The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. On Death

[ 1 ] Having taken the liberty in the first three lectures of this series to speak about the nature and spirit of spiritual science in general, I would now like to discuss specific topics from the field of spiritual science in the following lectures; and I would like to note from the outset that today’s lecture and next week’s, “The Meaning of the Immortality of the Human Soul,” which together form a whole, so to speak, will address questions of human soul life that are connected with death and with what follows for the human being after death—what I would like to describe with the phrase: the meaning of the immortality of the human being.

[ 2 ] It should be noted right away that, in general, it is not easy to speak about the very topic of this evening in our present age; for there are many external and internal obstacles in the current cultural climate that stand in the way of contemplating what is associated with the word “death.” Above all, to ensure that we ourselves are not led into misunderstandings by tonight’s reflections, it must be pointed out that spiritual science, so to speak, does not have it as easy as many other scientific fields today. Spiritual science is dependent on analyzing the fields it addresses in the strictest sense and on considering them, logically distinguished from adjacent fields in the strictest sense. This must be said because the discussions to be held today and next time have significance only for human experience, and because a more naturalistic science of the present day will be very inclined to extend what is understood as “death” to everything that lives. Now, it is precisely through spiritual science that it becomes evident that what is outwardly the same for different forms of life can be very different inwardly, and there will likely also be an opportunity in the course of this winter’s lectures to draw attention to what death means in the plant kingdom and what it means in the animal kingdom. In this discussion, the intention for now is simply to speak of death in relation to human beings. — But there are also a number of other obstacles when it comes to a discussion of our topic from the perspective of spiritual science. Without delving into a general characterization, I would like to demonstrate, based specifically on the spirit of spiritual science and using individual facts, what the nature of these obstacles is.

[ 3 ] These obstacles lie in a—one might say—fear of the problem of death that does not clearly surface in human consciousness. One need only consider how this fear manifests itself even among the most enlightened minds of our time. One could point to many, many of the very most enlightened personalities of our time: one would find the same thing. Today I want to do so with regard to the great scholar of religion and Orientalist Max Müller. — If one searches his writings for what he has said here and there about death, what strikes one above all is what we encounter in numerous contemporary figures: a reluctance even to consider the possibility of researching death at all. After all, the truly eminent Max Müller went so far as to say: all human thoughts that wander beyond human life—that which lies between birth and death—even if they are portrayed by a poet like Dante in the Divine Comedy—all such thoughts are nothing more than childish fiction. Indeed, as Max Müller says: if an angel were to descend from the heights of heaven to earth and wish to tell a human being something about the conditions of human life in the world after death, then that human being would understand the angel’s words no more than a newborn child would understand a lecture on the conditions of present-day life delivered in any human language. Thus, even among the most enlightened minds of the present day, there is a certain reluctance to broach these subjects at all. Yet Max Müller is not a skeptical thinker when it comes to matters of human immortality; he is personally imbued with a certain certainty of faith regarding life after death. He simply does not wish to acknowledge the possibility that human beings could gain any insight whatsoever into what lies beyond death. He seems, as it were, to want to emphasize again and again that human beings not only cannot know anything about the realms that lie beyond death, but also should not know anything about them.

[ 4 ] This fact alone one might say how symptomatic the difficulties currently surrounding our topic are; yet one can also say that the contemporary scientific way of thinking—which has been repeatedly mentioned in earlier lectures and has grown to such significant proportions—distracts people from even considering the possibility of gaining any insight into what lies beyond death. In the three previous lectures, this scientific way of thinking has been spoken of so appreciatively, and what it has brought to light has been met with such approval — provided it remains within its limits — that I will not be misunderstood today if I now briefly explain why it is difficult, within the framework of the scientific way of thinking, to admit that there is a possibility of penetrating the realm beyond death. On what, then, is this scientific way of thinking based? How did it come to be so influential? It became so influential precisely because it established, in the strictest sense of the word, the principle of human sensory observation and the application of intellectual activity to that sensory observation. — Now, one thing is easy to see. If one makes the principle of sensory observation—the principle of investigating everything the intellect can glean from this sensory observation—the exclusive principle of research, then one undoubtedly seeks to investigate what human beings develop and maintain through their physical constitution, acquired at birth, in physical life. That which one might refer to as some kind of “immortal” entity—one that possesses a spiritual life beyond birth, conception, and death—cannot, quite obviously, be included within the realm of sensory observation and intellectual inquiry, which are bound to the senses. With his body, a human being certainly receives, as a surrounding layer to his being, that which organizes his senses and that which organizes the intellect bound to the senses. That which investigates—that which, in the most eminent sense, investigates in the scientific manner of our time—is undoubtedly acquired by human beings within the realm of temporality; it belongs to the realm into which our being dissolves when we pass through the gate of death. Natural science, as understood today, therefore undoubtedly works with tools that, just as they come into being at birth, perish with death. And how could it not be easily recognized—if one makes working with these tools the exclusive principle of research—that one cannot investigate that which these tools certainly cannot reach? That is why nothing seems more foolish than to assume that one could ever penetrate, using the research methods of natural science, into the mysterious realms that lie beyond death. This is also why it is true that some of the most brilliant minds of the nineteenth century—precisely from the standpoint of scientific thought—came to deny the existence of life beyond death. Truly, they were not the worst thinkers! For among the many extraordinary praises that must be bestowed upon the scientific way of thinking—as it has developed over the past three to four centuries and as it dominates general education and general thought today to a far greater extent than some are willing to admit— among all the praise that must be accorded to this scientific mode of thinking and research, there is undoubtedly also a justified claim that this scientific way of thinking has taught people not to let their prejudices, their wishes, and their desires—that which lives in their subjectivity—have a say when it comes to scientifically determining anything. One gains precisely that great respect one can have for the scientific way of thinking when one truly sees its efforts and goes through them alongside it, in the experiment: to proceed strictly objectively in observation, so that everything that a person would like to be true—that which flows from the human subject—truly plays no role in the research. And how could it be otherwise when it comes to the question of ‘death’! But has it not always been the case that, in the answers people give themselves about what lies beyond death, their emotions, their wishes, and their desires play the greatest role? By weaning themselves, in the course of scientific research, from allowing these things to play a role, it was precisely those individuals of the nineteenth century who were not the least ethical who came to reject the idea of life after death.

[ 5 ] If one seeks to understand what led these thinkers to such a rejection of life after death, one finds that, at the root of it, their motives were noble. This must be readily acknowledged. There were quite a few among the materialist thinkers of the past century who said that it is part of human egoism—part of the impulses of human self-interest—to wish that one’s little self, with all that one experiences and is as a human being between birth and death, might extend beyond death; Many—and especially ethically valuable materialist thinkers—said that it is nobler for a person to allow what one has worked for and acquired between birth and death to merge into the general life of humanity, into the stream of historical development, and to surrender oneself to the whole; to lay to rest in the grave what the ego has brought one, but to allow what one has experienced spiritually and emotionally to flow into the general life of humanity, and to know: this “I” does not preserve itself, but sacrifices itself on the altar of universal humanity. In such self-sacrifice, in such a merging of what one has acquired in life, some people—who were not particularly morally deep but were scientifically trained—saw what can be said about the death of the human being.

[ 6 ] Now, there is certainly much within human emotional life and within human desire that rebels against such a merging into the general current of humanity. A truly insightful answer to our question must not be influenced by any of this. But there is one thing that can lead a person—if not to an answer, then at least initially to a proper formulation of the question—regarding death and the passage of the human being through death. Even if one sets aside all the desires and fears that human beings have regarding death, if one sets aside everything they would like to have as an answer about the afterlife, and if one focuses solely on what it is legitimate to consider—namely, the order of the universe—then the answer—and I merely wish to raise a question here—might be something like this: If one considers what a person acquires inwardly in life that is most precious, most significant—what lives on in the soul as our innermost treasure and as a treasure in relation to what we can do out of love, devotion, and other impulses for ourselves and our surroundings—and asks oneself: What is the most precious thing? — it is something so intimate, so individual to every human soul that, because of its intimate nature, it cannot be surrendered to the stream of general existence. Truly: no matter how much we may give—so much that what we have to give is further processed within the general stream of existence—what is most valuable is so closely bound to our soul that we would not give it up; it would inevitably sink into the general grave of nothingness if we did not pass through the gate of death as a distinct being. For what is attained and cultivated by the human soul as the most precious would undoubtedly be lost to the economy of the universe if human life were to end with death. But that would contradict what we otherwise perceive everywhere in the universe. Nowhere in the universe do we observe that forces develop to a height—to the utmost height to which they can initially develop—and then flow into nothingness; rather, everywhere forces are generated in such a way that they are transformed and continue to have an effect in the world. Is the human being the only one destined to create something that would not be further processed in the universe, but would instead have to dissolve into nothingness?

[ 7 ] This is not, at first glance, even remotely an answer, but rather the posing of a question from a perspective entirely independent of what humans would like to have and what human desires are—the question: In the context of a general world economy—which presents itself so clearly to us everywhere as an example of general observation of nature—how is it possible that what a person develops in their soul during their life between birth and death should sink into nothingness? However, external means of research cannot actually take us any further than the posing of this question. For undoubtedly, what in human beings can be called the immortal must be sought beyond external experience. External experience approaches us precisely through the senses, and even a little reflection shows that everything which can arise through the intellect also belongs to external experience, and that all of this, as it exists in external life, can develop only within the physical body given to us at birth or conception, which dissolves with death. Within the limits of what we can possess through our physical existence, we will not be given the tools that would make an exploration of the problem of death possible.

[ 8 ] Now, we have already discussed in the introductory lectures that, through the methods of spiritual science, human beings are indeed able to develop their souls in such a way that—as if through a kind of spiritual chemistry—they detach themselves from physical experience, so that they can actually rise to a vantage point in life from which they can express, not merely as a phrase but as a direct inner experience: I know what it means to develop within myself a spiritual-soul activity that does not use the body as its instrument. Can we hope—which surely must be the case if one is to investigate death—that something can be said about death through means other than investigation by means of external experience, namely through powers of cognition awakened in the manner described? Precisely when one thinks in scientific terms, one must say: what is to be investigated must be experienced. But death—which takes away our very external instruments—cannot be experienced with any external instrument. Thus, research into death can only take place under the single前提 that such research is possible with instruments that do not lie within physical life.

[ 9 ] It has been pointed out that through certain inner, intimate soul exercises, a person is able to bring about such a strengthening and invigoration of their soul life that something akin to a separation of the spiritual-soul aspect from the physical aspect actually occurs for them—similar to how oxygen is separated from hydrogen during the decomposition of water. Thus, through the exercises indicated in the preceding lectures, the human being’s spiritual-soul aspect is separated from the physical, and the human being is led to experience the spiritual-soul realm inwardly. When a person experiences the spiritual-soul realm inwardly in this way, when they have a life free from the body and have come to regard their own physical body as an object outside themselves, like an external thing, then they become aware of what it has meant throughout the ages for researchers of the spirit to bring two experiences close together: the experience of so-called initiation and the experience of death.

[ 10 ] We need only note that what is called spiritual research has existed throughout the ages. Spiritual research was already being pursued in the earliest times of humanity—during the course of human historical development on Earth—within the so-called mysteries. Anyone who would like to learn more about this can read my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact to see what is said there about the mysteries of antiquity. However, spiritual research could not be conducted in those days in the same way as it is today. People change quite considerably in the course of historical development; and before I go into further detail, I would like to point out that in the early stages of human development, entirely different powers within the soul had to be cultivated so that, in places that were, so to speak, a hybrid of art, science, and religion, human beings could be led to a point where, through the development of their soul powers, the spiritual world would reveal itself to them in its true essence.

[ 11 ] In our time, different powers than in the past must be developed in the soul, since souls have been educated in the natural sciences over the last few centuries. And so spiritual science, too, in our time—when it must be a continuation of the natural sciences—must be something different from what it was in earlier times. But it has always brought two experiences to the soul: the development of the soul’s faculties, which enable it to experience the spiritual world independently of the physical body, and the experience of death. Time and again we find it expressed in various writings that the person who, through the mysteries, has been led to experience the spiritual world, its processes, and its beings, has approached the “gate of death”; that is to say, that in their experiences they experience something of which they know immediately that it resembles the experience of death, or that it is something about which, once recognized, one can also know what connection it has with death. The person undergoing initiation knew that he had to approach the very threshold of death. This is what has always been said. And in my book A Path to Self-Knowledge for Humanity, I had to cite an experience—which I have also mentioned here—that a person reaches when, through years of practice, he allows upon himself what is called meditation, concentration, and so on. I wrote there: When a person undertakes that development of the soul through which the soul, for brief periods, grows out of the body into a body-free experience and perception, then the person arrives at an infinitely significant moment—a moment that becomes deeply unsettling for the soul when it occurs for the first time. For the spiritual researcher, it must, of course, be repeated more often; but when it occurs for the first time, it is an experience that profoundly affects the life of the soul. When one intensifies to the infinite that activity of the soul which is otherwise described in ordinary life as attention or devotion, the soul forces independent of the body grow so strong that a very specific moment in the life of the soul arises. It can occur in the midst of the hustle and bustle of daily life; it need not even be disruptive if one ascends to such an experience through a legitimate development, as described in the book How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, and the ordinary experience of the day can otherwise continue. Or this moment may occur in the depths of the night, during sleep. One then feels it suddenly, or one feels an inspiration or intuition flowing into one’s everyday life during the day. I would like to describe, in general terms, what one experiences in this way. It can vary a hundredfold from person to person, but it will always have something in common with what I am about to describe. I will try to put it into words; but in doing so, I am aware that it can only be imperfectly expressed with words borrowed from the sensory realm.

[ 12 ] One feels as if one were being torn from the midst of sleep, and one has the sensation that something is asking: “What is happening to me?” It is as if lightning were striking the space where I myself am, and as if it were shattering the vessel of my outer physicality. In such a moment of heightened awareness, one not only senses something creeping up that destroys one’s outer physicality, but one feels downright permeated and pulsed through by this force that destroys the outer physicality. One feels that, in this experience, one can sustain oneself only through the strengthened inner powers of the soul, and one says to oneself: Now I know what can exist in the outer world to detach from me the physicality in which I am enshrouded. From this moment on, through what one has thus experienced, one knows that there is a spiritual-soul aspect within the human being that is, under all circumstances, independent of the human physicality, to which this physicality is attached like an outer vessel and instrument.

[ 13 ] From that moment on, one knows intuitively what death is. Admittedly, at first it is an indefinite knowledge, an indefinite experience; but it gives the soul that inner mood, that emotional tone, that inner grasp of a spiritual reality, through which it becomes capable of engaging with that which enables it to penetrate the realms of spiritual life. It is an intimate experience of which I have spoken; but it is an experience of a very general human nature—and I say “very general human nature” because it is so profound that it detaches one from what, in the narrower sense, is connected with personal desires and will, and introduces one to what otherwise always lies merely behind life. But it also makes something else very clear: the difference between attaining actual spiritual-scientific knowledge and spiritual-scientific insight—and any other kind of external knowledge and external insight. External science and external insight are attained by learning this or that, by engaging in this or that pursuit; then one has simply attained what one desired to learn. Through work, one attains what one is meant to know. This is not the case with spiritual scientific insight. It is certainly not the case that anyone should believe: “Yes, spiritual scientific knowledge is attained when enlightenment suddenly comes to the soul; then it sees into the entire realm of the spirit.” This is how some people imagine it: that spiritual scientific knowledge is attained without any effort. But that is not the case. And if someone were to say: “In the field of spiritual research, many things are stated that a historian can only bring to light with great effort over the course of years of work, sifting through documents and sources; and then the spiritual researcher comes along and says something without realizing that such a statement is otherwise only possible through years of research; that is presumption—then one must certainly reply: The spiritual researcher must not only expend the effort required for such years of document research and years of experimentation; rather, he must carry out all the necessary work on himself for years on end. But this work, in a certain sense, has a different goal, a different character. What one can do as a researcher in the spiritual sciences is not, in fact, what leads to knowledge, but is merely the preparation for it. And everything stated in my treatise How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? is merely a description of what the soul must do to prepare itself for that moment when the spiritual world is revealed to it. Preparation—not the kind of intellectual work found in the external sciences—is what the spiritual researcher must undertake first. One learns to recognize this, however, when one can connect a meaning to the words: “I experience myself as a spiritual-soul being within the spiritual world.”

[ 14 ] Then one associates meaning with something else as well—namely, with that which, though it may not seem as important as the question of death because ordinary consciousness is accustomed to it, is what enters our lives every day in the form of sleep. One learns to recognize what sleep is, and how, each time one falls asleep, the human being, in terms of his spiritual-soul nature, steps out of his physical-bodily nature—just as, in the chemical decomposition of water, hydrogen is released from oxygen— except that when a person is outside of physicality during sleep, they are not yet strong enough for the normal life of the soul to maintain consciousness. In normal life, a human being is only able to maintain consciousness when their spiritual-soul nature is immersed in the physical body, and the body reflects back to them, as in a mirror, their soul experiences. They can only have these experiences in their soul consciousness as if in a reflected image. It is as if a person could only have consciousness by, so to speak, passing by mirrors and, by looking into them, coming to sense and feel themselves. But when a person sees themselves in a mirror in ordinary life, they know that the mirror is not the cause of the image, but rather the person standing before it. It is the same when a person undergoes a spiritual-research development within their soul: they begin to realize that what they imagine, feel, and perceive in ordinary life is like a mirror image, and that in spiritual experience they are a being who perceives themselves as in a mirror image when they are immersed in physicality. The body makes the soul strong enough to perceive itself; but when it is outside the body, it is not strong enough to know itself. When a person, as it were, comes to sense, feel, and experience their independent spiritual-soul life, they know what lies behind the mirror of ordinary consciousness—that is, what they truly are; then they begin to know—not merely as a phrase, but through direct experience—that from the moment they fall asleep until they wake up, they are within their real spiritual-soul being and experience within it what they simply cannot become aware of in normal human experience.

[ 15 ] The spiritual researcher learns to experience things as one does in sleep, but with the enormous difference that in normal sleep one is unconscious, whereas the spiritual researcher consciously experiences his inner self by preparing the soul and strengthening it in relation to physical experience. The spiritual researcher then gains experience in relation to this independent experience of the spiritual-soul core of the being. One experience is of particular significance here. One might call it the “transformation through the experience of the ‘I.’” For it is the “I” that we must carry through life if life is to flow normally. It has often been mentioned that the “I” begins to shine forth from a certain point in childhood experience. This is the point up to which we can recall our lives. And if we can recall it, then we know how everything we have experienced is connected to the “I.” We sit, as it were, beside our “I” and know ourselves to be connected to all our conscious experiences. Our sense of self is guaranteed only by the fact that we feel connected to the “I” through all our soul experiences. When the spiritual researcher truly succeeds in extricating his spiritual-soul core from his physical body, a great transformation takes place alongside his experience of the “I”—a transformation for which one must be prepared so as not to be taken aback by it. A good part of what is described in my book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? is intended to prepare the soul for this experience.

[ 16 ] What happens at a specific moment when the soul becomes free of the body? What happens then—what becomes an immediate experience—can be roughly described in the following way, and I would like to take the following approach.

[ 17 ] If we consider the human body as studied by external science with its external instruments, it should already be clear to us—based on external logical reasoning—that this human body must be permeated by something, so that it does not follow its own laws and its own inner necessity. What are these laws and necessities? Well, they become evident in death, when the physical human body is heading toward dissolution. Then it is left to its very own laws. Through a certain logic—which I have already outlined here—it can be deduced from what has been said that there must be something higher within the human being than this physical body; but in such logical considerations, there must always remain a certain residue that leaves room for objections, unless one possesses from the outset a sound sense of truth regarding what spiritual science is able to explore from the very foundations of existence. But what happens when that event—which can be called initiation—actually occurs, through which the spiritual researcher experiences himself as inwardly independent of his physical body? Then he truly has his physicality outside of himself, knows himself to be outside of this physicality, and is no longer surrounded by it; and how does it appear to him? One must not imagine that it is some pleasant, idyllic experience—floating outside one’s physical body while one’s body lies in bed, unharmed and at rest. It is not like that. Rather, what one perceives, having prepared oneself in the appropriate manner, is something very strange. This means that one does not come to know the body through the forces in which it lives; rather, one comes to know it through the forces that are already present throughout one’s entire life as the forces of decay, as the forces of death—one comes to know what works throughout one’s entire life to destroy the body. If one wishes to express this in scientific, scholarly terms, one might say: one comes to know the death latent within the body. Everywhere one comes to know the body’s tendencies to disintegrate, to merge with the elements of the earth; one comes to know the body as it seeks to dissolve. One can express what one experiences with regard to one’s body through a comparison; but this is not meant to be a mere image—rather, it is used to express inner experiences that must be undergone.

[ 18 ] Consider a candle flame. The candle burns down. The fuel is being consumed. As long as the fuel is still there, the flame can exist. But by what means alone does the flame exist? Solely by the fact that the fuel is gradually burning down, that it is being consumed. If one wanted to prevent the fuel from being consumed, one would have to extinguish the flame. One cannot possibly expect the candle to remain intact while the flame is still there. One can enjoy the sight and benefit of the flame only as the fuel is consumed.

[ 19 ] By way of comparison, one’s own physical body, as it is being consumed, appears in the supersensible vision much like such a burning flame. The body appears like fuel burning down; and the flame also appears to one. One knows what is taking place within the body—that there is always a tendency within the body to consume itself. Just as the flame arises in a candle through the consumption of the fuel, so too does that which is called “self-consciousness” in ordinary life arise in human beings from their forces of death. One would never be able to experience this “I” if one did not carry death within one’s body. So it is for human beings. Let us hypothetically imagine a human body that were integrated into the world in such a way that it could not die—that, alongside the forces that cause it to grow and become large, it did not also possess the forces that consume it with the same certainty as the flame consumes the candle: its “I” would be extinguished; the “I” would no longer be there! This is the profound insight gained by a spiritual researcher—that profound insight which must be summed up in these words: We carry within us not only the forces of growth, but also the forces of death; and the fact that we carry them within us—that we possess the tendency toward death—is what gives us the possibility of “I”-consciousness for the life between birth and death. One notices this in a very specific inner process—the process whereby, as a spiritual researcher who has now stepped out of the physical body, one actually feels a transformation taking place within the “I.” The “I” becomes something that one does not wish it to become. From a thought that otherwise always accompanies one in life—without which one is not even awake—the “I,” this “I” that one otherwise possesses in normal life, becomes something that one no longer has within oneself, something one sees before oneself, truly emerging like a flame from the image of physical death: the “I” becomes a memory. This is the significant transition from non-spiritual cognition to spiritual cognition—the realization that one has the “I” within oneself as a mere memory, of which one knows: It is there; one can look upon it as one would a memory, but one cannot now possess it within oneself. — This is how, through spiritual science, one comes to know death and its connection to the “I,” just as it is in normal human life.

[ 20 ] Now the spiritual exploration can go further. What we experience in the soul can indeed be divided into three groups of soul experiences. Two of these groups should first be highlighted as particularly important and significant: imaginative thinking and volition, the will. After all, when we are immersed in everyday life, we must accompany that life with our thoughts. What would we be as human beings if we did not go through the world thinking, if we could not reflect on things? What would we be as human beings if we did not have the impulses to do this or that, to carry out this or that? Will and thinking are the forces in the life of the soul that always accompany a person through their everyday life. If one advances in spiritual research toward body-free experience in the soul, one then makes the further discovery that what actually makes one feel like a human being in ordinary experience—thinking and imagining—cannot be brought into this body-free experience. One must leave behind the everyday thoughts—including the thoughts of conventional science—that rely on the experience of the external senses; they fade away, I might say, as one enters into bodyless cognition. It is therefore entirely understandable to the spiritual researcher when someone who wishes to rely solely on the life of imagination—as derived from external life—says, as Professor Forel does: “Consciousness will very soon fall asleep if it has nothing left to imagine from the outside.” This is understandable for a consciousness that wishes to rely solely on the external world; for the impressions that come from the external world can be taken neither into the life of sleep nor into the experience of spiritual research. For those who become spiritual researchers, this entails something immensely oppressive; it entails something that makes them feel separated from everything to which one is attached in external life, everything one regards as valuable in external life—indeed, things about which one might even say: in normal life, you fall asleep if you do not have them. As a spiritual researcher, one must enter a life where one cannot have these things, where one must lay aside everything one has been accustomed to thinking in ordinary life. And what does one then experience with regard to what is expressed as “thinking” in ordinary life, once the thoughts—which one usually no longer has—have faded away, once they have remained at the threshold upon entering the spiritual world—what does one experience then? I would like to describe what one experiences then:

[ 21 ] First, one experiences what sleep does. It is indeed a significant experience to know how sleep works. One now even learns, in a rather modest way, to agree with the materialist thinker who says: The brain is necessary for thinking, and a thought must be based on certain movements in our brain. Quite true, absolutely true! And any objection that would argue against materialism—claiming that thoughts can exist even without the brain—must be dismissed out of hand. For thinking is not the means by which we acclimate ourselves to the spiritual world when, as spiritual researchers, we venture into the spiritual realms. We do not find thoughts there. But we do find the other factor through which thought first arises in the brain. But what causes the brain to undergo very specific movements so that it becomes a mirror of thought? It is the spiritual-soul forces. Behind thinking—not within thinking itself—the spiritual-soul forces at work are what the spiritual researcher discovers. Therefore, the spiritual researcher agrees with what the materialist researcher—when remaining within the bounds of his field—can say: that everyday thoughts are consequences of the brain. But what takes place in the brain—the process by which the physical body is first shaped into a mirror, and indeed, each time, into a mirror of thought—is the work of the spiritual-soul forces behind it. As researchers of the spirit, we truly go beyond everyday life into the creative realm of the world. Thus we also come to understand the life of sleep, becoming participants in how that which lies beyond sleep repairs the worn-out parts of our brain during the night. We become observers of this regenerative work on the body; we come to know the activity, the dynamism of sleep. As spiritual researchers, we come to know the thoughts that confront us from one side during the day from the other side; and every time a thought arises and appears as a mirror image in the brain, we come to know it from the other side—when the body sleeps at night, when it works and lives within the brain, and stimulates the brain’s activity during the day. In this way, one comes to know thinking from the other side. This is one aspect of how one comes to know thinking.

[ 22 ] The other aspect—how to come to know thinking—is something that, in spiritual research, is such that, unless one is well prepared for it, it is impossible to feel any sympathy from the outset for what is about to unfold. One comes to know the soul’s inner working, its inner feeling, and its inner self-experience. One comes to know the soul as something that is inwardly active; one comes to know an activity of the soul about which one can ask: What does this activity aim to do? It aims to form thoughts. But as it appears there, it cannot form thoughts. One comes to know a part of the soul’s activity that is used to restore the weary brain during sleep; one can be satisfied with that. One comes to know another part of the soul’s activity through which one encounters, as from within, the entire physicality of the brain, about which one can say to oneself: You have it now. And as one delves deeper to examine more closely: “Through what do you have it now?” it becomes clear: “You have it through what you have experienced from birth onward and processed in your soul; but through this it has become something that, just as you are, comes into contact with your brain; and this prevents what wants to come about—namely, the ordinary thoughts of everyday life—from coming about.” Thus the spiritual researcher finds himself in a state where he feels confined within his body—which is for him the admirable spiritual instrument of thought—as if in a chamber, as if in a prison. And he is so moved by this that he says to himself: “Now you could form thoughts from your inner activity, if only your brain were not lying there like a heavy substance and were not so resistant to being stirred into what the soul desires.”

[ 23 ] It is often said that the methods a spiritual researcher must undergo lead to a certain degree of suffering. Suffering always consists in the fact that something one wishes to carry out in the soul is prevented. Even physical pain consists of this; but that can be discussed later. What manifests as suffering is what the spiritual researcher grasps in his development and what seeks to become a thought but cannot become one; for the brain is suited only for the thoughts attained in normal life. Perhaps it is precisely at this point that one will understand that the investigation of the problem of death does indeed become an inner ordeal for the soul—an ordeal that can only be undertaken because human beings possess within themselves the necessary thirst for knowledge to penetrate the mysteries of life. Yes, one will also come to understand that this inquiry is not undertaken very often because, in fact, as one immerses oneself in those areas of life where one encounters something of this mystery, one makes progress only when one is able to rise above everything else that one otherwise holds dear in life, everything that is appealing to one in life. It will therefore not be easy to speak of what has just been alluded to without a certain tone of melancholy and deep seriousness. And then one increasingly gains the ability not only to perceive the deficiency in one’s spiritual and soul experience, but also to learn to refrain from attempting to form thoughts through the body based on what one experiences in this way. This “one learns to refrain” is easy to say; yet this renunciation belongs to the serious, profound matters of life. It is a renunciation that one achieves only through certain bitterness, which is justified solely by the fact that it leads to insights. — Once one has experienced this—being unable to find expression in thought for what one has attained—only then does one truly experience it inwardly. And what does one experience then? One experiences that which, while it does not yet intervene in the physical body—because the body prevents it—forms a seed for a new physical existence that we build up for our next earthly life, once we have passed through a life in a purely spiritual world after death. — What one experiences in the time between death and the next birth will be discussed later.

[ 24 ] Through the inner experiences that the spiritual researcher has with his thinking, I have attempted to show how he experiences his inner, spiritual-soul core, which—through his own unique characteristics—must blossom just as truly in a future earthly life as a plant seed must develop into a new plant. For one does not come to know that which in the human being grows beyond death by speculating about it, but rather by recognizing what is being prepared in this life for a life beyond death and thus for a new earthly life; by seeking that which cannot be seen with any of the senses nor thought of by any intellect bound to the senses. Spiritual science does not wish to speculate or philosophize about immortality; rather, it seeks to prepare the human soul in such a way that the immortal core of its being truly lies within it—one might say, “spiritually dissected,” just as one examines something in the natural sciences by isolating it from its surroundings, within which its specific nature cannot be investigated. This applies to thinking.

[ 25 ] Things are different still when it comes to the will. There, too, one experiences a change. One then realizes how much of the will that we express in the outer world depends on the condition of the body, and how what we call a strong will in everyday life is intimately connected with the entire constitution of our body. With every impulse of the will, we put our body into play, so to speak. But now, on the basis of spiritual research, we must have the will without the body being present. There the will immediately makes itself felt by showing that it is now present in a way we are not otherwise accustomed to. Normally, when we have a volitional impulse, we are accustomed to putting our body on the line; when the body lies inactive in bed, no volitional impulse arises. We always experience impulses of will in connection with the body. But now the soul, which wants to penetrate into the spiritual world, is beyond the body; thus the body itself plays a part in the impulse of the will. This creates a certain inner tension, as if the will were limited on all sides, as if it were enclosed within an impenetrable eggshell, as if one were hindered from thinking, imagining, feeling, and perceiving, from walking, standing—from everything. One perceives the will in its self-contained state, yet as if constantly bumping against walls from all sides that it cannot penetrate. And one must once again pursue inner spiritual exercises to such an extent that one not only notices this negative aspect of the will, but can also experience the inner self as it is now compressed within the will. Then one realizes: one wants something again that one must admit one does not wish to experience. When one applies the will in the outer world, on the one hand there are the impulses of the will, and on the other, the moral-social order. One imposes duties on oneself in life, or one has duties imposed by the moral-social order. One distinguishes between a good will and an evil will, between what is right and what is wrong; in the external world, one distinguishes between moral rules and impulses of the will. That is quite correct. Now that one has withdrawn from the external world, the will remains with one in a manner quite similar to how the “I” was present before: what one has willed remains with one like a memory. I am describing how these experiences arise. In this case, one must describe the imaginative perception; this may seem fantastical, but things must be presented this way. Then, within one’s constrained will, one experiences something like a morality inherent in that very will itself. An action that must be regarded as evil by our external sensory consciousness is experienced within this will as belonging to what one must oneself make amends for. One thus experiences the will in memory in such a way that the power of compensation—which must occur because the immoral act demands it—is contained within the will itself. One cannot help but say: What you have done wrong must stand beside you like a ghostly enemy, remaining there until you have dispelled it through compensatory “deeds.”

[ 26 ] What I have been trying to suggest here can be called “the exploration of death,” because it means experiencing that which passes through the gate of death as the immortal part of the human being. It is clear from all this that the true exploration of death is an intimate, inner exploration; yet it is all the more a universally human one in that it reflects upon what is to be found in all human beings. For indeed: that which makes us this particular, personal human being in the life between birth and death—we have this through our outer physicality and from the outer world; it does not pass through the gate of death with us. What passes through the gate of death with us is that which lies beyond the physical-sensory realm, that which gives rise to the physical-sensory realm and brings it into being as the external and our own manifestation for the experience between birth and death.

[ 27 ] Now let us ask ourselves: Why do we notice nothing of our immortal soul in everyday life? Why is that which can reveal the mystery of death to us shrouded in such darkness?

[ 28 ] It shrouds itself in such darkness precisely because, in our ordinary spiritual life between birth and death, we live within this darkness. For our ordinary daily life, we must suppress our immortal self in our consciousness so that we can live in the body, live within the outer physical sensory world, grow to love this outer sensory world, and carry out our mission within it. The moment we wish to penetrate to our immortal self, we must suppress our physical-sensory experience—our everyday life. So if we must set aside our immortal nature in our ordinary consciousness in order to have ordinary physical-sensory daily life, and since we have this ordinary physical-sensory life only by setting aside the immortal nature for a time, we need not be surprised that we do not find what can enlighten us about death within everyday life, for it is precisely in this life that the mystery of death must be veiled. The spiritual researcher can also show why one cannot find the mystery of death in ordinary life. For as we, with our spiritual-soul aspect, descend from spiritual heights to what is given to us through the hereditary line of our father and mother—as we connect with and immerse ourselves in physical substances—finite consciousness must extinguish infinite consciousness. And with death, when infinite consciousness shines forth once more, finite consciousness is brought to an end, and whatever can be preserved of it remains as a memory. But the life that begins once a person has passed through the gate of ‘death’ is attested to by the spiritual-scientific development of the human soul, when it applies those methods by which it already penetrates the spiritual world in ordinary life and, with full consciousness, crosses the gate of death and develops a life of which we will even give a specific description when we come to the corresponding lecture, unhindered by the timidity that prevails today in this regard.

[ 29 ] Next time, however, we shall describe what can be said to be the immediate consequence of what we have attempted to discuss today from a spiritual scientific perspective as the mystery of death—which is already present during life—and to which we owe what makes ordinary consciousness possible. Indeed, there is a current aversion to these matters; people are reluctant to explore them. And even great, brilliant thinkers shy away from venturing into the realms that have been pointed out today in connection with the problem of death. Thus it happens that a man as distinguished as Maurice Maeterlinck, in his recently published little book On Death—which, precisely because it so brilliantly sidesteps everything that really matters here, ought to be read—puts forward the most erroneous views on everything related to the problem of death. He, who is capable of speaking in a highly insightful manner about all other areas of life, was bound to fail in this matter because, as is evident everywhere, he has a particular way of approaching things—namely, to describe death using the same means of understanding as he does for external things. He is not a researcher of the spirit. He therefore does not realize that these methods must be set aside if one is to explore the realms relevant to the problem of death. Maeterlinck finds himself in the same situation as mathematicians once did when faced with the problem known as the “squaring of the circle.” There was a time when, in mathematical circles, people would regularly submit solutions to relevant journals on how to transform a circle into a square. But the solutions were all unsatisfactory, and today anyone who still grapples with this problem is considered an amateur, because it has now been rigorously proven that the problem cannot be solved in this way. So while in the past one still had the prospect of being regarded as a genius if one sought to solve the “squaring of the circle,” today anyone who still attempts to do so is considered an amateur. With regard to the question of immortality, people’s views will also change, just as the views of those mathematicians have changed. For even today, someone is still attempting a solution to the “squaring of the circle” in another field; but one would have to tell him: You are demanding that the mysteries of death be proven using the means of ordinary life. But when it comes to proofs, what matters above all is that they be understood. And so it must also be understood that proofs which seek to demonstrate the mystery of death and immortality using the means of ordinary life are impossible, because it is precisely in our everyday life that we have concealed the forces of the immortal, so that we may become self-aware human beings within the mortal realm.

[ 30 ] But there is another distinctive feature evident in Maurice Maeterlinck. After having talked right past the essence of things—sometimes in a highly witty manner—he arrives—in a somewhat more brilliant, literary style than Max Müller, whereas the latter took a more professorial approach—at the conclusion: Thus, the soul should accustom itself to the fact that it can never truly fathom the mysteries of existence, neither in this life nor in the next. He goes on to say: It is probably a good thing that one cannot fathom them. And he adds: he would not wish even upon his worst enemy the ability to fathom the true mysteries. For he fears that the world would become “devoid of mystery” if these secrets were explored, that it would lose all the splendor of the mysterious if one were to penetrate the mystery of death. He considers it valuable for a mystery to remain a “mystery,” so that the sense of wonder in the soul is not dispelled when one uncovers such a mystery. That is why Maeterlinck says he would not wish even for his worst enemy that the true mysteries be explored—even if that enemy possessed a mind far greater and more powerful than his own. —I have already mentioned in another context that mysteries do not diminish simply because we have them before us as spiritual science can describe them. For it is precisely what we explore in mysteries that does not make life more superficial, but deeper, ever deeper. After all, when we look into something from our previous earthly life, this does not solve the riddle of life for us in a superficial way, nor does it truly rob the mystery of life of its splendor; rather, it only makes it even greater, even more resplendent. Spiritual research does not penetrate things in such a way that the mysteries of existence are stripped of their admirable character, but rather in such a way that admiration can be further heightened by exploring the reasons behind things. That is why one must respond to a person who, like Maeterlinck, speaks of death and says that he would not wish even for his worst enemy that its mysteries be explored, by pointing out that the mystery of life is not taken away by seeking to explore it. To put it in a trivial phrase—though it is not trivial, but meant quite seriously—one could express what one might say to someone who wants to preserve life by insisting that it remain “inexplicable.” One could ask him: If you were certain that someone had been born blind, would you advise that person to let everything around him remain a mystery, that he should not undergo surgery, and that the world in all its splendor should not shine into his inner being? Would you then object that you wouldn’t wish this even on your worst enemy—that the mystery of the world, with all its wonder, be stripped away by his undergoing surgery? — Anyone who would answer “yes” to the question of whether the world would lose its splendor for someone born blind if he were to undergo surgery could also answer “yes” to the question Maeterlinck poses at the end of his book: that the world would lose its splendor if its mystery were explored, Spiritual scientific research will show that this is not the case when one explores the mysteries of the world. And it is precisely our emotional life that, through the study of death, will come to realize that death is a necessary link in the whole of life, and that not only is Goethe’s saying true—that nature invented death in order to have abundant life—but that the following is also true for human life: Nature needs death to bring ever new and ever greater glories forth from the seed of life.