THE SUBCONSCIOUS STRATA OF THE SOUL-LIFE AND THE LIFE OF THE SPIRIT
AFTER PREMATURE DEATH
[Note by Editor: Dr. Steiner has changed the translation
consciousness soul to spiritual soul.]
Berlin, 20th November, 1915.
Those days in which we have been able to meet together we have devoted
to throwing light from one point of view or another on the connection
between the life of man here on the physical plane and the life he
leads between death and rebirth, as well as on the connection between
the individual successive earth-lives through which man passes. We
have seen that when the attempt is made to go deeper into these
relations the investigation becomes very complicated; but, in reality,
only then does it become fruitful for us, for it can then give many
conclusions concerning the details of the riddles and questions of
Life. We wish to go further into these considerations; in order to do
this, we must to-day begin by penetrating a little into the structure
of man, with which we are already acquainted, but which we must go
over once again with reference to certain qualities necessary for the
following considerations.
Now you will have seen from the various cycles, lectures and books,
that we live here on earth as human beings in a quite definite epoch
of the earth's evolution; and from the whole spirit of our
consideration we have been able to gather that there is an inner
purpose, a certain inner significance in the fact that we carry our
souls through all these different epochs of the earth's evolution.
From the descriptions which have been given, you will already have
seen that not merely the external life, but the whole life of man here
on earth is naturally different in the various epochs. We shall for
the present only consider the life of the soul. The life of the soul
was different if we consider only the Post-Atlantean epochs
in the old Indian, old Persian, Egypto-Chaldean or the
Greco-Latin age, and it is again different in our time. We carried our
souls through all these epochs. In all of these epochs our souls
sought bodies (most of us more than once in the same epoch) which gave
them the possibility of taking up the world in the way best adapted to
the forces of that particular epoch. If you remember what has been
said about the peculiarities of the soul-life in the various epochs,
you will be able to acquire a still more accurate insight. For
example: when we regard the life of the first Post-Atlantean epoch, we
find that the human soul during its life on earth was then chiefly
occupied in working out the interaction of its own being with the
etheric body; thus, as it were, experiencing in the right manner that
which can be experienced here in the earth-life by a soul interacting
chiefly with the etheric body. Then in the second Post-Atlantean
period the soul went through everything which can be experienced
through the interchange with the astral body. In the third
Post-Atlantean epoch of civilisation the soul lived through everything
that can be experienced through interaction with the sentient soul; in
the fourth epoch of civilisation it experienced the interaction with
the rational or intellectual soul, and we in our time go through
everything which can be experienced by means of the interaction with
the conscious or spiritual soul. The soul, according to its experience
while working in the different epochs on the various principles of
human nature, makes a greater or less individual progress in the
general development of the world. Man has completely different
experiences during these different epochs; as regards the relation of
his soul to the entire Cosmos, he changes absolutely. We must already
have some idea of this, from what has previously been said. Thus we,
in our epoch, are living in the conscious or spiritual soul, and the
whole civilisation of our fifth epoch is devoted to teaching the whole
human soul, the entire human Ego, to form such connections with the
world as are possible with a self-conscious soul. In our epoch we gain
our experience through adapting our forces to the conscious or
spiritual soul.
Now, it is possible to look at the whole matter from another point of
view. By what means does it come about in the general cosmic relations
that one lives in the conscious or spirit-soul? As man, one naturally
lives, not only in the spiritual soul, but also in the other
principles of the human nature. In a narrower sense, in our age we
build chiefly those capacities which humanity is at present acquiring
by our life in the spiritual soul for through the medium
of that principle we live in our Ego, in the physical life between
birth and death. The Greek in the fourth Post-Atlantean period was not
so entirely dependent on his physical body as we are. The Greek lived
still more of an inner life in his body. This caused him to work in
the rational or intellectual or mind-soul, (*Mind-soul in the old
English sense: I have a mind to do this.) and he was thus
in a position to fill out his physical body in quite a different
manner than is possible to us. Each movement of the hand, for
instance, produced a much stronger inner feeling in the Greek than in
the body of to-day. External science cannot enter into these things,
but they exist nevertheless. When he bent his arm the Greek felt the
swelling of each single muscle, he felt the angle it formed. That is
why the Greek as a sculptor was in a position to create quite
differently. The present-day sculptor works from a model. He beholds
the model and works accordingly. Not so the Greek. He had an inner
feeling of the form of the arm, of the physiognomy, etc., and this to
him was inner experience. But man when he lives in the consciousness
soul is now torn out of that which can be experienced in the physical
body. He has, as it were, penetrated more deeply into his physical
body, he has become more closely united with it than the Greek could
be, but he has, through this, become insensible to all that the
physical body gives. He makes use of the organs of the physical body
in a higher sense than did the Greek. The Greek could not see certain
shades of colour, as we see them to-day, because he was not so much
within the physical body as we are to-day. If you re-read Homer you
will be able to notice that he mentions few colours. Everything is
changed in like manner. Man allies himself more closely with his
physical body, but he does not experience so much his own inner being
in this physical body. Rather must one say that instead of perceiving
his inner being in the physical body, he contacts the external world
more. In short, there is a struggle for the capacities of the physical
body, whereas in Greece there was rather a struggle for form. Thus we
can say: we build up the consciousness soul because with our Ego we
bring about a certain inner relation with our physical body, because
we work our way so deeply into the physical body. In this way the time
has come in which we no longer know very much of spiritual processes
and things; the time of materialism, because man has urged himself so
deeply into his physical body.
Now, within the physical body there naturally lies the etheric body.
The Greek still knew much more of his etheric body. He dimly
perceived, even though only as a reminiscence, that the etheric body
always echoes the movements of the physical body. He still felt that
it is not merely the physical hand which moves, but that the etheric
hand moves with it, and lies at the basis of the physical movement.
All this is now forgotten, but man, while he lived in the Greek age,
so experienced it all that he felt himself much more intensely in this
etheric body than he does now, and that knowledge is not utterly lost.
As soul-beings, we have all gone through it, and it remains in our
etheric body. It all remains there as preserved thoughts, and when we
leave the world in which we dwell between death and rebirth, we leave
behind, as if forgotten, everything which we were previously very well
able to dominate in our etheric body. We now thrust ourselves so
deeply into our physical body that we leave behind all we acquired in
the Grecian epoch. From this you see that man's etheric body really
contains much more than he now realises. At present he evolves his
consciousness chiefly within his physical body, and in so doing he
covers up what is in his etheric body. If he only possessed all the
knowledge of the inner human organisation which is concealed in his
etheric body, he could know infinitely more than he does now. For this
etheric body has acquired a certain perfection, greater than man is at
present aware of. In regard to it especially, much is driven back
because it cannot be brought to consciousness in a suitable manner.
Man knows very little of his etheric body.
Among other things in the etheric body the astral body, as you
know, is also at work there. Everything which the etheric body
accomplishes must naturally be thought of as permeated by the astral
body. If we could suddenly bring to the surface all that the etheric
body contains we should be infinitely cleverer than we are at the
present epoch, in which we have to struggle on with nothing but the
physical body. For this etheric body contains much (naturally the
astral body also shares in this), it contains infinite treasures of
wisdom. These lie in the depths of our soul, within the etheric body.
There we find a host of dexterities, a mass of information. For
instance, in reference to Geometry. I have once before mentioned how
much we all unconsciously know of Geometry. This is actually a fact.
For when we learn Geometry we do not learn it from outside things, it
is reached by bringing that which is in the etheric body to
consciousness. If we draw external figures, they merely serve as an
inducement. If I draw a triangle, of which I know that the angles =
180o, I have the knowledge of this through the etheric
body. We only draw figures in consequence of human laziness. In
reality we know everything that can be learnt of Geometry. We know it
unconsciously, it rests below in the depths of the unconscious
soul-life. We have no idea how clever we are in the subconscious
depths of the soul. Could we but know it! The evil in human evolution
does not lie in man having little wisdom within him, but in his
powerlessness to extract that wisdom out of his own soul. All
educational development consists in bringing out the concealed wisdom
lying in the depths of the soul. Now, if we were not obliged to bring
up these things in this difficult way, we could not properly advance
our evolution. Just think! If we were not to acquire such a relation
to our physical body as we now have, we should really be born as
terribly clever children, and it would not take much to bring out at a
relatively early age that which lies within the etheric body. But man
would then take far too little trouble to acquire wisdom, and it would
thereby be too little his own, he would be too much a mere copy of
wisdom. A personal assimilation arises through our having such a
relation to the physical body as is ordained for this fifth epoch of
culture. This personal assimilation causes knowledge to become our
very own possession. When we delve for it in this fashion, our
knowledge is then our own: we have it for ourselves. This holds good
with reference to the etheric body.
With reference to the astral body something quite different holds
good, and that is as follows: If we were able to draw forth everything
lying in the astral body, everything which the astral body knows, in
all its details, that would be of no advantage for our present life.
For we should then really live amongst our fellow-men as automatons.
Indeed, our astral body knows, though our consciousness does not, the
relation in which, as astral body, it stands to all the individual
persons it contacts in life. Our astral body has such a consciousness.
So that if we could make use of everything the astral body knows, we
should be absolutely aware for instance, that with this or that person
we shall have trouble; and this person or the other will be a kind
friend. Such knowledge would naturally change life utterly, but for
our present earthly relations, not in a good sense. Now, I could
relate still more concerning what the astral body knows (and
unconsciously it does already use its knowledge), but it is a
knowledge that really is very little noticed in the connections of
human life. Suppose a man perishes through an accident. In ordinary
human life it appears to us as if the accident had overtaken the man,
for according to our present consciousness, man does not seek an
accident. But if we investigate the astral body, we shall find no
single accident which man, in so far as he is in the astral body, has
not sought. That which is necessary for ordinary consciousness, is
sought by the astral body out of a free inner choice. It is thus
willed, actually willed by the astral body. Even if a man is run over
by a railway train, that is brought about by the astral body, with
regard to the whole connections of his life. It is not something which
merely happens by accident. Thus we not only have our connection with
our fellow-men as wisdom in our astral body, but in reality our
connection also with the entire outer life, with that which runs its
course as natural events, or other social happenings in which we are
implicated. It is good that all this is purposely hidden from us,
otherwise we should learn nothing for our further evolution: but there
exists in the astral body a true thought, I mean a kind of knowledge
of everything, which shows our connection with the events and human
elements in which we are involved. Man takes little heed of this in
ordinary life. For when anything happens to us, we say, This has
just occurred, and, as a rule, that is the only thing observed.
We do not really consider what would have happened if that particular
event had not occurred. I will bring forward a striking instance. At a
particular time in his life a man is wounded. In ordinary life one
merely thinks: Yes, he has been wounded, and that ends the matter.
What would have happened if he had not been wounded? To this, one pays
no attention, but through a wound the whole life may be altered,
everything that follows may be different. Now, the astral body beholds
the entire connection, before the wounding of the man. One may say the
astral body is clairvoyant.
And the true Ego, which rests still deeper in the subconsciousness,
and which dwells in the inner depths of our being, is much more
clairvoyant still. As you already know, we built up our physical body
on old Saturn, our etheric body on the Sun, and our astral body on the
old Moon. Our Ego is the baby among the human principles, it is the
youngest. Not till the Vulcan period, after the Jupiter and Venus
evolutions are completed, will the Ego be formed, as the physical body
is fashioned now but this Ego rests the whole time in the bosom
of the spiritual world. Then, during the Vulcan epoch, an
inconceivable knowledge of the connections of life will stream out of
the Ego. But this knowledge is already now within us and the evolution
on Jupiter and Venus will consist in drawing out the capacity for
using it.
Thus, while we regard these depths of the soul's life, we see in a
wonderful manner our connection with the spiritual world. We men in
ordinary human life are only given what we are able to receive,
because the Ego is reflected in the physical body: but behind this
rests a widely extended earthly knowledge, which is in the etheric
body. Behind this again rests a clairvoyant knowledge which is already
in the astral body, and a still more clairvoyant knowledge which is in
the true Ego. It is good to place these things before the mind, before
going on to what I now have to say. Let us consider the case which at
the present time is speaking so deeply to the soul in such manifold
ways, of a man who in early youth is led through the gates of death
from the battle-field. It then happens that the more deeply-lying
principles of human nature (etheric body, astral body, and Ego), are
torn out of their connection with the physical body, in quite a
different way from what occurs when one becomes old and slowly dies in
bed. A quicker separation from the physical body often takes place
I have already spoken of the prophetic nature of the etheric
body. We have said that even in dreams if we were able in a sense to
interpret the pictures we see, we should know that in our etheric
body, through the dream which arises because the astral body turns to
the etheric body, which then receives as a reflection what the astral
body is experiencing that in these pictures there is something
which indicates our future life, something of a prophetic nature.
Now for the spiritual investigator who has to investigate those
things, an important question arises out of such considerations. He
has first to place this question before himself. And the posing of the
question is then a kind of introduction to the answer which must then
arise from the clairvoyant observation. For example; one must say:
Here on earth, according to the normal course of life Man is destined
to reach old age and to use up his life slowly. To this end his
etheric body, astral body, and Ego are adjusted. This would occur, if
the course of life were normal: but now, through a shell that suddenly
strikes a man, the whole connection is disturbed. Through this, a
certain faculty of the etheric body (I will for the present limit our
consideration to the individual man), that force which would have been
able to work as if prophetically through the entire life, which would
have been able to lead him through many other relations in life
that force is torn out of life; it is separated from the physical
plane. Just suppose that the shell had not struck the man. (We can put
this hypothesis and not consider the fact that all this is of course
karmic). Well, he would then have gradually used up that force in his
etheric body, perhaps during many years. That force is nevertheless in
the inner part of his soul. It does not cease to exist, and it may be
perceived when the man, who has been killed by a shell, gazes on his
life-tableau, looks back in the etheric body. I have already indicated
that this life-picture has a quite special characteristic. It has the
characteristic of seeming to come from the outer world, rather than of
having to be produced from within.
In short, that energy, that force, which is then cut off, remains in
the man. Observation reveals the fact that the force is there and
transforms the entire life following after death. It is just the same
with the force in the astral body. This, too, would have been used
during the whole life. This also is still there. In short, a man goes
in quite a different way through the gates of death, if he is
violently torn out of physical life. If he has perhaps been struck by
a shell, and loses his life in that manner, it is not the same as if
he dies slowly in his bed. Now for the spiritual investigator there
arises a great question: What is the actual significance of this? What
does it mean for his epoch when a man, as in the case quoted, really
brings something quite different into the spiritual world from what he
would have brought if he had lived his life out? For such an epoch as
the one in which we live, this question is of infinite importance, for
much of what has just been described is being carried up into the
spiritual world. What does this signify for the spiritual world? This
is a tremendously significant question! When one studies a little the
relation of the spiritual world to the physical world (as one can in
the Vienna cycle: Inner Being of Man and Life Between Death
and Rebirth), something becomes important which for a long
time has not been believed, but which reveals itself clearly to
spiritual investigation. It is the following. In reality all our
conceptions and ideas change on entering the spiritual world; not only
on entering the spiritual world through initiation, but also on
entering it through the gates of death. You see, here on earth, man
really evolves more and more in a definite direction. One might call
it that of the so-called concept of being. And to-day
people are already greatly taken with this idea of the concept
of being. What do I really mean by this? Nowadays hardly
anything is regarded as of value unless it is conceived as actually
existing. When anyone comes who does not speak of something palpable,
he is considered a dreamer. Men go about speaking of
reality, and compared to this, mere thought is nothing.
Countless men do not value thought to-day because they cannot lay hold
of it. Existence means the forcible realisation of that
which is perceived; one has nothing to do with bringing about the
existence of a thing, its existence is obvious. And anything which
cannot in this way be proved to exist, is held by man in ever
decreasing regard.
In the evolution of the spiritual world the reverse is the case.
There, that which exists and makes an impression, such as a physical
object, is for the man in the spiritual world something inimical,
something disturbing, something of which he knows that it pertains to
the nothingness, and that it is destined to disappear into
nothing. And if one enters without further ado into a spiritual region
in which there are perhaps rather undeveloped souls (souls who to the
spiritual world are just as simple as many souls appear to be in the
earthly world), then one finds the opposite opinion prevailing even
there. Anything to which these dead souls attach value should not
exist, as one speaks of existence here on the earth. Existence here,
as such, is of no value to these souls. In the spiritual life it
really is the case that one confronts pure spiritual beings. They
affect one. But one must first acquire perception for them. It is
thus: one stands in the spiritual world; behind one stand souls
belonging to the spiritual hierarchies, Angels, Archangels, and so on.
One knows they are there. But if a man is to perceive them, he must
first arouse them into that which one here calls
existence. That which in the spiritual world works on one,
must be brought into an Imagination. That which is
non-awakened being, to which man does nothing, which
simply exists of itself, that is of no value in the spiritual world.
Here man stands on the earth, and is surrounded by nature. But the
spiritual world demands that man should raise himself up to it, for it
is not there without further ado. To have nature around one requires
no special trouble. It exists, as it were, of itself. Therefore the
materialistic love to have nature around them. But in the spiritual
world nature is no longer there. For man, there only exists in the
spiritual world that which he himself continuously works at. There he
has to be continually active. That which is there, is the other world,
that world which man has forsaken, to which he continually looks back,
as though to a world of existence. The world, which carries the
transitory within itself, continually battles with the non-existent.
If for one moment the world so beloved by the materialists were to
disappear, if men were to know nothing of their bodies, but first had
to create the imagination of them, if they were to know
nothing of the table until they had created it for themselves in
thought, but could instead see the spiritual world then they
would have in this life here below what they have there in the
spiritual world. Those in the spiritual world can only bring it to
perception by their own activity. The other world
our own world here below is always present. Whereas here the
heaven is hidden and only the world which is round us is always
present, there the surrounding world is hidden unless we ourselves
bring it into vision by our own efforts. For one who can have
immediate cognisance of it, it is easy there to believe in the
world beyond, which is our present one. But consider from
the standpoint of the spiritual that which makes this world of ours, I
might almost say, disagreeable, is its permeation with existence. It
is a disturbing fact that it is permeated with existence that
really is disturbing. Many say: A spiritual world indeed!
I would willingly believe in one if I could only see it! If I could
see it while here! We may compare that remark with what the
souls in the spiritual world say: We might endure that physical
world continually existing down there if only it was not permanently
present. If only it were not so permeated with being. We cannot look
down on to the earth without seeing in every part of it this terrible
existence.
And if here someone is a practical materialist and does not believe in
idealism, then he loves existence only. But in order that this
conviction of the merely obvious existence may not spread, there
continually arise from time to time the Idealists, who lead humanity
to believe in ideals and their efficacy, in the power of Idealism in
the progress of history. These ideals of the ethical, the beautiful,
the religious, are carried into the world. Certainly the absolute
materialists will have nothing to do with them; at most they dispose
of them in a few words. But just that which in the material sense does
not seem to exist, is carried into the physical plane as the most
precious thing in life. And if the evolution of humanity on the earth
be considered from a higher human point of view, then one may say:
Certainly nature is there, great and significant. But what would this
whole human life be if existing nature alone were there, be it ever so
beautiful: if man were not capable of having ideals, if he could not
be spurred forward, not by that which does not exist, but by that
which ought to exist, the ethical, religious, artistic, and
educational life. It is the non-existing, we might say, that presses
in on us from a spiritual world, as the ideals of humanity, that which
does not exist but that ought to exist, that alone makes life
valuable. Everyone who is not utterly submerged in the swamp of
materialism feels this very strongly. And so those who in the course
of history are in a special sense the bringers of ideals appear as
those who alone give value to the life of existence, out of that which
ought to exist. And now to the spiritual investigator the following
appears. From the spiritual world one looks back in like manner at the
earthly life, but in such a way that, as a higher soul, one longs that
everything on the earth should not merely exist; but that among the
things on the earth there should be something which is not earthly, in
the strictest sense of the words. Something else must be mingled with
the earth-existence, which in the earth-sense has no existence. This
appears as something infinitely significant, when the spiritual
investigator perceives it in connection with those people who were
destined for a long life, and were forcibly cut off. So that there is
a portion of their life which from the spiritual standpoint was really
destined for existence, and which has not lived it out. Let us take
the case of a man who has lived in the world only to his twenty-fifth
or twenty-sixth year instead of to his seventieth or eightieth, for
which he had the necessary life forces. Then, let us say, he is struck
by a shell. The principles of his human nature are suddenly sundered
from one another. The etheric body, astral body and Ego would still
have been able for a long time to develop the faculty of maintaining
the physical body. That which would have been able to continue but for
the shot, was intended for the earth existence. It has not passed into
existence. From the spiritual this appears so that one can say,
Down there is something which does not merely exist.
Something else is mingled with the earth existence, something that was
destined for existence, but which has not lived through it. It is
existence, but merely in germ. Yet in a sense it is something that
ought to exist. Therefore those whose life is thus ended at an early
stage through an external happening, are to the spiritual world, when
they go through the gates of death, in a similar yet not the same
sense, spiritual messengers, as are the Idealists who come here on the
earth, to mix with the existing that which ought to exist. Those who
go early through the gates of death, ascend in order to announce to
the heavens that on the earth there is not only mere existence, but
also that which ought to exist.
An infinitely deep and significant discovery can be made on coming to
this chapter of spiritual investigation, when one learns to know these
idealists impelled to the heavens, who become what they are, by going
through the gates of death in the manner indicated here. And in the
present time it is very fitting that we really unite such a thought
with our souls.
On entering the domain of spiritual life it is necessary that besides
those who, as it were, accomplish their task in the spiritual life,
there should be also those who point to the earth, who have really
woven something into the earth evolution, but have taken it out
earlier than should have been done according to plan. Thus we may say
that those who go early through the gates of death become in many
respects for the human souls in the spiritual world just those who
make it possible to believe in the heights of earth-life. They make it
possible for those yonder to believe that earth-life really contains
something spiritual which is of value; for these souls adopt a similar
position there to the idealists here on earth.
We must always bear in mind that we should not imagine men living on
in the spiritual world as they last were, when here. The trivial ideas
that people hold, as, for instance, that those who die as children
continue to live on as children, are naturally incorrect. The
imagination may picture the dead as we last saw them here, but that is
not their true form; it is rather the expression of it. A child may
die, but the human entity incarnated in the child may be a highly
evolved soul, and continue its life after death as a highly evolved
soul. I have often mentioned this. Thus we see something is carried up
into the spiritual world which, being bound up with earth existence
and nevertheless not consumed by it, should, in a sense not
be there. That works in the evolution which the human soul
passes through between death and rebirth. Those men who have thus gone
through death so pass through the intervening stage, between death and
rebirth, that they there represent the humanity of the earth in a much
richer and more comprehensive sense than one can do who has gone
through a normal earth life. That has nothing to do with what is laid
down for man through Karma. If one lives to be old, that is Karma. If
one dies young, that is Karma. But just as on earth a man cannot make
himself arbitrarily into this or that individuality which his
consciousness on this side of the veil might select, neither can he
determine from the earth-consciousness how the life between death and
rebirth is to be fashioned. If one is taken forcibly from physical
existence into the spiritual world, he then has a much more intense
imaginative vision of everything human than one who enters the
spiritual world in a different fashion. We say that those who pass
thus through the gates of death, stand especially near, during their
life between death and rebirth, to that which happens on the earth, as
far as humanity is concerned. That can be seen by investigating the
lives of persons who have accomplished something of a very special
importance at a particular time of their life, something which could
perhaps only be done by them. Suppose a man accomplishes something of
great importance in a certain direction, at a definite epoch of his
life, for example, in his forty-ninth year. (Naturally this can only
be investigated occultly). If one traces this back, one finds that in
an earlier incarnation, and perhaps just in his forty-ninth year, this
man died a more or less violent death. He acquires this strong
tendency towards the ideal evolution of the earth by having carried up
that which should exist into the spiritual world. Thereby
he incorporated into his whole physical being the strong force
wherewith to accomplish something definite in a definite year. We can
again see from this, as I pointed out in the last lecture, that men
who have to effect many things, especially through their will, and who
thus live more for universal humanity, have carried up in some form,
from some earlier incarnation, such life which ought to
exist.
It is indeed specially difficult, while one only wishes to conceive of
life in the spiritual as a somewhat more refined earthly life, to
reconcile oneself to acquiring the following idea of the spiritual:
Here on earth, physical life is always known of itself; while over
there is the life which is unknown; and that in the spiritual, things
are reversed. People do not take the trouble to understand that
actually, unless one does something oneself, everything is dark and
gloomy in the spiritual life; that one must first bring everything to
light. Everything which is visible is on this side (the physical), but
seen from that side. Also the most significant thing that is
intermingled there consists in something that should
exist. This is a conception which one has to acquire if one
wants to perceive aright the connection of physical life with the
spiritual life.
In our time it is really a good plan to acquaint ourselves with such
conceptions for, as I have said, suffering souls so frequently ask
themselves to-day: Why must so many men be called into the spiritual
world in the flower of their age? Why cannot they complete their life
here? And wonderful as it sounds (though, as I have said, the
spiritual truths may sometimes seem cruel) it is nevertheless true,
that there must be carried into the spiritual world the possibility of
so looking at the earth that this earth itself can be permeated by the
spirit. If all men reached old age normally, if there were no martyrs,
no men able to sacrifice themselves in youth, then would the earth,
regarded from above, lapse into worthless existence. That which is
here mingled with the earth as Ideal, is at the same time that which
continually brings from out of the past something better for the
future. That is connected with what is here sacrificed. Suppose a man
at the age of twenty-six sacrifices his whole future life, which he
otherwise would have employed in his external work, and would have
devoted it to the progress of humanity. This lives further. In the
forces of progress there live the lives that men have sacrificed, the
lives which they would have been able to live here. The evolution of
the earth needs this sacrifice of life. We can thus see how that which
is otherwise merely an abstract idea in our materialistic age, becomes
extremely concrete. In yet another sense than I developed it here in
July, we can say, Not only do these etheric bodies work in the
entire connection of human progress, but the work of those who have
gone early through death also lives on.
The work of these individualities is such that we can ask: Who then
are those who principally labour for the good of humanity in general,
and who set themselves universal tasks in later incarnations? They are
those who in earlier incarnations, have in some way or other died a
death of sacrifice. The devotional natures, those given up to the
spiritual here on the earth, owe this to their life of martyrdom in a
previous incarnation. The earth could not progress unless people
sacrificed themselves.
When we think of this, we can look away from the present into the
future. Such an immense number are now being sacrificed and are
sacrificing themselves. Painful as this is considered from many a
personal standpoint, yet if we look at it from the standpoint of the
wisdom of the Cosmos we may console ourselves. For in proportion to
what is now sacrificed will the forces of progress be given to the
future. Humanity requires such forces of progress. This is not
considered deeply enough today, but it will be, when a sufficient
number not of centuries but of decades, have come and gone in the
present materialistic evolution. The consequence of materialism will
follow with incredible rapidity. The zenith of materialism was really
attained in the Nineteenth Century, and man would be swamped by it
unless something occurred to arrest it. This conversion should be
brought about by Spiritual Science. And this can only be done by
strong forces, working for the ideal to be really worked into earth
life. Many who are now called away will help to prevent the earth from
falling a prey to materialism and being dominated by it.
Just read the course of lectures on the Apocalypse, in which this is
indicated in broad outlines. You can then form some idea how great is
the fruit of the sacrificial deaths that will be required by the earth
in the future, to redeem it as far as possible from sinking into
materialism, and the strife, hate and enmity, connected with it; so
that it can pursue its further course in the Cosmos. Such a time as
ours demands, more than other epochs that we should think, not only on
what is taking place, but on the fruits of these happenings. And we
can only recognise these fruits if we bear in mind the two sides of
Cosmic existence, which shows us that we really experience two
completely different poles of life: one here between birth and death
and the other there between death and rebirth. Here, we are, in a
certain sense, passive in our innermost being, and if we wish to raise
ourselves to the perception of the spiritual world, we have to work so
hard that many find it impossible. There, it is necessary to be active
in order to have with us our vision of the immediately present
spiritual world in which we find ourselves; on the other hand we
always have, as a reminder, the existing world beneath. Here in this
earthly world, the Idealists bear that which should exist,
which makes existence of value. Into that world to which men pass
through the gates of death, which those enter whose life has run its
regular earth course, come those who die more or less early as
martyrs. And there they are: the witnesses, that below on earth, not
merely the material exists, not merely that which is given over to the
nothingness, to the transitory, and decaying but that on this
earth is also intermingled that which is retained by those who did not
complete their life, whose life was indeed forcibly taken from them.
We must take such things not only intellectually but unite them deeply
with our feeling, then may things become comprehensible. Certainly our
present epoch contains many riddles, but some of them can be solved if
we connect the present suffering with the great wisdom of the Cosmos.
And this again is a chapter which if we apply what has now been said
to our own times, may be embodied in the great truth:
From the fighters' courage,
From the blood of battles,
From the mourners' suffering,
From the people's sacrifice,
There will ripen fruits of Spirit
If with consciousness the soul
Turns her thought to Spirit Realms.
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