HOW THE
SPIRITUAL WORLD
INTERPENETRATES THE PHYSICAL
RUDOLF STEINER
Ph.D.
LECTURE 1.
Cassel,
9th May, 1914.
ONE of the
repeated objections to the search for spiritual knowledge, in the last
third of the nineteenth century, is this: when a man has passed through
the gates of death he will see the nature of the spiritual life as
lived without the physical body, but while here in the physical body
attention must be paid to earthly life; here man should live as if the
earth were his sole sphere of activity. A deeper study of Spiritual
Science shows us increasingly what a superficial grasp of spiritual
life is contained in such a statement. It teaches us that things are
not really as though life in a physical body before death were entirely
separate from life in the spiritual world after death, as if the one
did not contact the other. We shall best come to a common understanding
for study, if we consider what we already know of the connection of the
spiritual life with physical life. Let us begin by reminding ourselves
of what we have learnt from Spiritual Science about the alternating
life of man between sleeping and waking. We speak of this rightly when
we say: The Ego and astral body are outside the physical body during
sleep. This is a sufficient answer for the immediate demand for
knowledge, but only one aspect of the full truth; it is as though we
were to say: the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening, and
is not there in the interval. We know that for the earth this is not
the case; we know that during the time the sun is not shining for us it
is shining elsewhere, giving its light to other inhabitants of the
earth when it is dark for us. It is much the same with the life of the
Ego and astral body in. relation to that of the physical and etheric
bodies, if we take a wide view of it. True, the Ego and astral body are
outside the physical body during sleep, but only partially they are
outside the blood and nerve-systems. When we all asleep the sun of our
Ego and astral body sets in this way for the blood and nerve-systems;
yet from the Ego and astral body outside, the forces radiate while we
are sleeping into those organs not connected with the blood and nerves.
Our body lives in two spheres. We live in one while awake, when we are
ensouled by our Ego and astral body; and in the other when we sleep, in
the sphere from which the radiations and force of our Ego and astral
body pour into the activities of our body-with the exception of the
functions connected with the blood and nerves. Actually during sleep we
are in the spiritual world with our Ego and astral body — as it
were inserted into it — and just those forces of the astral body
and Ego of which man is unconscious in normal human life, stream into
his bodily organs when he is asleep. Thus we see the enormous
significance of sleep for healthy human life on earth. I will make this
clear by a little diagram. Let us take (a) for the sphere of the
spiritual world, and (b) our body on earth. I will then shade the part
connected with the blood and nerves; the other contains the organs
apart from the system of blood and nerves. This cannot really be so
sharply divided, for in a certain sense the nerve and blood systems are
themselves organs with activities of their own like the other organs;
but in so far as they are instruments for the conscious soul-life they
may be considered as ensouled and inspired by the Ego and astral
body.
This same
Ego and astral body are taken into the sphere of spiritual life during
the night and they thence radiate their forces into the other organs of
the body. Thus we may say: There is in our physical body something that
is strengthened and revived by what our soul in its sleeping condition
draws into itself from the spiritual world and with which it is
permeated by the spiritual world. The sun of our Ego and astral body
sets for the nerves and blood, in so far as the Ego is connected with
the blood, and the latter is not merely bodily life. It sets for the
blood and nerves when the human being sleeps, and shines into the other
organs functioning in our body. From this fact we can easily understand
that sleep is an important Healer, and that unhealthy sleep may be
regarded as one of the most deep-seated causes of illness, especially
in relation to certain inner functions of our bodily life. Spiritual
Science shows us that the way in which our Ego and astral body leave
the blood and nerve-systems during sleep and enter spiritual life, is a
matter of great consequence. Such things as I am about to discuss can
apparently be refuted easily by so-called external experience, but the
Spiritual Scientist must become accustomed to the fact that these
refutations are only apparent, and that what is actually derived from
the observations of inward processes is true. If the outer facts seem
contradictory, we must search and see in how far they are illusion. I
will now give a concrete instance, verified by Spiritual Science, which
has an important bearing on this point.
Human life
changes with respect to many things, but certain fundamental facts of
life remain constant for long periods. In the Middle Ages there existed
a certain fear, the so-called fear of spirits, of all sorts of
elemental beings and ghosts; this we now call mediaeval superstition.
In our day the object has changed, but not the fear; for just as the
people of the Middle Ages were afraid of ghosts- — those of the
present time are afraid of bacilli and similar things. It might be said
that ghosts are more respectable and more to be feared than bacilli.
The change has come about through the fact that formerly people were of
a more spiritual disposition; they were afraid of the elemental
spirit-beings; while now as the disposition is more materialistic, the
spirits must be of a physical nature. This corresponds better with the
age of materialism. What I wanted to say, however, is that Occult
Science reveals the fact that bacilli are nourished in the human body
if they are to thrive. Human beings do cultivate them. Of course
everyone in the present time will say that it would be silly to breed
bacilli. This is not a question of principle of any kind, but of
looking at things from the right standpoint. It cannot be denied that,
as Spiritual Science teaches, an Ego and astral body which have been
fed on materialistic ideas alone, and have rejected all spiritual
conceptions and wished to have nothing to do with them, when they leave
the body during sleep, send into the bodily organs forces from the
spiritual spheres which are just what the bacilli need. Nothing better
can be done for the rearing of bacilli than to carry crude material
ideas into sleep-life; thereby calling forth Ahrimanic forces which
stream into the body and become the cultivators of bacilli.
To form a
proper judgment of all this, we must understand clearly that the moment
we turn to the study of spiritual life, we immediately have to consider
what is called human fellowship. For a common co-operation in
fellowship is effectual in a far greater measure when working at
spiritual matters than when only concerned with the physical plane. We
might say that in order to have no harmful bacilli in our bodies, it is
best to apply the remedy of falling asleep with spiritual thoughts in
our minds. Perhaps that might become a remedy, if it were to be
medically proved, so that the most materialistic people in times to
come would allow spiritual thoughts to be prescribed for them; and
something contributing to spiritual life might be hoped for in this
way. But the matter is not so simple, for the importance of communal
life really begins when we touch spiritual matters, and there we can
say: it is perhaps of no advantage to the individual to cherish
spiritual ideas if all those around him are breeding bacilli by their
materialistic thinking; here the one breeds for the other. This is an
important fact and we must bear it in mind. Therefore I must again
emphasize what I have already told you, that Spiritual Science can only
be fruitful in its service to humanity when it does not merely serve
the individual. It is not enough for the individual to accept it;
Spiritual Science must patiently wait until it can become a factor in
civilization, until it grips the heart and soul of the many; then we
shall see what it can do for man.
There is,
however, something which affects the Ahrimanic beings in the bacilli
just as strongly. I say Ahrimanic beings, for I can easily show you the
difference between Ahrimanic and other beings — and even
externally it can be easily seen. Around us we see Nature with her many
creatures; all that lives outside in Nature draws its life from the
good, wise and progressive beings. Everything having its existence in
other organisms and preferring to thrive therein belongs to the
creatures of a Luciferic or Ahrimanic order. All parasites are of
Luciferic or Ahrimanic origin; if we remember this we can easily
distinguish the differences in the nature-kingdoms. There is something,
as I said, very helpful for Ahrimanic creatures when they infest the
human body. Suppose we are living at the time of an epidemic or plague.
Naturally at such a time we must look after others, and a strong human
fellowship or co-operation comes into being, for the karmic conditions
may actually be such that the one who in his individual life seems
least likely to have the illness, falls a prey to it. Nevertheless
— we must not be deceived by appearances — what I am going
to say is generally true. If we are living among the sick or dying and
have to absorb these pictures that are around us and then fall asleep
with these pictures in our minds and if nothing is linked with them but
selfish fear, the imaginations arising from these pictures in the soul
during sleep become filled with this selfish fear, and that enables
injurious forces to enter the human body. Imaginations of fear are
really the fostering forces for the Ahrimanic enemies of man. When a
noble disposition is present, so that egotistic fear retires and loving
help for others prevails, and we pass into the sleep life, not with
fearful imaginations but with the effects produced by loving help, this
means destruction for the Ahrimanic enemies of humanity. It is quite
true that by the encouragement of such an attitude we could put an end
to epidemics, if we regulated our conduct accordingly.
Here I may
indicate how some day (but it cannot be yet) the results of knowledge
of spiritual life will be seen in the social life of humanity: human
souls will become strong through spiritual knowledge, and those whose
disposition is to accept spiritual Knowledge will work healingly on
material life on earth.
Hence we
see how unjustifiable the objection is, that while living on earth we
need not bother about spiritual life. A great deal depends upon the
kind of spiritual life we take with us into sleep while here on earth,
for by it we mold our souls into good or bad instruments for the
sending forth of forces from the spiritual world into those organs of
the body which are not used as instruments by the soul in the day
consciousness, but which function physically and chemically beneath the
threshold of consciousness. Those functions which do not belong to the
activity of nerves and blood in the human being but are simply of an
organic nature-physical and chemical activity — those are not
life functions such as obtain in the plant and mineral kingdoms, but
functions into which the forces of the spiritual world flow during
sleep. Therefore we see the importance of being able to carry spiritual
knowledge into sleep life, and we realize the attitude of mind it
creates. If there still is doubt as to the inter-working of the
spiritual and physical worlds, we may, among other things, make the
following remarks.
Let us
imagine that some sort of climatic change were to corrupt the whole
ground of the earth, so that nothing good for food could grow on it; we
should then discover how important the earth's mineral and plant
kingdoms are for man. If the earth were to decay under our feet, we
should realize how much we need the lower kingdoms of earth, that human
life may be sustained. What the ground and fruits are for our physical
life that we are, as living beings with the activities of our souls,
for those who have passed through the gates of death. It is a fact that
the dead living in their sphere have need of a ground from which they
may gather fruits. The following illustration will give an idea of
this: Let us think of a crowd of people asleep, all filled with
conceptions belonging to earthly life alone, materialistic ideas. This
ground which they form for the dead, is just as sterile for them as
waste, corrupt ground would be to us. The dead feel this as a region in
which they starve.
Every
spiritual conception which we take into our soul and carry into sleep
helps, while we sleep, to create part of the ground needed by the dead,
even as the mineral and plant kingdoms are needed by us. In a certain
sense souls filled with spiritual ideas during sleep, form the fruitful
spiritual basis for the nourishing of the dead; and we take away the
nutriment which the dead need and which must be gathered on our earth,
if we allow our souls to become desolate, i.e., empty of spiritual
ideas — and conceptions. Here we see still more clearly the
importance of cosmic spiritual knowledge, and its fruitfulness for the
spiritual world itself. Just as our sleeping souls provide the ground
from which the dead draw their sustenance, so, if we knowingly cause
spiritual concepts to pass through our souls that helps the dead in
their power of perception. For this reason I have advised those who
have been bereaved to read to their dead. If we call them to mind, and
read in thought something from Spiritual Science, or cause any other
spiritual thoughts quietly to pass through our souls, our dead will
perceive these. They observe them and are nourished by the unconscious
after-effects of the spiritual ideas. Their own consciousness is
refreshed or revived by means of what has been read to them. Here again
we see constant intercourse between the physical and spiritual worlds.
It may easily be suggested that the dead are in the spiritual world and
that this method of reading can be of no use to them. Yes! They are in
the spiritual world, but the concepts of Spiritual Science have to be
formed on earth, and nowhere can they be conceived except in the minds
of men on earth: the dead are indeed in a spiritual world and precisely
there can these conceptions reach them and sustain them, and we enhance
their consciousness if from earth we send these to them. As the most
intimate connections exist between the dead and those amongst whom they
have lived, the best persons to read to them are those who were friends
and helpers before they died, or who have been closely related to them.
If you cultivate such thoughts about the connections of the physical
with the spiritual world, you will actually experience a new
disposition, which truly in the greatest sense of the word must be
called the religious disposition of the future. From such
spiritual-scientific studies as have just been given, a disposition
will be developed which in the highest sense deserves to be called
religious, for he who thus acknowledges the spiritual world will build
upon the foundations of the Divine Wisdom streaming through the
Cosmos.
It is
tremendously important that we should acquire this feeling of the
ruling Wisdom in the Cosmos and that we should fill ourselves with it.
When humanity is permeated by this feeling, it will, with a deep
genuine confidence in the wise ruling Wisdom of the Universe, accept
its destiny and all the strokes of destiny which are so hard to bear.
When we observe the spiritual worlds in which the dead live, we can
often see how much easier it is for the dead when the friends they left
behind on earth are permeated with this ruling Wisdom of the Universe.
Weeping over the dead is, of course, quite natural; but if we cannot
put an end to our weeping it looks as though we doubted the ruling
Wisdom of the Universe; and he who can look into spiritual worlds
knows, that those who long for their dead to be here and not in the
spiritual world, are doing the greatest harm to them. We very much help
the dead in their life after death if we accept our destiny, and think
of the dead as having been taken from us at the right moment by a good
ruling Wisdom, because they were needed for other spheres of existence
beyond earth. In the future much will depend on people helping more
(not less) in all that touches the sorrows of humanity, having a clear
knowledge that destiny is ever at work, and that if through Karma even
death has befallen those who belong to them, this had to be. This must
not prevent us, as long as a person is living, from doing all that is
possible to help him when he is ill if he is amenable to treatment, but
as human beings, we may not presume to go beyond what is allotted to us
as such. We must be sure that the ruling Wisdom of the Universe is
wiser than we are. This is all commonplace and trivial, but it is too
little spoken of to-day. Great happiness would come to both the living
and dead, if this knowledge were more generally circulated; if it could
enter as a conviction into men's souls, if they could think of the dead
as living, as having experienced a transformation of life, and not
think of them as having been taken from them.
If we only
observed a little of this connection between the physical and spiritual
worlds, we should see the manifold ways in which the one world is
intimately linked with the other, and that the affairs of the physical
world only become clear when observed in the light of the spiritual
world. If with reference to anything that happens to us in the physical
world we could but succeed in finding the spiritual causes of some
stroke of fate or misfortune, we should look beyond it, and understand
that what seems supremely sad may be understood at the fount of Cosmic
Wisdom. We must emphasize this over and over again. It does not alter
the fact that much suffering may come to us; but it does alter our
attitude to it, we do not sink under it and shut ourselves
egotistically in our sorrow, or withdraw from the world's life, which
we certainly ought not to do. Many other things are similarly linked
together and precisely these significant incidents teach us the falsity
of the saying that we need not trouble about the spiritual life during
our physical life on earth. For the bringing of spiritual ideas,
feelings and convictions into physical earth-life is of great
importance. Let me now add some examples to what I have told you
to-day. Examples will show us clearly the truth of what I have been
saying.
A person
well-known to some of the members of our Society died before attaining
middle age. If a person dies early in life, about the beginning of the
thirties, it is often asked: What is the meaning of this? Why should a
person be cut off from earth life in the first third of his physical
life on earth? When we traced this person back, to describe what she
was as an individual, we came to an earlier incarnation about the third
or fourth century after Christ, in which she had acquired certain
forces, of which we may say that, civilization being as it was at that
time, these and similar soul-capacities did not really belong to that
period. The time had not arrived when the talents then acquired by the
soul of this individual could be used. She was born again in a new
life, became one of our members and died before the first half of her
life, the ascending part, had been completed. In this case we could
immediately see, on studying the whole connection of the physical with
the spiritual, that this person was one of the most important and
significant workers with us in all our Cosmic work.
Materialism
is rampant in our times, it puts its stamp on earth-life more than we
realize. In our day particularly, materialism is so strong that those
beings of the higher Hierarchies whose task it is to carry on the
progress of Cosmic evolution actually cannot rescue all the souls who
have to-day become materialistic. These must not be left behind, they
must be saved; yet their salvation can only be accomplished by the
death of certain souls at an early age, who take with them into the
spiritual world the forces which would otherwise have been used in the
course of their earth-life, and which they then transmute so that they
may help the beings of the higher Hierarchies who are working for the
redemption of the materialistically-minded souls. Persons who have thus
died early in life, are a wonderful help to the higher beings. Now in
the case of the soul to which I am referring, something special
resulted. She brought with her into her latest incarnation the powers
which could not be fully used in her earlier life, poured them as it
were into her body, which became weak and ill because of the
penetration of these forces. The soul was too powerful for the body; it
really contained very great powers. This person died at the above
mentioned early age, and, with the forces which instead of being
weakened by age remained at their youthful strength, she passed through
the gates of death into the spiritual world, still possessing the fund
of strength which would have served a long life in that incarnation,
and filled to overflowing with earthly force would have so poured
itself into the body, as to bring the same into relationship with the
external world. Instead she was able to take up spiritual ideas
enthusiastically and thus to bring a great supply into the spiritual
world. When we trace this individual, who was dear to a large number of
our friends, we may learn a great deal from her. What we see in her is,
that at a definite time (in this case about the Third or Fourth Century
A.D.) certain forces appeared on the path of human evolution which
could not be brought to fulfillment then, and that the work to be done
through these forces must be taken up later — we have to look
back to what belongs to an earlier period and is preserved by certain
individuals for a later life. Now when we look for this individual
during her life after death we observe direct results — we see
that the powers which have lain dormant for a time, reserved for a
coming period, now burst forth and are preparing for humanity's future.
Thus we see how a later life must be linked with an earlier one, when
talking of human evolution. We could not know certain things, of which
it may be said that what had existed in the third and fourth epochs had
to be revived in the fifth post Atlantean times, unless we could see
into the spiritual worlds and say: ‘There we see an individuality
who, by means of a short life on earth, acquired faculties which shine
forth like a revival of something that has been lost to human
life.’ A great inflow of strength comes to the spiritual
investigator on observing such individuals in their life after
death.
If the time
of physical life on earth were ever so bad, if ever so many enemies
were to arise against Spiritual Science, and if danger threatened on
all sides, it would certainly be a sad and desperate outlook; but there
is one thing which may always be a comfort for the future of
Anthroposophy, that is, that in those who have died, in such a way as
the person above mentioned, we have the best helpers for our earth, the
most powerful fellow-workers. This is a case in which a short life on
earth served for the gathering of strength with which to take
possession of certain fruitful forces requisite for a later period on
the path of human evolution. The wise ruling Cosmic powers far surpass
in Wisdom all that we, with our merely earthly wisdom, can comprehend.
Naturally such fruits of a shortened earth-life can only result when
life is shortened in a purely natural way. In anthroposophical circles
it should not be necessary to mention that such results do not occur in
cases of suicides, and would be quite impossible.
Now, having
said all this, I shall give you another concrete example in reference
to a member who has not long since passed from our midst, who had a
very long illness, which was connected in a remarkable way with his
condition of soul, a lively intellectual person, a renowned poet in his
earth life and as we can clearly see, a much more important individual
than we had deemed while observing his life on earth. After a life
lived in sickness of body and long years of suffering, how strangely
the fruits of his suffering on earth, after a relatively short period,
reveal themselves in the spiritual world; though only in their
beginning. That I may make you understand what I want to say, I should
like to lead up to the right concept by means of a comparison.
With deep
feeling we can admire nature — a scene in nature or a group of
people-but we do not on that account lose anything when a clever artist
comes along and depicts the scene as his own soul sees it. We then find
in the picture created by the artist something which he has placed
alongside nature. We know that we have gained by having looked at
Nature through another's soul as well, if we can observe nature side by
side with it. Why do I say this? To make use of an illustration: we can
go into the spiritual world, we can observe things there; yet it is of
great importance to observe something else besides. The person to whom
I am referring, who died after a life of much suffering on earth, had
during his long illness formed for himself a world of Cosmic
imaginations, as it were lifting them up out of a sick body gradually
approaching death. In the measure in which the body became more sick
and incapacitated, there arose from it this world of Cosmic
imaginations. That person then passed through the gates of death, and
his imaginations are beginning to shine out in wondrous beauty so that
in the spiritual world they can be perceived as a wonderful spiritual
work of art, as if created out of the Cosmos. They had their origin in
the sick body, and were carried from the sick body into the spiritual
world; and for those who are able to see the spiritual worlds in other
ways they provide a far richer gain in spiritual knowledge than can be
acquired by direct spiritual observation; as in a work of art one sees
the world as another soul sees it, side by side with what one sees
oneself. The above-mentioned person absorbed spiritual conceptions with
great devotion, and was even able to put into his poems much of that
which comes to the human soul when it grasps the Mystery of Golgotha in
a truly Anthroposophical way, when we allow ourselves to be permeated
with the thought of the Christ Whom we have learnt to know through
Anthroposophy. For we then so recognize Him in our nature, that we
really live according to the Pauline saying ‘Not I, but Christ in
me contemplates the Universe.’
These truly
Rosicrucian Christian thoughts flowed into the later poems of this
personality. While his conscious earth-life was occupied with such
poetry and creating these poems, his subconscious powers were molding
this world of Cosmic imaginations which really consumed the body by the
strength of their inner life, but which so worked that to this person
in the spiritual world is probably allotted a task about which I will
not speak further now. In any case it must be said that behind this
conscious life lies another which passes through the gates of death and
so manifests that we know it had already been prepared during
earth-life through the disposition which is the result of Spiritual
Science, and which has turned into beautiful tableaux of Cosmic
imaginations which radiate toward the exploring spiritual investigator,
and explain much that perhaps would not otherwise have been so easy to
discover, but which will continue to work in the tasks which will be
allotted to such an individual.
We must
regard such results of Spiritual Science with awe and deep reverence.
For if in past times the religious sense of the soul had to be aroused
through feeling, in the times in which we now live spirituality must be
kindled more and more in man through the inter-working of the physical
and spiritual worlds, we must become more and more concrete in our
spiritual life. In the future, humanity cannot be prevented from
seeking the spiritual in a concrete way, and from thinking about how a
human individual continues to work on after death with the forces
which, as in this case, were prepared before he had passed through the
gates of death.
What depths
will be found in human life, how noble will be the feelings with which
one human being confronts another I They will in the true sense of the
word be moral, and filled with the Divine essence which will then be
weaving and working in human life, when the thoughts which speak of the
dead in as concrete a way as we now speak of the living, find a home in
the hearts of men.
We must
think of all this, that we may gain in our hearts and souls a proper
sense of the mission and work of Anthroposophy in the future.
I should
like you to ponder over the things I have said in the last part of this
lecture, regarding them as really springing from that attitude towards
Spiritual Science which can only speak of such matters in sacred
modesty and with deep reverence, and with this feeling I should like to
leave in your souls what I have said.
Tomorrow I
shall tell you of other facts, for the stimulation of Spiritual Science
in your hearts.
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