditions of the world and in spite of everything we know!We would be born without heads! The structure of our head is something that we are unable to build. In its wholestructure, the human head is such a lofty image of the universe, that the human being would be unable to form it, evenwith the aid of that life-wisdom which is woven into him; he would be unable to prepare it for the next incarnation. Allthe divine Hierarchies must cooperate in this work. Your head, this slightly irregular and somewhat transformed sphere, isa real microcosm, a true image of the great world-sphere. Within it lives, within it is collected everything that existsoutside, in the universe. All the forces that are active in the different Hierarchies cooperate in order to produce the head.And when we begin to shape our next incarnation, from out [of] the wisdom, which we collected during the process of growing weary, all the Hierarchies cooperate and influence this activity, in order to embody in us, as an image of thewhole wisdom of the Gods, what afterwards becomes our head!

While all this occurs, our physical, hereditary stream is being prepared generations ahead, here upon the earth. Just asafter our death we can only hand over to the earth what comes from the earth, so our parents and grand-parents only giveus that part of our being which pertains to the earth. Our earthly part is merely our exterior, it is merely the externalexpression within this earthly part. Woven into it, is, in the first place, everything that we ourselves are able to weave inthe manner described, and what all the Hierarchies of the Gods weave, before we gain a connection (through conception)with that which enwraps us and clothes us about, when we enter the physical plane.

I explained to you, that the more of this lofty knowledge we take up in our feelings, the better it will be for us. Justconsider the fact: We use our head. In so far as we live in materialism, we generally have not the slightest idea that wholeHierarchies of Gods are at work in order to produce our head, in order to mould that which lies, spiritually, at thefoundation of our head, so that we are able to live. If we grasp this, in the meaning of a spiritual-scientific knowledge, itwill spontaneously be filled with feelings of gratitude and thankfulness towards the whole universe.

Consequently, what we acquire through spiritual science, should incessantly continue to increase and raise our feelings. In the sphere of spiritual science, our sentient life should more and more hold pace with our cognitive work. It isnot good to remain behind with our feelings. Whenever we learn to know a new and higher portion of spiritual science,we should be able to unfold, I might say, more and more reverent feelings towards the world's mysteries, which finallylead to the mysteries of man. A true progress in spiritual science really lies in this purifying, spiritual, warmth of our feelings.

Let me mention one more thing because it completes all that we have contemplated in this lecture. Here, in the physical world, we gradually grow accustomed to life by having, to begin with, the dull consciousness of childhood. Atfirst, we only recognise our mother and little by little we learn to know other people. As we grow accustomed to life in the

physical world, we believe that we are constantly coming across new people. As far as our physical consciousness isconcerned, this is, in fact, true. But when we pass through the portal of death, we have a real, true connection with all thesouls that we encountered during our earthly life. They rise up again before our spiritual eye. The souls with whom wewere connected during our earthly life and that crossed the portal of death before us, we find these souls, as it were. Theword “to find” really applies to physical conditions, but we may use it here, to define that living way in which soulsapproach other souls. This “finding” of the souls that crossed the portal of death before us, should, however, be imaginedin such a way that we approach them, as it were, in an opposite manner from the one in which we approach human

beings, here on the physical plane.

On the physical plane we encounter human beings so that we first approach them physically, and then we gradually become acquainted with their inner being. Their inner being unfolds only when we penetrate into their inner life. Hence,what we experience inwardly in connection with a human being, is the result of that which develops from out [of] our own inner life. When we ourselves have crossed the portal of death and encounter the souls that have passed through the

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portal of death before us, we know to begin with: There is that particular soul. We can feel it, we know that it is there. Now we must, however, surrender our whole inner being to the first impression that arises, to the first most abstractimpression. Here on earth we should allow other human beings to exercise their influence upon us; but in the spiritualworld we must SURRENDER OUR INNER BEING and we must now build up the image, the imagination, ourselves.The imaginative element, what we can look upon, this we must gradually build up. You may have an idea of the soul'sexperiences after death if you imagine that you do not see it, but that you TAKE HOLD of it ... and as you graduallyENCOMPASS IT WITH YOUR GRASP, you, form an image: you build up an image for yourself. You must therefore

build up in inner activity the image of the soul whom you encounter. You realise, as it were: “I am now facing a soul ...What soul is it? It is the soul ...”, and this knowledge rises out of your own soul ... “towards whom I had the feelings of a

son towards his mother.” And you begin to feel: “I experience myself together with this soul”. Now you begin to build itsspiritual form. You must be active within it, and then it develops into an image. Through the fact that you build this imagetogether with the other soul, you are united with that dead person, even before you begin, to form its spiritual shape. Inthis manner you are united with everything with which you were united during your earthly life; that is to say, you nowexperience these things in their own world. You must discover them, by awakening within you the power of vision, sothat you may look upon yourself, but this requires activity on your part.

It is not the same with souls that still dwell in their physical body, with souls that are still alive when we die. Evenhere on earth, we encounter them in the form of images. Thus we look down upon the earth, and do not need to build uptheir image, for they already face us as images. Of course, we may weave into these images something that can becomespiritual warmth and nourishment for the dead, namely the image which we are able to form through our thoughts for thedead, through our lasting love and memory, or — we know this, as spiritual scientists — by reading something to them.

You see, all this extends the human gaze, so that it penetrates, really penetrates into the real world. If this rises up before our soul, we begin to realise how little we know of the spiritual world. This was not always the case. Only thecompletely materialistic people of modern times boast of the great extent of their knowledge. But we know that in the pastthe human beings were clairvoyant and that this ancient, atavistic clairvoyance was lost only because certain qualities hadto be acquired, which disappeared in the midst of an existence connected with a materialistic world. If a real materialist, athoroughly materialistic thinker, approaches us, he will, of course, say: “It is nonsense to speak of an ancientclairvoyance, or that people had a special knowledge in the past”. But if we would only open our physical eyes a little aswe pass through the world, we would very soon discover the confutation of such an argument! It is not even so long ago,that people used to know more than they do at the present time.

You know, for we have often considered this matter — but let me mention it again at the conclusion of this lecture — that Lucifer and Ahriman have a share in our spiritual existence. We also know that in the Bible Lucifer is symbolized asa Serpent, as the Serpent on the Tree. The physical serpent, such as we see it to-day, and as modern painters always paintit when they depict the Paradise Scene, is not a real Lucifer; it is only his outer image, his physical image. The realLucifer is a Being that remained behind during the Moon-stage of evolution. He cannot be seen upon the earth, among

physical objects. If a painter wishes to paint Lucifer's real aspect he would have to paint him so that he can be grasped asan etheric form, through a kind of inner clairvoyant form of contemplation. He would then appear in the shape in whichhe works upon us; he would show that he is not connected with our head or with our organism in so far as these areexclusively formed by the earth, but that he is connected with the continuation of our head, with the spinal cord. A painter who knows something through spiritual science, would therefore paint Adam and Eve, the Tree, and on the Tree theSerpent, but this serpent would only be a symbol and it would have a human head. If we would come across such a

painting to-day, we would assume that the painter has, of course, been able to paint this picture through spiritual science,

Probably such a painting may even be found here in Leipzig; but people do not go about with open eyes, they gothrough the world with bandaged eyes. In the Art Gallery of Hamburg there is a painting of the Middle Ages by, Master Bertram, setting forth the Paradise Scene. In that painting, the Serpent on the Tree is painted correctly, as described justnow. That picture can be seen there. But other painters have also painted the Paradise Scene in that way. What may wegather from this? That in the Middle Ages, people still knew this, they knew it to the extent of being able to paint it. Inother words: It is not so long ago, that human beings were pushed completely on to the physical plane.

The course of man's spiritual history, as related by materialistic thinkers, is, after all, nothing but an outer deception, because they think that man always had the aspect which he assumed in the course of the past few centuries, whereas it isnot so long ago that he used to look into the spiritual world with the aid of his ancient clairvoyance. He had to abandonthe spiritual world, because he was not free, and in order to acquire full freedom and his Ego-consciousness, it wasnecessary that he should leave the spiritual world. Now he must once more find his way into the spiritual world.

Spiritual science therefore prepares something very important and essential: namely, that we may once more penetratelivingly into the spiritual world. Again and again let us conjure up in our soul the necessity of feeling that this smallnumber of men that is now living in the very midst of a materialistic world and is led through its Karma to the possibility

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of grasping mankind's most important task for the future, that this small number of men is called upon to fulfil important,most important tasks, through its soul-life. We should realise without any pride, we should realise modestly and humblythe great difference between a soul that is gradually finding its way into the spiritual world, and all the people outside,who have not the slightest idea of this, who are, above all, NOT WILLING to have any idea of it. This fact should notmerely arouse in us discouraging and painful feelings, but produce feelings that incite us to continue our work withincreasing energy and to work faithfully within the stream of spiritual science, to which we were led through our Karma.

When we were together last, I also mentioned that when a human being passes through the portal of death beforehaving lived through the whole of his life, then that part which is given to him in the form of an etheric body has not been

used up completely. When a human being passes through the portal of death in his youth, then his etheric body might stillhave worked for years upon his physical body. But these forces do not go lost; they are still there. I also mentioned that inthe present time, through the fact that every day and every hour death so numerously approaches mankind, many, manyetheric bodies that might still have worked for a long time upon their physical body, here on the physical plane, arehanded over to the spiritual-etheric world and hover in it. The forces that might, for decades, have provided for the

physical body, become spiritual forces, that cooperate in the spiritual development of humanity. Thus a time will come,when these forces that constitute these etheric bodies, can be used for the spiritual progress of humanity; but this time willonly come, if here on earth there will be human souls who are able to understand this.

When the terrible events of the present shall have passed over the earth and there will be peace once more, then thesouls of those who are still living on the earth in human bodies, will have the possibility of grasping something of the factthat all those who have gone into the spiritual world before their time have their etheric bodies in that world and that theycan ray their forces into the earth. It will be necessary that this fact be grasped by these souls. These souls can thencooperate in that spiritual progress which is rendered possible particularly through the many deaths of self-sacrifice.

Imagine what it would mean if spiritual science were to disappear, and if no one were to have any comprehension for all that is being prepared in the spiritual world through these deaths of self-sacrifice! Imagine what this would mean! Inthat case, all those forces would become the property of Beings who would use them for other purposes than those for which they should be used, in accordance with the plan and resolution of the Gods who follow the right course of development.

This is an admonishment that also comes from the events of our time, an admonishment to the effect that we shouldstand fully within all that which constitutes the spiritual world. For even these events of our time have their spiritual

aspect. What they reveal outwardly, in the form of blood, death and sacrifices, is the external expression of an inner spiritual course of events, which should, however, be grasped in the right spirit.

Of this I wish to remind you again and again, with the words that conclude our present considerations:

Aus dem Mut der Kämpfer,Aus dem Blut der Schlachten,Aus dem Leid Verlassener,Aus des Volkes Opfertaten,Wird erwachsen Geistesfrucht,Lenken Seelen Geist-bewusst,Ihren Sinn ins Geisterreich.

(TRANSLATION)

From the courage of the fighters,From the blood of the battles,From the sufferings of the abandoned,From the nation's deeds of sacrifice,Shall grow out a spiritual fruit,If souls lead, in Spirit-consciousness,Their heart and mind into the Spirit-realm.

The Moment of Death and the Period Thereafter

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Lecture by Rudolf Steiner

Leipzig, February 22nd, 1916GA 168

Be sure to read another version of the Lecture:The Ego-consciousness of the So-called Dead .



Thanks to an anonymous donation, this lecture has been made available.


Leipzig, 22 February 1916

THE TIME in which we live reminds us daily and hourly of death, this significant event in human life; it reminds us of man's passage through the portal of death. For only in the light of spiritual science does death become a real event in the truemeaning of the word, because spiritual science shows us the eternal forces that are active within us, that pass through

births and deaths and take on a special form of existence between birth and death, in order to assume another form of existence after their passage through the portal of death. In the light of spiritual science, death becomes an event, insteadof being merely the abstract end of life (only a materialistic world-conception can look upon death as the end of life); it

becomes a deep and serious event within the whole compass of human life. Even from our own ranks, dear friends of ourshave left us in order to pass through the portal of death, chiefly as a result of the present historical events, but also for other reasons, and so it may perhaps be particularly appropriate just now to say a few things on death, on this great event,and on the facts of human life that are connected with it.

Explanations have often been given in our spiritual-scientific lectures on the life between death and a new birth, sothat we were able to gain many essential facts, particularly in regard to this subject. The course which spiritual sciencehas followed up to now will have shown you that in every single case it can only speak of things from one definitestandpoint, so that a more accurate knowledge can gradually be acquired by speaking of things repeatedly and throwinglight upon them from many points of view. Today I shall therefore add to the facts that you already know in connectionwith this subject a few things that may be useful to our comprehension of the world as a whole.

Through spiritual science, we consider, to begin with (and that is a good thing), the human being such as he stands before us, here in the physical world, as an expression of his whole being. We must depart first of all from the manner inwhich the human being presents himself to us in the physical world; and for this reason, I have frequently pointed out that

we obtain, as it were, a general view of man's whole being if we contemplate him so that we first take, as a foundation, his physical body which we learn to know externally in the physical world through our senses and the scientific dissection of what we perceive through the senses. We then proceed by studying that form of organization which we designate as our etheric body: this already possesses a supersensible character and cannot, therefore, be contemplated with the aid of theordinary intellect, which is bound to the brain, and is consequently also inaccessible to our ordinary science. The etheric

body is an organism having a supersensible character, concerning which we may say that it was already known to mensuch as Immanuel Hermann Fichte, son of the great thinker Johann Gottlieb Fichte, to Troxler and others. Indeed, man'setheric body can only be grasped through imaginative knowledge owing to its supersensible character; but as far asimaginative knowledge is concerned, it can be contemplated externally, just as the physical-sensory body can becontemplated externally through our ordinary sensory knowledge.

We then ascend in our contemplation to the astral body. The astral body in man cannot be contemplated in anexternal-sensory manner in the same way in which we contemplate the physical body through our external senses, or inthe same way in which we contemplate our etheric body through our inner sense; the astral body is something that canonly be experienced inwardly. We must experience it inwardly, and in order to experience it we must be within it. Thesame thing applies to the fourth member which must be grasped in the physical world, to the ego. With these four members of human nature we build up our whole being.

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http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/EgoDed_index.html


http://wn.rsarchive.org/Lectures/EgoDed_index.html




Past lectures showed us that what we designate as man's physical body is a very complicated structure, formed duringlong periods of development, that passed through the stages of Saturn, the Sun and the Moon; 12 also the evolution of theEarth contributed to this development of the physical body, from the very beginning of earthly existence up to our time. Acomplicated process of development therefore built up our physical body.

That form of contemplation which is, to begin with, accessible to us in the physical world merely sees the externalaspect of everything that lives within the physical body. Even ordinary science merely sees this external aspect. We mightsay: our ordinary physical contemplation and ordinary science, in the form in which it now lives in the world, merelyknow of the physical body as much as we would know of a house if we would only go round it outside, without ever

going inside, so that we would never learn to know what it is like inside, nor what people live in it.

Of course, those who stand upon the foundation of ordinary science, in the usual materialistic meaning, will argue:‘We are thoroughly acquainted with the interior of the physical body! We know what it is like, because we havefrequently studied the brain inside the skull when dissecting corpses; we have frequently studied the stomach and theheart.’ This interior, however, that can thus be studied from outside, this spatial interior, is not what I mean when I speak of man's inner being. Even this spatial interior is nothing but an external thing. Indeed, in the case of the physical body,this spatial interior is far more external than the real spatial interior.

This must sound strange. But our sense-organs — you know this from other descriptions contained in our spiritualscience were formed already during the Saturn period and we carry them on the surface of our body. Spatially speaking,they are outside. Nevertheless, they were built by forces that are far more spiritual than those that formed our stomach or everything that exists, spatially speaking, inside our body. What is inside our body is built up by the least spiritual of forces. Strange though it may sound, I must nevertheless point out that we really speak of ourselves in an entirelymistaken manner upside down, we might say. Since we live on the physical plane, it is natural to speak in that way;nevertheless the way in which we speak of ourselves is quite wrong. We should really designate the skin of our face asour interior, and the stomach as our exterior. This would lead us far closer to the truth! It would lead us closer to the realtruth if we were to say: we eat in such a way that we send the food out of us; when we send food into our stomach, wereally send it out, we do not send it into our body, as we generally say at the present time. The more our organs lie on thesurface, the more spiritual are the forces from which they come; and the more they lie inside our body, the less spiritualare the forces that gave rise to them.

The descriptions that were given so far in our spiritual science enable you to grasp this with a certain ease. If you

carefully remember the descriptions of spiritual science, you will no doubt remember what it says in regard to the Moonstage of development, namely, that something split off during the Moon stage of development, and that something alsosplit off during the Earth-development; it went out into the world's spaces from me Saturn, Sun and Moon stages of development. A very strange thing is connected with this splitting-off process, namely, we were turned inside out! Our inside became, our outside and our outside became our inside. During the Saturn and Sun periods, our humancountenance, which is now turned towards the outer world, was really turned towards our inner being. Of course, this wasonly the case during the early stages of development; but even during a part of the Moon period, during the Moonexistence, the foundation of the inner organs which we now possess was still formed from outside. Since that time, wehave really been turned inside out, like an overcoat that can be turned. We should bear in mind that many supersensiblefacts are connected with our physical body. Its whole structure is supersensible; the supersensible world has formed it,and when we look upon the physical body as a whole, it merely shows us its external aspect.

If we now come to the etheric body, we shall find that it is neither visible nor accessible to the physical-sensorycontemplation. But when the human being passes through the portal of death, it becomes all the more important. The timethrough which the human being now passes, the first days after his death, are particularly important as far as the etheric

body is concerned. But we must learn to think differently, even in regard to the physical body, if we wish to grasp in theright way all that we encounter after our passage through the portal of death.

You already know (for you can observe this even in the physical world) that when we pass through the portal of deathwe lay aside our physical body, as we generally say. We lay aside our physical body. Through decomposition or cremation (the only difference between these two processes lies in the length of time that they take up) the physical bodyis handed over to the elements of the earth. Now we might think that the physical body simply ceases to exist for thosewho have passed through the portal of death. But this is not the case, in this meaning. For we can hand over to the earthonly those parts of our physical body that come from the earth itself. We cannot, however, hand over to the earth that partof our physical body that comes from the Old Moon existence, nor that part which comes from the Old Sun existence or from the Old Saturn existence. For those parts that come from the Old Saturn existence, from the Sun existence, from theMoon existence, and even from a great portion of the Earth existence, are supersensible forces. These supersensible forcescontained in our physical body, of which only the external part is accessible to our sensory contemplation, as explained

just now — where do these supersensible forces go to after we have passed through the portal of death? As stated, we76 din 117



hand over to the earth, we return to the earth, only that part of our physical body — of that most wonderful structurewhich exists in the world, to begin with, as a form — we return to the earth only what the earth has given to the physical

body. And where is the other part when we have passed through the portal of death? The other part withdraws from theone that sinks down into the earth, as it were, through the process or decomposition or cremation; the other part is takenup by the whole universe.

If you now think of everything you can at all imagine in the environment of the earth, including the planets and thefixed stars, if you imagine this in the most spiritual form, this spiritually conceived idea would give you the place wherethe spiritual part of our physical body abides after death. Only a portion of this spiritual part, a portion contained in the

element of warmth, separates and remains with the earth. But every other spiritual part of our physical body is borne outinto the spaces of the universe, into the whole cosmos.

Where do we go to when we abandon our physical body? Where do we dive down? Through our death, we go outwith lightning speed into that which forms our physical body from out of all the supersensible forces. Imagine that all theconstructive forces that have worked upon your physical body, ever since the time of Old Saturn, were to stretchthemselves into infinity in order to prepare the place in which you live between death and a new birth. Between birth anddeath, all this is drawn together, I might say, within the space enclosed by your skin; it is merely drawn together.

When we are outside our physical body, we experience something that is of the utmost importance for the wholesubsequent life between death and a new birth. I have often mentioned this. This experience is of opposite character to thecorresponding experience during our life here, upon the physical plane. During our life upon the physical plane we cannotlook back as far as the hour of our birth; we cannot look back upon it with the aid of our ordinary cognitive power. Thereis not one person who can remember his own birth, nor look back upon it. The only thing we know is that we were born,in the first place, because we have been told so by others, and in the second place, because all the other human beings thatcame to the earth after us were also born, so that we infer from this that we, too, were born. But we cannot pass throughthe real experience of our own birth.

Exactly the opposite is the case with the corresponding experience after death. Whereas, during our physical life, theimmediate contemplation of our birth can never rise up before our soul, the moment of death stands before our soulthroughout our life between death and a new birth, if we only look upon it spiritually. We must realize that we then look upon the moment of death from the other side. Here, on earth, death has a terrifying aspect only because we look upon itas a kind of dissolution, as an end. But when we look back upon the moment of death from the other side, from the

spiritual side, then death continually appears to us as a victory of the spirit, as the Spirit that is extricating itself from the physical. It then appears as the greatest, most beautiful and significant event. Moreover, this experience kindles thatwhich constitutes our ego-consciousness after death. Throughout the time between death and a new birth we have an ego-consciousness that not only resembles but far exceeds that which we have here during our physical life. We would nothave this ego-consciousness if we could not look back incessantly, if we would not always see — but from the other side,from the spiritual side — that moment in which our spiritual part extricated itself from the physical. We know that we arean ego only because we know that we have died, that our spiritual has freed itself from our physical part. When we cannotcontemplate the moment of death, beyond the portal of death, then our ego-consciousness after death is in the same caseas our physical ego-consciousness here upon the earth when we are asleep. Just as we know nothing of our physical ego-consciousness when we are asleep, so we know nothing concerning ourselves after death if we do not constantly have

before us the moment of death. It stands before us as one of the most beautiful and loftiest moments.

You see, even in this case we must set about thinking in an entirely different way of the spiritual world than of thesensory-physical world. If we indolently remain with the thoughts which we have in connection with the physical-sensoryworld, it will be impossible for us to grasp the spiritual in any way more precisely. For the most important thing after death is that the moment of death is viewed from the other side. This kindles our ego-consciousness on the other side.Here, in the physical world, we have, as it were, one side of ego-consciousness; after death, we have the other side of ego-consciousness. I explained just now where we should look for the supersensible part of our physical body after death. Weshould seek this physical body in the shape of a relation of forces, of an organism of forces, as a cosmos of forces, withinthe whole world. This physical essence prepares the place through which we must pass between death and a new birth.

Within our physical body, which is so small in comparison with the whole world, our skin really encloses amicrocosm, something that is, in reality, a whole world. Trivially speaking, I might say that this world is merely rolledtogether and that afterwards it unrolls again and fills out the universe, with the exception of one tiny space that alwaysremains empty.

Between death and a new birth we really exist everywhere in the world; we live in it with that part which, here onearth, lies at the foundation of our physical body in the form of supersensible forces. We are everywhere, except in that

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one place. This remains empty. It is the space enclosed by our skin, the space which we take up in the physical world.This remains empty.

Yet we constantly look upon this empty space. That is to say, we look upon our own self, from outside; we look into aconcavity. This remains empty. It remains empty to such an extent that a fundamental feeling rises up in connection withit. Namely, we do not contemplate things in an abstract manner, we do not simply stare at them, but our contemplation isconnected with a powerful inner life-experience, with a mighty experience. It is connected with the fact that when wecontemplate this emptiness, a feeling rises up in us, a feeling that accompanies us throughout our life between death and anew birth and constitutes a great deal of what we generally designate as our life beyond. It is the feeling that there is

something in the world which must again and again be filled out by us. And then we acquire the feeling: ‘I exist in theworld for a definite purpose, which I, alone, can fulfil.’ Thus we learn to know our place within the world. We feel thatwe are building stones, without which the world could not exist. This is what arises through the contemplation of thatempty space. When we gaze at it, we are overcome by a feeling telling us that we stand within the world as somethingthat forms part of it.

All this is connected with the further development of our physical body. The more elementary forms of descriptiononly enable us to explain schematically, as it were, a reality of the spiritual world that really requires to be explained inthe form of images. In order to rise gradually to those concepts which penetrate more deeply into the reality of thespiritual world, we must first have those images.

We know that our next experience is a kind of retrospective memory that lasts for days. But this retrospectivememory is inappropriately designated (but nevertheless with a certain right) as a retrospective memory, for we have

before us now, for a few days, something that resembles a tableau, or a panorama, woven out of all we have experiencedduring our past life. It does not, however, rise up in the same way in which an ordinary memory rises up in our physical

body. You see, the memories that live in our physical body are of such a kind that we draw them out of our memory.Memory is a force that is connected with our physical body. Our recollections rise up in the form of thoughts; through the

power of memory we draw them out successively within the stream of time. But the retrospective memory after death isof such a kind that everything that occurred during our early life now surrounds us simultaneously, as if it were a

panorama. Our life-experiences now rise up in the form of imaginations. We can only say that we now live, for wholedays, within these experiences. What we experienced just before death and what we experienced during our childhoodstand before us simultaneously in powerful pictures. A panorama of our life, a life-picture, stands before us and it reveals,simultaneously, in a woof woven out of the ether, what normally occurs successively within the stream of time.

Everything that we now see before us lives in the ether.

We feel, above all, that we are now surrounded by something that is alive. Everything within it lives and weaves. Andthen we experience that it resounds spiritually, that it shines forth spiritually and gives warmth spiritually.

We know that this life-tableau disappears after a few days. What makes it cease and what is the essence of this life-tableau?

If we study the true essence of this life-tableau, we must really say: everything that we have experienced during our life is woven into it. How did we experience these things? In the form of thoughts connected with our experiences.Everything that we experienced in the form of thoughts and concepts is contained in this picture of our life.

In order to grasp this concretely, let us now say: during our earthly life we lived together with another human being,we spoke with him and, in speaking with him, his thoughts communicated with our thoughts. We received love from him,we allowed his soul to influence us and experienced all this inwardly. In this manner we shared the experiences of the

person we lived with. He lived and we lived, and through him we experienced something. What we experienced throughhim now appears to us woven into this etheric life-tableau. It is the same thing that constitutes our memories. Think, for instance, of the moment, ten or twenty years ago, when you first met him and experienced something through him.Imagine that this memory now rises up before you, but that you do not remember it in the same way in which you wouldremember things during your ordinary life. The ordinary memories are grey and faded, but now you remember things insuch a way that they rise up within you as LIVING memories; you see your friend standing before you in exactly thesame way in which he stood before you during the real experience.

Here, on earth, we are often very dreamy and what we experience upon the physical plane in a living and heartymanner becomes dulled and loses its vitality. But when we pass through the portal of death, when our experiences rise up before us in the life-tableau, they are no longer dull and lifeless but exist there in the original freshness and vitality whichthey possessed when we passed through them during our earthly life. In this form they become interwoven with our life-tableau; in this form we experience them after death for whole days.

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In regard to the physical world, we have the impression that our physical body falls away from us when we die; in asimilar way we now have the impression that our etheric body too falls away from us after a certain number of days, but itdoes not fall away from us in the same way in which our physical body falls away, for it becomes interwoven with thewhole universe, with the whole world. It lives in the world and stamps its impressions upon the whole world while we areexperiencing our life-tableau. What we thus have before us in the form of a life-tableau has now been handed over to theexternal world: it lives in our surroundings and has been taken over by the world.

During those days we have an important and impressive experience in this connection. For, after death, our experiences do not merely resemble the memories which we have during our earthly life but they are in every way

substance for new experiences. Even the manner in which we grasp our ego, through the fact that we constantly look back upon our death, is a new experience, for our earthly senses do not enable us to experience anything similar. This can only

be grasped through the knowledge of initiation. But even what we experience during the days in which we are surrounded by this life-tableau, by this etheric life that frees itself from us and becomes interwoven with the universe, even what weexperience in this manner is impressive and lofty, it is an overwhelming and powerful experience for the human soul.

You see, during our physical life on earth, we face the world: we face the mineral, vegetable, animal and humankingdoms. They enable us to experience what our senses are able to experience, what our intellect, that is bound to the

brain, obtains through the sense-experiences, what our feelings, that are connected with our vascular system, experience:we experience all these things here on earth.

But in reality, and from a loftier standpoint, we human beings are extremely great dunces (excuse this expression!),gigantic dunces, between birth and death. In regard to the wisdom of the great world, we are fearfully stupid if we believemat here on earth, when we experience something in the manner described and bear it along in the form of memories,everything is finished; we are fearfully stupid if we think that our experiences are finished when we take them up in thismanner as human beings. For while we experience things, while we form concepts and feelings rise up in our experiences,the whole world of the Hierarchies is active within this process through which we acquire our experiences; theHierarchies live and weave in it.

When we face a human being and look into his eyes, then the spirits of the Hierarchies, the Hierarchies themselves,the work of the Hierarchies, live in our gaze and in what is sent towards us through the gaze of the other human being.Our experience merely shows us the external aspect of things for, in reality, the Gods work within our experiences. Wethink that we only live for our own sake; yet the Gods work out something through our experiences; they obtain from

them something that they can weave into the world. We form ideas, we have feeling experiences; the Gods take them upand communicate them to their world. And when we die, we know that the purpose of our life is to give the Gods theopportunity to spin out of our life this woof coming from our etheric body and to hand it over to the whole universe. TheGods gave us the chance to live in order that they might spin out something for themselves, thus enriching the world.

This is an overwhelming thought. Every one of our strides is the external expression of an event connected with theGods; it forms part of that woof which the Gods use for their plan of the world and which they leave to us only until we

pass through the portal of death. After our death they take it away from us and incorporate with the universe these, our human, destinies. Our human destinies are, at the same time, the deeds of Gods, and the form in which they appear to ushuman beings is merely their outward aspect. This is the significant, important and essential fact which we should bear inmind.

What we acquire inwardly, during our earthly life, through the fact that we can think and have feelings, whom doesthis belong to after our death? Whom does it now belong to? After our death it belongs to the universe. We look back upon our death, and in the same way we now look back with that part which remains to us, namely, with our astral bodyand our ego, upon that which has become interwoven with the universe, with the world. During our earthly life we bear within us what thus becomes interwoven with the universe after our death; we bear it within us as our etheric body. Butnow it is spun up and becomes interwoven with the world. And we now look upon it, we contemplate it. After our death,we look upon it in the same way in which we experience it inwardly here on earth. It now lives in the world outside. Justas here on earth we see stars, mountains, rivers, so after our death we see, in addition to what our physical body has

become with lightning speed, also that part of our own experiences which has become interwoven with the universe. That part of our own experiences which now incorporates with the whole world-structure is reflected in those members whichwe still possess, in our astral body and in our ego; it is reflected in the same way in which the external world is reflectedhere on earth in our physical organs and through our physical being.

While this is reflected in us we acquire something that we cannot acquire during our earthly life, something that weshall only acquire later on, during the Jupiter period, in the form of a more external, physical impression. Now we acquireit spiritually, through the fact that our etheric being outside makes an impression upon us. This impression which is thus

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made upon us is, to begin with, a spiritual one; it is made in the form of images; in its image-character it is, however, the prototype of what we shall one day possess upon Jupiter: namely, the Spirit-Self.

A Spirit-Self is therefore born to us through the fact that our etheric part becomes interwoven with the universe; thisSpirit-Self comes to birth spiritually, not in the form in which we shall have it later on, upon Jupiter.

The etheric body has now detached itself, so that we now have the astral body, the ego and the Spirit-Self.

The astral body and the ego therefore remain to us from our earthly life.

You already know that our astral body, in the earthly form in which it was subjected to us, remains with us for a longtime after death. The astral body remains with us because it is permeated with all those things that only pertain to theearthly-human life, and because it cannot immediately expel this. We now pass through a time during which we can onlycast off little by little what has become of our astral body as a result of our earthly life.

You see, here on earth we can only experience, in regard to the astral body, one half at the most of everything throughwhich we pass. We really experience only half of what takes place in every one of our experiences. Let us take anexample. Imagine — this applies both to good and to evil thoughts and actions — but let us take as an example an evilaction. Imagine that you say something bad to another person and that your words hurt him. When we say somethingunkind we only experience that part which concerns us personally; we only experience the feelings that prompted us to

say those evil words. This is the soul-impression which we gather when we say bad and unkind things. But the other person to whom we addressed our unkind words has an entirely different impression; he has, as it were, the other half of the impression and feels hurt. The second half of the impression lives in him. What we ourselves experience during our

physical life on earth is one thing, and what the other person experiences is another thing.

Now imagine the following. After our death, when we pass backwards through our life, we must once more livethrough everything that other people, outside, have experienced through us. As we go backwards through our life, weexperience the effects of our thoughts and actions. Between death and a new birth we therefore pass through our life bygoing through it backwards. And when we have gone back as far as our birth, we are ripe for the moment when also that

part of our astral body may be cast off which is permeated with earthly things. It abandons us, and a new state of existence begins for us when we have cast off our astral body.

The astral body always kept us connected, I might say, with the earth; it maintained this connection in all our experiences. When we pass through our astral body — not in a dreamy condition, but by living through our earthlyexperiences backwards — we are still connected with our earthly life; we still stand within our earthly existence. Nowthat we have cast off — but this is not the right expression; it is, however, impossible to use another one — now that wehave cast off our astral body, we are quite free of all that pertains to the earth and we live in the real spiritual world.

A new experience now sets in. This casting-off of the astral body is, again, merely one aspect of the wholeexperience; the other aspect is an entirely different one. When we have passed through our earthly experiences and nolonger have our astral body, we feel, as it were, inwardly filled and permeated with — we cannot say with material — butwith spirit; then we really feel that we are in the spiritual world and the spiritual world rises up within us. In former timesit rose up before us in the outer world when we contemplated the universe and saw our own etheric body interwoven withthe universe. But now it rises up within us; we now experience it inwardly. And our ego rises up within us as a prototypeof what we shall possess physically only upon Venus; our ego rises up as a prototype of the Life-Spirit.

We now consist of Spirit-Self, Life-Spirit and ego.

Just as here on earth we live in a rather dreamy state from our birth until that moment of our childhood in which weacquire self-consciousness, which is the earliest moment of life that we can recall, so we now lead a form of life that isfully conscious, indeed more conscious and higher than our earthly life. However, we experience a purely spiritual life,only when we have detached ourselves from our astral body, from our astral life, retaining only that part of our astralwhich permeates us inwardly. Consequently, we are, from that time onwards, spirits among spirits.

Now another important and essential experience rises up. During our life in the physical world we carry on our work,

do this or that thing and have experiences in connection with all these things. Our experiences are, however, not limited tothe physical world; simultaneously and in connection with them, we also experience something else. Although theexpression which I shall now use for these simultaneous experiences is just an ordinary, more general expression, let menevertheless use this word; while we experience these things, we grow tired, we get used up. This is constantly the case:we grow tired. Although our weariness is eliminated for our next state of consciousness through the fact that we sleep, or

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rather, through the fact that we rest during our sleep, this elimination, or adjustment, is nevertheless only a partial one, for we know, of course, that during our life we gradually become used up, we grow older, and our strength graduallydwindles. Consequently, we also grow tired in a wider sense. When we grow older, we know that we cannot adjusteverything by sleeping. Thus we wear out our strength, we grow tired, during our life on earth.

Indeed, we are now able to view this problem from another aspect. After our preceding explanation, we can nowadvance this problem in a different way; we can ask: why do the Gods allow us to grow weary? The fact that here onearth we get tired and wear out our strength gives us something that is really most significant for our whole life. Let us,however, grasp the idea that we get tired, in a wider sense than the usual one. Let us place it clearly before our soul.

You will grasp it best of all if you imagine it in the following way. Ask any one of those present: do you knowanything concerning the interior of your head? Probably only a person who is suffering from a headache would answer that at the present moment he does know something concerning the interior of his head. He alone would feel what theinside of his head is like; all the others would not feel it.

We can feel our organs only when they are not quite in order; we are then to some extent aware of their existencethrough our feelings. As a rule, we only have a more general feeling of our physical body, and this feeling increases whenanything is out of order. But when we only have this general feeling, we know very little concerning the interior of our

body. Those who suffer from bad headaches know a little more concerning the inside of their head than an anatomist, whois merely acquainted with the head's vessels. In growing more and more tired, during the course of our life, we acquire anever stronger feeling in regard to the body's interior, its spatial interior.

Consider the fact that the more weary we grow, the more the infirmities of life arise, for instance the infirmities of oldage. Our life consists in that we gradually begin to feel and to sense our physical body. We learn to sense this physical

part of our being because it becomes hardened within us and because it pushes itself, as it were, into our being. Just because it develops so slowly we regard it, I might say, as an insignificant feeling. Its real significance could be gauged if we could feel (excuse this trivial expression, but it conveys what I wish to say) in the pink of health, like an exuberantlyhealthy child, and immediately afterwards, for the sake of comparison, like an old man of 80 or 85, whose limbs havegrown fragile. This would enable us to experience that feeling more strongly, simply because it develops so slowly. Yetgrowing weary is a real process. At first, it does not exist at all, for a child is full of exuberant vitality. But later on,fatigue gradually begins to drown the vital forces, and then the process of getting tired breaks through. We have the

possibility of growing weary, and during this process (even though it only gives us, let us say, a dim feeling of our body's

inner structure), during this process something takes place within us, something really takes place within us.

Our life in the physical world only shows us the outer aspect of deep, significant and lofty mysteries. The fact thatthis dim, insignificant feeling of growing weary accompanies us throughout our life, so that we are able to feel the inner structure of our body, is merely the outer aspect of something that becomes interwoven with us; it is wonderfully wovenout of pure wisdom, a complete woof of pure wisdom.

While we thus grow weary during our life and begin to experience ourselves inwardly, a delicate knowledge becomesinterwoven with us, a knowledge of the wonderful constitution of our organs, of our inner organs. Our heart grows tired,yet this weariness means that a knowledge of the heart's structure becomes interwoven with us, a knowledge of how theheart is built from out of the universe. Our stomach gets tired — most of all, when we spoil it by eating too much — yetduring this process that tires the stomach, an image of wisdom from out of the cosmos is woven into us, and this imageshows us how the stomach is built up.

The lofty, wonderful structure of our organism, of this great work of art, arises within us in the form of an image. Butthis image only comes to life when we cast off that part of our astral body which is bound to the earth. What now liveswithin us, what now fills us as Life-Spirit, is the wisdom connected with our own being, it is the wisdom connected withthe wonderful structure of our inner being and this wisdom now lives in us.

Now begins a time in which we compare, as it were, what fills us in the form of Life-Spirit from out of the wisdom of our inner being with the etheric woof that has already been woven into the universe. Our task is now to compare how onething fits in with the other, and we then build up, in the form of an image, our inner being, we give it the shape which itshould have during our next incarnation.

This is how we begin, but little by little our life approaches the Midnight, which you will find described in one of theMystery Plays, in The Soul's Awakening. Particularly after the World-Midnight we are engaged in a work that consists inthat we now participate in the world's creative work; we call into life what we afterwards enjoy here. During our life

between death and a new birth we share in the work, we participate in the weaving of the Gods' images. We have the

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privilege of sharing in a divine task, in what the Gods aimed at when they placed man into the world. We are allowed to prepare our next incarnation.

Of course, this is not only connected with processes that exclusively and egoistically concern our own being, for allmanner of other processes take place as well. This may be evident particularly from the following:

If we gradually succeed in experiencing, in spiritual contemplation, this wonderful process — which is, above all, far higher than the one which takes place on earth, when summer and winter alternate, or when the sun rises and sets andwhen all that takes place which occurs in the form of earthly work — then something occurs in the spiritual world finally

leading to our earthly incarnation, to human existence. This is a lofty, heavenly process, which has not only an externalsignificance but a deep significance for the whole world.

We also encounter something else when we contemplate this process. It may sound strange to say this but, you see,the higher mysteries at first necessarily appear strange in the light of a physical-sensory contemplation. What rises up

before our soul in connection with these mysteries must move us. The more it moves us, the better it is, for these things,the very nature of these things, should not approach our soul so that we remain dry and indifferent. They should not betaken up in such a way that we remain indifferent, dry and cool; but they should, instead, give us a soul-impression of theloftiness and greatness of the divine-spiritual world.

We can say: if anybody would undertake to present a spiritual science in such a dry way that it does not take hold of our whole being, and so that we do not gain an impression of the loftiness and greatness of the divine-spiritual that pulsesand weaves through the world — if, after all these descriptions, we would live on indifferently and dryly, then we would

be born without heads, in accordance with the present conditions of the world and in spite of everything we know! Wewould be born without heads! The structure of our head is something that we are unable to build. In its whole structure thehuman head is such a lofty image of the universe that the human being would be unable to form it, even with the aid of that life-wisdom which is woven into him; he would be unable to prepare it for the next incarnation. All the divineHierarchies must co-operate in this work. Your head, this slightly irregular and somewhat transformed sphere, is a realmicrocosm, a true image of the great world-sphere. Within it lives, within it is collected, everything that exists outside inthe universe. All the forces that are active in the different Hierarchies co-operate in order to produce the head. And whenwe begin to shape our next incarnation, from out the wisdom which we collected during the process of growing weary, allthe Hierarchies co-operate and influence this activity in order to embody in us, as an image of the whole wisdom of theGods, what afterwards becomes our head.

While all this occurs, our physical, hereditary stream is being prepared generations ahead here upon the earth. Just asafter our death we can only hand over to the earth what comes from the earth, so our parents and grand-parents only giveus that part of our being which pertains to the earth. Our earthly part is merely our exterior; it is merely the externalexpression within this earthly part. Woven into it is, in the first place, everything that we ourselves are able to weave inthe manner described, and what all the Hierarchies of the Gods weave, before we gain a connection (through conception)with that which enwraps us and clothes us about when we enter the physical plane.

I explained to you that the more of this lofty knowledge we take up in our feelings the better it will be for us. Justconsider the fact: we use our head. In so far as we live in materialism, we generally have not the slightest idea that wholeHierarchies of Gods are at work in order to produce our head, in order to mould that which lies, spiritually, at thefoundation of our head, so that we are able to live. If we grasp this, in the meaning of a spiritual-scientific knowledge, itwill spontaneously be filled with feelings of gratitude and thankfulness towards the whole universe.

Consequently, what we acquire through spiritual science should incessantly continue to increase and raise our feelings. In the sphere of spiritual science, our sentient life should more and more hold pace with our cognitive work. It isnot good to remain behind with our feelings. Whenever we learn to know a new and higher portion of spiritual science,we should be able to unfold, I might say, more and more reverent feelings towards the world's mysteries, which finallylead to the mysteries of man. A true progress in spiritual science really lies in this purifying, spiritual warmth of our feelings.

Let me mention one more thing, because it completes all that we have contemplated in this lecture. Here, in the physical world, we gradually grow accustomed to life by having, to begin with, the dull consciousness of childhood. At

first we only recognize our mother and, little by little, we learn to know other people. As we grow accustomed to life inthe physical world, we believe that we are constantly coming across new people. As far as our physical consciousness isconcerned this is, in fact, true. But when we pass through the portal of death we have a real, true connection with all thesouls that we encountered during our earthly life. They rise up again before our spiritual eye. The souls with whom wewere connected during our earthly life and that crossed the portal of death before us, we find these souls, as it were. Thewords ‘to find’ really applies to physical conditions, but we may use it here to define that living way in which souls

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approach other souls. This ‘finding’ of the souls that crossed the portal of death before us should, however, be imaginedin such a way that we approach them, as it were, in an opposite manner from the one in which we approach human beingshere on the physical plane.

On the physical plane we encounter human beings so that we first approach them physically, and then we gradually become acquainted with their inner being. Their inner being unfolds only when we penetrate into their inner life. Hence,what we experience inwardly in connection with a human being is the result of that which develops from out of our owninner life. When we ourselves have crossed the portal of death and encounter the souls that have passed through the portalof death before us, we know to begin with: there is that particular soul. We can feel it, we know that it is there. Now we

must, however, surrender our whole inner being to the first impression that arises, to the first most abstract impression.Here on earth we should allow other human beings to exercise their influence upon us; but in the spiritual world we mustsurrender our inner being, and we must now build up the image, the imagination, ourselves. The imaginative element,what we can look upon, this we must gradually build up. You may have an idea of the soul's experiences after death if you imagine that you do not see it all, but that you take hold of it ... and as you gradually encompass it with your grasp,you form an image, you build up an image for yourself. You must therefore build up in inner activity the image of thesoul whom you encounter. You realize, as it were: ‘I am now facing a soul — what soul is it? It is the soul ...’ (and thisknowledge rises out of your own soul) ‘towards whom I had the feelings of a son towards his mother.’ And you begin tofeel: ‘I experience myself together with this soul.’ Now you begin to build its spiritual form. You must be active within it,and then it develops into an image. Through the fact that you build this image together with the other soul, you are unitedwith that dead person even before you begin to form its spiritual shape. In this manner you are united with everythingwith which you were united during your earthly life, that is to say, you now experience these things in their own world.You must discover them by awakening within you the power of vision, so that you may look upon them, but this requiresactivity on your part.

It is not the same with souls that still dwell in their physical body, with souls that are still alive when we die. Evenhere on earth we encounter them in the form of images. After death we look down upon them on the earth and do not needto build up their image, for they already face us as images. The souls of those still on the earth may of course weave intothese images something that can become spiritual warmth and nourishment for the dead, namely, the image which theyare able to form through their thoughts for the dead, through their lasting love and memory, or — we know this, asspiritual scientists — by their reading something to the dead.

You see, all this extends the human gaze so that it penetrates, really penetrates, into the real world. If this rises up

before our soul, we begin to realize how little we know of the spiritual world. This was not always the case. Only thecompletely materialistic people of modern times boast of the great extent of their knowledge. But we know that in the pasthuman beings were clairvoyant and that this ancient, atavistic clairvoyance was lost only because certain qualities had to

be acquired which disappeared in the midst of an existence connected with a materialistic world. If a real materialist, athoroughly materialistic thinker, approaches us, he will, of course, say: ‘It is nonsense to speak of an ancient clairvoyance,or that people had a special knowledge in the past.’ But if we would only open our physical eyes a little as we passthrough the world, we would very soon discover the falsity of such an argument! It is not even so long ago that peopleused to know more than they do at the present time.

You know, for we have often considered this matter — but let me mention it again at the conclusion of this lecture — that Lucifer and Ahriman have a share in our spiritual existence. We also know that in the Bible Lucifer is symbolized asa Serpent, as the Serpent on the Tree. The physical serpent, such as we see it today, and as modern painters always paint it

when they depict the Paradise Scene, is not a real Lucifer; it is only his outer image, his physical image. The real Lucifer is a being that remained behind during the Moon-stage of evolution. He cannot be seen upon the earth among physicalobjects. If a painter wishes to paint Lucifer's real aspect he would have to paint him so that he can be grasped as an ethericform, through a kind of inner clairvoyant form of contemplation. He would then appear in the shape in which he worksupon us; he would show that he is not connected with our head or with our organism in so far as these are exclusivelyformed by the earth, but that he is connected with the continuation of our head, with the spinal cord. A painter who knowssomething through spiritual science would therefore paint Adam and Eve, the Tree, and on the Tree the Serpent, but thisserpent would only be a symbol and it would have a human head. If we were to come across such a painting today, wewould assume that the painter has, of course, been able to paint this picture through spiritual science.

Probably such a painting may even be found here in Leipzig; but people do not go about with open eyes, they gothrough the world with bandaged eyes. In the Art Gallery of Hamburg there is a painting of the Middle Ages by Master Bertram, setting forth the Paradise Scene. In that painting, the Serpent on the Tree is painted correctly, as described justnow. That picture can be seen there. But other painters have also painted the Paradise Scene in that way. What may wegather from this? That in the Middle Ages people still knew this, they knew it to the extent of being able to paint it. Inother words: it is not so long ago that human beings were pushed completely on to the physical plane.

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For Members of the Anthroposophical Society,Not to be copied.Z 323.

HOW CAN THE DESTITUTION OF SOUL IN MODERN TIMES BE OVERCOME? — SOCIALUNDERSTANDING — LIBERTY OF THOUGHT — KNOWLEDGE OF THE SPIRIT.

A lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Zurich,10th October, 1916.

Duplicated as manuscript with the kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland, by whom all rights are reserved.

Zurich, 10th October 1916.

The truths we look for in spiritual science should not be dead facts, but should bring with them understanding of sucha vital kind that it finds entrance into life in all circumstances and at every point. Taken in the abstract, as is often the caseat present, spiritual science may seem to offer a diluted and unproductive kind of knowledge, and it is natural that peoplewho know very little about it should be induced to ask: What, after all, is the use of learning that man consists of such andsuch parts; that humanity has developed, and will develop further, through different epochs of culture, and so on? Thosewho feel that a realistic attitude is demanded by modern life find spiritual science unprofitable. And it is often applied inan unprofitable way, even by its most devoted adherents.

Nevertheless, spiritual science itself is infinitely alive, and is something which in the course of time can and must bring life into our most external concerns. I should like to make this clear today by a particular example. Most of us knowthat our present age was preceded by the so-called fourth post-Atlantean culture epoch, during which the most important

peoples were the Greeks and Romans; that the following centuries down to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuriescontinued to be influenced by impulses preceding from that epoch; and that since the fifteenth century mankind has beenliving in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, into which we ourselves in our present incarnation have been born and in whichhumanity will be living for many hundreds of years to come. We know furthermore that in man in the fourth post-Atlantean period of civilisation — the Graeco-Roman epoch — was built up pre-eminently the so-called intellectual soulthrough external culture and work and that cultivation of the consciousness soul is our present task. What does thecultivation of the consciousness soul mean? This abstract statement, rightly understood, contains the destiny of mankindfor our entire fifth post-Atlantean period. In order that the consciousness soul may be brought to expression, the various

peoples of this period of culture should work together. All the conditions and circumstances of life proclaim this truth; onall sides we find it confirmed that our age stands for the development of the consciousness soul.

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Human life was completely different in the preceding Graeco-Roman period when, according to the stage of development mankind had reached, the faculties of intellect and of feeling were bestowed upon them. Intellect covers awide field; today this is not sufficiently understood. In their soul-life the Greeks and Romans were dependent upon it in adifferent way from ourselves in the fifth post-Atlantean period. They received the intellect, in so far as they needed tomake use of it, “ready-made”, as a natural tendency of their stage of development; there was no need to cultivate it as wemust do at present, and as will be increasingly necessary in the further course of the fifth post-Atlantean period — itdeveloped as a natural tendency. The child grew up, and as his natural tendencies developed, the natural intellect — in acertain sense — developed with them. Growing up in ordinary conditions in a particular incarnation he either possessedan intellect, or he did not. The latter case was considered pathological, or at any rate abnormal, out of the common.

And so it was with heart-and-feeling. Appropriately to the fourth post-Atlantean period heart-and-feeling developed.And though history tells us little of such things, it is nevertheless true that two people meeting for the first time knew howto tune in to each other. In this respect there is a great, difference between the preceding centuries down to the fifteenthcentury, and our own time. People, then, did not pass each other by with the complete indifference often shownnowadays. At present we are slow, as a rule, to make friends. We must know a great deal about each other beforeconfidence can be established. But what is now only to be arrived at after long acquaintance — if at all — in former centuries, particularly during the Graeco-Roman period of civilisation, could be won at a stroke. In virtue of their respective individualities people were drawn rapidly together, without so much need to exchange feelings and thoughts.Acquaintance was quickly made, in so far as it might be good for the two persons concerned, or necessary to a group of

people forming themselves into a community. Heart-and-feeling in the one could still reach out more spiritually and makeimmediate contact with heart-and-feeling in the other. Up to the present, through the medium of our senses, we can stillaccurately distinguish the colours, and so forth, of plants; but it will no longer be possible to do this spontaneously in theseventh post-Atlantean epoch when learning to know nature will necessitate special conditions. And there is aresemblance between our actual connection with plants and human connections in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. Wemust remember that this kind of feeling-and-heart connection was well adapted to that age, but a very different network of feelings and sensations spans the world of today. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch human relationships andundertakings depended to the greatest possible extent upon personal contacts. The art of printing which has done so muchup to now, and will do more and more in the future, to establish impersonal relationships, belongs to the fifth post-Atlantean epoch; and modern terms of intercourse are such that, fundamentally speaking, connections formed at a strokeare no longer even beneficial, and people can only approach one another on far more impersonal grounds.

Towards this, modern man is developing; he is no longer possessed of a ready-made heart-and-feeling with itsspontaneous reactions, nor of a penetrating intellect, but impelled by the consciousness soul to develop something far more detached, more individual, more dependent upon egoism, upon human loneliness inherent in the organisation of hisown body, than was the intellectual soul or mind soul. Through the consciousness soul man is much more an individual, asolitary traveler through the world. And the tendency people now show to withdraw into themselves is becoming [a] moreand more pronounced characteristic of our time. The hallmark of the consciousness soul is the urge towards an isolatedlife, secluded from the rest of mankind. Hence the difficulty of getting to know one another, especially of establishingconfidence, without the transition period of formal acquaintanceship.

The significance of all this becomes clearer if we give due weight to the spiritual-scientific truth that in the presentage we are not thrown together by chance with other people. That the path of life brings us into contact with certain

people and not with others depends upon the working out of individual karma. For we have entered upon a period of human evolution which brings man's preceding karmic developments to a culminating point. Think how much less karma

had been accumulated in the earlier periods of earth evolution! With every incarnation fresh karma is made. At first, people had to meet under totally new conditions, with the possibility of forming fresh connections. But through repeatedearth-lives we have gradually reached a point at which, as a general rule, we do not meet anyone with whom in former incarnations we have not shared this or that experience. And these experiences bring us into contact again with those whoshared them. We meet other people as it would appear by chance but in reality because in former incarnations we hadalready met, and on the strength of this are brought together again.

Now the self-contained consciousness soul can only develop — and its development is destined to take place in our time — when less importance is attached to what takes place at present between one person and another than to whatworks inwardly in solitude as the result of former incarnations. In the Graeco-Roman period two persons meeting for thefirst time made an impression upon each other which worked with the immediacy of a blow. At present, if a meeting is totake place that is to further the development of the consciousness soul, the moving factor between them must be whatemerges in one or [the] other as the result of previous incarnations. This takes longer than recognition at first sight; itimplies the gradual coming to the surface, little by little in a feeling, instinctive way, of what they formerly lived throughtogether. What we ask today is that in becoming acquainted individual corners should be rubbed off. Because it is in the

becoming acquainted, this rubbing off of corners, that the still unconscious, instinctive reminiscences and after-effects of

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former incarnations strike upwards. The consciousness soul can only develop when our contacts with other people aremade from within; whereas the intellectual and mind soul develops more through immediate contact.

What I have now described for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is only in its initial stage. And as the epoch continues itwill become increasingly difficult to bring ourselves into a right relationship with others, because this demands inner development, inner activity. A beginning has been made, but what has begun must continue to spread and become moreand more intensive. How hard it is already in this present time for people drawn together by karma to understand eachother, perhaps because owing to other karmic connections they have not the force instinctively to conjure up all therelations leading over from former incarnations. Stirred by certain after-effects of previous earth-lives, people are drawn

together in love; but other forces work against these rising memories, and friends grow apart again. And this putting thedurability of their relationship to the test is not only for those who meet in life as friends; it will also be increasinglydifficult for children to understand their parents, parents their children, brothers and sisters each other. Reciprocalunderstanding will become more and more difficult, because of the increasing need to free what is karmically imprisonedwithin us, and to let it rise to the surface.

Now this negative prospect of ever increasing difficulty in reciprocal understanding in the fifth post-Atlantean epochrequires of us that we should not dream our lives away in the dark, nor close our eyes to the condition of evolution,

because this is an absolutely necessary condition. If the difficulty of coming to mutual understanding were not hangingover fifth post-Atlantean humanity, the consciousness soul could not develop, and people would have to live their life incommon dependent upon their natural tendencies. And cultivation of individuality — which belongs to the consciousnesssoul — would not be able to develop either. This must take place. Men will have to undergo this test.

Nevertheless, if only this negative aspect of evolutionary conditions in the fifth post-Atlantean period were to prevail,war and strife would inevitably arise, and find their way into even our most unimportant concerns. I need refer only to onething and it will be plain to all of us how the remedy is to be sought for one of our necessary ills — for the difficulty wefind in understanding each other. I need only say — because we are living in the age of the consciousness soul, as the fifth

post-Atlantean epoch proceeds more and more conscious interest will have to be felt for SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING.In this term needs are summed up which in the fourth post-Atlantean period did not exist to at all the same extent. Anyoneable accurately to study the history of ancient Greece and Rome knows that for these peoples the individual was not yet

possessed of the abilities that can now be made use of by European humanity, and by their American connections. This becomes clearer if we compare human beings with an animal species. Why do animals of the same species live, withincertain limits, harmoniously together? For through their group soul, the soul of their species, they have this inborn faculty;

it is inherent in the species, and a matter of course. But this represents a stage of development at which the animalremains stationary, but which man must outgrow. Every single human being must develop himself as an individual, and particularly in our modern age of the consciousness soul this self-culture of the individual is one of the most importantmatters. The Graeco-Roman civilisation is still coloured by a group-soul element. We find its peoples making part of asocial order, the structure of which, though certainly derived more from moral forces, is in itself a fixed structure and willin the fifth post-Atlantean epoch be increasingly broken up. This group-soul element in the fourth post-Atlantean epochhas no longer any meaning for the fifth. A conscious form of social understanding must take its place, proceeding from adeep knowledge of the true being of the human individual. And it is spiritual science which will first develop thisunderstanding. When spiritual science blossoms more and more out of the abstract into the concrete, into fullness of life,among its adherents a very special knowledge of, a very special interest in, humanity will be aroused. There will be

people with special gifts for teaching others about the different temperaments and characterological tendencies, how this person with a particular temperament should be taken in such a way, whereas that other person with the same

temperament but with a different trend of character requires different treatment. These specially gifted men will say tothose who are ready to learn: “Look carefully; there is this type of person and there is that other type, and, with each, mustdeal differently.” Practical psychology, practical knowledge of the soul, but also a practical knowledge of life, will becultivated, and out of this true social understanding for human development will grow.

What have we had up to now in the shape of social understanding? All kinds of abstract ideals, concerned withnational welfare and human happiness, this or that form of socialism, have made their appearance. And only when certainsociological ideas are really on the point of being put into practice, is the acknowledgment of their impracticabilityforthcoming. What in the first place is important is not to found sects and societies with fixed programmes, but to spreadthe knowledge of men, notably such knowledge of human nature as will enable us to understand the growing, developinghuman being, to understand the child, and how each child develops according to its particular individuality. In this waywe shall learn so to adjust ourselves in life that when confronted by karma with a personal connection to be made, aconnection to be drawn closer, we shall establish a real and enduring relationship, of the kind which can prove itself inlife to be most truly fruitful. Practical knowledge of man, practical, effectual interest in humanity, this is what counts. Upto the present mankind has gone only a short way along this path and with small success. For how do we judge a personwhom we meet nowadays? As being agreeable to us, or the reverse. Look about you and you will find that this is, in mostcases, the sole criterion, or if more than one opinion is pronounced there is only one point of view; “This man appeals to

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me, another does not. I like this about so-and-so, but I do not like that.” Foregone conclusions! We make for ourselves anidea of what someone should be, and when we find that they differ from it we criticise. No progress will be made towardsa true practical understanding of man until we do away with these prejudices and fancies for this person or that, and makeup our minds to take people as they are.

How often, when two people meet for the first time, one of them arouses instantaneous antipathy in the other, whomhe dislikes so much that afterwards whatever they have to do with each other is coloured by this dislike. As aconsequence the karmic connection between them can be entirely blotted out, or set on a false track, and will have to belaid aside until the two meet again in their next incarnation. Sympathy and antipathy are the greatest enemies of true

social interests, though only too little heed is paid to the fact. But to anyone deeply aware of the importance of true socialunderstanding for the further development of mankind, it is distressing to watch the effect teachers in a school often haveupon their pupils, when out of prejudice they show preference for one rather than another, whereas it is important to takeeach of them as he is able and to make the very most of that.

But here we are up against regulations. Our regulations and social laws often so implacably wipe out individuality inthe teacher himself, that any real effort to uphold individuality as such is impossible.

Understanding for spiritual science would cause practical knowledge of the human soul and practical knowledge of man to become matters of general interest. This is a necessity for social understanding if it is, to some extent, to create theopposite pole to the difficulty of understanding one another. It is what must come in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch of theconsciousness soul is to develop fully. Man must go through trials and provings, for the opposing forces set snares in our way. And accordingly feelings of sympathy and antipathy will be widespread, and it is only by consciously combatingthese superficial feelings that we shall bring the consciousness soul safely to birth. Social understanding between man andman will also be more and more powerfully opposed by those nationalistic feelings and emotions, which only assumedtheir present form in the nineteenth century but are gaining the upper hand more and more. And since good is to be foundonly in the overcoming of them, these national antagonisms, these national sympathies and antipathies,[as they arise] areso strong that they are fearful testings for mankind. Were they to gain the upper hand, as they bid fair to do, we shoulddream away the development of the consciousness soul, because nationalism works in the opposite direction, and standsin the way of man's independence by tending to make of him a mere reflection of this or that national group. This is thefirst thing to bear in mind if we want the otherwise empty saying to become a reality in our souls: that the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is in particular for the development of the consciousness soul. And further to this development: if asindividualism increases religion does not adapt itself to the needs of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, but remains as it was

suitable for the fourth post-Atlantean period, a certain drying up of the religious life must take place.

Religious groups were bound to arise in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch because at that time mankind lived more asgroups. It was necessary for authority to pour out dogmas, principles of religion, religious thought, upon groups of people,as common to them all. But because the urge to develop individuality through the consciousness soul in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is becoming stronger and stronger, that which speaks out of the group religions can no longer find itsway to human hearts, and individual human souls. And what comes from these group religions will simply not beunderstood. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch it was still possible out of the group to teach people about Christ. But inthe fifth period Christ is already actually entering the individual soul. Already, unconsciously or subconsciously, we allcarry Christ within us. But through ourselves alone we must find the way to understand Him anew. This will not comefrom the imposing of fixed dogmas, only from doing all we can to further what will make Christ universallycomprehensible, to further the spread of universal religious knowledge in general, and to search out everything which can

work to this end. Hence in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch the need for more and more tolerance, particularly wherethought in connection with religious experience is concerned. And whereas in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch those whoworked to spread religious truths did so by imposing certain dogmas and fixed principles, in the fifth period this must allcompletely change. It is a question of something entirely different. Because men are becoming more and more individualan attempt should be made for anyone to describe his inner experiences completely freed from dogma to another, in sucha way that the latter might also be able to develop his own free life of religious thought as an individual. It is a fact thatdogmatic religion, the fixed dogmas of the religious confessions, will kill the religious life of the fifth post-Atlanteanepoch. So that a fresh start from this age must consist in making it clear that in the first centuries of the Christian era thisor that may have been adapted to man's development at the time, and that in the following centuries something different isneeded. Also that there are different religions. We must try to make the essential nature of the different religionsintelligible, to make clear different aspects of the Christ-conception. In this way we bring to every soul what it requiresfor its particular deepening. But we do not ourselves intervene in the moulding of the soul; we leave the soul, especially inthe sphere of religion, its own liberty of thinking and scope to unfold this liberty.

Just as social understanding is necessary for the fifth post-Atlantean period at the point I have described, so is libertyof thought on religious grounds a fundamental condition for the development of the consciousness soul. SOCIAL

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UNDERSTANDING IN THE SPHERE OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS. LIBERTY OF THOUGHT IN THE SPHEREOF RELIGION — of the religious life.

This effort of ours to understand the religious aspect of life more and more, to penetrate it, and by so doing to come toterms with our fellow men even though each of them may have his own religious life to unfold, must be kept clearly inview because it is a basic need of the fifth post-Atlantean period and something humanity must acquire by consciouslydrawing upon their own strength. In this very age of the consciousness soul, the ahrimanic powers are most fiercelyrenewing their attack upon liberty of thought — the nerve and sinew in the stream of the spiritual scientific conception of life — and we know what opposition it encounters from the religious confessions in general, and what calumnies are

directed from every side upon spiritual science, on account of its complete and luminous acceptance of the birth of theconsciousness soul, and its refusal to take part in propagating the kind of religious life which is still dependent upon thesupport of the intellectual or mind soul, as in the fourth post-Atlantean period. The various forms assumed by Christianitywere established in the fourth post-Atlantean period according to the requirements of the Graeco-Roman civilisation. AsChurch-forms they are already unsuitable and will become ever more unsuitable for the growth of free thought whichmust take place.

And in the age which prompted by modern life feels the first stirrings of a need to think freely, we find the opposing power at work in the so-called Jesuitism of the different religions — although much comes under this heading whichwould have to be described in detail. It is actually brought to life in order that the strongest possible resistance may beoffered to liberty of thought, so vital a necessity for the fifth post-Atlantean period. It will become more and morenecessary to exterminate Jesuitism, the enemy in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch of free thinking, because from religionoutwards liberty of thought must spread over every sphere of life. But as it must be striven for independently, mankind is

put, as it were, to the proof, and difficulties spring up everywhere. These difficulties will increase as men of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch advance towards clear consciousness, yet feeling this at first to be a disadvantage, and in many respectsstupefying themselves.

So we find the clash of sharp conflict between germinating liberty of thought and the principle of authority whichworks into our times like a hang-over from the past. And there is a passion for dulling the consciousness and for self-deception where belief in authority is concerned. In our time putting faith in authority has become so great and sointensified that under its influence people are losing their power of judgment. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch theywere endowed by nature with sound understanding; now they must acquire it, develop it, and their belief in authorityholds them back from doing so. We are becoming bound hand and foot to our belief in authority. Only think how helpless

human beings appear when compared to the unreasoning animal creation! How completely the animal is guided byinstincts which lead it in a sound way even from sickness back to health; whereas modern man fights against sound judgment in this respect and submits himself entirely to authority. He has very little wish to acquire discernment for healthy conditions of living, although it is true that praiseworthy efforts are made in this direction by various societies andinstitutions. But these efforts need to be very much intensified; above all we must realise that we have increasingly tocontend with our own trust in authority, and that whole theories are being built up which in their turn will become the

basis of convictions only serving to uphold belief in authority.

In medicine, in law and in every other sphere people declare themselves from the outset incompetent to judge, andaccept what science tells them. The complications of modern life make this understandable. But under the pressure of authority we shall become more and more helpless. And systematically to build up this force of authority, this habit of authority, is actually the principle of Jesuitism. And Jesuitism in the Catholic religion is only a special instance of other

less noticeable performances in other directions. It begins in the sphere of ecclesiastical dogma with the tendency touphold papal authority projected over from the fourth post-Atlantean period into the fifth where it can do no good. But thesame Jesuitical principle will gradually transfer itself to other spheres of life. In a form hardly differing from the Jesuitismof dogmatic religion, we already find it in medical circles where a certain dogmatism strives after more power for themedical profession. This is typical of Jesuitical aspiration everywhere; and it will grow stronger and stronger. People willfind themselves more and more tied down by what authority imposes upon them. And in face of this ahrimanic opposition

— for such it is — salvation for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch will be found in asserting the rights of the consciousnesssoul which is wishing to develop. But as the gift of reason is no longer bestowed upon us like our two arms by Nature, aswas still to some extent the case in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, this can only come about through our good will todevelop the faculties of understanding and sound judgment. The development of the consciousness soul demands libertyof thought; and this can flourish only in a particular aura, in a certain atmosphere.

I have pointed out that the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is beset with difficulties on account of its pressing forward in acertain direction, to the development of the consciousness soul. The consciousness soul — just because it should developas such — must encounter opposition and pass through trials. We see what tremendous and growing opposition there is tosocial understanding and liberty of thought. But this opposition is not acknowledged to be such; it is looked upon in the

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most extensive circles as right and proper, as something in no way to be condemned but on the contrary most carefully to be fostered.

There are, however, a great many people whose sincerity and clear vision make them fully aware of what dangersmodern man is exposed to and who have a keen sense for what is already plain to see: that karmic connections havingentered the period of crisis described above, the moment has come when parents and children, brothers and sister peoplesand nations will no longer understand each other. There are already a sufficient number of people who realise that thesenecessary conditions can work for good only when they are faced with the understanding which rises from the very life of the heart. For the impulse for this new world-working must be consciously wrung out of the heart's blood. What comes

spontaneously brings estrangement between individuals. We must consciously strive after what springs from the humanheart. Every single soul has difficulties to encounter in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch because the consciousness soul candevelop only through the testing occasioned by the overcoming of these difficulties.

How often nowadays one hears: “I don't know what to do with myself, I don't know how to organise my life.” Thiscomes from inability to see clearly what the needs of the present time are, and what man's position is with regard to them.Many people are reduced by existing conditions to physical illness, physical strain and loss of balance. And a realunderstanding for this must be more and more intensively cultivated because what threatens us, and is at the same time anecessity for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, is the danger of DESTITUTION OF SOUL — destitution of the particular “shade” described in today's lecture. Many people see what this means and feel how necessary it is that we should cometo social understanding on the one hand and liberty of thought on the other. But today very few are inclined to make useof the right means to this end. For social understanding, what would be necessary to achieve it, is only too often served bya hotch-potch [hodge-podge? — e.Ed] of high-sounding phrases. There is a lot of talk nowadays about the necessity for the individual treatment of the growing child. What long-winded theories are devised in every branch of pedagogy! Verylittle of this is to the point. Whereas an intelligent circulation of as many positive descriptions as possible of how thehuman being actually develops, a positive natural history of individual development, is needed. Wherever possible weshould describe how the human beings A, B and C have developed and enter lovingly into such human development astakes place before our eyes — this is what we need. Above all the study of life is necessary, the will to gain knowledge of life itself, rather than to make out programmes. The theoretical programme is the enemy of the fifth post-Atlantean epochof culture.

Now when a society is formed, this should take place in accordance with the aims of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.This means that the members of it must constitute the chief reason for its existence, and the exchange of ideas between

these actual men should yield the best results possible; and if sufficient attention is given to this, very individual resultswill show themselves. At present, what is the usual procedure? It begins with a drawing up of rules. This can be quitegood, and may be necessary, because external conditions demand rules and regulations. But on our own ground we must

be very clear that talk about programmes and regulations is merely a concession to the outside world; that what concernsus must be the life in common as individuals, what issues from actual human beings; that reciprocal understanding is whatcounts. This will make it possible even in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch — which has centuries yet before it — that fromamong those who understand such things, understanding could go forth for vital individual development in the worldgenerally, which at present puts everything into sections and regulations as if into a straight jacket. From thence come thehigh-sounding doctrines which from pulpit and platform proclaim the art of living. Theories crop up on every hand,dripping with abstractions and demonstrating every imaginable idea and ideal. So importance can be attached to them, butonly to what is concrete, and to a comprehending penetration of the actualities of life. How can this come about?

It stands to reason that to what has been said the following objections would be justified: “Yes, indeed — but we arenot qualified to pronounce an opinion upon what experts nowadays officially give out. Only consider” — it might beobjected — “what the medical student has to learn! That he should learn it is right and proper, but we could not; and thenadd to this what the lawyer must know, and the art student, and so on.” — It is certainly out of the question that we shouldlearn these things; but we are not called upon to be creative, we need only be capable of judging. We must allow theexpert to create, but we must be able to criticise the expert. And this faculty of judgment we shall not acquire byspecialising, but only by cultivating in an all-round way our powers of understanding and our faculty of judgment. This,however, can never come about through expert knowledge in some particular branch of science, but only through the all-embracing knowledge of the Spirit.

Spiritual science must be the centre around which all the sciences revolve; for it not only throws light upon theconnections in human evolution, but the way of thinking peculiar to it develops in us sound understanding, and this must

be produced and given out from far deeper depths than during the Graeco-Roman civilisation of the fourth post-Atlanteanepoch. The construction of concepts and representations necessary for spiritual science, and peculiar to it, does not qualifyus to become experts in any particular sphere, but it gives us the power of judging. And the reason for this will becomemore and more plain to see. There are mysterious forces in the human soul, and these forces, these mystery forces, willlink the human soul with the spiritual world, and through our participation in spiritual science this link will enable us to

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use our judgment when we stand in the presence of authority. We shall not have expert knowledge but when in certaincases the expert acts on the strength of what he knows, we shall be able to form our own judgment about it.

Emphasis must be laid upon the fact that spiritual science not only teaches us but in this connection develops our faculty of judgment — that is to say, it makes possible and fosters the freedom and independence of our thinking.Spiritual science may not qualify us to enter the medical profession, but if we can penetrate to its reality it makes uscapable of forming a right judgment upon the results of medicine in public life. If what I mean by this could once be fullyunderstood, there would be understanding as well for the many, many life-giving forces of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.For very much is contained in what I mean by saying that spiritual science will, as it were, remodel the human Intellect in

such a way that man's critical faculty may be able to unfold itself, and in releasing his intellectual life from the life of hissoul he may be able to develop true liberty of thought.

I should like now, if you will allow me, to put these thoughts before you in a more pictorial, imaginative way» We aretold in spiritual science of a concrete spiritual world; of elemental beings surrounding us; of the Hierarchies, Angels,Archangels and so forth. The world becomes peopled for us with real spiritual content, spiritual forces and spiritual

beings. That we should know nothing about these spiritual beings is no longer a matter of indifference to them as to someextent it still was in the fourth post-Atlantean period. But if in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch men on earth know nothingabout them it is as though, a part of their spiritual nourishment was being withheld. The spiritual world is in closecommunication with our present physical world of earth. You will understand this better when I tell you something whichmay seem strange now, but is quite simply true; and although at present it is still not possible to say very much, yetcertain truths must be given out because humanity should no longer be without them.

From the point of view of humanity on earth we are perfectly justified in saying: With the Mystery of Golgotha Christentered earth-life, and He has remained in earth-life since then; and from this point of view we can feel it as good fortunefor earth-life that Christ should have entered it. But now let us consider this from the standpoint of the Angels — which isno invention of mine, but follows as a reality from occult investigation — let us transfer ourselves to the standpoint of theAngels. Their experience in the spiritual sphere was quite different, it was the reverse of ours. Christ left the sphere of theAngels to come to mankind; He forsook their world. Speaking for themselves they could say: Christ left our world to gothrough the Mystery of Golgotha. And they would have as much reason to sorrow over this as we have to rejoice thatChrist in His healing power should have come to us in as far as we live on earth in our physical bodies. This is a real trainof thought, and anyone with actual knowledge of the spiritual world knows that there is only one way for the Angels tofind solace, and I described it rightly when I said that men on earth in their physical bodies should live with the Christ-

thought in such a way that it can shine upwards as a light to the Angels — since the Mystery of Golgotha — shine up tothe Angels as a light. Men say: Christ has entered into us, and we can develop in such a way that He will be able to dwellin us — “not I, but Christ in me.” The Angels say: Christ has gone from the sphere of our inner life, and He shines up tous now like so many stars in the Christ-thought of individual men; He shines up to us since the Mystery of Golgotha, andthere we find Him again. There is a real connection between the spiritual world and the human world. And this is alsoshown by the fact that the spiritual beings who apart from ourselves inhabit the spiritual world look with satisfaction andapproval upon our thoughts about their world. They can help us only if we think about them; and although we may nothave attained to clairvoyant vision into the spiritual world, if we know about these spiritual beings they can help us. Inreturn for our study of spiritual science help comes to us from the spiritual world. It is not merely the things we learn, theknowledge we acquire, it is the beings of the higher Hierarchies themselves who help us when we know about them. Andif in future, as the fifth post-Atlantean epoch proceeds, we face the authority of the expert, it will be good to have behindus not only our own human understanding but also what the spiritual beings are able to weave into it through our knowing

about them. They qualify us to confront authority with sound judgment. The spiritual world helps us. We have need of it,we must know about it, and unite ourselves with it through conscious understanding. This is the third thing which mustcome to pass in the fifth post-Atlantean period.

The first is: RECIPROCAL UNDERSTANDING IN SOCIAL LIFE.

The second: THE ACQUIRING OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT.

The third: LIVING KNOWLEDGE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS THROUGH SPIRITUAL SCIENCE.

These three things must be the great true ideals of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. We must have reciprocalunderstanding in the social sphere, liberty of thought in religion and in the other branches of community life; and in thesphere of knowledge we must have knowledge of the spiritual worlds.

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SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING, LIBERTY OF THOUGHT, KNOWLEDGE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS. Theseare the three great aims and impulses of the fifth post-Atlantean period. In the light of these impulses we must develop,for they are the true lights of our time. Many people feel strongly that some change is necessary, particularly in the socialsphere where a quite different way of living must be adopted, and that we must have different concepts. But out of ignorance or unwillingness they evade the ultimate conclusions. This can be seen from the attitude of so many towardsthe aspirations of spiritual science. And here we need not confine ourselves to deliberately malicious calumny of it or of Theosophy. We need only consider the sincere will that abounds among men today, sincere will that aims at the creationof impulses tending in the direction post-Atlantean humanity should take.

Only think how many reformers there are in every sphere, pastors and preachers on social matters; preachers too whodo not belong to theological or religious circles. How they all take the floor! And often prompted by the best will

possible. How is that to lead humanity in the direction towards which modern life is striving today? Good intentions areto be found everywhere, so let us for the moment consider what comes, not from bad intentions, but from good. And yetthese good intentions do not help so long as they consist only in vague talk, however warm the feelings which underlie it;

because the three great true ideals of human understanding, liberty of thought and knowledge of the spiritual worldscannot reach fulfilment unless the knowledge which comes only from spiritual science is quickened into life. At present,however, except for the little company rallied round the spiritual-scientific conception of the world, understanding for such things has not yet reached even its initial stage.

But we come nowadays upon fine and lofty theories tending in this direction. And, as an example, I should like to tellyou of something which happened — “by chance”, as we say — to myself. Actually it came about through karma thatlooking one day into a shop window my eye was caught by the title of a little book which I bought. The subject of it ismodern man, what he is in search of, under what impressions he grows up; it describes the many advantages of moderntimes which make life easy and comfortable — the convenience of steam and electricity, and so on — all set forth indetail. Emphasis is laid upon the jostle and rush of modern life, but also upon its increased possibilities; allusion is madeto the outstanding discoveries and inventions of our time in comparison with the duller, poorer, more instinctive way of living in former times — all this is described with a kind of fervour and delight. But then follows a description of thedifficulties of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, which I have pointed out today, only without any indication that these things

proceed from the peculiarities of the age itself and its demand that the consciousness soul should be developed. Whatstands out is a complete lack of clear vision, in spite of an open compassionate heart. I will quote: “It is strange that adescription of our modern civilisation, which begins on a high note of joy in existence, must end upon the deep note of inner destitution of soul. What we experience here in a small way” (he means by ‘a small way’ the place where he lives)“is in a far greater sense the experience of our age. An abundance of culture beyond compare, a display of beauty and

power in life scarcely to be equaled in history, and side by side with it all a spiritual destitution mounting upwards to layhold on every class.”

And now, having given evidence of so much perspicacity, the author goes on to review various possibilities wherebythe true impulse in modern humanity may find its right outlet. And among these possibilities, Theosophy, as he sees it,comes into consideration. Here, among its many enemies, we find a well-wisher of Theosophy, someone who with allgood-will takes the trouble to interest himself in it and for this reason claims our attention. Indeed it is not without goodreason that I bring these things to your notice; it is essential that we should concern ourselves with what are the positiveconnections of spiritual science with the outside world.

After passing “pseudo mysticism” in review as a means of deepening life and as a remedy for destitution of soul, the

writer goes on to say; “Theosophy is a near neighbour to mysticism. Many people see it only as a substitute for moretrustworthy forces, or as a tendency to syncretism or to eclecticism” — that is to say a hotch-potch [hodge-podge, again

— e.Ed] of religious confessions and world-conceptions, just as people who do not wish to go into spiritual science call itwarmed-up gnosticism and so on. But the author of this book goes a step further, for he says; “Those who see it only as atendency to syncretism and eclecticism, equivalent to individual inclinations, confuse it with still more doubtfulsymptoms of modern life such as superstition, spiritualism, apparitions, symbolism and similar trifling with the mystery-loving element in human nature. But this is not the case. We do this Movement an injustice by refusing to acknowledgeits deep inner connections and values,” — Thus we stand indeed in the presence of a well-wisher. — He continues:“Where Steiner's circle at least is concerned, we must try to understand it as a contemporary religious Movement,although perhaps more syncretic than original, but going to the roots of all life.” Let us hope that as this man shows somuch goodwill, he may yet find his way to the “originality” of our Movement. “We may look upon it as a Movementdedicated to the satisfying of man's supersensible interests, and therefore as having outgrown the realism attached to thesenses. Above all we may recognise it as a Movement which exhorts men to consider their moral problems, to work for inner re-birth through scrupulous concentration upon self-education.” As I have already said; I am not reading this to youout of silly sentimentality, but considering the many things said from other points of view about Anthroposophy, it seemsnot irrelevant that we should make ourselves acquainted with a criticism such as this: — “One has only to read Steiner’s

book on Theosophy to be struck by the earnestness with which he enjoins upon his readers the necessity for purification

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and self-improvement. The speculations contained in it upon the supersensible are in themselves a reaction tomaterialism; of course” — and now comes something to which I must beg that you will pay particular attention — “herethe book loses touch with reality, and soars into the realms of hypothesis and clairvoyant fantasy, into a world of dreamsin which there is no place for the realities of individual and social life. Nevertheless theosophy must be registered as acorrective phenomenon in the cultural progress of our time.”

And so there is just one thing to which the author of this book takes exception, and that is the ascent, to knowledge of the spirit, to concrete knowledge of the spirit; which means that he would be glad of the impulse towards man's moralimprovement which, by his own showing, springs from Theosophy, but he does not yet understand that for the fifth post-

Atlantean epoch moral improvement can only come about through concrete spiritual knowledge. He cannot perceive theroots, and he wants the fruits without them. His range of vision cannot embrace the whole connection. And he is soextraordinarily interesting for just this reason: that, as we see, he has given deep thought to the study of my book “Theosophy” and yet cannot understand that the one is impossible without the other. He would like to cut off the book'shead and keep its body because the latter he feels to be important.

This bears out what I have been sayings that such people acknowledge the need for social understanding and libertyof thought — this they understand; but that the third, namely, knowledge of the spirit, must form the basis of our fifth

post-Atlantean epoch they are not willing to admit; it is something they cannot rise to. And one of the most importanttasks in the world-conception of spiritual science is to arouse understanding for this. People often say that rising to thespiritual worlds is a fantastic illusion. They do not see that it is the loss of this knowledge which has brought materialismupon us, with the incapacity for social understanding to which it is allied, with the materialistic way of living, and attitudetowards life. And it is by studying our well-wishers that we can realise how difficult it is for people to admit the existenceof concrete spiritual worlds. Because of this we must try the harder to gain understanding for such impulses as those Ihave brought forward today in my lecture.

The title of the little book I mentioned is “Die Gedankenwelt des Gebildeten, Probleme and Aufgaben” by Prof. Dr.Friedrich Mahling, published in Hamburg in 1914, and it is the reprint of a lecture given by Dr. Mahling at Hamburg onthe 23rd September 1913, during the 37th Congress for the Inner Mission. I am only surprised that no one in our circlehas ever mentioned the book, for since its publication in 1914 it might easily have come under the notice of any one of us.And although it is important to concern ourselves with the various crossing and re-crossing threads between differentspheres of thought at this present time, and with the various shades of abuse and mockery by which our Movement isattacked, we ought also to interest ourselves when, for once in a way as in this case, we are met by an honest effort to

understand, and when we could learn from it something about the difficulties such an effort encounters.

The purpose of this lecture has been to point out what should be the three great concrete Ideals of our fifth post-Atlantean epoch; reciprocal understanding in social life, liberty of thought, knowledge of the Spirit. In the future it will befor these three great ideals to direct the sciences. It will be for them to refine and purify life, to inspire morality with freshimpulses, to direct, penetrate and further the life of modern humanity to the greatest extent possible. But the first twodemands, social understanding and liberty of thought, cannot be satisfied unless the third, knowledge of the Spirit, isadded to them, because the consciousness soul should be developed. And the highest stage of the consciousness soul isthe spirit-self, the natural predisposition for which will appear in the sixth post-Atlantean epoch. But it cannot developwithout the preparatory stage of inner self-dependence, only to be attained by man through the unfolding of theconsciousness soul. And we must remind ourselves as part of our endeavour in spiritual science that what may seem to usabstract truths have in them magic power which has only to be released for clear light to pour over the whole of life. And

wherever we are placed, as scientists or practical workers in whatever sphere, however small our part, if we know how toquicken into life, for whatever that sphere may be, the abstract truths we take in during our meetings, we shall be fellow-workers at the greatest tasks of our time. And our souls will then be filled with a gladness which is not superficial goodcheer, but has its part in the life-giving seriousness that increases our strength; and instead of allowing life to degenerateinto a mere excuse for enjoyment makes of us true workers in life.

In this sense the three great concrete social ideals and ideals of cognition will enable the consciousness soul in thefifth post-Atlantean period to understand the Mystery of Golgotha, and to receive Christ in a new way. For we forge a reallink with the spiritual worlds by learning to know how these worlds also stand to the central impulse of earth evolution, tothe Christ impulse. The Christ impulse will become our real link with the spiritual worlds under the influence of thethoughts which stream from them earthwards, and which we offer up again in our thinking about Christ; because in earthexistence since the Mystery of Golgotha the thoughts of human souls shine upwards consolingly like bright stars, as Ihave described, even to the world of the angels who lost Christ from their sphere in order that they might find Him againshining up to them from the sphere of human thinking.

No, knowledge of the Spirit may not be described as fantastic. It is knowledge of the Spirit which first, of allendeavours to find a way of influencing the actual conditions under which destitution of soul, necessarily bound up with

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the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, arises. It is of these things that I wished to speak to you today. Let us hope that we maymeet again here at a not too distant date, and that until then we may be united in thought and continue to work in the spiritof our Movement.

The Problem of Destiny

Lecture by Dr. Rudolf Steiner

Zürich, October 24th, 1916GA 168

This is the 5th of 8 lectures given by Rudolf Steiner at various cities, from February through December of 1916. The title these lectures were published under is: The Relation between the Living and the Dead . In German: Die Verbindung Zwischen Lebenden und Toten . The translator is

unknown, but the GA # is 168.This is an authorised English translation, printed in the Anthroposophic News Sheet, printed on the 22nd of August, 1937. It is presented here

with the kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.



The Problem of Destiny.

Lecture by D r. R u d o l f S t e i n e r.

Zürich, Zschokke-Zweig,24th of October, 1916.

What spiritual science has to say about life and the configuration of the spiritual worlds, is gained through knowledge,through a knowledge of the objective facts to which we are led through faculties enabling us to have an insight into thesethings. We already know this. In cases where we have to justify spiritual science as such, or to defend it against theenvironing world, we shall, therefore, have to base our justifications only upon the development of certain faculties towhich we must draw attention and which enable us to attain to an insight into the spiritual worlds; and we shall then

proceed by explaining that these faculties enable us to know the corresponding configuration of the conditions of life pertaining to the spiritual worlds. The facts which come to light in this way — many things are almost self-evident,nevertheless it is good to draw attention to them — the facts which thus come to light, as well as those of the physical

world which can be observed through the senses, should never be met with objections arising from human desires, humanwishes. Although this is so obvious, we nevertheless frequently hear objections raised against certain statements of spiritual science, objections based upon human desires and human wishes, for instance, objections of the following kind:If spiritual science gives this or that explanation concerning the spiritual worlds, I do not wish to make closer acquaintance with spiritual science; for, if the things in the spiritual world really correspond with these descriptions, I

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shall never adapt myself to such a configuration of the spiritual world. This objection is very frequent, in spite of itsabsurdity. It is not only advanced in this absurd and easily detectable form, but also under the mask of all kinds of negative attitudes toward spiritual science. Although, on the one hand, the knowledge gained through spiritual sciencecould never be based upon the argument that the world has a meaning only if the things pertaining to the spiritual world

present a certain definite aspect (it is, after all, possible to know the real aspect of these things), and although thishypothesis, namely, that the world only has a meaning if it presents a certain definite aspect, can never enable us to sayanything concerning the configuration of the spiritual worlds, (for this can only be done upon the foundation of realknowledge,) it is, on the other hand, possible to point out the significance of spiritual science for the whole life of man,seeing that spiritual science and its results actually exist.

A fortnight ago, I have explained to you from a particular aspect the significance of a spiritual-scientific mentality for the evolution of present-day humanity, and particularly its significance in the face of the demands and requirements of our time. To-day I wish to draw attention to a few other things, which will lead us more deeply into the real significance of spiritual science for humanity, and in particular for modern man. And in order to present the other side as well, I shall also

point out the objections against spiritual science, arising from our modern civilization, and what kind of opposition wemust encounter. The spiritual faculties which enable the spiritual investigator to have an insight into the facts of thespiritual world develop gradually, as I have frequently described to you. They develop in such a way that, at first, welearn to know the chief facts of spiritual life, the principal things connected with the evolution of earthly life, with therepeated lives on earth, with the life between death and a new birth, and so forth. But it is quite possible to speak, not onlyof these great general aspects, of these general truths, but also of certain particular truths. If we grow more and moreacquainted with special aspects of truth, spiritual science itself will also acquire greater value for the individual andconcrete life of a human being. Seen from outside, human life is, to begin with, a riddle, for if it were not so, we wouldnot have to pass through a course of development rendering us more and more capable. For our capabilities and faculties

— this applies particularly to the soul — must be the result of victories; our strength grows if we overcome difficulties. Inthe spiritual sphere, too, our strength increases through the fact that the world has, to begin with, an enigmatic aspect, for the effort which we must make in order to solve these riddles gives us strength, gradually makes us more perfect also asregards the whole course of human evolution. We need not be afraid that life becomes less interesting through the factthat the riddles presented by the physical world are partly solved by gaining an insight into the spiritual world. In everysphere of life there are riddles, and when we enter the spiritual world we shall discover new riddles. But the experiencewhich we have gained in trying to solve, from out the spiritual world, riddles of life and of man connected with the

physical world, makes us, as it were, confident that also the deeper riddles of man and of the world, which only appear inthe spiritual world itself, will be solved.

A special riddle is everything that we experience in the form of destiny, between birth and death — everything weexperience in the form of destiny . This word contains many, many things. In our public lecture [ “Man's Soul and Body from the

Standpoint of Spiritual Science”, delivered on the 23rd of October, 1916. ] we have already explained that a certain amount of light can bethrown upon the question of destiny if we consider the repeated lives on earth. But these are more general points of view.It is also possible to draw attention to more concrete connections. Let us assume, for instance, that a person has lost a dear relative. This relative was comparatively young when he died, so that the one who remained behind had to pass through aconsiderably long stretch of life upon the earth without him. We can see immediately that if we face a similar thought,something rises up before our spiritual eye which must constitute a problem of destiny for many people. We must now

bear in mind the fact that spiritual science is really in a position to throw light upon such problems of destiny.Undoubtedly, every case has its individual aspect. But just the spiritual-scientific study of individual cases can give us acertain insight into the mysterious processes of human life.

We can, for instance, make the following experience: Someone has died in his young years, he has been torn awayfrom his relatives. I have already explained to you that through the fact that human beings enter into relationship with oneanother through their physical bodies, other connections arise, which are far more encompassing than those which aredependent upon our existence within a physical body. A far greater sphere of connections arises if we live ten, twenty,thirty, or forty years with another person, a far greater sphere of forces develops than those which arise between these twohuman beings in the physical world. If we turn the clairvoyant gaze upon these connections, we shall discover in manycases that the other relationships which thus arise are of such a kind that through their own inner nature they necessarilydemand the continuation resulting from the loss, both as regards the person who has remained behind in the physicalworld, and the one who has passed through the portal of death into the other world, the spiritual world. The one who hasremained behind must bear the loss. In an abstract way, we might say that he has lost a beloved human being, who hasvanished from his sight at a time when he never thought of losing him. Perhaps this loss may have rent asunder hopes of afuture life in common, here, in the physical world; plans and hopes for the future may have been destroyed. Theseexperiences form part of life; but they also form part of all the experiences in common which we are able to have withinthe physical body. The fact that grief and sorrow are added to the experiences which we have shared with a departedfriend changes the relationships which could only be developed through the fact that we have both lived in a physical

body. Just as our daily experiences, the experiences we have when we face one another in our physical bodies, flow into

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birth. Just as our memory supplies us with an Ego-consciousness in this life by leading us back to a certain definitemoment of our physical life, so the contemplation of death from the other side, from the spiritual side, gives us our Ego-consciousness between death and a new birth.

How do matters stand if the contemplation of death is brought about by the circumstance that a violent and suddenend of life has caused death? Seen from the other side, a sudden and violent death is a far-reaching experience, a far-reaching perception, and, although this may sound strange, an investigation of these facts reveals the following: When weenter the spiritual worlds through the portal of death the conditions of time have a different influence upon our soul-experiences than here upon the earth, although there are many conditions here which can remind us of what takes place in

a far more encompassing way between death and a new birth. When trying to explain the chief things which should be borne in mind in this connection, I shall make use of a comparison which is evident, however, only if we know thecorresponding facts pertaining to the spiritual world.

Perhaps you know that in our physical life we can often make experiences in the course of a few days or hours,experiences which mean to us far more than those we otherwise make in the course of months and even of years. Many

people can remember some important event of their life which they have experienced here in the physical world in a veryshort time, yet this event may have given them a greater amount of inner experience, greater results of inner experience,than the events of whole months or years. People often express this by saying: “I shall never forget what I haveexperienced in that particular case.” These plain words often contain what I have just characterized. Now it is a fact thatthe impression which the human being receives owing to the circumstance that an external world, a world which does not

belong to him, robs him of his physical body, that the perception which he obtains through this event in a comparatively brief time — it may even be a moment — comprises, during the life between death and a new birth, a whole wealth of experiences which are otherwise gained during the slow course of an earthly life, experiences through which we would

perhaps have passed during the course of many years and decades. I do not mean that it comprises everything we haveexperienced during an earthly life; but in the case of certain forces which we need during our life between death and anew birth it is indeed so that things which may otherwise be spread over a longer period of time are concentrated, drawntogether, we may even say in the space of a single moment.

It is an entirely different experience to see, in our subconsciousness, death approaching in such a way that inner forces come to the fore which bring about death from within the human organism, or in such a way that forces which arein no way connected with the human organism have an influence upon it. This kind of death can only be explained in atrue and genuine way if we consider it in connection with the whole course of human life through the repeated lives on

earth. In fact, my explanations in connection with Ego-consciousness after death and the contemplation of death mayeasily show you that the perception of death itself has a great significance for the strength and intensity of our Ego-consciousness between death and a new birth.

Circumstances which seen from the angle of physical life appear as a coincidence are not at all a coincidence, butthey form part of a world of necessary happenings. From the earthly standpoint it may seem a coincidence that someonehas been run over by a train; seen from the other side, the spiritual side, this does not appear as a coincidence. If from theother side, from the spiritual side, we ask the following question (let me use this expression, which is of course only acomparison), “What is the aspect of such a violent death when viewed within the whole complex of man's lives upon theearth?” — we shall find in every case that in past epochs of the repeated lives on earth and of the intermediate lives

between death and a new birth the person who has suffered a violent death has developed up to the moment of hisaccident in regard to the spiritual world an Ego-consciousness which needed a strengthening, an intensification. And the

required strengthening is produced because this man's physical life is not brought to a close from within, but fromwithout.

We must reckon with the fact that the connexions with the environing world which are produced in the soul throughthought forces are not the only ones, for as a rule, we are only aware in very exceptional cases of the way in which our subconsciousness thinks. You have often heard me say that our thinking activity does not end with the threshold of consciousness, for the human being has an incessant thought activity in his subconsciousness, or we might also say, in hissuper-consciousness. But the human being cannot in any way realise what this more encompassing form of consciousnessreally means to him. We could ask each person: “Why have you not met with this or with that accident this morning?” For it would have been possible in the case of every person to have met with some accident. Sometimes we realise to a certainextent how matters stand, but we are very seldom able to see the whole connexion. Sometimes we may feel an aversion todo a certain thing; we may leave home, for instance, half an hour later, and afterwards we may discover that in themeantime an accident has occurred along the way, an accident we would have met with had we left half an hour sooner.In this case our subconsciousness has been active, our subconsciousness has made us loiter. These subconsciousinfluences are always there, but generally we cannot perceive them.

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Those who can observe the conditions of the world from the spiritual standpoint are fully aware that a man who isabout to meet with an accident and whose good genius, I might say, does not guard him against this accident, that thisman who meets with an accident is driven to it by the necessity of his karma. Had this accident not taken place, somethingelse, too, would not have taken place, namely, what I have characterized as the required strengthening of his Ego-consciousness, which must be brought about in the described manner. During a particular life upon the earth the human

being enters through birth the particular conditions into which he is placed. He enters these conditions, but during his lastexistence between death and a new birth he has observed that his Ego is in a certain way weak, that it lacks strength. He isfilled with the impulse to strengthen his Ego, and this leads him into the circumstances which bring about his accident.This is how we must view things. And if we consider it from the standpoint of a spiritual-scientific knowledge we shall

see the true connexions of life.

I have often emphasized that men do not consider sufficiently the changes which have recently taken place in thedevelopment of the human soul. Most people, particularly those who are infested with modern learning, think that manycenturies ago human soul-life was exactly the same as now. This is quite wrong. The more intimate side of soul-life hasundergone a change, its character and attitude have changed completely. What spiritual science must again bring to thesurface from certain sources for the sake of a better understanding of life, as already explained, shows us that not so verylong ago the souls of men possessed a more atavistic and clairvoyant character. The human beings were able to feel, as itwere, the connexions of life. But humanity progresses and similar feelings die out. Seeing that during the course of evolution man has in part lost his former relationship with the spiritual world and that he is losing it more, and more, itwill become an ever growing necessity for him to regain a knowledge of his connexion with the spiritual world throughdirect spiritual investigation. This is also connected with the fact that spiritual science arises just at the present time. Inearlier times it was not needed, because the human soul had not reached its present stage of development. For the reasonsexplained above, spiritual science will be needed from now onward, and in future it will become more and morenecessary.

Let us corroborate this statement with certain concrete facts. To-day there is only a small number of men who acceptspiritual science during their life between birth and death. I do not say, spiritual research , but spiritual science — thoughtsand ideas supplied by spiritual science. Thus they learn something about the spiritual world during their life between birthand death. This is not without a significance for the life which we enter after passing through the portal of death.

The fact which I shall explain to you now has also arisen in our present time. When we revert to earlier times we findthat man still possessed an old inheritance in regard to his connexion with the spiritual world. Man passed through the

portal of death and because he had a certain relationship with the spiritual world through his feelings, through an atavisticclairvoyance and similar experiences, his life in a physical body had something in common with the life which he enteredthrough the portal of death. Because man knew something about the spiritual world (although this was only an instinctiveknowledge) he possessed more than a mere sum of thoughts reminding him of his life on earth after having passedthrough the portal of death. From now onwards it will be characteristic of human souls to pass through the portal of deathin such a way that they will be connected with the earth only through their memories. They remember as it were, their earthly life, and they are still connected with it because after death this earthly life lives in their memory. This is strictlyand radically speaking the case of a modern man who cannot take up ideas concerning the spiritual world from spiritualscience. If he takes up these ideas, they will form something after death enabling him, not only to remember his earthlylife, but also to have an insight into it. The spiritual ideas we take up before death change into faculties after death. After death windows open, as it were, from the spiritual world into the physical world, and they reveal what exists in the

physical world because here upon the earth we have acquired thoughts connected with the spiritual world. Spiritual

science, therefore, enables us to take with us certain definite results when we cross [the] threshold of death.

What we acquire through spiritual science is not merely a lifeless store of knowledge, but a real treasure of life,something which continues to live when we pass through the portal of death. Indeed, spiritual science is a great life-treasure, also in the meaning which I have explained to you on various occasions and because the dead person lives in our thoughts consciously and of his own accord, we are able to do something for the dead owing to the fact that we havetaken up spiritual science. This is also connected with the explanations which I have frequently given in regard to readingto the dead. The dead friend lives in our thoughts; he looks upon our thoughts. If these thoughts are of the kind resultingfrom a spiritual-scientific train of thoughts, or if we tell him something we know or think in connection with the spiritualworlds, the dead unites himself with the thoughts which we send out to him from the earth through spiritual science. Thisfocusing of our thoughts upon him forms the link between here and beyond and constitutes the force of attraction.Because spiritual science is filled with life, a living force can, as it were, be sent upwards, and this is nourishment for thedead person who is connected with us.

We see, therefore, that spiritual science really overcomes death in this soul-manner and that it penetrates into life. Acommunity of living and dead, which otherwise cannot exist at the present time in such an intensive form, is established

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because here upon earth we are filled with thoughts taken from spiritual science, and because we offer these thoughts, asit were, to the dead and turn toward them.

Spiritual science has, in every way, a living influence upon life, whereas the knowledge which is acquired throughoutthe physical world in the form of ordinary science consists of thoughts which have a real significance only during the time

between birth and death. During the life after death they only have the value of memories and do not possess a livinginfluence. This difference should be borne in mind clearly.

Something else should also be considered when reflecting on the significance of spiritual science for the present and

for the future spiritual evolution of man. Not only what we acquire here as spiritual science and transmit to the dead, notonly that which passes from the physical into the spiritual world, but also what we bring with us through the portal of death in the form of acquirements gained through spiritual knowledge reacts from the spiritual world on the earthly sphereThe earthly sphere — we should not lose sight of this fact — is gradually impoverished through the forces coming fromthe earth itself, forces which men develop as they pass through their life between birth and death. Earthly life would grow

poor if no other forces were to stream down upon the earth from the spiritual world except those which have so far descended upon it.

At the present time it is disheartening to see how thoughtlessly people live, without noticing the gradualimpoverishment of earthly existence. This is a phenomenon which can be observed not only in regard to man's spirituallife, not only in regard to culture, but also in regard to the densest aspect of physical life upon the earth. In Eduard Suess'sexcellent book, The Countenance of the Earth , you can read that once upon a time the earth presented a different aspect:its physical surface was different. The earth has undergone, as it were, a slow death-process as far as its surface isconcerned, for this surface of the earth, the ordinary, physical surface of the earth, no longer contains the same forces asin ages long past.

What takes place in physical life also takes place in spiritual life. As already stated, it is often disheartening to seehow people confront this without being aware of it. As far as spiritual life is concerned it is so that when we describe the

path which is trodden by humanity we must say: In spite of the pride pervading our present time it appears that man'sthoughts grow more and more lifeless, more and more dead, and even more and more disconnected. Modern men arenaturally very proud of their thinking ... indeed, many a teacher of Greek thinks that he is far greater than Plato when heexplains Plato to his pupils! Hebbel, the profound poet, wrote in his notebook (but he did not carry out his plan) that heintended to write a drama, with the reincarnated Plato as chief character, and that this Plato is severely punished by his

teacher because he cannot understand Plato during a Greek lesson! Man would, in a certain way, lose the continuity of histhought-system if this thought-system were not refreshed by thoughts born out of spiritual-scientific knowledge. It maysound strange to-day, nevertheless it is true: the intensive force which man needs in order to grasp his thoughts in theright way, so that they acquire reality, this force grows powerless because man must become independent, he mustacquire forces of his own. For this reason (I can express it in this way), the gods and the spiritual beings who have onceinspired man's thoughts, his connected train of thoughts, withdraw, and man must now independently bring into histhoughts a living element. He will do this only if he is not too proud to take up within him that life which flows out of spiritual science.

With our feelings and with the impulses of our will it is the same as with our thoughts. These human impulses of volition will, for instance, grow more and more obstinate and self-willed (we may really use this expression), they willgradually separate themselves from the common element of humanity unless the soul is inoculated with the great,encompassing impulses which can only arise out of a contemplation of the spiritual connexion of physical things. I havenow expressed truths which have a great weight in the evolution of man's future, but these truths should become unitedwith the souls of those who occupy themselves with spiritual science. For spiritual science should not only be a lifelessstore of knowledge satisfying our curiosity, but spiritual science should be something which seeks to penetrate into theconnexion of the things which man must face in the future. In order to attain to this it will be necessary to have an insightenabling us to see the systems of forces which are gradually becoming paralysed and those which should be substituted byothers. I have said that man's earthly forces would become paralysed if no help comes from the spiritual worlds. What weacquire through a spiritual-scientific knowledge and bear with us through the portal of death, gives us, between death anda new birth, not only the power to mould our life during the time between death and a new birth, but also the power allowing spiritual forces to descend upon the earth. This will have to take place in a growing measure, so that the human

beings who live upon the earth may receive the forces descending from the souls who are penetrated with the spirit, soulswho have passed through the portal of death and who send back what they have taken with them from the earth, but in achanged form, according to what has taken place through the fact that their life-experiences have entered the spiritualworlds.

One way of sending influences from the physical into the spiritual world is to work for the dead by reading to them, by sending them thoughts connected with spiritual science. Similarly there is also a way of contributing something toward

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the physical enrichment of the earth's evolution by sending down from the Spiritual world what we have acquired duringour abode in the physical world and have carried into the spiritual world by passing through the portal of death. A

peculiarity to be borne in mind is that the physical world can again receive things which have acquired a changed aspectthrough the fact that they constitute a spiritual wealth which we have gained during our physical life and which we havecarried through the portal of death. In the spiritual world it has undergone a metamorphosis and then it streams downagain in this changed form.

As far as we ourselves are concerned, we always work upon our karma so that it fulfils itself between birth and death.But we also work upon the karma of mankind as a whole, and this karma consists of the life-stream flowing off from the

earth and of the life-stream flowing in from the spiritual world. We also work upon this entire world-karma with the aidof forces which we develop between death and a new birth over and above our own requirement. We can therefore seehow necessary spiritual science really is, how necessary it is that spiritual science should be taken up and digested byhuman souls, not only for the welfare of individual human souls, but also for the welfare of the entire progress of humanity here upon the earth. In my public lecture I have already explained how we work from the spiritual world uponour future life on earth. The way in which we gradually enter before birth into hereditary conditions through the stream of the generations, and how we participate not only in that which concerns us individually during a future life on earth, butalso in that which concerns humanity as a whole — these thoughts which I now utter, these particularly are thoughtswhich should penetrate into us and live in us, thoughts which should — I might say — be meditated . For they place usinto a living spirit and soul-connexion with the environing world.

As a counterpart, I wish to show you the attitude which is still being adopted by the world in regard to the thingswhich are revealed particularly to spiritual science, and how the world adopts a standpoint which would necessarily bringabout what I have characterized as a drying-out of thoughts, as a lack of continuity, a lack of connexion in humanthoughts. And corresponding things would appear in other spheres. Particularly those who are now the leaders in this or inthat sphere contribute in a direct way, through their arrogant rejection of every connexion with the spiritual world astransmitted by spiritual science, to the realization of this grievous situation, the approach of which can already be seen to-day, particularly in regard to the world of thoughts.

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On the Connection of the Living and the Dead

Lecture by Dr. Rudolf Steiner Berne, November 9th, 1916

GA 168

Copyright © UnknownThis e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:


On the Connection of the Living and the Dead

Berne, 9 November 1916

It is one of the aims of our spiritual-scientific endeavour to form concrete ideas of how we, as human beings upon earth,live with the spiritual worlds, even as we are connected through the physical body — its experiences and perceptions — with the physical world.

At the present stage of our studies we may well take our start from what is already known to us — what has alreadycome before our souls during these years. Here, for instance, is the world of our sense-perceptions, the world to which wedirect our will-impulses for which the physical body mediates — that is to say, our actions. Immediately behind it, as youknow, there is the elemental world. That is the next world behind this one. It is not a question of the name; we might havenamed it differently. To gain clear and living ideas of these supersensible worlds we must at least enter into some of their

peculiarities. We must try to recognize what they are for us as human beings. For in truth our whole life between birth and

death — and also our subsequent life which takes its course between death and a new birth — depends on our co-existence with the various worlds that are spread out around us. We call the ‘elemental world’ that world which can only be perceived by what we know as ‘imaginations.’ Hence we may also call it the ‘imaginative world.’ In ordinary humanlife, under ordinary conditions, man cannot lift into consciousness his imaginative perceptions — his perceptions of theelemental world. Not that the imaginations are not there, or that in any given moment of our sleeping or waking life weare not in relation to the elemental world, receiving imaginations from it. On the contrary, imaginations are perpetuallyebbing and flowing in us. Though we are unaware of it, we constantly receive impressions from the elemental world. Justas when we open our eyes or lend our ears to the outer world we have sensations of colour and light, perceptions of sound, so do we receive continual impressions from the elemental world, giving rise to imaginations — in this case, in our etheric body. Imaginations differ from ordinary thought in this respect. In ordinary, every-day human thoughts, only thehead is concerned as an instrument of conscious assimilation and experience. In our imaginations, on the other hand, we

partake with almost the whole of our organism — albeit, it is our etheric organism. In our etheric organism they are

constantly taking place — we may refer to them as unconscious imaginations, since it is only for an occultly trainedcognition that they rise into consciousness. Moreover, though they do not enter our consciousness directly in every-daylife, they are by no means without significance for us. No, for our life as a whole they are far more important than our sense-perceptions, for we are united far more intensely and intimately with our imaginations than with our sense-

perceptions.

From the mineral kingdom, as physical human beings, we receive few imaginations. We receive more through all thatwe develop by living with the plant-world and with the animal. But the greater part, by far, of what lives as imaginationsin our etheric body is due to our relations to our fellow human beings, and all that these relations entail for our life as awhole. In fact, our whole relation to our fellow human beings — our whole attitude towards them — is fundamentally

based on imaginations. Imaginations always result from the way we meet another human being, and though, as I said, toordinary consciousness they do not appear as imaginations, nevertheless they make themselves felt in the sympathies andantipathies which play such an overwhelming part in our life. To a greater or lesser degree, we develop sympathies andantipathies with all that approaches us as human beings in this world. We have our vague undefined feelings, slightinclinations or disinclinations. Sometimes our sympathies grow into friendship and love — love which can be soenhanced that we think we can no longer live without this or that human being. All this is due to the imaginations whichare perpetually called forth, in our etheric body, by our life with our fellow human beings. In fact we always carry with us

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to our etheric body in the course of life becomes a part of the spiritual world. It weaves itself into the forces of thespiritual world. We must be very clear on this. Every thought, every idea, every feeling we develop — however hidden itremains — is of significance for the spiritual world. For when the coherence is broken by our passage through the Gate of Death, all our thoughts and feelings pass with our etheric body into the spiritual world and become part and parcel of it.We do not live for nothing. Even as we receive them into the thoughts we make our own, into the feelings we experience,so are the fruits of our life embodied in the cosmos. This is a truth we must receive into our whole mood and outlook;otherwise we do not rightly conduct ourselves in the spiritual-scientific movement. You are not a spiritual scientist merely

by knowing about certain things. You are so only if you feel yourself, by virtue of this knowledge, within the spiritualworld; if you know yourself quite definitely as a member in the spiritual world. Then you will say to yourself: the thought

you are now harbouring is of significance for the entire universe, for at your death it will be handed over to the universein such or such a form.

Now after a human being's death we may have to do, in one form or another, with what is thus handed over to theuniverse. Many of the ways in which the dead are present to those whom they have left behind are due to the fact that theetheric human being — which has, of course, been laid aside by the real individuality — sends back his imaginations tothe living. And if the living person is sensitive enough, or if he is in some abnormal state or has normally preparedhimself by proper spiritual training, the influences of what is thus given over to the spiritual world by the dead — theinfluences, that is to say, of imaginative natures — can emerge in him in a conscious form.

But there still remains a connection after death between the true human individuality and this etheric entity which hasseparated from him. There is a mutual interplay between them. We can observe it most clearly when by spiritual trainingwe come into actual intercourse with this or that dead individual. A certain kind of intercourse can then take place, asfollows: to begin with, the dead human being conveys to his etheric body what he himself wishes to transmit to us whoare still in the physical world. For only by his transmitting it to his etheric body — as it were, making inscriptions in hisetheric body — only by this means can we, who are here in the physical, have perceptions of the dead in terms of what wecall ‘imaginations.’ The moment we have imaginations of him, the etheric body of the dead — if you will pardon my useof the trivial and all too realistic term — is acting as a ‘switch’ or ‘commutator.’ Do not imagine that our relations to thedead need be any the less deeply felt because such an instrument is needed. A person who meets us in the outer world alsoconveys his form to us by the picture which he calls forth in us through our own eyes. So it is with this transmissionthrough the etheric body. We perceive what the dead wishes to convey to us by ‘getting’ it, so to speak, via his etheric

body. This body is outside him, but he is so intimately related to it that he can inscribe in it what lives within himself, andthus enable us to read it in imaginations. There is, however, this condition. If a person who is spiritually trained wishes tocome into connection with a dead human being through the etheric body in this way, he must have entered into somerelation to the dead — either in his last life between birth and death, or out of former incarnations. Moreover, theserelationships must have affected his soul — the soul of the one who is still living here — deeply enough for theimaginations to make an impression on him. For this can only be if in his heart and mind he had a definite and livinginterest in the dead person. Interests of heart and feeling must always be the mediator between the living and the dead, if any intercourse at all is to take place — conscious or unconscious. (Of the latter we shall speak presently.) Some interestof heart and feeling must be there, so that we really carry something of the dead within us. In a certain respect at any ratethe dead person must have constituted a portion of our own soul's experience. Only one who is spiritually trained canmake himself a certain substitute. For instance — (it may seem external at first sight, but spiritual training turns it intosomething far more inward) — one can give oneself up to the impression of the handwriting, or of something else inwhich the individuality of the dead is living. However, one can only do so if one has acquired a certain practice in makingcontact with an individuality through the fact that he lives in the writing. Or again, one may establish this possibility by

entering with sympathy into the feelings of the physical survivors, partaking in their grief and in all the emotional interestthey have in the dead person. By entering with sympathy into these real and living feelings, which flow from the dead intothe dear ones whom he has left on Earth — or which remain in their inner life — a person of spiritual training can preparehis soul to read in the aforesaid imaginations.

But we must also realize the following. Though to perceive the imaginations which play over from the etheric bodydepends on spiritual training or other special conditions, yet at the same time what passes unperceived by people is therenone the less. And we may truly say, those who are living in the physical world are not only woven around by theelemental forces, as imaginations, which proceed from other human beings living with them in the physical body.Whether we know it or not, our etheric body is constantly played-through by all the imaginations which we absorb fromthose who stood in any kind of relation to us and who passed before us through the Gate of Death. As in our physical life,in the physical body, we are related to the air around us, so are we related to the whole of the elemental world — including all that is there of the dead.

We shall never learn to know our human life unless we gain knowledge of these relationships, albeit they are sointimate and fine that they remain unnoticed by most people. After all, who can deny that we do not always remain thesame between birth and death Let us look back upon our lives. However consistent we may think the course of life has

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been, we will soon notice that we have often gone hither and thither in life, or that this or that has occurred. Even if thisdoes not immediately change the direction of our lives, which it can of course do, it nonetheless has the effect of enriching our lives in one way or another — in a happy direction or in a painful one. It brings us into different conditions

— just as when you go into another district your general feeling of health may be changed by the different composition of the air.

These moods of soul, into which we enter in our life's course, are due to the influences of the elemental world, and inno small measure to the influences that come from the dead who were formerly related to us. Many a human being inearthly life meets with a friend or with some person with whom he becomes connected in one way or another — to whom,

perhaps, he finds himself obliged to do this or that by way of kindness or of criticism or rebuke. The fact that they were brought together required the influence of certain forces. He who recognizes the occult connections in the world knowsthat when two human beings are brought together to this end or that, sometimes one and sometimes several of those whohave gone before them through the Gate of Death are instrumental. Our life does not become any the less free thereby.We do not lose our freedom because we starve if we do not eat. No one who is not deliberately foolish will say: how can a

person be free, seeing that he is obliged to eat? It would be just as invalid to say that we become unfree because our soulconstantly receives influences from the elemental world as here described. Indeed, just as we are connected with warmthand cold, with all the things that become our food and with the air around us, so are we connected with that which comesto us from those who have died before us. W are equally connected with the rest of the elemental world, but above allwith that which comes to us from them, and we can truly say: man's working for his fellow human beings does not ceasewith his passage through the Gate of Death. Through his etheric body, with which he himself remains connected, he sendshis imaginations into those with whom he was connected in his life. Indeed, the world to which we are here referring isfar more real than that we commonly call real — even if, in our every-day life, for very good reasons, it remainsunperceived. So much, for today, about the elemental world .

A further realm which is ever present in our environment, and to which we ourselves belong no less than to theelement: world, is the soul world — for so we may call it. (It is not the name that matters.) With the elemental world weare always connected in our waking life, and in sleep, too, indirectly, when with our ego and astral body we are outsidethe physical and the etheric; when our body that lies there in the bed, and our etheric body, are still connected with theelemental world. But with the higher world to which I now refer, we are connected most directly — only that this toocannot rise into our consciousness in ordinary life. We are connected with it in sleep when we have our astral body freelyaround us, and also in waking life — albeit then the connection, mediated as it is by forces which the physical body hasdrawn into itself, is no longer so direct.

Now in this world-of-soul (let us call it the soul world for the present; medieval philosophers referred to it as theheavenly world or the celestial) in this world, once more, we find beings who are just as real as we are during our life

between birth and death, nay, more so. They are, however, beings who do not need to come to embodiment in a physical,or even in an etheric, body. They live — as in their lowest corporeality — in that which we are wont to call the astral

body. Constantly, during our life and after our death, we are connected intimately with a large number of these purelyastral beings. Here, too, human beings differ from one another inasmuch as they are related to different astral beings — albeit, here again, two people may have their relationships to one or more astral beings in common, while at the sametime each of them has his several relations to other astral beings.

It is to this world, in which these astral beings are, that we ourselves belong from the time when, after passing throughthe Gate of Death, we have laid aside our etheric body. We with our own individuality are then among the beings of the

soul world. We are such beings at that time, and beings of the soul world are our immediate environment. True, we arealso related to the content of the elemental world, inasmuch as we can kindle in it that which calls forth imaginations asaforesaid. We have, however, the elemental world in a certain sense outside us — or, as one might also say, beneath us. Itis a portion of which we rather make use for purposes of communication with the remainder of the world, while weourselves belong directly to what I have now called the world-of-soul. It is with the beings of the soul world that we haveour intercourse, including other human beings who have also passed through the Gate of Death and, after a few days, laidaside their etheric bodies.

Now just as we constantly get influences from the elemental world, although we do not notice it, so too we constantlyreceive influences — straight into our astral body — out of this world-of-soul which I am now describing. It is only theimmediate, straightforward influences which we thus receive that can appear as inspirations. (Of the indirect influencesvia the etheric body we have already spoken.) You will understand the character of such an influence from the soul worldif I describe once more in a few words how it appears to one who is spiritually trained — one who is able to receiveconscious inspirations out of the spiritual world. It appears to him as follows. He can only bring these inspirations to hisconsciousness if he is able, so to speak, to take into himself some portion of the being who wants to inspire him — some

portion of the qualities, of the inherent tendency in life, of such a being.

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One who is spiritually trained to develop conscious relations with a dead person, not only via the etheric body but inthis direct way through inspiration, must bear in his soul even more than mere interest or sympathy is able to call forth.For a short while, at least, he must be so able to transform himself as to receive into his own being something of thehabits, the character, the very human nature of the one with whom he wishes to communicate. He must be able to enter into him till he can truly say to himself, ‘I am taking on his habits to such an extent that I could do what he could, and inhis way; that I could feel as he could, and will as he could, also.’ It is the ‘could’ that matters — the possibility. We must,therefore, be able to live together with the dead even more intimately. For a person of spiritual training there are manyways of coming thus near to the dead, provided the dead person himself allows it. We should, however, realize that the

beings who belong to what we are now calling the world-of-soul are quite differently related to the world than we are in

our physical body. Hence there are certain conditions, quite definite conditions, of intercourse with such beings — and,among others, with the dead, so long as they are living still as astral beings in their astral bodies. We may draw attentionespecially to certain points.

You see, all that we develop for our life in the physical body — our many and varied relationships to other people (Imean precisely those relationships which arise through earthly life) — all this acquires quite another kind of interest for the dead. Here on the earth we develop sympathies and antipathies. Let us be fully clear on this. Such sympathies andantipathies as we develop while we are living in the physical body are subject to the influences of this our present form of life, which we owe to the physical body and to its conditions. They are subject to the influences of our own vanity and of our egoism. Let us not fail to realize how many relationships we develop to this or that human being as a result of vanityor egoism — or other things that depend on our physical and earthly life in this world. We love other people or we hatethem. Verily, as a rule, we take little notice of the true grounds of our loving and our hating — our sympathies andantipathies. Nay, often enough we flee from taking conscious notice of our sympathies and antipathies, for the simplereason that, if we did so, highly unpleasant truths would as a rule emerge. If, for instance, we followed up the real factswhich find expression in our not loving this or that human being, we should often have to ascribe to ourselves so much of

prejudice or vanity or other qualities that we are afraid to do so. Therefore we do not bring to full clarity in consciousnesswhy it is that we hate this person or that. And with love, too, the case is often similar. Interests, sympathies andantipathies evolve in this way, which only have significance for our everyday life. Yet it is out of all this that we act. Wearrange our life according to these interests and sympathies and antipathies.

Now it would be quite wrong to imagine that the dead can possibly have the same interest as we earthly people havein all the ephemeral sympathies and antipathies which thus arise under the influence of our physical and earthly life. Thatwould be utterly wrong. Truly, the dead are obliged to look at these things from quite another point of view. Moreover,we may ask ourselves, are we not largely influenced in our estimate of our fellow human beings by these subjectivefeelings — by all that lies inherent in our subjective interest, our vanity and egoism and the like? Let us not think for amoment that a dead person can have any interest in such relationships between ourselves and other human beings, or inour actions which proceed out of such interests. But we must also not imagine that the dead person does not see what isliving in our souls. For it is really living there, and the dead one sees it well enough. He shares in it, too, but he seessomething else as well. One who is dead has quite another way of judging people. He sees them quite differently. As tothe way in which the dead person sees the human beings who are here on earth, there is one thing of outstandingimportance. Let us not imagine that the dead has not a keen and living interest in the world of human beings. He has,indeed, for the world of human beings belongs to the whole cosmos. Our own life belongs to the cosmos. And just as we,even in the physical world, interest ourselves in the subordinate kingdoms, so do the dead interest themselves intensely inthe human world, and send their active impulses into the human world. For the dead work through the living into thisworld. We have only just given an example of the way in which they go on working soon after their passage through the

Gate of Death.

But the dead sees one thing above all, and that most clearly. Suppose, for example, that he sees a human being herefollowing impulses of hatred — hating this person or that, and with a merely personal intensity or purpose. This the deadsees. At the same time, however, according to the whole manner of his vision and all that he is then able to know, he willobserve quite clearly, in such a case, the part which Ahriman is playing. He sees how Ahriman impels the person tohatred. The dead actually sees Ahriman working upon the human being. On the other hand, if a person on earth is vain, hesees Lucifer working at him. That is the essential point. It is in connection with the world of Ahriman and Lucifer that thedead human being sees the human beings who are here on earth. Consequently, what generally colours our judgement of

people is quite eliminated for the dead. We see this or that human being, whom in one sense or another we must condemn.Whatever we find blameworthy in him, we put it down to him. The dead does not put it down directly to the human being.He sees how the person is misled by Lucifer or Ahriman. This brings about a toning-down, so to speak, of the sharplydifferentiated feelings which in our physical and earthly life we generally have towards this or that human being. To a far greater extent, a kind of universal human love arises in the dead. This does not mean that he cannot criticize — that is tosay, cannot rightly see what is evil in evil. He sees it well enough, but he is able to refer it to its origin — to its real inner connections.

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What I have here described is not without its results, for it means that an occultly-trained person cannot consciouslycome near to one who is dead unless he truly frees himself from feelings of personal sympathy or antipathy to individuals.He must not allow himself to be dependent, in his soul, on personal feelings of sympathy or antipathy. You need onlyimagine it for a moment. Suppose that an occultly-trained, clairvoyant person were about to approach a dead human being

— whoever he might be — so that the inspirations which the dead was sending in towards him might find their way intohis consciousness. Suppose, moreover, that the one here living were pursuing another human being with a quite specialhatred — hatred having its origin only in personal relationships. Then, of a truth, as fire is avoided by our hand, so wouldthe dead avoid such a person who was capable of hatred for personal reasons. He cannot approach him, for hatred workson the dead like fire. To come into conscious relation with the dead we must be able to make ourselves like them —

independent, in a sense, of personal sympathies and antipathies.

Hence you will understand what I now have to say. Bear in mind this whole relation of the dead to the living, in so far as it rests on Inspirations. Remember that the inspirations are always there, even if they pass unnoticed. They are

perpetually living in the human astral body, so that the human being upon earth has his relations to the dead in this directway, too. Now, after all that we have said, you will well understand that these relationships depend on our whole moodand spirit here in our life on earth. If our attitude to other people is hostile, if we are without interest or sympathy for our contemporaries above all, if we have not an unprejudiced interest in our fellow human beings — then are the dead unableto approach us in the way they long to do. They cannot properly transplant themselves into our souls, or, if they must doso, in one way or another it is made difficult for them and they can only do it with great suffering and pain. All in all, theliving-together of the dead with the living is complicated.

Thus man goes on working beyond the time when he passes through the Gate of Death, even directly, inasmuch asafter death he inspires those who are living on the physical plane. And this is absolutely true. Notably as to their inner habits and qualities — the way they think and feel and develop inclinations — those who are living at any given time onearth are largely dependent on those who died and passed from the earth before them, who were related to them duringtheir life, or to whom they themselves established a relation even after death — which may sometimes happen, though itis not so easy.

A certain portion of the world-ordering and of the whole progress of mankind is altogether dependent on this workingof the dead into the life of earthly human beings, inspiring them. Nay, more, in their instinctive life people are not withoutan inkling that it is so and that it must be so. We can observe it if we consider ways of life, formerly very wide-spread,which are now dying out because humanity in the course of evolution goes ever onward to new forms of life. In bygone

times when, generally speaking, they divined far more of the reality of spiritual worlds, people were more deeply awareof what is necessary for life as a whole. They knew that the living need the dead — need to receive into their habits andcustoms the impulses from the dead. What, then, did they do? You need only think of former times, when in wide circlesit was customary for a father to take care that his son should inherit and carry on his business, so that the son went onworking on the same lines. Then when the father was long dead, inasmuch as the son remained in the same channels of life, a bond of communication was created through the physical world itself. The son's activity and life-work being akin tohis father's, the father was able to work on in him. Many things in life were based on this principle. And if whole classesof society attached great value to the inheritance of this or that property within the class or within its several families, itwas de: to their divining this necessity. Into the life-habits of those who live later, the life-habits of those who lived earlier must enter, but only when these life-habits are so far ripened that they come from them after they have passed through theGate of Death — for it is only then that they become mature.

These things are ceasing, as you know — for such is the progress of the human race. We can already see a timeapproaching when these inheritances, these conservative conditions, will no longer play a part. The physical bonds will nolonger be there in the same way. But all the more, to compensate for this, people must receive such detailed spiritual-scientific knowledge as will lift the whole matter into their consciousness. For then they will be able consciously toconnect their life with the life-habits of former times — with which we have to reckon in order that life may go forwardwith continuity. Since the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period we are living in a transition time. During this timea more or less chaotic state has intervened. But the conditions will arise again when in a far more conscious way — byrecognition of the spiritual-scientific truths — people will connect their life and work with that which has gone beforethem. Unconsciously, merely instinctively, they used to do so — of that there can be no doubt. But even that which is stillinstinctive to this day must be transmuted into consciousness. Instinctively, for instance, people still teach in this way — only we do not observe it. One who studies history on spiritual lines will soon observe it, if only he pays attention to thefacts and not to the dreadful abstractions which prevail nowadays in the so-called humanistic branches of scholarship. If we look at the facts we can well observe it: what is taught in a given epoch bears a certain character only because peopleattach themselves unconsciously, instinctively, to what the dead are pouring down into the present. If once you learn tostudy in a real way the educational ideas which are propounded in any given age by the leading spirits in education — Imean not the charlatans but the true educationists — you will soon see how these ideas have their origins in the habitualnatures of those who have recently died.

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This is a far more intimate living-together; for that which plays into the human being's astral body enters far moreinto his inner life than that which plays into his etheric body. The communion which the dead themselves, asindividualities, can have with people on earth, is far more intimate than that which the etheric bodies have — or, for thatmatter, any other elemental beings. Hence you will see how the succeeding epoch in the life of humanity is alwaysconditioned by the preceding one. The preceding time always goes on living in the time that follows. For in reality,strange though it may sound, it is only after our death that we become truly ripe to influence other people — I mean toinfluence them directly, working right into their inner being. To impress our own habits on any man who is ‘of age’ (Imean now, spiritually speaking, not in the legal sense) is the very thing we should not do. Yet it is right and according tothe conditions of the progressive evolution of mankind for us to do so after we ourselves have passed through the Gate of

Death. Beside all the things that are contained in the progress of karma and in the general laws of incarnation, these thingstake place. If you ask for the occult reasons why, let us say, the people of this year are doing this or that, then — not for all things but certainly for many — you will find that they are doing it because certain impulses are flowing down to themfrom those who died twenty or thirty years ago, or even longer. These are the hidden connections — the real concreteconnections — between the physical and the spiritual world. It is not only for ourselves that something ripens and maturesin what we carry with us through the Gate of Death. It is not only for ourselves, but for the world at large. And it is onlyfrom a given moment that it becomes truly ripe to work upon others. Then, however, it does become ever riper and riper.

I beg you here to observe that I am not speaking of externals, but of inner, spiritual workings. A person mayremember the habits of his dead father or grandfather and repeat them out of memory on the physical plane. That is notwhat I mean; that is a different matter. I really mean the inspired influences — imperceptible, therefore, to ordinaryconsciousness — the influences which make themselves felt in our habits in our most intimate character. Much in our lifedepends on our finding ourselves obliged, here or there, to free ourselves from the influences — even the well-meantinfluences — coming to us from the dead. Indeed, we gain much of our inner freedom by having to free ourselves in thisway, in one direction or another. Inner conflicts of soul, which a person often does not know, will grow intelligible to himwhen he views them in this light or that, taking his light from spiritual knowledge of this kind. To use a trite expression,we may say: the past is rumbling on — the souls of the past go rumbling on — in our own inner life.

These things are facts — truths into which we look by spiritual vision. But alas, especially in the life of today, menhave a peculiar relation to these truths. It was not always so. Anyone who can study history in a spiritual way will knowthis. Today people are afraid of these truths — they are afraid of facing them. They have a nameless fear — not indeedconscious, but unconscious. Unconsciously they are afraid of recognizing the mysterious connections between soul andsoul, riot only in this world, but between here and the other world. It is this unconscious fear which holds back the peoplein the outer world. This is a part of that which holds them back, instinctively, from spiritual science. They are afraid of knowing the reality. They are all unaware of how they are disturbing — by their unwillingness to know reality — disturbing and confusing the whole course of world-evolution, and with it, needless to say, the life that will have to belived through between death and a new birth, when these conditions must be seen.

Still more mature — for everything that evolves, becomes ever riper and more mature — still more mature becomesthat which lives in us when it no longer has to stop short at Inspiration but can become Intuition (in the true sense inwhich I used the word in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment . Now Intuition can only be a being that hasnone other than a Spirit-body (to use this paradoxical expression). To work intuitively upon other beings — and, amongothers, upon those who are still incarnated here in the physical life — a human being must first have laid aside his astral

body; that is to say, he must first belong entirely to the spiritual world. That will be decades after his death, as we know.Then he can also work down on other people through intuition — no longer merely through Inspiration as I described it

just now. Not until then does he as ego — now in the spiritual world — work in a purely spiritual way into other egos.Formerly he worked by Inspiration into the astral body — or, via his etheric body, into the etheric body of man. But onewho has been dead for decades past can also work directly as an ego — albeit at the same time he can still work throughthe other vehicles, as described above. It is at this stage that the human individuality grows ripe to enter no longer merelyinto the habits of people but even into their views and ideas of life. To modern feeling, full of prejudice as it is, this may

be an unpleasant truth — very unpleasant, I doubt not. None the less it is true. Our views and ideas, originating as they doin our ego, are under constant influences from those long dead. In our views and conceptions of life, those who are longdead are living. By this very means, the continuity of evolution is preserved — out of the spiritual world. It is a necessity,for otherwise the thread of people's ideas would constantly be broken.

Forgive me if I insert a personal matter at this point. I do so, if I may say so, for thoroughly objective reasons. For such a truth as this can only be made intelligible by concrete examples.

No one ought really to bring forward, as views or ideas, his own personal opinions — however sincerely gained.Therefore, no one who stands with full sincerity on the true ground of occultism — no one who is experienced in theconditions of spiritual science — will impose his own opinions on the world. On the contrary, he will do all he can toavoid imposing his own opinions directly. For the opinions, the outlook he acquires under the influence of his own

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personal tendency of feeling, should not begin to work until thirty or forty years after his death. Then it will work in thisway: it will come into the souls of people along the same paths as the impulses of the Time-Spirits or Archai. Only thenhas it become so mature that its working is in harmony with the objective course of things. Hence it is necessary for everyone who stands on the true ground of occultism to avoid making personal proselytes — setting out to gain followersfor his own personal views. That is the general custom nowadays. No sooner has anyone got an opinion of his own, hecannot hasten enough to make propaganda for it. That is what a real and practising spiritual scientist cannot possiblydesire to do. Now I may bring in the personal matter to which I referred just now. It is no chance, but something essentialto my life, that I began by writing — communicating to the world — not my own views, but Goethe's world-conception.That was the first thing I wrote. I wrote entirely in the spirit and in the sense of Goethe's world-conception, thus taking

my start not from any living person. For even if that living person were oneself, it could not possibly justify one inteaching spiritual science in the comprehensive way I try to do. It was a necessary link in the chain, when I thus placedmy work into the objective course of world-evolution. Therefore I did not write my theory of knowledge, but Goethe's —

A Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception — and in this way I continued.

Thus you will see how the development of man goes on. What he attained on earth ripens not only for the sake of hisown life as he advances on the paths of karma. It ripens also for the world. So we continue to work for the world. After acertain time we become ripe to send imaginations; then — after a further time — inspirations into the habits of human

beings. And only after a longer time has elapsed do we grow ready and mature enough to send intuitions into the mostintimate part of man's life — into the views and conceptions of people.

Let us not imagine that our views and conceptions of life grow out of nothing — or that they arise anew in every age.They grow from the soil in which our own soul is rooted, which soil is in truth identical with the sphere of activity of human beings who died long ago.

By knowledge of such facts, I do believe human life must receive that enrichment which it needs, according to thecharacter and sense of our age and of the immediate future. Many an old custom has grown rotten to the core. The newmust be developed, as I have often said; but man cannot enter the new life without those impulses which grow in himthrough spiritual science. It is the feelings that matter — the feelings towards the world in its entirety, and all the other

beings of the world, which we acquire through spiritual science. Our mood of life grows different through spiritualscience. The supersensible, in which we always are, becomes alive for us through spiritual science. We are and alwayshave been living in it; but human beings will be called to know it, more and more consciously, the farther they evolvethrough the fifth, sixth and seventh post-Atlantean epochs and for the rest of earthly time.

These things I wanted to communicate to you today. They are indeed essential to the enrichment, the quickening of man's whole feeling for the world, and to the deepening of all his life. These things I wanted to kindle in your hearts, nowthat we have been able to be together once more after a lapse of time. May we be able to be together often again to speak of similar matters, so that our souls may partake in achieving that evolution of mankind which is the aim and endeavour of spiritual science.

The Influence of the Dead on the Life of Man on Earth

By Rudolf Steiner

GA 168

A lecture delivered in Zurich, on December 3rd, 1916. Authorized translation from the German of Notes unrevised by the lecturer.Also known as: Luciferic and Ahrimanic Influences . Lecture 8 of 8 from the lecture series: The Relation between the Living and the

Dead Published in German as: Die Verbindung Zwischen Lebenden und Toten . GA# 168.

Copyright © 1988

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This e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:The Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co.

London

The Influence of the Dead on the Life of Man on Earth

By Rudolf Steiner

A lecture given in Zurich, 3 December 1916

Published in Anthroposophy Today ~ Winter 1988

FROM YESTERDAY'S lecture you will have seen how the spiritual world, in which we are between death and a new birth, and the physical world interpenetrate. Not only so; the spiritual world and the physical interpenetrate even in our so-called physical life between birth and death. We ourselves give the directions, as it were, for the way we are born withsuch and such characteristics. For we are connected between death and a new birth with what is taking place here in the

physical world, and, among other things, with the stream of inheritance which eventually leads to our own birth.

We may now consider in a more inward way the whole line of evolution which we studied yesterday more externally.We will try to bring before our souls the connection of man with the spiritual world from a certain special aspect.Between birth and death we are living here in the physical world, and the physical world is known to us through our sense

perceptions. It is a trite saying and we need scarcely repeat it: If we did not have our sense organs, we could know nothingof our connection with this physical world. All that gives us this connection through the sense organs with the physicalworld, falls away from us when we pass through the gate of death. Hence we may even say: It is our specific task between

birth and death to make acquaintance with the physical world. We are incorporated in this physical body in order to makeourselves acquainted through it with the physical world.

Now we are not only members of the physical world, but equally of the spiritual worlds. The next spiritual world, as itwere adjoining this physical, is the world which we have grown accustomed to call the ethereal or elemental. Whether or not the expression is really fitting is a matter of less consequence. To begin with, this elemental world is an unknownworld for the human being as he now lives in the physical. It is, in fact, the first of the supersensible worlds but it is noless fraught with significance for man than this physical world of the senses. For as soon as our sense is awakened for theelemental world — which happens when we are able to perceive Imaginatively — we realise that this world is peopled bymany beings, no less abundantly than is the physical. Man himself, inasmuch as he has an etheric body, belongs to theelemental world. As an ether-being, man too is a citizen of the elemental world; only the conditions in the elementalworld are somewhat different from the conditions in the physical.

To begin with, I must say something on this one point: the power of perception for the elemental world cannot beginin man till he is able entirely to free himself from that which makes him earthly man. In general it is not even difficult for him to do this. True, it is more difficult for the man of today than for the man of primeval times. We have all heard of the

primeval atavistic clairvoyance. For the most part it consisted in this very fact: man was able to free himself from thatwhich makes him earthly man. As earthly men, as you all know, we are formed of solid matter only to a very small extent.To a large extent we consist of liquid; and the moment we can emancipate ourselves from what is solid in us, the momentwe feel ourselves only in our liquid part, Imaginative experiences can emerge. It is only our existence in the solid elementwhich prevents our knowing by Imaginative perception all that surrounds us as the elemental world. Imaginative

perception will surely return to mankind even as it has been lost. Only the old Imaginative clairvoyance which is lost wasin a way unconscious and dream-like, while that which will gradually arise in our Fifth post-Atlantean epoch will be afully conscious Imaginative seership. By a perfectly normal and natural process of evolution it will enter into humannature.

Let us now return to what I said before. Our relation to the elemental world is different from our relation to theordinary, physical world. To begin with, I will give one example to confirm this. In the physical world — apparently atany rate — we determine our relationships with other beings by our own free human choice. We form our friendships for ourselves, likewise our other relations to the beings that surround us. In the elemental world, in which we are through our etheric body, this is no longer the case in the same direct way. Through our whole life in the elemental world we are in amore or less close relationship to certain other elemental beings. As an independent elemental being — for such we are byvirtue of our etheric body — we are related to a number of other elemental beings, who accompany us throughout our life,and we may compare this relationship to the relation of the Sun to the encircling planets. Our own etheric body is a kindof Sun elemental being, and is actually accompanied by a number of elemental beings belonging to it, like the planets tothe Sun. These elemental beings, together with it, constitute a kind of sevenfold entity, as do the planets and the Sunaccording to the older conception.

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During our whole physical life between birth and death, there is a constant interplay between these our elementalsatellites and ourselves. Not only does our feeling, our condition, depend on the way in which our elemental or etheric

body is related to its ‘planets’; our relation to the outer world, to certain outer beings, and notably to other human beings,is regulated by the mutual relations between these ‘planets’ and our own etheric body. In future time there will be a kindof medicine which will reckon especially with what I have now said; there will be a medical, physiological conceptionwhich will ascertain how the one or the other satellite is related to the etheric body; and according to this, it will be

possible to diagnose the sick or healthy condition of the patient. For what is called illness today is in truth only the outer physical picture of what is there in reality. In reality there is some kind of irregularity in what I have here compared to a planetary system, and the illness is but an image of this irregularity.

Of course, one might say forthwith: ‘Well, let the people who know this establish a new pathology. Hic Rhodus, hic salta, now let occultism show its art!’ Well, it will do so the moment its legs are freed! A man cannot dance whose legsare tied, and by the fettering of the legs in this case I mean the presence of modern materialism which has simplyconfiscated the science of medicine. This state of affairs cannot be improved by one individual or another doing this or that it can only be improved by the common will of a larger number of people, strong enough to bring about a system of medical practice which will make the penetration of medicine with spiritual principles a practical possibility.

One thing it is important to perceive. St. Paul did not speak in vain words of untold importance which have, however,never been rightly understood. For people keep on imagining that they are Christian while in reality they are not. St. Paulsaid that sin came into the world through the law, i.e. sin is there through the law. In a wider sense, that which mars theorder of things is there through the law. Even today these truths can only be hinted at. For as a rule, if anything is not inorder, our materialistic age will always cry aloud for a law — quite unaware that whatever is not in order comes from thevery laws that are made. But, as I said, such a thing can only be hinted at. A very great deal will yet be necessary towardsan understanding of these things. I said, people only imagine that they are Christians. For such a passage as this one by St.Paul, though it is read by countless people, is very little understood.

Through the fact that we are etheric beings, we belong to an elemental world, and there is a certain system whichstands in a near relation to ourselves. This system consists of the elemental beings or ether-beings who accompany us.Their forces are ordered or arranged in a certain way; and when we pass through the gate of death, it is they, by their forces, who draw our etheric body out of our physical body, and place it — that is to say, place the human being himself to begin with — into the elemental world. The elemental world, as I have indicated, is clearly to be perceived byImaginative cognition. In it are a multitude of beings whom we may call nature-spirits, but not only these. In it are also all

those human beings who have just passed physically through the gate of death. They are only there, however, for a shorttime, as you know, for a few days. Then what we call the etheric body is given over to the elemental world; a secondcorpse is laid aside. But we must not imagine that this, the second body which we lay aside, is at all rapidly disintegratedin that world. That is not so. True, in a certain sense, it does become dissolved in the elemental world. It dissolves, it

becomes ever more tenuous. But it does not become imperceptible to those beings who by their very nature can perceiveImaginatively.

The elemental or etheric body is always perceptible, for instance, to the human being himself, who has passedthrough the gate of death. True, he has laid aside this elemental body and he now lives on through the time between deathand a new birth. But he remains constantly related to the elemental body which he has laid aside. It is not as with the

physical body, to which man loses his relationship when he has cast it off. With the elemental body the opposite is thecase; man preserves his relationship to it. Moreover, this relationship of man to his elemental or etheric body can work

right down into the physical world.

When a human being here in the physical world has made his soul receptive, when he has acquired the elemental or Imaginative power of perception, then, too, he can consciously converse in his life of thought with the dead. Only, of course, these thoughts are far more refined and delicate than those of ordinary life. Thus he is consciously connected withthe dead. Now the connection of which man thus becomes conscious is always there in the subconscious, whenever therewas a relation during earthly life between the one who has remained behind in the physical, and the one who has riseninto the spiritual world. Let us assume that we lost a beloved friend through death. One who has attained Imaginative

perception will be aware of it but, whether we know it or not, the dead human being works upon us. He works — if I mayso describe it — as though he were pouring his will into the etheric body which he has laid aside, as into a mirror, and themirror, in its turn, were sending on the rays to us. Via the elemental or etheric body, the dead react upon the living. This,as it were, is the mediate influence of the dead upon the living.

To describe where this mediate influence comes to expression, I may say, it is expressed in our ordinary conceptionsand ideas which we carry with us through the world. As a rule, the human being — especially in our materialistic age — is aware only of the conceptions and ideas which portray to him the outer physical reality. But among the conceptionswhich we thus carry through the world, some are perpetually living which are so fine and delicate that they are not

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directly perceptible; we simply do not pay attention to them. If we were wont to observe our soul's life more intimately,we should soon recognise their presence. But we constantly let this finer, more delicate life of the soul be overwhelmedand drowned by the coarser ideas which flow into us from the surrounding physical world. If it were not so, we shouldsoon perceive that finer, more intimate thoughts are constantly there in us. These are due to those who were connectedwith us and have passed before us through the gate of death; and who, especially in the first period after their passagethrough the gate of death, are able to communicate their deeds to us.

Through the fact that as ether-beings we belong to the elemental world, we thus bear the being of the dead with us inour own conceptions, in our own life of ideas, for a certain length of time. If we would speak of ‘Monism’ on any basis of

reality, we should chiefly speak of the Monism which I have just described — the Monism that is formed by the workingtogether of the living and the dead. In truth, those who have passed through the gate of death are by no means far awayfrom us; they are far nearer to us than we believe.

Now man develops more and more as he lives through the time between death and a new birth, and so he becomesable to work upon the world down here not only indirectly but directly. From a certain time onward we can perceive thisinfluence upon us of the departed; their rays of force begin to penetrate into our soul's life. But this immediate influencecannot work its way directly into our thoughts, into our conceptual life. It works its way rather into our habits, into our whole way of life and conduct; into all this there streams an influence working downward from spiritual worlds, comingto us from those who have passed before us through the gate of death.

We must however realise that this working together of the dead and the living depends on many different conditions.The dead man is in an environment wherein there are beings of his own kind, that is, beings of soul, and all the beingswho belong to the higher Hierarchies, down to man himself. And inasmuch as the etheric body which he has laid aside ishis mediator, he can also have perceptions of the human beings down here, who are, as it were, veiled from him throughthe physical body. With the help of his etheric body, he can penetrate the veil. He who has passed through the gate of death is of course subject to the conditions under which man must live in the world of soul and Spirit; he must submit tothem. I need only mention one main point, and you will understand what I mean in this connection. We know thatthroughout the world in which we live Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces are working in the most manifold ways. If theseLuciferic and Ahrimanic forces did not entice us, all that comes to expression in man as wrong and evil actions would not

be there in the world. The Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces must work upon man, and must give him the opportunity tofollow and obey them. Once this fact is brought home to us strongly enough, we shall recognise that man, after all, is avery different being from what we often make him out to be with our hostile criticisms. If we had the faculty, already in

the physical world, always to see how the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic work in man, we should judge our fellow menquite differently.

I do not say that we should generally be less critical; for when we divert our adverse judgement from man — thoughwe should no longer be fighting against man himself — we must still be fighting Lucifer and Ahriman. But against manas man, we should be infinitely more tolerant. Now he who lives in the soul life in the time between death and a new

birth, practises this tolerance both in relation to the beings who are with him in the spiritual world and in relation to thosewho are still incarnated as men here in the physical life. It is part of the very character of man, when he has passedthrough the gate of death, that he acquires this tolerance. He always sees through the fact that Lucifer and Ahriman are

playing such and such a part in a human being. He does not say, ‘That is a bad man, following evil desires’, but he seesthrough the fact that Lucifer is playing such and such a part in him. He does not say, ‘That is an envious fellow’ but hesays, ‘Ahriman is playing such and such a part in him’.

He who lives above, between death and birth, judges in this way, it belongs to his very being to do so, just as it belongs to our being to have good eyesight (if we are sound and healthy). Moreover, since this belongs to his very being,it hurts the dead man infinitely when, maintaining his connection with us in the physical life (the connection which was

begun during his own life on Earth), he comes up against an altogether different spirit in ourselves. Assume, for instance,that out of our personal antipathy we meet with peculiar hate another human being, who was also connected with the deadman. This hate will signify infinite pain for the dead who tries to approach us — as he must do, since he is still connectedwith us. This hatred must first be overcome by him; it is like a sword, a jagged sword, a spear that is shivered constantlyagainst him.

And so the way in which the dead man tries to work into us — his own experience as he does so — depends very,very much on the attunement of our soul. Into our ordinary thoughts and ideas borrowed from the surrounding world, intoour feelings and sentiments, into our temperament and habits, these influences of the dead are working as I have nowdescribed. And there is a constant mutual interaction between what goes on in the realm of those who have passedthrough the gate of death, and our own souls.

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If you bear all this in mind, you will say to yourself: Complicated workings are contained in that which we bear within us as our soul; and much is necessary fully to perceive all the mysterious forces that pulsate in the human soul. Thesoul has very little in its own consciousness of all that is pulsating in it. But the mood and attunement of the soul, and itsability or inability in one direction or another, depend on all these things. For on a large scale all this is determined oncemore through our karma. The fact that we are brought together here with this man or that, and that they in turn work downupon us in the way I have described, is, of course, connected with our karma in the widest sense.

In bringing all this before us, we must realise, of course, that our age has a real longing for what Spiritual Science brings to men; and the real longings are frequently satisfied today by quite erroneous methods. Thus there are many

people today who have decidedly got beyond the prejudice which people had in the middle of the 19th century, and evenin the last third of the 19th century — the prejudice that all things of the soul can still be explained from physical and

physiological effects. Frequently, however, half- or quarter-truths have far worse effects than complete errors. Thus it is ahalf- or quarter-truth which underlies what is so frequently described today as analytical psychology or psychoanalysis.People are truly seeking but they are groping in the dark; they divine that many things are hidden in the foundations of thesoul, but they cannot resolve to take the real steps into the spiritual world, so as to find what is hidden there, in the depthsof the soul.

What do the psychoanalysts say? They say: Observe a human being as he meets us just in ordinary life. His feelingand condition as a whole depends very largely, not only on what is there in his consciousness, but on a variety of factorswhich lie in the unconscious, beneath the threshold of consciousness. There comes a man, feeling in a depressed mood; anirregularity in his whole nervous apparatus is apparent. In such a case — the psychoanalyst opines — we must look andsee what he may have experienced perhaps many years ago; experiences which he may not altogether have assimilated,

but which he pressed down into the subconscious.

The psychoanalyst divines quite well that that which has been removed from consciousness has not therefore beenremoved from reality; it is still there, down in the subconscious. But his idea is this: If we can only entice it forth into theconsciousness by a kind of catechising process, then we shall perceive what is consuming and gnawing at him down

below. (I cannot, of course, explain psychoanalysis here in all its ramifications; I will only show you a few features of it.)

Starting from this point, the psychoanalyst looks for many things in the foundations of the soul. Years ago, the human being had perhaps this or that ideal of life, this or that hope or plan. He did not carry it out; he was not able to do so. It isno longer in his consciousness, for he is living in his present life. But it is not eliminated from the reality of his soul; there

it goes on gnawing away and consuming him. And his whole mood and condition depends on what is there beneath in hissubconsciousness. Perhaps he had an unhappy love affair — that is what the psychoanalysts generally find, for they are onthe lookout for it. It is an isolated province in his subconsciousness; he has fought against it, but it goes on working.

Notably it will go on working — so believe the psychoanalysts — if feelings of love were there, while the beloved beingwas removed; that is to say, if the love remained unsatisfied.

In addition to these disappointed spring time hopes of life — in addition to what I have just indicated — the psychoanalyst seeks in the depths of the soul for what we might call the ‘animal morass’ at the very basis of human life — the ‘animal morass’ or slime of life working constantly upward to the surface — connected, as they conceive it, withall that man possesses as an animal being, playing upward into his soul's life. Some psychoanalysts will go still further: if we get further and further down, we find at length what plays upward into the soul out of racial and national connectionsand the like, playing into the soul's life in more or less unconscious ways. And at last, at the very bottom, there issomething demonic — the most undefined of all — lying even beneath the ‘animal morass’, at the very ground of life.Such people, who are among the special followers of the modern psychoanalysts, will sometimes gently hint that in thesedemonic depths beneath are to be found the impulses that lead people to such subjects as Gnosis, Theosophy andAnthroposophy. Although it is hinted at in a rather veiled way, still the hint is there. Read one of the last numbers of the

periodical Wissen und Leben — I think it is called — and you will find such hints at one place and another, albeit they arerather hidden between the lines.

I said half- or quarter-truths often have a far worse effect than complete mistakes. Analytical psychology in its searchfor the sub-conscious foundations of the soul contains half and quarter-truths. Compare it with what we have pointed outtoday. The realities that live in the foundations of the soul work in towards us from the realm of the dead. Here we are ledto quite a different way of thinking; we shall not seek for the ‘animal morass’ of the soul; we shall not try to interpret thisor that mood of the soul from the aspect of disappointed love affairs. On the contrary, we shall often have to seek theunderlying cause of an unhappy mood of soul in this or that departed one, for whom we are making difficulties throughour own conduct — which difficulties find expression in dissatisfactions of one kind or another, surging up into our consciousness.

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In short, we shall do well to bring home to ourselves with true reverence this actual connection with the spiritualworld. It is the connection of our world, not with an abstract, vaguely pantheistic spiritual world, but with the realspiritual world wherein those who have passed through the gate of death are living as real beings. They are with us evennow, as they were with us in life. But what they do with us now touches our soul far more nearly than what they did inlife, when we were always separated from them by our body and theirs, which stood between us like a barrier.

Then comes a later time, when man has become utterly free from the astral body — when he has laid aside the astral. Not long after this, man is able to work down from the spiritual world into the physical in a more inward way. In former times, the outer life was frequently arranged instinctively according to these truths. Customs that arose in outer life might

often be referred, it is true, to ordinary outer reasons, but an inner reason underlay the outer, though it was often onlyknown by instinct. I said: the dead, soon after passing through the gate of death, are in direct connection with the human

beings whom they have left behind, especially with those to whom they are lovingly united, and the connection is suchthat they work upon our habits. For this reason, in the times when such things were still felt instinctively, care was takenthat a son should remain as far as possible in the whole circle with which his parents were connected. Learning the same

business, spending his life in the same profession, he should remain where access was easier for them. All in all, thisconservative way of holding on to the same stream of life was an instinctive expression of the desire to make it easier for those who had passed through the gate of death to work in upon those whom they had left behind. For if the latter were insimilar circumstances to those in which the dead themselves had lived, it made it easier for the dead to find the way tothem. In time to come historians will well observe such intimate impulses and underlying reasons in the historic evolutionof mankind.

Now, as we know, when man has been still longer dead, he will have completely laid aside the astral body. But thisonly happens after decades, for we experience things much slower in the spiritual world than in the physical. One year of the spiritual world corresponds to 30 years of the physical. Man has a way of hastening here in the physical worldwhereas in the spiritual world, so to speak, he always has to revolve in far larger circles. So, as one spiritual year is equalto 30 earthly years, in one year of the spiritual he experiences approximately the same piece of the world as in 30 years of the physical. He thereby experiences it more intensively, more inwardly.

All in all, what man lives through on Earth is multiply connected with the great universe, the macrocosm. Therefore,what is experienced in the microcosm, in man himself, always finds expression even in the numerical relations to themacrocosm. I will only draw your attention to one point: Reckon up the number of days in an average human life; you getthe same number of years — purely as a number — which the Sun requires to process through the complete Platonic year,

the cosmic year. Man's life is numbered by as many days as the Sun requires years to advance through the whole cosmiccircle in its precession from one sign of the zodiac to another. The Sun requires about 25,900 and a few more years to process through all the signs of the zodiac. Man lives for about as many days — though, of course, it is not always equal — in his individual life between birth and death.

Another interesting connection is this one: man has as many breaths in one day as the number of days he lives, or asthe number of years it takes for the Sun to process through the whole zodiac. You see, therefore, in the very deepest sensethe world is ordered according to measure and number. One should imagine that this delicate incorporation of man intothe universe — this correspondence of the harmonies — would lead the crude materialists of our time beyond their limited outlook which sees nothing more in the whole universe than a great mechanism. Truly it is a strange mechanismwhich contains all its individual beings organically within itself, in wondrously harmonious numerical relation to thewhole.

It is indeed a strange thing. When we consider the world spiritually, we can actually say: In the evolution which takesits course between death and a new birth, man advances more slowly in order that he may do things more thoroughly. Notonly so; he advances as many times more slowly in the spiritual world as Saturn courses around the sun more slowly thanthe Earth. Saturn runs its course around the Sun as many times more slowly than the Earth, as man in the spiritual worldmoves more slowly than he moves on the physical Earth. For this reason, and not because they knew less than theastronomers of today, the ancients reckoned Saturn as the outermost planet of the solar system. Even astronomicallyspeaking, they were right, for the other planets which are now included — Uranus and Neptune — joined the system at alater time; moreover, they circle around in quite a different order, even in a different rotation than the planets belonging tothe solar system proper.

Now at least one such spirit-year — that is, 30 earthly years — must have elapsed before the soul (assuming, needlessto say, that a normal age of 70 or 80 was attained) can enter not merely into the habits, but into the whole thought andoutlook, into the spiritual life of those whom they have left behind or who join on of their own free will. Nevertheless, inthis way too the dead work into our life on a very large scale. It is so indeed. In the whole spirit, in the whole way of thought in which we live, we bear within us the impulses of men who died long ago and who work into us. Altogether, the

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connection of the future with the past is brought about precisely in this way, through this actual connection of the deadwith the living.

The mediate manifestation of the dead, through the etheric body which they have laid aside, works upon our Imaginative cognition. That influence which enters, as above described, into our habits, works upon our Inspirationalcognition. And the influence to which I now refer, which can only work when man has passed through a whole spirit-year, works — if we are conscious of it — into our Intuitive cognition. But in any event these influences are working allthe time; nor can we truly understand the sense of evolution unless we bear these things in mind.

Forgive my inserting at this point a personal remark — you know I am not fond of doing so, and I do so seldom.Anyone who looks at what I wrote when I first began my work, decades ago, will see that at that time I disregarded what Ihad to bring forward as my own opinion. I did not write my opinion about Goethe, but tried to express the thoughts thatcame forth from Goethe. I did not write my own Theory of Knowledge, but a Theory of Knowledge implicit in Goethe'sConception of the World. In this way it is possible quite consciously to connect oneself with men long dead and work outof their spirit. Indeed this is what gives one, as it were, a true, legitimate certificate to influence the living. It is a badcertificate which people of our time are so very keen upon: namely, that every individual, scarcely has he conceived anopinion, should wish to communicate it forthwith to as many followers as possible.

He who is aware of the conditions of existence, the fundamental laws that work from the spiritual world, knows thatin truth a man cannot rightly work into the depths of the souls of his fellowmen until he is dead — strange as it maysound. Even then he cannot, till he has passed through a spirit-year, that is to say, 30 earthly years. Infinitely much would

be achieved if once this selflessness gained ground a little in the world, so that those who lived later would connect their own work with the dead, and consciously try to maintain the continuity in evolution. Whether it be a pure electiveaffinity, or some other relationship brought about by karma, to attach ourselves to those who are trying so hard to send the

pure rays of their influence out of the spiritual world is of infinite significance, and it is so most of all if we do itconsciously.

I have tried to call forth in you a feeling for the way in which the so-called dead and the so-called living work together. Now we must realise that the conditions are very different in the spiritual world and here. You will find a greatdeal about the conditions of experience in the spiritual world in the lectures Life Between Death and a New Birth which Igave a few years ago in Vienna. But of course one can only select a few points especially important from one aspect or another. Now here it must be said that there is in the spiritual world something very similar, and again dissimilar, to our

physical experience.

Before we enter the physical world in the full sense, we undergo the embryo period of existence. There the conditionsof life are very different from what they become the moment we enter fully into the physical world as breathers of theouter air. Now in a certain sense and style, the time we go through after death in the first spirit year, which is so oftencalled the period of Kamaloca, is very like the embryo period of existence. Just as the human being calls to his aid, as itwere, another human being by whom he lets himself be borne into the physical world through the 10 lunar months, solikewise, through all the wishes and cravings which hold him to the physical and which he slowly casts aside, he letshimself be borne into the spiritual world. Moreover, his consciousness in this first year of the spirit still to some extentresembles his consciousness in the physical world, although the faculties which are only to be acquired in the physicalworld can only be transmitted mediately through the etheric body. But after this first spirit-year a far higher consciousnessensues than anything which we can have here in the physical body.

If you remember many things that were said in the above-mentioned lectures, you will see how very different is thisconsciousness in the spiritual world. You need only remember how much our consciousness depends on what can enter into us. When we go about as ordinary men in the physical world, the phenomena of the mineral, plant and animalkingdoms of nature, and of the physical human kingdom, come into us along with other experiences of soul — experiences of civilisation and the like. But after death, what becomes of the major part of that which enters our soul lifethrough the faculties we possess here in the physical world? The mineral world as such — this we no longer perceive atall, as you are well aware; and of the plant world we only see the all-pervading life. You can read in my Theosophy howthese things are, as we ascend within the spiritual world.

Experience in the spiritual world is in fact quite different in kind. Indeed, for these things, there are no words which

you can understand. Our language after all is created for the physical; hence it is always difficult to describe these thingscorrectly, and one can easily be misunderstood. Above all, we can only express ourselves by comparisons Consider thefollowing: here in the physical world you stand as it were, in a single point of the whole world structure, and look outwith your eyes in all directions of the surrounding sphere. In the spiritual world it is not so; there you look in from thecircumference as it were, towards the interior of a hollow sphere. But this is only a comparison; in reality it is not a

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hollow sphere, for time plays a greater part in it than space. Nevertheless, it is from the circumference that you observe allthings. Hence the conditions of ideation are quite different; even within your thinking the conditions are quite different.

I will describe it somewhat crudely: suppose a man had passed through the gate of death 60, 70 or 80 years ago, or even earlier. He feels distinctly a certain inner experience. When you feel hunger in the physical life, you do not say ‘thehunger is here’ or ‘the hunger is there’ but ‘the hunger is in you’. Or again, take the case when you feel pain in this or that

part of your body. So it is when you look inward from the whole surrounding sphere; you feel that at a certain place thereis something. You know there is something that wishes to have something to do with you, and now you must beginmaking great efforts to get rid of it. Think what this means: to get rid of that which has manifested itself. And only when

you have got rid of it, only then does there emerge the true being that is trying to reveal itself. Thus we may say: asspiritual beings we have an idea within us, but the idea tells us nothing whatever as yet; we must first get rid of it. Then,when we have got rid of it, then do we find within us — strange as it may sound, it is so — an angel or archangel who isrevealing himself to us. His presence is first announced to us in the idea; yet we ourselves must first achieve the actual

presence. Perception in the spiritual world is thus bound up with real labour, with a strong exertion of our forces. Andonly the souls who have remained here in the physical body can to some extent manifest themselves upward to the deadwithout their undergoing this exertion. This is what happens when you concentrate your thoughts on the dead man, or

bring something before him by reading to him or the like. In all that I have been saying, I only wished to make it clear toyou how altogether different are the conditions of life and experience in the spiritual world. This being so, you will nolonger find it surprising that one year of spirit time represents 30 years of physical time. For in the spirit we are in thecircumference and look in towards the centre; it is very important to remember this.

I made it my chief task today to describe to some extent how the souls who have passed through the gate of deathwork down into the world in which the others have remained behind, with whom they were connected while in the

physical body. Thus you have seen once more, from another aspect, how the world is an interconnected whole. Truly it isonly for outer physical perception that the dead are dead. In reality, the moment they pass through the gate of death theyhave a new way of access to our souls. That is the difference. They now work into us from within, whereas they formerlyworked into us from without. For us, these things should more and more become no mere external theories; they shouldlive their way into our consciousness, till they are no longer a merely theoretic ‘world conception’, but world perception,or even world feeling. Then will Spiritual Science bear the fruits which it is meant to bear, and which it truly can.

One more remark in conclusion. Think what it means that at a certain period between death and a new birth man musthave the inner Feeling that he carries the Hierarchies within him as his own inner experience. It is really so. This might

well lead the human being to the most appalling arrogance, which would live as a dim feeling in his soul when he isreborn. In ancient times there was a natural limit to such arrogance, in this way: human beings passing through the gate of death and entering into the spiritual world were somehow aware that it was not they themselves who were beholding, butthat the highest beings of the Hierarchies were living in them and communicating the vision to them. But man has lost thisconnection in the spiritual world, just as in the physical world he has lost the old atavistic clairvoyance. Instead there mustnow come into us what St. Paul expressed in the words ‘Not I, but Christ in me’, which words are endowed with realspiritual feeling when we say ‘Out of God we are born; into Christ we die’.

If we learn this in all its depths, through the feeling which can come to us in Spiritual Science, that Christ is for theEarth, then we shall rightly place ourselves into the vision from the surrounding sphere. Then, having lived through thegate of death with the right feeling: ‘Into Christ we die’, and gazing in from the surrounding sphere, among all the beingswhom we behold — beings of the Hierarchies, elemental beings, beings such as the human souls, incarnate or discarnate

— among all these, we shall also find our own Ego-being; and we shall behold from outside the relation of this our ownEgo to all the other beings. To be able to have this feeling after we have passed through the gate of death is of infiniteimportance. Only if we can have this feeling towards our own Ego, only then can we find our true way again into physicalincarnation. And there is no other way of having this feeling; we can only owe it to the right passage through the gate of death — the passing through the gate of death with the inner feeling: ‘we have died into Christ’. This union with Christgives us the possibility to behold, as it were with the eye of the soul of Christ Himself, our relation within the spiritualworld, to behold ourselves as Ego being among the other beings.

This, my dear friends, is what I would always like to attain. When, as a result of such studies as we have made today,we take with us once more a new piece of knowledge, the knowledge should also be transformed into inner feeling. Evenif all the ideas developed in this lecture should have passed by us like a dream; if the one fundamental feeling remains,which I have sought to gather up in these concluding words, then we shall carry with us into our further life the real fruitsof such a line of thought. For I have tried to show how the death in Christ can place us rightly into the spiritual world — so rightly, so abundantly, that we can carry it with us through the physical world in our next earthly incarnation

We remain together in such feelings, recognising that they have power to unite us more intensely. So there will byand by arise in the world the true, invisible community of those who are devoted to Anthroposophy, holding together

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through such inner feelings born out of the clear ideas of Spiritual Science. The world has need of this indivisiblecommunity of souls, able to carry into it the inner force of such communion as I have just described. In this sense we will

be together spiritually for the future, though for a time we may not be together physically. So indeed it should always beamong us; our communion in the spirit should sustain our coming together in the physical.

the presence of the dead on the spiritual path

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