The Rudolf Steiner Archive

13. Sleep and Death from the Perspective of Spiritual Science

[ 1 ] I have often emphasized in the course of these lectures that it is entirely natural—indeed, a matter of course—that, from the standpoint held by the majority of people today, objection after objection must be raised against spiritual science. But I also emphasized in the lecture I gave here on the question of immortality from the standpoint of spiritual science that genuine spiritual science wants nothing to do with what is all too often carried out under that name, and that it is in full harmony with natural science. Nor does it conflict with what sound philosophy has to say. Since this is relevant to our discussion today, I would like to begin by briefly highlighting this harmony with philosophical thought.

[ 2 ] What spiritual science must always assert is not based on philosophical speculation, but on what has been called inner experience, the inner living of spiritual realities; it must assert the independence and self-groundedness of the human soul—or, to put it more simply: that the human being has a spiritual and soul-based existence that extends beyond the physical and bodily. I said that this is entirely consistent with a sound philosophy grounded in scientific principles, because many people, based on the prevailing mindset of our time, perceive such a claim as the epitome of unscientific thinking. It is easy to say from a scientific standpoint: How can one speak of the human soul as something independent when physiologists show that everything is dependent on what develops physically in the human being? Consider how, when a part of the brain is damaged, disturbances immediately occur due to the loss of part of the brain’s functions. Does this not lead one to the conclusion that mental activities are located within the nervous system or brain when they are functioning normally? One can point out how mental abilities grow in young people, and how, in old age, when the external system withers and hardens, mental abilities decline, and so on. Based on such observations, one could formulate many lines of thought that would lead to the conclusion that mental experience essentially consists of nothing other than the activity of the nervous system and the rest of the organism. Let us hear what an astute philosopher, Otto Liebmann—whom I mentioned in my *Riddles of Philosophy*—thinks about this. He is not one of those who make assertions based on superficial thinking, but rather presents what the facts of the analysis of human thought are capable of revealing. He examines the belief that the human soul consists solely of the physical, and offers remarkable insights consistent with a perceptive philosophy that aligns with the current state of the natural sciences. In short, he says: It is by no means entirely certain what Munk and others have established regarding the dependence of mental activity on the brain, because, for example, a damaged part of the brain can be replaced by other functions. But even if we had reached that conclusion, we would essentially see nothing else. That is to say, modern philosophy maintains that no matter how far one might advance in the study of the connection between the mental and the physical, one would still not get any further than knowing that one must make use of certain internal organs in order to think, feel, and will. One can draw the parallel that certain parts of the brain are necessary for the soul, just as we use our hand to grasp. But when we use this hand to grasp, the mechanical action of the hand is accompanied by a mental process. We cannot speak of the mental functions of the brain in this way. This, however, stems solely from the fact that scientific research is not yet complete. As it continues to advance in order to demonstrate the connection between the physical and the psychological, it will find that there is a different relationship between thinking, feeling, willing, and the nervous system than there is between the hand and grasping. It will find that they are related in much the same way as the imprints that feet make in soft soil are related to the earth.

[ 3 ] What is specifically found in the brain can be traced back to the activity of the soul, just as footprints on the ground can be traced back to the feet. Just as there could be no connection between walking and footprints without solid ground, so it is with everything that takes place in the physical body. Everything a person thinks and wills leaves an imprint in the nervous system within the physical body; but it does not emerge from it, any more than footprints emerge from the earth. One needs the physical body as a surface of resistance, just as one needs solid earth for walking. It is therefore self-evident that imprints must be found. It is a scientifically justified endeavor to find them; but it is unscientific to seek to extract from the physical body what has been imprinted upon it by the soul-spiritual. In this respect, Liebmann’s assertion is false. The imprint is merely a concomitant of the soul-spiritual. This is precisely what natural science, with its methods, will prove in the most eminent sense; it will show how one can trace the traces, but will not seek to explain them in terms of the organism itself. Natural science is already on this path; even today, fully valid proof of this could be provided. Spiritual science does not dispute anything that is legitimate in natural science; spiritual science fully acknowledges the validity of natural science. It merely opposes the unjustified assertion by natural scientists to pursue something they themselves do not understand—the despotism of the scientists. This goes even further. With certain philosophers, one could almost physically grasp how they push into what spiritual science seeks to elucidate, immediately following, for example, what has already been cited by Otto Liebmann. What he says is exemplary in terms of acumen and analysis. He suggests that someone might say there is not only egg white and yolk in a chicken egg, but also a ghost; this ghost takes physical form, pecks open the shell, runs out, and immediately pecks up the scattered grains. One could understand that someone might take this as a joke. But Otto Liebmann certainly does not mean it as a joke. He goes on to say that the only objection that can be raised is that the preposition “in” must be understood not in a spatial sense but in a metaphysical one. Understood in this way, it is entirely correct, says Otto Liebmann. The fact is that even a perceptive philosopher must admit: one cannot object to the statement that inside a chicken egg there is not only yolk and egg white, but also an invisible specter that materializes. Otto Liebmann, however, does not believe that one must form a worldview immediately after reading a few books; rather, he wants to carefully weigh how human beings set their thought processes in motion. From the lectures on the humanities, one can see how what Otto Liebmann refers to here as a “ghost” that materializes is present within human beings themselves as something supersensory.

[ 4 ] Today I cannot speak about the methods that must be applied to separate from the physical and corporeal that which lies within them in terms of the spiritual and soul, and to discover in thinking something of which one knows nothing in ordinary life; nor can I speak of discovering that which underlies willing and feeling, of which willing and feeling are merely impressions. For the spiritual researcher, what Otto Liebmann describes here theoretically in relation to the chicken egg can become an inner experience for the human being. Spiritual science will not claim that it can present this to the physical eye in a ghostly manner, say, in a blaze of light; that would make it a physical, not a spiritual, experience. Yet one can become consciously aware of it, just as experience in everyday life is mediated through the physical body—but only by detaching oneself from the physical. Otto Liebmann sensed that something spiritual underlies the physical. Spiritual science proceeds by showing how spiritual-soul methods lead to the development of an awareness of what Otto Liebmann speaks of. This awareness can be developed. Just as the external sensory world becomes an object for ordinary consciousness, so too does the human being become an object for himself when he liberates his spiritual and soul aspects: he observes himself from the outside.

[ 5 ] One might object that while one might claim to be in harmony with philosophy, it remains to be seen whether Otto Liebmann would accept these musings or would, after all, dismiss them as mere daydreams. But let us suppose that, at a time when the telephone had yet to be invented, one physicist had spoken to another about it, and the other had said that it was impossible. Does that mean, then, that the telephone as we know it today is somehow at odds with what was considered physics at that time? The same is true of the humanities. With a mode of judgment such as the one suggested, one would be compelled to oppose all human progress based on the prejudices of a standpoint once adopted.

[ 6 ] Human beings can truly free themselves from the physical body. From this perspective, some light will be shed on the mysteries of sleep and death. When human beings free themselves from the physical body, they enter a state in which they can see through their entire humanity as it exists in the physical world. Only now is true self-knowledge possible. Only now does one become an object, just as hydrogen, which is otherwise contained in water, becomes an object only when it is separated from the water by a chemist. Only now is one able to relate this newly acquired insight to states of consciousness that cannot be related to one another in ordinary everyday consciousness: the waking experience in relation to the sleeping experience.

[ 7 ] When a person is immersed in sleep, the spiritual-soul aspect has stepped out of the physical body. Otto Liebmann’s “spirit” temporarily detaches itself from the physical body, and a purely spiritual-soul relationship is established between the state attained through spiritual development and the state of sleep; a relationship similar to that between what I am experiencing now and a memory of what I once experienced. Just as I regard what I once experienced, so I regard the state of sleep and find that, from the moment of falling asleep until waking, the spiritual-soul aspect is outside the physical body. One must connect with it spiritually and psychologically. Thus, one surveys the two aspects of human nature—the physical body, which has remained in bed, and that which has gone out—just as one surveys hydrogen and oxygen when they have been separated from water. But there is more: One sees that what has remained as the physical body is in fact a duality, namely, the physical body and that which prevents it from following its own chemical laws—which is what makes it a living being; this is the etheric body—the word itself is not important—a finer body of forces. The term “etheric body” should not be taken too literally; it has nothing to do with what is called “ether” in physics today.

[ 8 ] One might mock what emerges during sleep—specifically, the term used to describe it. Let people have their mockery. What emerges is the astral body—the true soul body—and the “I.” We thus have before us the fourfold nature of the human being: on the one hand, the physical and the etheric; on the other, the soul, in which the “I” nature is, as it were, embedded. In ordinary sleep, the “I” is not capable of generating consciousness because, at the present stage of human development, it develops its “I” activity in connection with the physical body. Just as one cannot walk on air, so too can the “I”-consciousness not develop without the resistance of the physical-bodily; it develops through this resistance. In sleep, it does not encounter this resistance and therefore cannot attain consciousness. It develops a dull consciousness; but this is merely a paradoxical expression, since it does not, in fact, attain consciousness.

[ 9 ] Likewise, from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up, the soul body is constantly active. By way of comparison, we could say: just as we are active when we reflect on something that happened some time ago. Its activity is a reverberation of what it has experienced in the etheric and physical bodies. We can imagine the significance of this reverberation as follows: When we are awake, we think, feel, and will with our etheric body, which exerts resistance within the physical body. This means that only those thoughts resonate through us that reflect the activity of the etheric body. By being active in this way within the etheric body, we imprint the aftereffects upon it: what we think during the day is imprinted upon it. But it offers resistance; it has its own inner movements; these are what constitute the life that permeates the physical body. By forcing into it what takes place in our thinking, we impose something foreign upon it; for its primary purpose is, after all, to mediate life. Because of the tensions that arise between the various activities of the etheric body, the astral body cannot absorb what is thus imprinted. During sleep, it resonates with what we ourselves have forced into our etheric body during the day; it is like a recollection of what we have thought, felt, and willed during the day. Thus we can say that, with regard to the ego, a person cannot develop consciousness during sleep; yet the astral body resonates with everything that has taken place within us during the day through the activity of the soul. Nor can this activity of the astral body become conscious; for if it were to continue resonating in this way for a long time, it would intensify into a state where true consciousness would arise—every morning a precise awareness, a memory image of what has been imprinted into the astral body. When we consider what we have taken in during the day, we should not imagine all the individual acts, but rather the activities of thinking, feeling, and willing. By engaging in these, we give the astral body a structure, a general imprint—not through the individual acts—in which it continues to resonate. Then, in the morning, within the image we have sketched—we might say, within what we experienced the day before—we have not added anything new to our thinking, feeling, or willing. We would overlook this were it not for the astral body’s need to develop the impulse to return to the physical and etheric bodies—that is, to wake up. This supreme tension leads us to plunge back into the physical body. For otherwise, one would have to be able to draw out—at least for a very brief moment—the force that one must leave behind in the physical body and in what is called the etheric body during sleep. In what might be called true spiritual perception, one actually enlivens what might be called the unconscious force of the etheric body, causing it to flash into consciousness. One must then wait for the moments when the etheric body detaches itself even during waking life; it is like a pulsation of blood: the etheric body is at first more intimately connected to the physical body—and then withdraws. By making use of such moments, one gains consciousness of the etheric body for a brief moment. Then the supersensible consciousness flashes into view: one is in the spiritual world and can ask questions there.

[ 10 ] We see what an intimate process underlies this. What actually happens is like something that flashes by. If one tries to express it in scientific terms, what remains is like a memory—like a memory of fleeting dreams. That is why success in “spiritual science” is not achieved by stringing together one conclusion after another based on what one already has—it is not a logical recollection, not a process of thinking, but rather a process of growth arising from such fleeting moments. Therefore, when the spiritual researcher writes down what he has thus gained, he cannot proceed as one who describes from memory. He cannot, for example, presume to say that a lecture he is delivering for the twelfth time is easier because it is firmly established in his memory. From a spiritual scientific perspective, if one truly wishes to be honest, one cannot simply let anything pass into memory; rather, it must always be spoken anew from the inner work of the soul, not from memory. Therefore, a lecture is just as new the fourteenth or fifteenth time as it was the first time. Rather, it is a deliberate endeavor, a continuously active process that develops activity within the soul. Therefore, in an honest presentation of spiritual science, the one who presents something derived from direct contact with the spiritual world will strive each time to formulate the words anew. Precisely for this reason, only an inner, genuine honesty can lead to the presentation of spiritual science. It is said that whoever wants to lie must have a good memory. The spiritual researcher, on the other hand, must be imbued with the highest degree of honesty. He must not embellish; then what he says will already correspond to what he does not need to recall in the ordinary way. But the method of recollection used by ordinary consciousness cannot be applied. |

[ 11 ] Through such insight into the structure of the human being, one comes to understand the nature of sleep. In Vienna, I described this process as a separation between the physical and etheric bodies on the one hand, and the astral body and the “I” on the other. This is to be understood only in relative terms; connections remain and are established. While the astral body, so to speak, continues to resonate in its retrowal, it comes into contact with the etheric body in its ordinary experience, and as it thus mixes what it would otherwise experience purely with what takes place in ordinary life, dreams arise. They are chaotic or, to a greater or lesser extent, orderly, even prophetic, intermingled with what can take place in ordinary life. If Schopenhauer had not judged solely from the ordinary philosophical standpoint of knowledge, he would not have seen the world merely as will and representation; but he would have seen that the representation can be condensed within itself, that one can consciously experience the soul-spiritual as spiritual within it, and that what he sees as will in the human organism pours out into the entire environment and is revealed in the spiritualization of the whole world. In the astral body, that which makes a person more at the end of a day than before continues to resonate. The same process takes place throughout one’s entire life. To understand this, let us think of the plant and the maturing seed; let this image sink in. But this remains in the etheric body; the astral body merely resonates with it. Yet it takes the etheric body with it through the gate of death: And now, drawn out of the physical body, the astral body can develop full consciousness together with the “I”; it is now permeated by the life force of the etheric body, and consciousness emerges. But then, once it is thus enlivened—because the etheric body is, in fact, the life-supplier of the physical body and cannot serve any other purpose—once the essence has been drawn from it, so to speak, that which merely sustains the life functions is expelled into the rest of the etheric world. Through the spiritually sustained consciousness—which arises from the interaction of the astral body and the “I” with the essence of the etheric body—the human being must first struggle through this process until he is able to make use of the new consciousness, in which he spends the time between death and a new birth. During this time, a person goes through many things. One can only gain some insight into the length of time that elapses here by placing the individual human life in the context of the entire life of the Earth. Then one can see what drew the person to Earth, what led him from the spirit realm to this life; the forces that brought the person down have thereby reached their conclusion, their goal. In the meantime, the Earth must have changed enough for the human being to experience something new. That is why it takes centuries for the human being to gather the strength to descend into a new earthly life.

[ 12 ] Even in the life between death and a new birth, one must imagine two alternating states of inner experience. In everyday life, we alternate between waking and sleeping; in the life between death and a new birth, there are alternating periods—successive states of inner activity and of isolation from the spiritual environment—where one is unaware of the spiritual surroundings but inwardly experiences what one has previously absorbed from them. This experience is then as if a powerful inner image were rising from within oneself. Then again, one feels as if one has completely flowed into the spiritual worlds and become one with them.

[ 13 ] One can assume that there is a spiritual center in the life between death and a new birth. In the first half, what was newly established in the last earthly life is processed; in the second half, what enables the spiritual-soul aspect to permeate the physical human being in a new earthly life is taken in.

[ 14 ] What is presented as the science of the spirit is only seemingly at odds with the natural sciences. The spiritual exploration of human values will advance in the future just as the physical sciences do in their own fields. The humanities still seem like a fantasy to many because people shy away from the rigorous intellectual work and spiritual discipline they require. Many would so much like to approach the humanities in a more comfortable way than is actually possible. People simply do not want to take the difficult step involved in further developing their consciousness. One can benefit from advances in chemistry without being a chemist oneself; in the same way, one can also assimilate the findings of spiritual research. And even if one cannot engage in spiritual research oneself, one should at least strive to dispel one’s prejudices. But many would prefer to approach spiritual science by a more convenient route than dispelling prejudices, and above all, to apply it for practical use in life. Misunderstanding upon misunderstanding of spiritual science is the consequence of such an attitude.

[ 15 ] Natural science will increasingly prove to be not the source of answers, but rather the source of questions posed in new ways. The answers will then come from the humanities—the answer that Faust craves:

Mysterious in broad daylight
Nature cannot be stripped of its veil,
And what it chooses not to reveal to your mind,
You cannot force from it with levers and screws.

[ 16 ] You cannot penetrate its innermost depths with levers and screws. You must illuminate it with the light and power of the soul.