LECTURE SEVEN
In a recent
lecture I said something to which I want to return today,
because in its logical conclusion it forms a kind of
foundation for what I still have to say. I said that a
spiritual-scientific Movement such as ours must be one which
takes full account of the demands of the present cycle of the
evolution of humanity and of the necessary consequences of
this evolution. Such a Movement must therefore necessarily
regard atavistic clairvoyance, and knowledge that is a
residue of atavistic clairvoyance, as out of date and no
longer suitable for our times; it must be a Movement which
sets no store by anything that stems from atavistic
sources.
This meant
that a great deal of the knowledge given out in the so-called
Theosophical Society had simply to be rejected or ignored in
the form in which it was there presented, and in certain
cases built up entirely anew. Hence from the beginning
onwards, strenuous efforts were made by the old
representatives of that Society to oppose us. I will give
only one example.
You can
compare what I said in the year 1904 in the first edition of
my book
Theosophy
about the soul-world and the
spirit-land with what had formerly been stated. You must bear
especially in mind the distinctions made by me in connection
with the soul-world and in the inner soul-life of man and you
will see that great stress was laid upon the distinction to
be made between the Sentient Soul, the Intellectual or
Mind-Soul, and the Consciousness Soul (Spiritual Soul). This
threefold distinction had never been made in the literature
of the Theosophical Society, but among us it was emphasised
from the very beginning.
The other
side were at pains to eliminate this distinction, not to
allow it to gain ground. I remember vividly what efforts were
made to win back our friend the late Ludwig Lindemann, when
he was trying to make our Movement known in Italy. It was
asserted: You are simply saying in other words what has
already been said in our teaching. — Briefly, these
people did not wish it to be realised that this threefold
distinction was something entirely new and it was necessary
to indicate it again and again. And the same kind of thing
happened in many, many instances.
From the very
beginning we ourselves set out in the direction demanded by
the needs of the present age, taking into consideration all
the matters of which I have been telling you briefly during
recent weeks. But in order to follow this course strictly, it
was necessary to give a different form to the way of working
adopted everywhere in the Theosophical Society. This
naturally entailed effort, really strenuous effort. There was
also the difficult question of how my own work could find a
place in the literature. During the first years I was obliged
to present certain things with great reserve, for the simple
reason that years of testing and strict verification were
needed in connection with certain subjects and because from
the outset I had resolved never to publish or to say anything
except that for which I could be answerable, having submitted
it all to thorough testing.
Now as you
will have realised after what I have been saying, confusion
had arisen because investigation of the life between death
and rebirth had been brought into an entirely false channel.
I spoke about this in the foregoing lectures. But it has not
always been easy to test these things as they should be
tested. If one resolves to work conscientiously and with a
sense of full responsibility, every opportunity that offers
itself for stringent testing must be seized, but these
opportunities must never be forced. In spiritual
investigation it is a matter of waiting.
Opportunities must never in the slightest degree be
forced.
Most obvious
of all was the inaccuracy of the statements purporting to
give information about the life between death and a new
birth. But whereas on the physical plane, false results of
investigation can be rectified by testing them with physical
means which make their inaccuracy immediately evident, it is
of course quite another matter when things of the spiritual
worlds are involved. In the spiritual worlds, the existence
of a false, erroneous conception of the real facts is
confusing for investigation itself. If, then, through
mediums, statements had been made which were not
communications from the dead at all, but deliberately
inspired by living persons with every kind of bias, these
results of what purported to be investigation were in
existence. They confront one, and if one is trying to verify
things in this domain one has to battle with these results of
investigation as actual powers. Anything that is said on the
physical plane can be refuted; one sits down at the
writing-table and refutes it. But a false result of
investigation in the spiritual world is a living
reality: it is there and one has to battle with it, do
away with it.
Just as
thoughts are living realities, false results of investigation
are real powers which are there directly one crosses the
Threshold of the spiritual world. One enters the spiritual
world with the endeavour to bring to light knowledge of the
life between death and a new birth; but now the false
thoughts that have been produced stand there as living beings
before one. To begin with, they give the appearance of truth,
of reality. Hence one has first to battle with them, to test
them, in order to discover whether they have the attributes
of untrue thoughts, or the attributes of true and really
living thoughts.
This process
of testing and verification often takes a very long time. In
the nature of things, therefore, when one had resolved that
the testing should be thorough and exact, it was difficult to
investigate this realm of the life between death and a new
birth, because so many false conclusions had been drawn.
Hence in these matters particularly it was necessary to
exercise great reserve, speaking of them only when they could
be presented as absolutely and strictly true. A great deal of
work had therefore to be done before it was possible to give,
for example, the course of lectures now available under the title
The Inner Nature of Man and Life Between Death and a new Birth.
[note 1]
In a general
way it is easy to describe the life between death and a new
birth. It begins when, after completing the backward review
arising in the process of the separation of the etheric body
from the physical body, the human being passes into the
sphere which in theosophical literature was usually called
Kamaloka. But if you compare what was called Kamaloka in that
literature with what has been made known among us during the
course of the years, you cannot fail to perceive the
considerable differences. Now please do not misunderstand me
here. — I do not assert that at the present time it is
the task of each individual to put everything to the test.
The task of one is not that of the other. I regard it as my
task to say nothing which I cannot guarantee to have been
tested and proven. That is what I consider to be my
particular, entirely individual task.
I want now to
speak of something that it is important to remember when
speaking of the first years of the life between death and a
new birth. A really positive and faithful picture of these
first years or decades can be gained only by using certain
parallels. Only so is it possible, by adding many details, to
fill out the general picture given in the book
Theosophy.
Our whole development depends upon this
being done. In that book a broad ground-plan is given, and
our work should consist in filling out each of the various
sections outlined in the general plan. It is a matter,
therefore, of gathering together many things that have been
said, and if, starting from what is contained in the book
Theosophy,
you go on to the many more intimate
details given in the lecture-courses which have now been
printed, you will see that real progress has been made in
acquiring more and more intimate knowledge.
To have an
accurate picture of the first years or decades of the life
after death, it is necessary to compare what is to be
perceived in the case of human beings who died very young,
let us say in earliest infancy, with what is to be perceived
in the cases of those who died in middle age and again at an
advanced age. There are very great differences here. The life
after death differs enormously according to whether the human
being has died in early or advanced years; and a really
reliable picture can be gained only from what is experienced
in connection with human beings whose deaths occurred at
different ages.
So, for
example, an essential foundation for discovering certain
matters was to become fully aware of the conditions of those
who died in very early infancy and again of those who died at
the ages of 11, 12 or 13. A very great difference in the
conditions of life after death is to be observed according to
whether death took place before the age of 8 or 9, or before
the age of 16 or 17. This is clearly disclosed by certain
experiences one can have with the dead. It can be observed
that human beings who died during the tenderest years of
infancy are very much occupied with the tasks devolving upon
mankind during the period immediately following these
deaths.
Now the outer
representatives of religious communities do nothing to
prevent certain ideas that are at variance with the truth
from taking root among men. You will know from your own
experience that little is done by these representatives of
religion to refute the idea that when an old man or an infant
dies, the old man lives on as an old man and the child as a
child. But the mode of life of souls on the Earth has nothing
directly to do with the mode of their life in yonder world.
If a child dies at the age of three or six months,
all its earthly lives come into consideration, and
it may enter the spiritual world as a very mature soul. It is
therefore entirely false to imagine that an infant lives on
as an infant. We find that souls who died in early infancy
have tasks connected with what the Earth needs in order that
the necessary store of spiritual strength may be acquired for
further activities. Human beings cannot work adequately on
the Earth unless impulses come to them from the spiritual
worlds. These impulses, however, do not come in the vague,
nebulous way imagined by Pantheism; they come from actual
beings, among whom are also to be found the souls of children
who died in early infancy.
As a concrete
example, let us think of how Goethe developed.
Naturally, some part of Goethe's genius was due to the
help he received from the spiritual world. If we investigate
this, we come to the souls of children who died in early age.
The spirituality there present in the universe is connected
with the souls of children who died in infancy. On the other
hand, children who died at the ages of 9 or 1o but before
they are 16 or 17 are found very soon after death in the
company of spiritual beings — but these
spiritual beings are human souls. Many of these children are
found in the company of human souls, and indeed of those
souls who must shortly come down to the Earth, who are
awaiting their next incarnation. And so those who die in
early infancy, say up to the ages of 7 or 8, are found to be
much occupied with human beings here below on the Earth; but
those who died between the ages from about to to 15 or 16 are
found to be occupied with souls whose endeavour is to
incarnate soon. They are vital supporters and helpers,
important messengers for what these souls need in order to
prepare for their earthly existence. It is important to know
this if we want to avoid generalities and are intent upon
penetrating into these spiritual worlds.
It is not
easy to investigate these matters. — One can make an
approach by asking, for example: What is the best way to find
the dead? It then proves to be the case that those who died
years or decades ago, or quite recently, are most easily
found when consciousness of the spiritual world awakens
in sleep.
I have often
told you that awakening can be of two kinds. An awakening can
take place in sleep itself, and then a man knows that now he
is not asleep in the ordinary way but is in the spiritual
world. Indications on this subject are to be found in the
book
A Road to Self-Knowledge. Eight Meditations.
Or an awakening can take place in waking life itself. But
investigation into the life of the dead is best pursued when
the awakening takes place during actual sleep, because then
one's own activity is most closely related with that of
the dead.
A remarkable
discovery is then made. — Here, in physical life
between waking and sleeping, man always remembers the periods
of his waking life. In what does his life really consist?
Waking, daily life, sleeping; waking, daily life, sleeping
and so on. During the life of day his remembrances are always
of what happened during a former life of day. Our everyday
waking life is full of such remembrances. But it is different
when the life of our Ego is interrupted by the periods of
sleep. The curious thing is, however, that during sleep we
remember only the preceding sleep-conditions only we are
unconscious of this. In most cases there is no such
remembrance. But during sleep a subconscious process of
remembrance continues through the whole of life.
If we
consider the life that embraces both sleeping and waking,
night-life and day-life, we can say: the night-life is
interrupted by the day-life, just as the day-life is
interrupted by the night-life. Nevertheless the stream of
life is continuous. The remarkable thing, however, is that
whereas in remembrances during the life of day we are
passive—for they rise up and it is only in exceptional
cases, when we want to remind ourselves of something in the
past, that we have to make efforts—during sleep, when
we want to remember something for a particular purpose,
efforts are essential. As a rule, however, man lacks the
strength to become conscious of this activity and that is why
he has no remembrances during sleep. In his soul, however, he
is much more active during sleep than during waking life.
Dreaming does not cut across this activity. Dreaming
corresponds to what goes on in our waking life when we make
great efforts to remember; but if during sleep, we exert
ourselves only slightly, this corresponds to the ordinary
process of remembering during the day, when we make no
efforts because the remembrances come of themselves. After
death, the remembrances we have of the waking life now ended
are soon over. Then in the period of Kamaloka man lives
through all the experiences of the nights in backward
order.
In our life
here on Earth we are occupied with what the days brought to
us and also — although without being aware of
it—with what we experienced during the nights. After
death, however, everything we lived through during the nights
comes into our consciousness. Night by night —
everything comes back to us. And it is important to realise
that, to begin with, the dead lives through his nights. This
is by no means easy to realise and can only gradually be
discovered. Naturally a man lives through his life, but he
lives through it by way of his experiences during the
nights.
I have often
said that the time spent in Kamaloka is approximately one
third of the lifetime on Earth. If you reflect that a man who
does not die in childhood spends about a third of his life
asleep, you will understand why the time in Kamaloka amounts
approximately to a third of the time of the earthly life; the
Kamaloka period lasts for as long as the time spent in sleep
— about one third of the whole lifetime on earth.
It is very
necessary to gather together carefully the items of concrete
knowledge that have been given and to correlate them. And
that is why — how shall I put it? — that is why
it has such a jarring effect (although that does not quite
express what I mean) when one who is trying to speak about
the spiritual world with full responsibility, is asked all
kinds of questions about this or that point after the
lectures. These people want to know everything, but on the
other hand one has been endeavouring to speak only of what
has actually been thought through to the end. One is forced,
then, to speak about a whole number of matters into which
there has not yet been opportunity for thorough
investigation. It is, of course, possible to give some reply,
for the science of occultism is there; but when one has laid
it down as a fundamental principle to speak only of what one
has actually tested and verified, this kind of talking goes
against the grain.
And now
recall that I said: when we cross the Threshold of the
spiritual world, we find that comparatively soon after his
death a human being who died at the age of 11, 12, 13 or 14
years, is living among those who are shortly to return to the
Earth and discharge their tasks there. This soul helps them
to find the right paths to incarnation. It may seem strange
to say this, but it is the case nevertheless.
Now these
things are in turn connected with certain secrets of life,
with very definite secrets of life. The fact of the matter is
that we discover certain things in the real sense only when
we can put the right questions. Not every question is rightly
put; we have to wait until we become worthy, as it were, of
putting the question in the right way.
I shall now
say something that may seem strange, although it is correct.
The human being gets two sets of teeth: first he gets the
teeth which fall out about the seventh year, and then he gets
the second teeth. I do not believe that it occurs to many
people to ask anything about the coming of these second
teeth, for I have always found that when the subject is under
discussion among specialists, they speak as though there were
no difference between the first and second dentition. To an
occultist, however, the first dentition is an entirely
different matter from the development of the second teeth. I
once had to give what seemed a grotesque answer to a point
raised to me by a medical expert. The answer amused him, but
from the standpoint of occultism it was quite correct. He
said that children with milk-teeth ought to be taught to bite
as soon as possible, because the sole purpose of the teeth is
to enable human beings to bite. This line of thought,
however, is not correct — from the occult standpoint,
at least, it is only half correct, and the matter must in any
case be gone into more exactly. There is no question that man
has the second teeth for the purpose of biting; but as
regards the first teeth there is a question. The first teeth
come through heredity. The human being has them because the
parents and grandparents have had them. Only when he has shed
these first, inherited teeth does he develop the second
teeth. These are then an individual acquisition; the
first teeth have been inherited. This is a matter which comes
into consideration only if we pay attention to subtle
differences. It is not a matter of outstanding importance,
nor would particularly grave errors be incurred if the
question were not raised. But it is important to know that
the first teeth are related to heredity in quite a different
way from the second. The second teeth will be found to be
connected with the general health of the human being, with
his whole constitution, whereas the first teeth, especially
as regards their healthiness are far more closely connected
with the health of the parents and grandparents. Here there
is already a difference which can be followed up empirically.
These distinctions are subtle, but when attention is directed
in this way to how matters stand with the teeth, something
else comes to light, and this is the point that may strike
you as strange, although it is quite true.
Suppose a
child dies before he has cut all his second teeth, or very
shortly afterwards. Strangely enough, occult investigation
discovers that whether the child has not yet or had already
cut the second teeth has an actual effect in the spiritual
world. Assuming that the child died at the age of 8 or 9, we
discover that some of the impulses which otherwise penetrate
into the physical world are working there; we discover that
these are the forces which should have penetrated into the
teeth, but are now at the disposal of the child. Especially
in the case of a child who died early, who had lost the first
teeth but had not yet, or had only just, cut the second
teeth, it can be observed, strangely enough, that this child
has certain forces and that these forces are of exactly the
same kind as those which, on the physical plane, promote the
growth of the teeth out of the organism as a whole.
When a human
being is in the physical world he must unfold certain
physical forces in order that the teeth may develop out of
the organism. If he dies before the teeth have developed or
have only just developed, these forces are free for him in
the spiritual world and he can work with them into the
earthly world; if he is living in the physical world these
forces build up the teeth which he then uses in the physical
world.
Here we have
a vista of a wonderful connection with the Cosmos, and can
recognise the profound truth of what is described in the
first scene of the second Mystery Play,
The Soul's Probation:
how the spiritual worlds work by means of
their Beings to bring Man into existence, and how when this
knowledge goes to his head, Capesius is filled with arrogance
on learning that Man is the goal of all the activities of the
Gods. — But this great truth is hardly noticed.
I said
further that human beings who died between the ages of 8 or
9, and 9 to 16 or 17, are found among souls who are trying to
incarnate as soon as may be. These souls of human beings who
died in youth again have special forces which are also the
result of metamorphosis. At the age of 14, 15 or 16, the
human being reaches puberty: if puberty had not been reached
or had only just been reached, the forces leading to it are
transformed in the spiritual world into forces by means of
which such a soul can work among those souls who are awaiting
their next incarnation on Earth, helping them to prepare for
this incarnation.
Think of the
infinitely profound connection here. — The forces of
reproduction are transformed in the spiritual world into
forces of help for the souls who are trying to come down as
soon as may be into the physical world. These are connections
which show us how the spiritual on yonder side of the
Threshold works on in the physical world in individual,
concrete realities. Moreover, we do not learn to know the
physical world truly until we realise that forces are
unfolded as a result of the fact that the human being
discards certain teeth and develops others. Puberty again is
brought about by the unfolding of forces. When the human
being has actually reached puberty the forces have quite
different functions.
All this
leads to the question: Why is man prevented in his ordinary
life from looking into the spiritual world? The spiritual
world is barred on two sides. On the one side, it is barred
by outer nature. We see outer nature as a veil covering what
lies behind it. If a man can pierce the veil, he is in the
spiritual world. Materialism endeavours in every way to
prevent men from recognising that spirit is behind
that veil. I have often said, even in public lectures, that
an unconscious fear underlies this — but it is the same
with regard to the inner life. Man is aware of his thinking,
his feeling and his will; but behind these there is something
else, namely, the being of soul who passes from incarnation
to incarnation. And in that domain the religious communities
of the present day do not want it to be discovered that
behind thinking, feeling and willing there lies the other
reality.
For this
reason the book
Riddles of Philosophy
will be very
unwelcome, because I have dealt with this point in the last
chapter. The path to the world of spirit is barred on two
sides. Whereas natural scientists on the one side are at
pains to produce nothing that might lead into the world lying
behind nature, the representatives of the religious
communities are at pains to prevent anything coming to the
knowledge of souls that can enlighten them on what it is that
passes beyond death and then on to the next incarnation.
Why, on the
one side, do the natural scientists hinder man from
penetrating behind nature, and, on the other, why do the
priests hinder him from penetrating behind the secrets of the
life of soul? This question is important and worth
consideration, for you will find these things coming more and
more to a head. Those who build up a view of the world on the
basis of natural science will be our opponents because they
do not wish the spiritual world behind nature to come into
evidence. And the priests will be our opponents because they
do not wish to allow the reality of the being who lies behind
thinking, feeling and willing and passes from incarnation to
incarnation, to be grasped. On the one side the natural
scientist says: here are the boundaries of knowledge. And on
the other side the representatives of religion say: to go
further is sinful, it is presumption on the part of man.
Tomorrow we will consider the reasons on which the
contentions of these two categories of opponents are based,
and then pass on to other matters.
Notes:
Note 1.
Six lectures given in Vienna, 9th to 14th April, 1914.
Anthroposophical Publishing Co. (Rudolf Steiner Press)
1959.
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