V
Paris,
23rd May, 1924
[Before beginning this lecture,
Dr. Steiner spoke words of greeting to the audience which consisted
of Members of the Anthroposophical Society only — and
referred briefly to the importance and consequences of the Christmas
Foundation Meeting held at Dornach in December, 1923. The text of his
address will be found
here.]
In these
three lectures I want to speak of how Anthroposophy can live as
knowledge of the spiritual in the world and in man — knowledge
that is able to kindle inner forces and impulses in the moral and
religious life of soul. Because this will always be possible,
Anthroposophy can bring to mankind something altogether different
from anything produced by the civilisation of the last few centuries.
This civilisation has actually suffered from the diffusion of
brilliant forms of knowledge: natural science, economics, philosophy.
But all this knowledge is a concern of the head alone, whereas moral
religious impulses must spring from the heart. True, these impulses
have existed as ideals; but whether these ideals and the feelings
associated with them are also powerful enough to create worlds of the
future when the present physical world has passed away, is a question
unanswerable by modern science. What has sprung from modern science
is the widespread doubt that is characteristic of the present age and
the age just past.
To begin
with I want to consider three aspects of man's life. We ourselves,
our destiny, are inextricably connected with this life from birth to
death. Birth, or rather conception, is the boundary in one direction;
death is the boundary in the other. Birth and death are not life;
they are merely the beginning and the end of physical life. And the
question is this: Can birth and death in themselves be approached
with the same mental attitude with which we contemplate our own life,
or the life of others, between birth and death, or must our approach
to the actual boundaries of birth and death be from a different
vantage point? Therefore the aspect of
death, which so significantly sets a
boundary to human life, shall be the first object of our study
to-day.
At the
end of a man's earthly life he is divested by death of the physical
body we see before us. The Earth takes possession of it, either
through its own elements as in burial, or through fire as in
cremation. What can the Earth do with the part of man we perceive
with physical senses? The Earth can do no other than subject it to
destruction. Think of the forces in nature around us. They build up
nothing when the human corpse is given over to them; they simply
destroy it. The nature forces around us are not there for the purpose
of upbuilding, for the human body disintegrates when it passes into
their grasp. Hence there must be something different which builds up
the human body, something different from earthly forces, for they
bring about its disintegration.
If,
however, human death is studied with forces of cognition activated in
the soul through the appropriate exercises, everything presents a
different aspect. With ordinary faculties of cognition we see the
corpse and nothing else. But when, by means of these exercises, we
develop Imagination the first stage of higher knowledge described in
my books then death is completely transformed. In death man tears
himself from the grasp of the Earth; and if we cultivate Imagination,
we see in direct vision, in living pictures, that in death man rises
from his corpse; he does not die. At the stage of Imaginative
Knowledge, physical death is transformed into spiritual birth. Before
death, man stands there as earthly man. He can say: “I am here,
at this place; the world is outside me.” — But the moment
death occurs the man himself is not where his corpse lies. He is
beginning his existence in the wide spaces of the Universe; he is
becoming one with the world at which he has hitherto only gazed. The
world outside his body now becomes his field of experience and
therewith what hitherto was inner world becomes outer world, what
hitherto was outer world becomes inner world. We pass out of our
personal existence into world-existence. The Earth — so it
appears to Imaginative cognition — makes it possible for us to
undergo death. The Earth is revealed to Imaginative cognition as the
bearer of death in the Universe. Nowhere except on Earth is death to
be found in any sphere frequented by man, whether in physical or
spiritual life. For the moment man passes through death and becomes
one with the Universe, the second aspect presents itself — the
aspect in which the widths of space appear to be everywhere filled
with cosmic thoughts. For Imaginative vision and for the man himself
who has passed through death, the whole Cosmos now teems with cosmic
thoughts, living and weaving in the expanse of space. The space
aspect becomes the great revealer. Having passed through death man
enters a world of cosmic thoughts; everything works and weaves in
cosmic thoughts. This is the second
aspect.
When we
confront a man in earthly life, he is there before us in the first
place as a personality. He must speak if we are to know his
thoughts. So we say: “The thoughts are within him; they are
conveyed to us through his speech.” But nowhere within the
perimeter of earthly life do we discover thoughts which stand alone.
They are present only in men, and they come out of men. When we pass
from the earthly sphere of death to the space sphere of thoughts, to
begin with we encounter no beings in the widths of space —
neither gods nor men — but everywhere we encounter cosmic
thoughts. Having undergone death and passed into the expanse of
universal space it is as though in the physical world we were to meet
a man and perceive only his thoughts without seeing the man himself.
We should see a cloud of thoughts. After death we do not at first
encounter beings; we encounter thoughts, the universal World
Intelligence.
In this
sphere of cosmic Intelligence man lives for a few days after his
death. And in the weaving cosmic thoughts there appears as it were a
single cloud in which he sees the record of his last earthly life.
This record is inscribed into the cosmic Intelligence. For a few days
he beholds his whole life in one great, simultaneous tableau. During
these few days what is inscribed into the cosmic Intelligence becomes
steadily fainter and fainter. The record expands into cosmic space
and vanishes. Whereas at the end of earthly life the aspect of death
appears, a few days after the end of this experience there comes the
vanishing into cosmic space. Thus, after the first aspect, which we
may call the aspect of death, we have the second aspect, which may be
called the aspect of the vanishing of
earthly life. After death there is
actually for every human being a moment of terrible fear that he may
lose himself, together with all his earthly life, in cosmic
space.
If we
wish for more understanding of man's experiences after death,
Imaginative Knowledge will be found to be inadequate; we must pass on
to the second stage of higher knowledge, to Inspiration. Imaginative
Knowledge has pictures before it — pictures that are in the
main like dream pictures, except that we can never feel convinced of
any reality behind the latter, whereas the pictures of Imagination,
through their own inherent quality, always express reality. Through
Imagination we live in a picture world that is nevertheless reality.
This picture world must be transcended if we are to see what a man
experiences after death when the few days during which he reviewed
his life, have passed.
Inspiration, which must be acquired after or during the stage
of Imagination, presents no pictures; instead of pictures there is
spiritual hearing. Knowledge through Inspiration absorbs cosmic Intelligence,
cosmic thoughts, in such a way that they seem to be spiritually
heard. From all sides the cosmic word resounds, indicating distinctly
that there is reality behind it. First comes the proclamation; then,
when a man can give himself up to this Inspiration, he begins, in
Intuition, to perceive behind the cosmic thoughts, the Beings of the
Universe themselves. Pictures of the spiritual are
perceived in Imagination; in Inspiration the spiritual
speaks; Intuition
perceives the Beings
themselves. I said that the world is
filled with cosmic thoughts. These in themselves do not at once point
to beings; but we eventually become aware of words behind the
thoughts and then of beholding through Intuition, the Beings of the
Universe.
The
first aspect of man's existence is the aspect of death it is the
earthly aspect; the second aspect leads us out into cosmic space,
into which, as earthly men, we otherwise gaze without any
understanding; this is the aspect of the vanishing of man's life. The
third aspect presents the boundary of visible space: this is
the aspect of the
stars. But the stars do not appear as
they do to physical sight. For physical sight the stars are points of
radiance at the boundaries of the space in the direction towards
which we are looking. If we have acquired the faculty of Intuitive
Knowledge, the stars are the revealers of cosmic Beings, spiritual
Beings. And with Intuition we behold in the spiritual Universe,
instead of the physical stars, colonies of spiritual Beings at the
places where we conceive the physical stars to be situated. The third
aspect is the aspect of the stars. After we have learnt to know
death, after we have recognised cosmic Intelligence through the
widths of space, this third aspect leads us into the spheres of
cosmic spiritual Beings and thereby into the sphere of the stars. And
just as the Earth has received man between birth and death, so, when
he has crossed the abyss to cosmic Intelligence a few days after his
death, he is received into the world of stars. On Earth he was a man
of Earth among Earth beings; after death he becomes a being of Heaven
among heavenly Beings.
The
first sphere into which man enters is the Moon-sphere; later on he
passes into the other cosmic spheres. At the moment of death he still
belongs to the Earth-sphere. But at that moment, everything within
the range of earthly knowledge loses its significance. On the Earth
there are different substances, different metals, and so on. At the
moment of death all this differentiation ceases. All external solid
substances are earthy; at the moment of death man is living in earth,
water, air and warmth. In the sphere of cosmic Intelligence he sees
his own life; he is between the region of Earth and the region of
Heaven. A few days after death he enters the region of Heaven: first,
the Moon-sphere.
In this
Moon-sphere we meet cosmic Beings for the first time. But these
cosmic Beings are still rather like human beings for at one time they
were together with us on the Earth. In my books you can read how the
physical Moon was once united with the Earth and then separated from
it to form an independent cosmic body. It was, however, not the
physical Moon alone that separated from the Earth. At one time there
were among men on Earth great, primeval Teachers; it was they who
brought the primordial wisdom to mankind. These great Teachers were
not present on Earth in physical human bodies, but only in etheric
bodies. When a man received instruction from them, he absorbed it
inwardly. After a time, when the Moon separated from the Earth, these
ancient Teachers went with it and formed a colony of Moon Beings.
These primeval Teachers of mankind, long since separated from the
Earth, are the first cosmic Beings to be encountered a few days after
death.
The life
spent with the Moon Beings during this period after death is related
in a remarkable way to earthly existence. It might be imagined that
man's life after death is more fleeting, less concrete, than earthly
life. In a certain respect, however, this is not the case. If we are
able to follow a man's experiences after death with super-sensible
vision we find that for a long time they have a much stronger effect
upon him than anything in the earthly life which, in comparison, is
like a dream. This period after death lasts for about a third of the
time of life on Earth. What is now experienced differs with different
individuals. When a man looks back over his earthly life he succumbs
to illusion. He sees only the days and pays no heed to what he has
experienced spiritually in sleep. Unless he is particularly addicted
to sleep a man will, as a general rule, spend about a third part of
his life in that state. After death he goes through it all in
conscious connection with the Moon Beings. We live through these
experiences because the great primeval Teachers of mankind pour the
essence of their being into us, live in and with us; we live through
the unconscious experiences of the nights on Earth as reality far
greater than that of the earthly life.
Let me
illustrate this by an example. Perhaps some of you know my Mystery
Plays and will remember among the characters a certain Strader.
Strader is a figure based upon a personality who is now dead but was
alive when the first three Plays were written. It was not a matter of
portraying his earthly life but the character was founded on the life
of a man who was exceptionally interesting to me. Coming from
comparatively simple circumstances, he first became a priest, then
abandoned the Church and became a secular scholar with a certain
rationalistic trend. The whole of this man's inner struggle
interested me. I tried to understand it spiritually and wrote the
Mystery Plays while watching his earthly life. After his death the
interest I had taken in him enabled me to follow him during the
period of existence he spent in the Moon-sphere. To-day (1924) he is
still in that sphere. From the moment this individuality broke
through to me with all the intense reality of the life after death,
whatever interest I once had in his earthly life was completely
extinguished. I was now living with this individuality after his
death, and the effect upon me was that I could do no other than allow
the character in the fourth Mystery Play to die, because he was no
longer before me as an earthly man. — This is quoted merely in
corroboration of the statement that experience of the life after
death has far greater intensity, greater inner reality, than the
earthly life; the latter is like a dream in comparison.
We must
remember that after death man passes into the great Universe, into
the Cosmos. He himself now becomes the Cosmos. He feels the Cosmos as
his body, but he also feels that what was outside him during his
earthly life is now within him. Take a simple
example. Suppose you were once carried away by emotion during your
earthly life and had struck someone a blow which caused him not only
physical pain but also moral suffering. Under the influence of the
Moon Beings after death you experience this incident differently.
When you struck an angry blow, perhaps with a certain inner
satisfaction, you did not feel the suffering of the man you struck.
Now, in the Moon-sphere, you experience the physical pain and the
suffering he had to endure. In the Moon-sphere you experience what
you did or thought during your earthly life, not as you felt it, but
as it affected the other person. After death, for a period
corresponding to a third part of his lifetime, a man lives through,
in backward order, everything that he thought and whatever wrong he
did during his earthly life. It is revealed to him by the Moon Beings
as intense reality. When I was inwardly accompanying Strader, for
instance, in his life after death — he died in 1912 and is
called Strader in the Mystery Plays although that was not his real
name — he was experiencing first what he had experienced last
in his earthly life, then the earlier happenings, and so on, in
backward order. When he now comes before my soul he is living through
in the Moon-sphere what he had experienced in the year 1875. Up to
now he has been experiencing backwards the time between 1912 and 1875
and will continue in this way until the date of his birth.
This
life after death in the sphere of the Moon Beings — who were
once Earth Beings — is lived through for a third of the time of
a man's life. The first seed of what is fulfilled as karma in the
following earthly lives, arises here. In this life, which corresponds
to a third part of his earthly lifetime, a man becomes inwardly
aware, through his own feeling and perception, of how his deeds have
affected others. And then a strong desire arises within him as spirit
man that what he is now experiencing in the Moon-sphere as the result
of his dealings with other men on Earth may again be laid upon him,
in order that compensation may be made. The resolve to fulfil his
destiny in accordance with his earthly deeds and earthly thoughts
comes as a wish at the end of the Moon period. And if this wish
— which arises from experience of the whole of the earthly life
back to birth — is devoid of fear, the man is ready to be
received into the next sphere, the Mercury-sphere, into which he then
passes. In the Mercury-sphere he is instructed by the Beings whose
realm he has entered — Beings who have never been on Earth, who
were always super-sensible Beings; in their realm he learns how to
shape his further destiny. Thus, to learn what a man goes through
between death and a new birth, corresponding in his spiritual
existence to what he experienced among earthly beings between birth
and death, we must follow him through the Mercury-sphere, the
Venus-sphere and the Sun-sphere. For the totality of man's life
consists in the earthly existence between birth and death and the
heavenly existence between death and a new birth. This constitutes
his life in its totality, and of this we will speak in the next
lectures.
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