The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. The Meaning of the Immortality of the Human Soul

[ 1 ] Continuing the reflections from my previous lecture, I would like to speak to you today about the meaning of the immortality of the human soul. It is not the nature of spiritual scientific inquiry to discuss a topic such as the meaning of human immortality in terms of conceptual definitions or theoretical debates. Rather, in today’s lecture I will offer a number of insights from the field of spiritual science research that may shed light on what can be called the meaning of human immortality.

[ 2 ] As emerged from the reflections we engaged in here last Thursday, the essential task of spiritual science is to penetrate precisely to that aspect of human nature which can be called the immortal core of the human being. To discover this immortal core of being—that is the primary concern of spiritual science. And it has been said that the region of human knowledge where this immortal core of being can be found is accessible to the kind of research that arises from the development of the human soul itself—the human soul, that unique instrument through which we can truly penetrate the spiritual world. It has often been suggested that everything in spiritual research depends on individual human personalities being able—through the soul exercises already briefly described this winter— to bring the soul to a point where it is capable of exercising a truly inner spiritual-soul activity, which is, so to speak, practiced detached from the physical body, detached from the instrument through which all other human soul activity is carried out in the course of everyday life. That this detachment of the human soul from the body is possible—possible through intimate processes of the soul’s development—is what I sought to point out in particular during my last lecture. And I further sought to point out that for the spiritual researcher who has learned to truly attach meaning to the words “experiencing outside the body,” this human soul reveals itself with its characteristics—those characteristics that demonstrate, in and of themselves, how the life of this soul extends beyond birth and death.

[ 3 ] Now, in the course of today’s reflections, we will see how such a contemplation of the human soul—to be attained through initiation—gives meaning to the word “immortality.” But by way of introduction, I would first like to emphasize that we are indeed living in a time in which, in a sense, deeper human thought and a more serious contemplation of human life are leading us gradually onto the path that spiritual science points out for the problem of the immortal life of the human soul. Much could be pointed out in this regard; but only one point should be highlighted from this particular perspective: namely, gaining an understanding of human immortality. Attention should be drawn to that thinker who is regarded as one of the leading figures of the modern Enlightenment worldview: Lessing, and how he sought to derive meaning from the idea of immortality.

[ 4 ] In that work, in which Lessing, so to speak, bequeathed his intellectual testament to humanity, he arrived, as it seemed to him, at a renewal of the ancient human idea of repeated earthly lives; and he arrived at this conclusion because he felt compelled to view the entire course of human history on Earth, within the context of human evolution, as an education for humanity. One could easily dismiss this testament of Lessing’s—which he presented as the culmination of his reflections, thoughts, and aspirations—by saying—as many in our time would certainly like to do—that: Even great minds grow old and then indulge in all sorts of fanciful notions. But anyone who has learned to respect intellectual life and intellectual striving will certainly not be able to dismiss Lessing’s The Education of the Human Race, his most mature work, in such a manner. I cannot go into the details of his work here; I can only point out how, for Lessing, history reveals itself in such a way that humanity ascends from more primitive forms of human life and perception to ever more developed ones; and Lessing interprets this ongoing development of the human race as a mysterious education bestowed upon it from the spiritual world. He distinguishes individual epochs in the progress of humanity, and from these observations arises for him—who, of course, could not yet stand on the ground of our modern spiritual science—the question: How can the individual soul life of a human being be placed within this whole of human historical development? And he comes to conclude: The individual life of the soul can be placed within the course of historical development only if one conceives of repeated earthly lives of the human soul. If one conceives that the soul living today has lived repeatedly, if one imagines it alive in previous epochs of historical development, in which it absorbed what previous epochs were able to instill into the souls—if, then, one conceives of the soul as taking with it from those previous epochs the fruits it was able to gather from them, after having passed through a purely spiritual existence between death and the next birth. Thus, for Lessing, the question is satisfactorily resolved: What of the souls who lived in ancient epochs and did not experience what the progress of humanity could offer in terms of higher developmental forces for the souls? The answer, for Lessing, is that it was these very same souls who lived in earlier times—who carried the fruits of past epochs over into their present existence—who are now, in addition to what they assimilated back then, striving to attain what the present can offer—and who, with the fruits they reap from their present existence, after death, lead a purely spiritual life and in turn carry these fruits forward into future epochs of humanity, in order to participate in what the progress of humanity can then offer them. Thus, for Lessing, the meaning of the immortality of the human soul simultaneously illuminates the entire meaning of Earth’s historical development. This is how this meaning emerges for him, and this is how the possibility immediately arises for him to consider that the life of the individual human being, in what it contains inwardly, is greater and more comprehensive than what can be expressed in a single lifetime between birth and death. And just as one can view the individual life in such a way that this individual human soul lives from birth to death, assimilates and integrates whatever this life can offer, then passes through the gate of death, sheds the physical body, and enters a spiritual world to seek its further development—so, too, in Lessing’s view, the entire historical development of humanity can be conceived, indeed, even the entire development of the Earth itself, in that what humanity lives out on Earth is the “soul” of the Earth, and everything that geology, biology, and the other sciences investigate is the “physical body” of the Earth, which—as can already be proven today in accordance with modern physics—will one day be shed by the confluence of all human souls, just as the individual human body is shed by the individual human soul at death. But then, after the body has fallen away from it, the Earth will proceed toward a future embodiment in the cosmos, in order to ascend to future spiritual and material heights.

[ 5 ] One can see how not only the meaning of all human existence, but also the meaning of the Earth’s development itself, emerges from this thought of Lessing’s. Lessing did not allow himself to be deterred from these thoughts by the objection that this was an idea humanity had in the most primitive stages of spiritual development, but which subsequently disappeared with cultural progress. On the contrary: at the end of his treatise on the “Education of the Human Race,” Lessing states: “Should this idea therefore be worth less than when it first dawned on the soul—than it is now, when, through the sophistry of the school, this idea has been paralyzed and weakened?” And Lessing undoubtedly believes that a future of human intellectual development will restore to souls what has been lost to them in the meantime.

[ 6 ] This is how one acquires real, genuine powers that carry the achievements of bygone eras into the present and into more recent times. This is how one moves beyond that untenable position in which, despite an apparent desire to be realistic, one speaks of “ideas” as the forces that are supposed to act in human history—as if “ideas” could ever be realities! But ideas cannot be effective in history, for mere ideas are abstractions; they are not real. Lessing, however, conceives of real earthly human life as unfolding in such a way that it is the realities of human souls that carry forward from one epoch to the next what has been achieved in a given epoch. Here we stand on the ground of spiritual realities that hold together the historical epochs of humanity.

[ 7 ] The question now is: What does spiritual research in the narrower sense—as it is understood here—have to say about this idea, which Lessing arrived at through certain historical necessities?

[ 8 ] Spiritual research has come to observe that which truly appears before the inner eye or before the other spiritual organs of perception—that which may be described as transcending human birth and death. To substantiate this, it is necessary to briefly reiterate what presents itself to the spiritual researcher in genuine soul experience. When he truly allows the exercises outlined in the previous lecture to take effect on his soul and thus comes to experience, in a soulful way, after the soul itself has withdrawn from the physical-bodily realm and arrived at an experience in the spiritual realm, then this soul—which the spiritual researcher has made independent of the physical-bodily realm—has this physical-bodily aspect beside or before it, and experiences this physical-bodily aspect in such a way that it is subject to death as an external reality; whereas everyday life otherwise flows in such a way that a person develops consciousness only when, so to speak, they are immersed within their physical body and use it as a tool to make what is around them the object of their consciousness—namely, the physical-sensory world.

[ 9 ] Let us vividly imagine what the spiritual researcher’s true experience is: that he, through what the soul truly is, lifts himself out of his body; that he strengthens the soul’s inner powers and makes them so intense that he is no longer dependent on perceiving solely through the aid of physical instruments, but can direct them within himself without the aid of physical forces. The spiritual researcher then arrives at a very specific insight: the actual origin of consciousness in everyday sensory life. Then, when the spiritual researcher has truly freed his soul experience from the physical-bodily realm, and this bodily realm is beside or before him, he learns to recognize how this entire everyday soul life actually comes about. I would like to use a comparison to illustrate quite vividly how everyday soul life comes about. The spiritual researcher does not transform soul life into anything other than what it already is. What he achieves is simply the ability to spiritually observe and perceive what otherwise takes place in everyday life. It then becomes clear to the spiritual researcher that the activity of the spiritual-soul—now perceived purely in spiritual-soul terms—works on the body in such a way that, to put it this way, the human nervous system is first acted upon—acted upon in such a way that this process can be compared to writing letters on a piece of paper. Please note carefully: what the spiritual researcher initially recognizes as spiritual-soul activity is not thinking, not feeling, not willing, nor even what is recognized in everyday life as soul activity; rather, it is that which initially acts upon the physical organs and, I might say, works on them so vividly that they only then begin to exhibit those movements of which the materialistic worldview speaks. These movements in the brain, in the nervous system, and so on, are indeed present, and in this sense, the materialistic worldview must be fully acknowledged as correct. These movements, these vibrations in the brain, are just as real as the letters I write down on paper when I am writing. But just as my activity is that of writing, so the first activity a human being develops is to inscribe into his nervous system what he perceives as “letters”—which are then, in his movements, in his vibrations, and in all the activity he performs, regarded by the soul in such a way that it is comparable to my perception of the letters I have written. The only difference is that when I write, I consciously write the letters on the paper and can also consciously read them again; whereas, when I am in relation to the external world, I unconsciously inscribe the physical activities to be carried out in the nervous system through the spiritual-soul aspect. Once I have inscribed them, they unfold, and I observe them; and this observation is the conscious life of the soul.

[ 10 ] Thus we see that what, in the true sense of the word, can be called spiritual-soul, lies behind that spiritual-soul aspect that develops in everyday life, and that the entire physical experience lies between the true spiritual-soul aspect—that in which the spiritual researcher lives once he has learned to experience life free from the body—and the spiritual-soul aspect of everyday soul life. Between our true spiritual nature, between our true soul life, and our everyday conscious life lies our body. But what this body experiences, how this body engages in continuous organic activity so that consciousness can be reflected back to us like a mirror or like an image from a mirror—what this body carries out—is the result of the spiritual-soul life. Behind our body stands our spiritual-soul aspect, and within this spiritual-soul aspect—which stands behind the body—lies the immortal core of the human being.

[ 11 ] If one makes this distinction, one will no longer seek the meaning of the immortality of the human soul in the continued existence of those aspects of the soul that one experiences between birth and death; rather, one will have to seek the true source of immortality in that which lies beyond everyday life. The task now is to gain an understanding of what lies beyond this everyday life. But this can only be achieved by taking a look at the very essence of the spiritual exploration of the soul.

[ 12 ] It follows from what I have just discussed that everyday consciousness—the consciousness we develop in ordinary life—depends on reflecting itself out of the body, just as our own image is reflected in a mirror. Anyone who does not seek the spiritual-soul aspect behind the image, but believes that the spiritual-soul aspect arises from the body as a function or effect of the body—in other words, anyone who thinks materialistically in this regard—appears, to one who knows these things and has truly investigated them through spiritual research, to be like a person who might say: I see a mirror in front of me; strangely, this mirror causes my image to emerge from its substance. But it does not cause it to emerge from its substance at all, and it is simply nonsense to believe that the mirror produces the image; rather, the image is reflected back by the mirror. In the same way, our own spiritual-psychic activity is reflected back by the body. Our body can quite rightly be compared to a mirror that reflects our mental and soul activity, with the sole difference that we stand before the mirror entirely passively, whereas we approach the body in such a way that we first act upon it through our mental and soul activity, first inscribing this activity into it, which then becomes apparent to our consciousness. The comparison—the reflection I see in the mirror—would only be accurate if I were to exert an activity from my body that would trigger a process in the glass, which would then produce the reflection; that is, if I were to stand actively before the mirror and emit certain rays and so on, which would give rise to intersections and the like, thereby bringing forth the content of everyday consciousness and making it possible for the human being to appear before himself. It follows from this, however, that the human being needs a counterpoint for life between birth and death—something in which he can reflect his spiritual and soul activity. At the very moment one were required to develop such content of consciousness—as it exists in everyday life—without the body, one would be unable to do so as long as one exists between birth and death. If the body were to fail in its service as an instrument, one would have no counterpoint; one would have nothing from which the spiritual and soul activity could be reflected.

[ 13 ] When the spiritual researcher, through the exercises described, succeeds in lifting his spiritual-soul aspect out of the physical body, it also becomes evident that the spiritual-soul gaze cannot possibly be directed toward the external physical world. This external physical-sensory world vanishes from the horizon of consciousness at the very moment when the spiritual researcher truly lifts the spiritual-soul aspect out of the physical body. I would just like to note this in passing for those who believe that spiritual research might somehow distract one from the joyful, captivating sight of the physical-sensory world, which is present in such rich abundance around us. Oh no, that is by no means the case. It is precisely the person who has become a spiritual researcher who finds that, at the very moment when he lives in his spiritual-soul aspect, the sight of the physical-sensory world fades from view; yet it is then that he truly learns to appreciate its beauty and its true value. He returns again and again, as long as he is granted the opportunity to return, strengthened and invigorated by his stay in the spiritual world; he develops an even greater interest in all that is beautiful in the physical world—and gains a special insight that enables him to recognize the beauty, sublimity, and grandeur of the physical world in their true purpose, aspects that had previously eluded him without the training derived from spiritual research. Objections such as the one just mentioned are raised only by those who have not yet engaged more closely with spiritual research.

[ 14 ] If it is indeed the case that the physical world disappears when we no longer have the body as a point of reference for our perception—and the spiritual researcher has this body beside him but does not use it as a tool—then the question arises: How does true spiritual consciousness come about? Does spiritual consciousness not need a physical body? Does the soul not need something in which to reflect itself when it wishes to enter into spiritual consciousness?

[ 15 ] Initiation research answers this question by explaining that at the moment when a person steps out of the physical body with their spiritual-soul aspect and lives in the spiritual-soul realm alone, they do indeed need a counterpoint—something that now serves as a mirror for them. And what now becomes a mirror for them is something that, in a certain sense, was already a mirror within life even before death—though, as experienced in spiritual research, it was then only bearable through suffering. Here we find ourselves once again at one of those points where it must be pointed out that spiritual research does not merely lead into bliss, but also into tragic states of mind—into what, one might say, can only be endured with great inner pain. But for the true researcher, this pain is precisely the price that must be paid for higher knowledge. What then presents itself as a counterargument is our own individual experience, which we have gone through from childhood onward, as far back as we can recall, and which we otherwise also have in our memory. But in everyday life, we have this experience in our memory in such a way that we are, as it were, immersed in it, that we are united with it. Our thoughts, our experiences, our pains—everything we remember—are, after all, essentially ourselves; we are immersed in them, we are one with them. But for the spiritual researcher, what usually resides in memory seems to slip out of him as if from a shell. That with which one is otherwise one—and of which one says to oneself: “You have experienced this, and you now feel united in your thoughts, sensations, and feelings with what you have experienced”—one now perceives this as an external dream image, like a mirage set before one. One feels as if what reflects the spiritual-soul aspect were stepping out of oneself, magnified. One then realizes that in spiritual-soul experience, in initiation—not by passing through the gate of death—one must endure having one’s own life as the material or substantial foundation of experience, instead of external physical impressions or what the senses provide. Against this background, as on a mirror surface, what one can perceive spiritually stands out. There one comes to know to what extent one has become a good or bad mirror for the spiritual world. Above all, one comes to know what it means to truly have before oneself what one has lived through. For this is now the reflective surface against which everything else that presents itself in the spiritual world stands out. So instead of having one’s body as an instrument of perception, one now has as an instrument one’s own sense of self—one’s self of memory—and one’s own experiences. One’s own experiences must merge, in terms of consciousness, with what one experiences spiritually; they must reflect back what one experiences spiritually. And it now becomes apparent in this research that one becomes aware of how, at the very moment when one no longer experiences one’s own inner self within one’s body—as in everyday life—but rather has it externally before oneself in the manner just described, like a mirage— how, at that very moment, this inner self presents itself as an ethereal being that grows ever larger and larger, because it is inwardly connected to the entire spiritual cosmos. One feels as if one is being absorbed by the spiritual cosmos. Once one has gone through the experiences described, one feels as if there were something present in human life between birth and death, as if it were coiled up within the forces of the physical body. At the moment when one has left the physical body during initiation, that which was held together by the forces of the physical body is set free as the etheric body. But what has been set free then strives to expand into the spiritual world, thereby becoming increasingly imperceptible—and one is always in danger, when perceiving in this spiritual way, that one’s own self, the thinking self, will dissolve into the spiritual cosmos, and that one will thereby lose sight of it, because after the dissolution the reflection is no longer there.

[ 16 ] As long as the physical realm endures, the physical body acts as a counterforce to this. For at the very moment one is threatened by the danger that the finer, etheric aspect of a, so to speak, more spiritual body might be lost, the physical body asserts its heightened powers, and one is compelled to return to the physical body. This is precisely as if one were forced back by the power of the physical body into everyday perception, into ordinary seeing, and into the physical mode of existence. But as you can see from this description, through spiritual research one comes to know the moment that must occur when the physical and chemical forces take hold of the outer physical body and carry it away—that is, when death occurs. One learns to recognize how consciousness can continue to exist after death—but can do so precisely because the physical body, which is now heading toward its dissolution, no longer calls back the finer etheric body just described—and can continue to exist, at first, in such a way that one’s own experience stands before us as a memory image, only until the forces of the spiritual cosmos assert their inherent mode of action and that which exists as a finer body dissolves into the cosmos.

[ 17 ] Thus we see how the spiritual researcher, through his own experiences, evokes the state that must unfold within a person when he passes through the gate of death. The first thing one comes to know, by experiencing the process of death on an elemental level, is what takes place immediately after death. But one also comes to realize that this encompasses only the very earliest moments after death. In my Outline of Esoteric Science, I pointed out how long these very earliest moments after death last. They vary in duration depending on a person’s character, but still last only a few days. The recollection of one’s past earthly life—the life lived between birth and death—lasts for days. It lasts as long as the forces of the inner, finer body that we carry within us can endure, a body that is revealed precisely through initiatory research.

[ 18 ] If one considers the circumstances in the manner described, one is led to ask: What, then, determines the length of the period during which this recollection can take place? — If one compares this recollection with the length of time that a particular person can experience in ordinary life—during which they remain awake, that is, without falling asleep—then one has approximately the period of time, which lasts only a few days, within which this recollection of the past earthly life takes place. One can therefore say: Depending on the extent to which a person, in their etheric body, has the ability to let life unfold without having to summon the forces of sleep—without having to invoke sleep as a form of compensation—the duration varies; that is, after death, the past earthly life from birth to death unfolds like a tableau of memories, like a living mirage.

[ 19 ] Over such a period of time—this one and the ones that follow, which I will briefly touch upon in a moment—one learns, in the field of spiritual research, to speak through inner contemplation, not through external measurement. What one experiences there through retrospect in initiation presents itself in such a way that one knows: it contains the forces that a person must keep awake within themselves before sleep overcomes them. What one experiences there thus presents itself in such a way that one must say: this retrospective view of one’s past earthly life is experienced over the course of several days. But what follows also emerges from the spiritual researcher’s perspective. For it is not only, so to speak, in indifferent thoughts that what one has experienced in one’s life between birth and the present moment becomes apparent; rather, what one has experienced morally or in other areas of one’s competence—one’s ability to cope with life—also becomes apparent. This, however, reveals itself in a very special way, and here we again reach a point where one must say that a life presents itself to a spiritual researcher in a way that does not align with the desires and experiences of everyday life. Let us discuss what is revealed there using a concrete example.

[ 20 ] We look back on our lives and reflect on a moment when we did something wrong. And this wrongdoing now appears to us in the mirage of our past earthly life that has just been described. It must be said, however, that from the perspective of spiritual research, this earthly life first appears to us—as it were, in thought—like an indifferent image, like a tableau; and gradually emerging from it—though this process shrouds the spiritual researcher’s gaze in ever more tragic and tragic conflicts—is something of which one might say: one’s entire personal worth arises from what one has done and experienced. If one has committed an injustice, this injustice emerges from the tableau of one’s past earthly life, but at first only in such a way that one follows the image: this is what you have done. Then this image becomes imbued with an emotional element rising from the spiritual-soul realm itself, with emotional forces, and one cannot help but say in response: You cannot be the person you are meant to be if you must always look upon what you have done there; you can only become what you ought to be once you have erased this wrongdoing through the perception of your inner destiny, your karma. The longer one succeeds in dwelling on what appears as a spiritual mirror, and the longer one looks into it, the more intensely the purely emotional experiences arise, which say: You must look at what you have done wrong until you have erased it!

[ 21 ] This is indeed what the spiritual researcher must go through. After watching the mirage of his past life unfold before his eyes—a sight that may leave him indifferent—he must then perceive what stands out from it and becomes a sum of countless self-reproaches, which vividly reveals to him his worth, how far he has come, and what he must do, in light of what he has done, to become a true human being. Self-knowledge—its peculiarity lies in the fact that the further one progresses in it, the more difficult and more tragic it becomes, and that, in particular, everything one should not have done stands before one as self-reproach, so that one is spellbound by it and cannot turn one’s spiritual gaze away from it until it is extinguished.

[ 22 ] As far as this point, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle had already recognized the nature of human spiritual life from the perspective of spiritual vision, and he also recognized what must follow this mirage. Aristotle already knew in ancient Greece that when a person has passed through the gate of death, he truly lives in his own individuality, in his own being—and lives in such a way that, looking back, he experiences his own deeds and misdeeds, upon which his gaze is fixed; except that Aristotle had not yet advanced far enough as a researcher of the spirit to have gone beyond this conception of looking back. According to him, this looking back extends into eternity. Aristotle sees no possibility that a human being could ever escape from this; so that once a person has had the brief retrospective—which lasts only a few days—they would then face another that would unfold before them, as it were, for all eternity. This is part of what is so bleak about Aristotelian philosophy, when one truly understands it. Aristotle believes that the brief earthly life serves to prepare one for an experience in the spiritual realm, in which man, looking back, would be captivated by the sight of his imperfect existence between birth and death; and his life after death would consist of being captivated by this sight. His world would consist of seeing himself as he was in the life between birth and death; and just as we here behold a world of animals, plants, stones, mountains, seas, and so on, so would we, in the time after death, be immersed in the sight of our own deeds. — The distinguished Aristotelian scholar Franz Brentano clearly pointed this out in his beautiful book Aristotle and His Worldview. What I have just cited—even if Aristotle’s words are sometimes such that one can debate what he meant—follows quite clearly from Aristotle. He simply did not yet know that what modern spiritual research can show us is merely a passage—one that, once a person has passed through the gate of death, presents itself as a retrospective view interwoven with inner emotional experiences.

[ 23 ] What does the spiritual researcher perceive when he penetrates into the realm that a person enters upon passing through the gates of death?

[ 24 ] Once he has developed his spiritual-research perspective to the point where his physical body, so to speak, does not call him back too quickly, what follows is what comes after the post-death experience—which lasts for days—and the vague, mirage-like recollection that serves as a retrospective. For the spiritual researcher can ascend along his path to the point where, at first, he truly sees only—like a mirage—the reflection of the events of his life and certain spiritual experiences that are close at hand; then his physical body can reclaim that subtle etheric body into his inner being, and he re-enters everyday reality as if emerging from an initiatory dream. But if he continues the exercises—the cultivation of attention and devotion—further and further, then he does indeed come to behold even that which stands out from this mirage, but now stands out in such a way that what is revealed in this vision is what we are not yet, what we must become—in the sense that we are not yet what we ought to be because we have committed an injustice that we must confront. We are not yet the one who has eradicated this wrongdoing from the world; but we must become the one who eradicates it from the world.

[ 25 ] And this, once again, is what is so pressing, so inwardly oppressive in the spiritual researcher’s perspective: that through the contemplation of inner experience—awakened to self-observation—one feels the awakened forces being summoned, forces that seek to fatefully balance out all injustice; one looks upon the imperfections that cling to one. One sees this. But one also sees more and more clearly what one must do so that the imperfection may fade away, so that the injustice may be atoned for. One sees what one must become. This is the self-knowledge that one feels within oneself the germinal forces that are already striving beyond death, that one must say to oneself: These forces do indeed live on within us after death; once we are freed from the body, we will do what they demand. For now, I must let the wrongdoing stand, must retain these imperfections; yet I feel these forces: just as one feels the germinative force in a plant, so I feel the force that can eradicate the wrongdoing. Now, through inner vision, one knows that it takes years for what is revealed through one’s own experience to gradually develop the forces that can truly compensate for the wrongdoing. But they cannot compensate for it now. They must first pass through a spiritual world, through a world of spiritual experiences. Just as surely as physical consciousness, when it sees the sun set, tells itself: “You must now experience the night,” so that the sun that has set in the west may reappear in the east—just as surely does the spiritual researcher know, when he experiences the forces that are developing as germinative forces within the soul: after you have gradually developed these forces, after you have inwardly realized—or have come to understand over the course of years—what the forces must be like that can bring about this balance, you must immerse yourself in a spiritual world in order to find there, just as surely, the forces that are now, as it were, gathered from this spiritual world, one might say, are spiritually breathed forth—so that the human being, after passing through this spiritual world between death and a new birth, may once again become ripe to enter a new earthly life with these forces that have been inwardly cultivated in the manner described.

[ 26 ] But spiritual research can also provide insight into what the soul must experience once, after death, it has spiritually assimilated those forces while reviewing its past life—after it has realized what forces it must possess as it prepares for a new earthly life during its passage through the spiritual world. For the spiritual researcher, even if he is able to maintain his spiritual vision long enough through continued practice while he is still in earthly life, cannot transform these forces himself. But he looks into the spiritual world; he sees the material for this transformation. He sees, as it were, within himself how the powers yearn for a new life. Just as one can see a lung in a human embryo that has not yet come into the light of day—a lung that, one can see, when it comes into contact with breathing air, it will breathe—so, when the soul is freed from the body, one sees in the spiritual world the spiritual organs inhaling the spiritual air, which, however, only develop spiritually as they move toward a new earthly life. One comes to know this spiritual development through direct observation, comes to know what it means to grasp spiritual substance with spiritual organs. — If one wishes to use an expression for what is taking place there with the soul, ordinary language offers no other expression than to say: It is, in a certain sense, a blissful experience, because it is a life of activity—a continuous drawing upon and assimilating of spiritual substance during the existence between death and a new birth—a creative process, a preparation of the prerequisites for a new earthly life. In this existence, the soul feels itself to be part of a spiritual world, and through this it experiences it as a heavenly bliss—after having felt what it must regard as tragic in its past life and in the view of that life—which must develop as the germinal forces based on that past life.

[ 27 ] Thus, once a person has passed through the gate of death, we would have what we might call the meaning of continued existence: first, a spiritual, mirage-like retrospective of one’s past earthly life lasting several days, followed by an emotional reliving of that life; for this latter emotional experience is not merely a retrospective view, but a reliving of one’s past earthly life, in which one experiences all the imperfections and wrongs one has committed, and what one should have done differently, so that in the next life one may achieve what one ought to achieve, and a development of the strengths needed to ensure that the next life can be different. As long as one still looks back on the past life, it is merely an intellectual development of those powers, which proceeds in such a way that one realizes: “In the coming earthly life, you must possess these or those powers.” But once one has relived one’s entire life—once one has passed through one’s earthly life once more in the spiritual realm after death—one enters a purely spiritual region, and there one spiritually draws in, as it were, all those forces, which then descend to unite with what the father and mother can provide in physical substance and to form a new earthly life.

[ 28 ] It might now seem as though what I have just described—the human being’s passage through life between death and rebirth—necessarily requires that successive earthly lives become ever more perfect. In practice, however, this is not the case. It is not the case for this reason—and this, in turn, is demonstrated by genuine spiritual research, provided one views matters from the perspective of the soul that has been freed from the body—because it is truly true what a truly great spirit of recent times said, albeit almost from a troubled mind: that the world is profound and truly deeper than we imagine, that we can only slowly and gradually arrive at what is inherent within us, and that our human powers are quite imperfect in relation to what they must one day become and to what stands before us as an ideal of true humanity. It then becomes apparent that we are not always able, after death, to see clearly what powers we must acquire in order to make amends for the wrongs we have committed. And many forces come into play here, so that it may be that we believe we can make amends for what we did out of selfishness in the life before death through an even greater selfishness, and that we want to make amends for what we did foolishly through an even greater folly. As a result, the next earthly incarnation may turn out to be even more imperfect—an even harsher trial than the last one was. On the whole, however, humanity’s passage through repeated earthly lives is indeed an ascent. It is entirely possible that when a person looks back on a past earthly life, they may be mistaken about how certain things can be balanced out, and that this may result in apparent or actual descents. But on the whole, profound “falls” in a person’s life are often followed by significant ascents, in that after death the terrible reality sets in: we look back on what we have committed as a grave injustice, or what has clung to us as a great imperfection, and as a result, after the profound fall, we will experience a great ascent.

[ 29 ] Many things become apparent when the spiritual researcher observes life with a keen eye; for one thing does not occur in isolation. When one has one’s own life after death as a backdrop, one merges with the spiritual world; one unites with the spiritual world; so that when, through spiritual and soul experience, one encounters a wrong one has committed in life, one simultaneously encounters the soul against whom this wrong was committed, and one then experiences the wrong done to that soul as well. In general, expanding one’s gaze toward the spiritual leads us not only to one’s own soul at first, but to the soul of another human being itself. One learns to observe the soul of another human being, so that—even if it is difficult for today’s sense of time to believe—one enters into an observation of the other human soul and truly comes to follow a soul that has already left the body, that has already passed through the gate of death. However, it must be pointed out: When the spiritual researcher strives to expand his own life in such a way that he penetrates into the realm of experience—where “realm” is, of course, meant symbolically—in which a soul exists, he can witness the destinies of that soul after death. It must be noted, however, that one initially witnesses the destinies of those souls with whom one was connected in one’s past life; but as one’s spiritual experience deepens, the destinies of souls with whom one was connected in earlier earthly lives also come into view. It then becomes clear to the spiritual researcher that he develops relationships with almost all souls on Earth; however, recognizing these relationships is often an extraordinarily difficult task and can only be achieved with certain aids.

[ 30 ] Some questions may occur to the individual when the meaning of the immortality of the human soul is discussed in this way. If we combine what was explained in the previous lecture with what has been presented today, we can say: It is understandable that everyday consciousness can only develop by spreading like a veil over the eternal aspect of the human soul, and that we develop sensory consciousness precisely because, between birth and death, we obscure what unfolds after death. We must—according to what was said in the last lecture—carry death within us so that we may have our present consciousness. To the extent that we develop the forces that lead us to natural death, we can develop our everyday consciousness. The fact that we can die makes it possible for us to have the sensory world around us.

[ 31 ] Thus one can understand that a person must, so to speak, die once he has lived out his life. But for anyone who hears the concept of immortality discussed in this way, the question must be raised again and again: What about those lives that end unfulfilled—whether due to inner illnesses, inner weaknesses, or misfortunes—perhaps in the prime of their physical earthly existence? What can the spiritual researcher say about such deaths? How do these fit into the full course of earthly life, and what role do they play in what a person carries through the gate of death when entering the spiritual world?

[ 32 ] I do not wish to speak in the abstract here. I have been giving these lectures here for many years now. It is therefore only natural that now, after such a series has been presented so many times, some may believe that the descriptions given here are presented as mere assertions. Time and again, we will find that those who are hearing such things for the first time and are not familiar with the literature will raise objections that have long since been refuted. However, one could not make progress in these reflections if one had to say the same thing every year. Therefore, in response to any legitimate objections that may arise, I must point out that one should try to familiarize oneself with the literature and bear in mind that such objections have already been refuted in the course of the many lectures.

[ 33 ] Let us consider the case in which a flourishing human life is cut short by a tragic accident. The following then becomes apparent to the spiritual researcher. When he follows this soul beyond death, it becomes evident that, by having gone through this misfortune, the soul has absorbed within itself—through the experience of the misfortune—forces that are capable of preparing higher intellectual abilities for the next earthly life than would have been prepared had this misfortune not occurred. However, one would be misinterpreting the spiritual researcher if one were to entertain even the remotest thought that it would therefore be very easy to become more intellectually developed for one’s next earthly life by allowing oneself to be run over by a machine now. That is not the case. Rather, it becomes evident that what is necessary in human destiny beyond death cannot be determined by the consciousness we possess between birth and death, but rather by that higher consciousness which arises before birth or after death, in the purely spiritual world. With the consciousness we can develop in the physical body, we can never fully grasp whether an accident would affect us in this or that way. But in numerous cases, it becomes evident to the spiritual researcher that, in fact, during a life that preceded our present birth as a spiritual experience, our soul—in a purely spiritual consciousness—had already brought about a fate that, with a certain inevitability, led to this misfortune. It is not for us to decide this after birth. Before birth, we direct our existence toward misfortune so that our soul, as it were, passes through the possibility of external physical actions that shatter our physical body, and thus, as it were, experiences at the moment of transition: how does our humanity manifest in this shattering when this body will not continue to develop in a natural way? There is a good reason—not in the realm of everyday consciousness, but in our superconsciousness—why human lives can be cut short by misfortune even before reaching normal old age, so to speak. As daring as it is to speak of such things in the present, it is nevertheless necessary to point them out. And in the case of many souls whom the spiritual researcher encounters—in whom he finds this or that talent in their fundamental disposition—he can trace back to earlier earthly lives and observe how powers of invention and powers of insight into the wider world, which are suited to rendering great service to humanity, have developed through misfortunes at a certain age. One need only reasonably observe how a certain stage of life is necessary for this or that task of an original nature. Great inventors will, at a certain stage of life, through a peak of intensity in their abilities, reach a point where certain powers then rise up from the depths of life. It need not be an epoch-making invention; it can also be something that serves entirely ordinary, everyday life. This may be due to the fact that, in a previous earthly life, this soul had to pass through circumstances of physical life that shattered the body at that time. In passing through the forces that destroy physical life, the soul acquires powers of invention that master, direct, and permeate the physical world. — The fact that such things can be investigated cannot be “proven” by ordinary external logic; but one can only do what has so often been demonstrated in these lectures: how the spiritual researcher, through a strictly regulated methodology of his inner life, comes to be able to truly observe what takes place at the moment when a soul experiences some misfortune that leads to this or that, or even to death.

[ 34 ] Or let’s consider another case: When a young life is cut short relatively early by illness, it becomes apparent to the spiritual researcher that it is not so much the intellectual life in the next incarnation that is affected by this; rather, it is essentially the life of the will that is affected in such a case. Again, we must not bring about the kind of strengthening of the life of the will—which we desire in our ordinary consciousness—by allowing an illness to develop on our own. But when, within the overall context of existence—which is governed by the spiritual world—a human life is cut short in the prime of life by a lung disease or some other illness, the spiritual researcher very often finds that such a soul, having gone through such an illness, was not able to develop that inner strength of will that was already, in a certain sense, inherent within it. The outer physical body offered resistance. But as the illness was endured, and as the spiritual-soul aspect had experienced the resistance of the physical body, it found—when it then passed through the life between death and new birth—in this resistance the very thing that subsequently gives rise to that strength of will. And it is precisely through such a consideration that it becomes evident that life acquires its meaning in every respect.

[ 35 ] Certainly, it must be said: all the suffering we experience in our physical earthly life—and rightly so—when we face life’s misfortunes or our own fate, this suffering will always be there. It will not disappear entirely, but it may be alleviated if one realizes that, viewed from a higher perspective on life, wisdom nonetheless pulses through and weaves itself into our lives. From a higher vantage point, all suffering woven into life appears to be part of our development, and this is the starting point for the spiritual researcher: to presuppose and find wisdom in the world from the very beginning. He contemplates life with all its fortunes and misfortunes; and just as the result of a calculation is not known until the calculation has been performed, so wisdom does not exist in human life until one has, in so many instances, become convinced with admiration that wisdom nevertheless underlies all life. Because we are immersed in an experience that must take place through the body, misfortunes will have a corresponding effect, will affect us as human beings, and life in the body—if it were unable to feel pain in the face of misfortune—would have to appear inhuman to us. But just as sensory perception in life veils from us what the spiritual-soul aspect is in its eternal significance, so does the experience within the body veil that higher vantage point from which all of a human being’s conscious experience appears to be permeated by wisdom. The spiritual researcher does not become like a withered crop simply because he can perceive wisdom even in misfortune. No, precisely because he can rise to a higher vantage point, the overview of life from that perspective appears to him as imbued with wisdom and reasonable. But then, when he re-enters earthly life and experiences it in his body, he is, of course, just as much a feeling human being as anyone else. Just as one who climbs a mountain peak and, from that height, enjoys the beautiful view must not cease to be mindful of what is happening down in the valley, so too can the true spiritual seeker not lose all full compassion and empathy for all human happiness and suffering when, in the life between birth and death, he is confronted with happiness and suffering. But it is precisely this spiritual research that reveals that, in the face of eternity, human beings are not born to despair, but rather that every gaze upward into the realm of the spirit reveals the world to them in a wise and meaningful way, and that the realization of true immortality is at the same time the realization of the meaning of immortality.

[ 36 ] I could only offer hints regarding human immortality and its nature, and the meaning of this human immortality must emerge from these hints on its own. It is precisely those things that lie, so to speak, outside ordinary life that the spiritual researcher must put into words if he wishes to point to what a person experiences after passing through the gate of death. What is experienced in ordinary life offers no point of reference for characterizing life after death if it is to be recognized in its spiritual substance. Thus, one must be clear that a person will not be able to carry the image of a single lion or a single mountain through the gate of death, but rather that inner spiritual-soul activity through which we are enabled to have a mountain as a concept, to hold it in our consciousness, or to imagine a lion. These are what we carry through the gate of death. It is precisely what is not “real” in life that we carry most of all through the gate of death. When we see various lions, we form the concept of the lion. It goes without saying that it is child’s play to prove that the concept of the lion does not exist in sensory reality, but only the individual lion; likewise, not the concept of the mountain, but only the individual mountain. But what enables us to to recognize and comprehend mountains and lions, to grasp spiritual and soul-related matters, to recognize justice, freedom, and so on—what enables us to live with a human soul as with our own kind, what allows us to penetrate the human soul through mysterious sympathies, that mysterious interweaving from soul to soul—that is what we take with us through the gate of death. And when the question is raised: Will we be reunited with our loved ones after death? — then we can say: We will be reunited with them! There will be a reunion with those who were close to us in life. Even between birth and death, bonds exist between souls that belong to the spiritual realm—bonds that are simply not yet perceived because the soul’s gaze is bound by physical sight.

[ 37 ] To explore the spiritual necessarily means, at the same time—if one truly arrives at this spiritual realm—to recognize the eternity of the spiritual. To recognize the human being as spirit means to recognize the eternity of the human spirit. And in fact, as a spiritual researcher—strange as it may seem—one must say the following: Whoever considers the spirit to be mortal cannot truly recognize it. Philosophers who do not believe in the immortality of the human soul are to soul research what botanists are who deny the existence of plants. It is the specific way of viewing the world of the spirit, as revealed by the spiritual researcher’s perspective, such that one can say: The soul learns to recognize the spiritual as a matter of course, just as the botanist recognizes the plant for what it is. Therefore, we may say that what is most valuable for human life as a whole—in regard to the spiritual-soul aspect, and in regard to the behavior of the human soul after death—is that which is obscured by external perception in physical-sensory experience, that which is not perceived in this experience. Anyone who wishes to bring concepts into the life that follows death, anyone who does not wish to suffer from a “hunger for concepts”—if I may use that expression—after death, must acquire concepts that, even here in earthly life, extend not merely to what is perceptible through the senses but go beyond it. What we know from spiritual science can nourish us, as concepts do, in the life after death. — If someone were to believe that the hunger for concepts after death would kill them, it must certainly be said that a soul, because it is immortal, can indeed suffer from this hunger for concepts, but cannot, like the physical body, die from it.

[ 38 ] Thus, I have been able to offer you only a few hints regarding the meaning of the immortality of the human soul. Of course, the one who offers such hints knows best what objections—or, indeed, what objections must often be raised—by someone who is so thoroughly immersed in today’s sense of time. After all, we live in an age that, on the one hand, is utterly averse to acknowledging that the development of the soul discussed here truly leads into a purely spiritual experience, where what has been expounded here manifests itself; yet at the same time we live in an age in which, in the subconscious depths of the human soul, there is a yearning to transcend the knowledge of the intellect and that which is bound to the intellect. There may indeed be people who say: Why can’t human beings remain content with what nature has given them—the intellect and the senses that are naturally bestowed upon them? But that would be just as if someone were to say that a child should remain content with what it has as a child and should not learn what it would have to accomplish as an adult. Anyone who were to say that the soul should remain content with the faculties already given to it would be taking exactly the same position.

[ 38 ] Thus, I have been able to offer you only a few hints regarding the meaning of the immortality of the human soul. Of course, the one who offers such hints knows best what objections—or, indeed, what objections must often be raised—by someone who is so thoroughly immersed in today’s sense of time. After all, we live in an age that, on the one hand, is utterly averse to acknowledging that the development of the soul discussed here truly leads into a purely spiritual experience, where what has been expounded here manifests itself; yet at the same time we live in an age in which, in the subconscious depths of the human soul, there is a yearning to transcend the knowledge of the intellect and that which is bound to the intellect. There may indeed be people who say: Why can’t human beings remain content with what nature has given them—the intellect and the senses that are naturally bestowed upon them? But that would be just as if someone were to say that a child should remain content with what it has as a child and should not learn what it would have to accomplish as an adult. Anyone who were to say that the soul should remain content with the faculties already given to it would be taking exactly the same position.

[ 38 ] Thus, I have been able to offer you only a few hints regarding the meaning of the immortality of the human soul. Of course, the one who offers such hints knows best what objections—or, indeed, what objections must often be raised—by someone who is so thoroughly immersed in today’s sense of time. After all, we live in an age that, on the one hand, is utterly averse to acknowledging that the development of the soul discussed here truly leads into a purely spiritual experience, where what has been expounded here manifests itself; yet at the same time we live in an age in which, in the subconscious depths of the human soul, there is a yearning to transcend the knowledge of the intellect and that which is bound to the intellect. There may indeed be people who say: Why can’t human beings remain content with what nature has given them—the intellect and the senses that are naturally bestowed upon them? But that would be just as if someone were to say that a child should remain content with what it has as a child and should not learn what it would have to accomplish as an adult. Anyone who were to say that the soul should remain content with the faculties already given to it would be taking exactly the same position.

[ 38 ] Thus, I have been able to offer you only a few hints regarding the meaning of the immortality of the human soul. Of course, the one who offers such hints knows best what objections—or, indeed, what objections must often be raised—by someone who is so thoroughly immersed in today’s sense of time. After all, we live in an age that, on the one hand, is utterly averse to acknowledging that the development of the soul discussed here truly leads into a purely spiritual experience, where what has been expounded here manifests itself; yet at the same time we live in an age in which, in the subconscious depths of the human soul, there is a yearning to transcend the knowledge of the intellect and that which is bound to the intellect. There may indeed be people who say: Why can’t human beings remain content with what nature has given them—the intellect and the senses that are naturally bestowed upon them? But that would be just as if someone were to say that a child should remain content with what it has as a child and should not learn what it would have to accomplish as an adult. Anyone who were to say that the soul should remain content with the faculties already given to it would be taking exactly the same position.

[ 42 ] Thus, one may say that even for what appears paradoxical today, the time will come when it will be understood in the same way that the scientific achievements which have advanced humanity have always been understood. I have already pointed out once before that spiritual science brings one into harmony with contemporary science and with all the personalities in the development of humanity who have penetrated into the spirit and its life. Therefore, today as well, at the conclusion of these reflections—through which I have attempted to interpret, stammeringly, the meaning of the immortality of the human soul, I would say, have attempted to interpret—stammeringly, for one can, after all, speak of these things only stammeringly—I would like to point to something that burst forth from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who, from the standpoint of his time, cast deep glances into the experience of the cosmos—; what burst forth from the soul of this philosopher, who felt his own soul carried along by the “stream of becoming,” as he referred to the entire universe. Heraclitus saw in becoming—in the ceaseless flow of becoming—the very essence of the cosmos. “Being” was, for him, an illusion. What is, in truth, is only seemingly there. Everything is within the stream of becoming, in subtle movement, and the soul is woven into this eternally flowing movement. For Heraclitus, fire was the symbol of becoming, and he felt his own soul immersed in the cosmic fire of becoming. Living spiritually within it, he experienced the impulse toward immortality as an inner experience, as an immediate inner observation. And so he expressed it in such a way that his words, altered only slightly, might serve as the conclusion to the reflections on human immortality that I have stammeringly attempted to articulate today. It is true—as the trained eye of the spiritual researcher clearly shows:

[ 43 ] When the soul, freed from the body, soars up into the free ether, it reveals itself to itself as an immortal spirit, freed from death!