The
Moment of Death and the Period Thereafter
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 true meaning
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, instead of 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 ours have
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, so that we were able to gain many essential facts,
particularly in regard to this subject. The course which spiritual
science has followed up to now will have shown you that in every
single case it can only speak of things from one definite standpoint,
so that a more accurate knowledge can gradually be acquired by
speaking of things repeatedly and throwing light upon them from many
points of view. Today I shall therefore add to the facts that you
already know in connection with 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 in which 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 super-sensible character
and cannot, therefore, be contemplated with the aid of the ordinary
intellect, which is bound to the brain, and is consequently also
inaccessible to our ordinary science. The etheric body is an organism
having a super-sensible character, concerning which we may say that it
was already known to men such as 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 super-sensible character; but as far as imaginative
knowledge is concerned, it can be contemplated externally,
just as the physical-sensory body can be contemplated 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 an external-sensory
manner in the same way in which we contemplate the physical body
through our external senses, or in the same way in which we
contemplate our etheric body through our inner sense; the astral body
is something that can only be experienced inwardly. We must
experience it inwardly, and in order to experience it we must be
within it. The same 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 during long
periods of development, that passed through the stages of Saturn, the
Sun and the Moon; 12 also the evolution of the Earth
contributed to this development of the physical body, from the 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 might say: our
ordinary physical contemplation and ordinary science, in the form in
which it now lives in the world, merely know 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 have frequently
studied the brain inside the skull when dissecting corpses; we have
frequently studied the stomach and the heart.’ 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 spiritual
science 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 entirely mistaken 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 as our
interior, and the stomach as our exterior. This would lead us far
closer to the truth! It would lead us closer to the real 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 on the surface, the more spiritual are the forces
from which they come; and the more they lie inside our body, the less
spiritual 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 you
carefully remember the descriptions of spiritual science, you will no
doubt remember what it says in regard to the Moon stage of
development, namely, that something split off during the Moon stage
of development, and that something also split 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 human countenance,
which is now turned towards the outer world, was really turned
towards our inner being. Of course, this was only the case during the
early stages of development; but even during a part of the Moon
period, during the Moon existence, the foundation of the inner organs
which we now possess was still formed from outside. Since that time,
we have really been turned inside out, like an overcoat that can be
turned. We should bear in mind that many super-sensible facts are
connected with our physical body. Its whole structure is
super-sensible; the super-sensible 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-sensory
contemplation. But when the human being passes through the
portal of death, it becomes all the more important. The time through
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 the right 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 body is handed over to the elements
of the earth. Now we might think that the physical body simply ceases
to exist for those who 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 part of 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 the Moon existence, and even from a
great portion of the Earth existence, are super-sensible forces. These
super-sensible forces contained in our physical body, of which only
the external part is accessible to our sensory contemplation, as
explained just now — where do these super-sensible 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 that most wonderful structure which 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 the one that sinks down into the earth, as it
were, through the process or 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 the fixed
stars, if you imagine this in the most spiritual form, this
spiritually conceived idea would give you the place where the
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 out into 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 out with lightning
speed into that which forms our physical body from out of all the
super-sensible forces. Imagine that all the constructive forces that
have worked upon your physical body, ever since the time of Old
Saturn, were to stretch themselves into infinity in order to prepare
the place in which you live between death and a new birth. Between
birth and death, 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 whole subsequent
life between death and a new birth. I have often mentioned this. This
experience is of opposite character to the corresponding 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, the
immediate contemplation of our birth can never rise up before our
soul, the moment of death stands before our soul throughout 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 it as 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 that which
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 not 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
that we are an ego only because we know that we have died, that our
spiritual has freed itself from our physical part. When we cannot
contemplate the moment of death, beyond the portal of death, then our
ego-consciousness after death is in the same 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 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 the
sensory-physical world. If we indolently remain with the thoughts
which we have in connection with the physical-sensory world, 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 super-sensible 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 with 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 on earth, lies
at the foundation of our physical body in the form of super-sensible
forces. We are everywhere, except in that 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 a
concavity. This remains empty. It remains empty to such an extent
that a fundamental feeling rises up in connection with it. Namely,
we do not contemplate things in an abstract manner, we do not simply
stare at them, but our contemplation is connected with a
powerful inner life-experience, with a mighty experience. It is
connected with the fact that when we contemplate this emptiness, a
feeling rises up in us, a feeling that accompanies us throughout our
life between death and a new 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
the world for a definite purpose, which I, alone, can fulfil.’
Thus we learn to know our place within the world. We feel that we
are building stones, without which the world could not exist. This
is what arises through the contemplation of that empty space. When
we gaze at it, we are overcome by a feeling telling us that we stand
within the world as something that forms part of it.
All this is connected with the further development of
our physical body. The more elementary forms of description only
enable us to explain schematically, as it were, a reality of the
spiritual world that really requires to be explained in the form of
images. In order to rise gradually to those concepts which penetrate
more deeply into the reality of the spiritual 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 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 experienced during 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 is of 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 whole days, within these experiences. What we experienced
just before death and what we experienced during our childhood
stand 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.
And then 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 through him 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 would
remember things during your ordinary life. The ordinary memories are
grey and faded, but now you remember things in such a way that they
rise up within you as LIVING memories; you see your friend standing
before you in exactly the same 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 hearty manner
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 which they 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.
In regard to the physical world, we have the impression
that our physical body falls away from us when we die; in a similar
way we now have the impression that our etheric body too falls away
from us after a certain number of days, but it does not fall away
from us in the same way in which our physical body falls away, for
it becomes interwoven with the whole universe, with the whole world.
It lives in the world and stamps its impressions upon the whole
world while we are experiencing our life-tableau. What we thus have
before us in the form of a life-tableau has now been handed over to
the 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 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 we experience
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 human kingdoms.
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 believe that 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 this manner 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. We think 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 up and
communicate them to their world. And when we die, we know that the
purpose of our life is to give the Gods the opportunity to spin out
of our life this woof coming from our etheric body and to hand it
over to the whole universe. The Gods 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 the
Gods; 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 us human 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 does this
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 body and 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.
But now 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. Just as 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 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 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 we shall
only acquire later on, during the Jupiter period, in the form of a
more external, physical impression. Now we acquire it spiritually,
through the fact that our etheric being outside makes an impression
upon us. This impression which is thus 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; this
Spirit-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 long
time after death. The astral body remains with us because it is
permeated with all those things that only pertain to the
earthly-human life, and because it cannot immediately expel this. We
now pass through a time during which we can only cast 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
through which we pass. We really experience only half of what takes
place in every one of our experiences. Let us take an example.
Imagine — this applies both to good and to evil thoughts and
actions — but let us take as an example an evil action.
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 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 live through
everything that other people, outside, have experienced through us.
As we go backwards through our life, we experience the effects
of our thoughts and actions. Between death and a new birth we
therefore pass through our life by going 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 earthly experiences
backwards — we are still connected with our earthly life; we
still stand within our earthly existence. Now that we have cast off
— but this is not the right expression; it is, however,
impossible to use another one — now that we have 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 whole experience;
the other aspect is an entirely different one. When we have passed
through our earthly experiences and no longer have our astral body,
we feel, as it were, inwardly filled and permeated with — we
cannot say with material — but with 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 interwoven with the universe. But now it rises up
within us; we now experience it inwardly. And our ego rises up
within us as a prototype of 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 we
acquire self-consciousness, which is the earliest moment of life
that we can recall, so we now lead a form of life that is fully
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 astral which 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 to the physical
world; simultaneously and in connection with them, we also
experience something 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 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 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 gradually dwindles.
Consequently, we also grow tired in a wider sense. When we grow
older, we know that 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 now advance
this problem in a different way; we can ask: why do the Gods allow
us to grow weary? The fact that here on earth 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 know anything
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 the inside 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 existence through
our feelings. As a rule, we only have a more general feeling of our
physical body, and this feeling increases when anything 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.
In growing more and more tired, during the course of 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 old
age. 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 exuberantly healthy child, and immediately
afterwards, for the sake of comparison, like an old man of 80 or 85,
whose limbs have grown fragile. This would enable us to experience
that feeling more strongly, simply because it develops so slowly.
Yet growing 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 that this
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 woven out 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 becomes
interwoven 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 the heart is built from out
of 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 of the cosmos is
woven into us, and this image shows 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. But
this image only comes to life when we cast off that part of our
astral body which is bound to the earth. What now lives within us,
what now fills us as Life-Spirit, is the wisdom connected with our
own being, it is the wisdom connected with 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 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 one thing 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 it should 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 the
Mystery Plays, in The Soul's Awakening. Particularly after
the World-Midnight we are engaged in a work that consists in 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 in the weaving of the
Gods' images. We have the 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 all
manner 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 when 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 external significance 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 be taken 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 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 pulses and
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! We would be born without
heads! The structure of our head is something that we are unable to
build. In its whole structure the human 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
divine Hierarchies must co-operate in this work. Your head, this
slightly irregular and somewhat transformed sphere, is a real
microcosm, a true image of the great world-sphere. Within it lives,
within it is collected, everything that exists outside in the
universe. All the forces that are active in the different
Hierarchies co-operate in order to produce the head. And when we
begin to shape our next incarnation, from out the wisdom which we
collected during the process of growing weary, all the Hierarchies
co-operate and influence this activity in order to embody in us, as
an image of the whole 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 as
after our death we can only hand over to the earth what comes from
the earth, so our parents and grand-parents only give us that part
of our being which pertains to the earth. Our earthly part is merely
our exterior; it is merely the external expression within this
earthly part. Woven into it is, in the first place, everything that
we ourselves are able to weave in the 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.
Just consider the fact: we use our head. In so far as we live in
materialism, we generally have not the slightest idea that whole
Hierarchies of Gods are at work in order to produce our head, in
order to mould that which lies, spiritually, at the foundation of
our head, so that we are able to live. If we grasp this, in the
meaning of a spiritual-scientific knowledge, it will 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 is not 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 finally lead 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 in the physical world, we
believe that we are constantly coming across new people. As far as
our physical consciousness is concerned this is, in fact, true. But
when we pass through the portal of death we have a real, true
connection with all the souls that we encountered during our earthly
life. They rise up again before our spiritual eye. The souls with
whom we were connected during our earthly life and that crossed the
portal of death before us, we find these souls, as it were. The
words ‘to find’ really applies to physical conditions,
but we may use it here to define that living way in which souls
approach other souls. This ‘finding’ of the souls that
crossed the portal of death before us should, however, be imagined
in 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 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 abstract impression.
Here on earth we should allow other human beings to exercise their
influence upon us; but in the spiritual world 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'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
the soul whom you encounter. You realize, 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 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 united with
that dead person even before you begin to form its spiritual shape.
In this manner you are united with everything with 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 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. Even
here on earth we encounter them in the form of images. After death
we look down upon them on the earth and do not need to build up
their image, for they already face us as images. The souls of those
still on the earth may of course weave into these images something
that can become spiritual warmth and nourishment for the dead,
namely, the image which they are able to form through their thoughts
for the dead, through their lasting love and memory, or — we
know this, as spiritual 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 the
completely materialistic people of modern times boast of the great
extent of their knowledge. But we know that in the past human 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, a thoroughly
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 pass through the world, we
would very soon discover the falsity 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 as a 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 physical
objects. If a painter wishes to paint Lucifer's real aspect he would
have to paint him so that he can be grasped as an etheric form,
through a kind of inner clairvoyant form of contemplation. He
would then appear in the shape in which he works upon us; he would
show that he is not connected with our head or with our organism in
so far as these are exclusively 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 the Serpent,
but this serpent would only be a symbol and it would have a human
head. If we were to come across such a painting today, 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 go through
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 just now. That picture can be seen there.
But other painters have also painted the Paradise Scene in that way.
What may we gather from this? That in the Middle Ages people still
knew this, they knew it to the extent of being able to paint it. In
other 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 is
not so long ago that he used to look into the spiritual world with
the aid of his ancient clairvoyance. He had to abandon the spiritual
world because he was not free, and in order to acquire full freedom
and his ego-consciousness it was necessary 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
penetrate livingly into the spiritual world. Again and again let us
conjure up in our soul the necessity of feeling that this small
number of men that is now living in the very midst of a
materialistic world and is led through its karma to the possibility
of grasping mankind's most important task for the future —
that this small number of human beings is called upon to fulfil
important, most important, tasks through its soul-life. We should
realize without any pride, we should realize modestly and humbly,
the 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 not merely arouse in us
discouraging and painful feelings, but produce feelings that incite
us to continue our work with increasing 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 before having 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 still have worked for years upon his physical
body. But these forces do not get lost; they are still there. I also
mentioned that in the present time, through the fact that every day
and every hour death so numerously approaches mankind, many, many
etheric bodies that might still have worked for a long time upon
their physical bodies here on the physical plane are handed 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 co-operate 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 will only 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 the
souls of those who are still living on the earth in human bodies
will have the possibility of grasping something of the fact that all
those who have gone into the spiritual world before their time have
their etheric bodies in that world and that they can ray their
forces into the earth. It will be necessary that this fact be
grasped by these souls. These souls can then co-operate 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! In that 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 admonition that also comes from the events
of our time, an admonition to the effect that we should stand 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:
From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of 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 hearts and minds into the spirit-realm.
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