The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. The Mystery of Death as the Key to the Enigma of Life

[ 1 ] An important question of life is to be addressed from the perspective of theosophy—a question that points to the highest realms of existence and touches upon everyday life, a question that must occupy us time and again.

[ 2 ] We must first come to an understanding about theosophy. It has only recently entered our spiritual life and is only now taking on a mission for humanity. And so let us first discuss its nature and way of thinking. It seeks to penetrate the spiritual world in a form that corresponds to today’s longing; it seeks to teach that spiritual causes lie behind all that is perceptible; it seeks to penetrate to these causes through genuine knowledge that can stand alongside the scientific knowledge of the present.

[ 3 ] There are many prejudices among those who have only a superficial understanding of it, as well as many misunderstandings. First, there is the misconception that it could lead someone astray from the creeds they hold dear, as if Theosophy were intended to be a new religion. That is a mistake. It will never lead anyone astray with regard to their religious beliefs. Rather, it will guide those who are currently misled by materialistic science toward religion. Thus, for those who delve deeper, it will become clear that Theosophy fosters a deeper religious life. Another misunderstanding is the belief that Theosophy seeks to transplant a Buddhist, Indian worldview into Europe. This is a mistake; such a thing cannot be transplanted. Theosophy’s task is to deepen European spiritual life, and to do so, it must take into account the roots from which it has developed over the centuries.

[ 4 ] And now the causes, the sources: Where does Theosophy draw what we wish to discuss today? It is grounded in an honest acknowledgment of what we call “evolution.” However, it does not say: We recognize only the external and its development—as materialistic science does—but rather we acknowledge that human beings are actively involved in the process of development. This development moves forward; human beings will continue to develop; indeed, human beings can not only observe this development, but they can also promote it, because they are self-aware beings. Just as a seed develops and a plant grows from it, so too is a soul not merely what it appears to be on the outside—just as you cannot tell from a seed what powers lie dormant within it, or what kind of plant might develop from it— so too does the human soul contain powers that can be developed, and Theosophy demonstrates through living examples that souls can become something entirely different.

[ 5 ] Today we ask about the hidden sources of life and death, and the answer given by materialistic science is: We cannot know anything about them. But the theosophist says: Certainly, as human beings are now, their knowledge has these limitations, and they cannot know anything about them; but these limitations can be expanded precisely through evolution, and then they will be able to know about them.

[ 6 ] If this limit is to be transcended through evolution, new organs must first develop. Theosophy now shows the way in which new powers and new organs can come to life within us; it shows the way in which the soul can become an instrument for higher development. Just as the microscope and the telescope have assisted the sense organs in expanding our understanding of the external world and have become the instruments for this kind of scientific knowledge, so too can the soul become an instrument of spiritual science. A scientist considers this to be mere fantasy and denies that such a thing is possible. Fichte, the great philosopher, once said: Imagine a gathering of many blind people, among whom are a few sighted individuals who speak to the blind about color and light. Will the blind be able to understand and believe these words? But if sight were granted to one of them, light and color—which were previously darkness—would shine for him as well. Perception of the environment thus depends on the organs that a person possesses. New organs can open up new worlds, just as the microscope and the telescope have revealed new worlds to humanity.

[ 7 ] And this is how spiritual science speaks of the spiritual world. The fact that human beings can develop the organs latent within them and acclimate themselves to higher worlds—the very fact that this is possible—is what allows us to evaluate the entirety of spiritual science. For only experience counts. The experience of spiritual worlds exists; spiritual research is conducted, and the results of this research form the content of theosophy.

[ 8 ] Of course, only those who have experienced enlightenment can conduct research—just as only those who have completed the necessary studies can perform microscopic examinations. However, the research of the spiritual scientist is understandable to people when communicated in the usual way. And these messages are valuable to [them], even if not every soul immediately reaches a higher stage of development. Everyone can listen to these messages and ask themselves whether life provides evidence for what the researcher says, whether it proves to be true in life.

[ 9 ] So let us speak about life and death and hear what the researcher and what life itself have to say. The researcher says: To understand this great mystery, we must first understand the nature of the human being. We are dealing with a fourfold being. The first part is the physical body. Theosophy stands entirely on scientific ground in its consideration of the physical body. The physical body is one with nature. Yet it appears to us in and of itself only after death, and then it follows its physical laws and forces and dissolves. Now Theosophy says: Something else must be sought in order to understand the whole human being; this cannot be the whole human being. This other aspect, which prevents the physical body from disintegrating during one’s lifetime, is a force, a second body, which we call the life body or etheric body. This life body permeates the physical body. The researcher now perceives this life body; it is therefore an experience. Human beings share this life body with all of living nature, with plants and animals.

[ 10 ] Let us imagine a human being. A portion of space is occupied by the physical body, within which lies the life body. Yet something else lives within this occupied space, something very close to the human being. There lives something that the person experiences as pleasure and suffering, as joy, pain, and passion. It lives there, and though the person cannot grasp it or see it, it is there, and the seer perceives it as the astral body. Humans share this with the animal kingdom.

[ 11 ] Now for the fourth aspect that makes humans the crown of creation: Every thing has a name that is given to it from the outside. We call these names of things and people; these names reach our ears from the outside. Now there is a name that cannot be used in this way, one that can be uttered only by a single mouth—the mouth of the one human being whose very essence is to be designated: “I” we say only of ourselves—each one for himself. “I” we say of no one else. And this little word designates precisely that core which we share with no other being on earth. No animal has an “I.” This “I,” which resounds only within each individual soul, has been called “divine substance” by all profound worldviews. This fourth part of human essence is thus its divine core. But just as a drop of water is not the sea, so too is such a divine core not a god.

[ 12 ] But in this fourth element there is something that is of the same substance as that which permeates and interweaves the world—this fourth element through which human beings rise above all else. Every profound poetic spirit has spoken wondrously of this fourth element; for example, Jean Paul, when as a child he realized: I am an “I.” — If we know this, we can understand much about the mysteries of life.

[ 13 ] The juxtaposition of waking and sleeping on the one hand, and life and death on the other, is also significant and profound. What do waking and sleeping mean? The waking person stands before us in such a way that his four bodies are interwoven and work together. When a person falls asleep, the outer world and the world of the soul sink into an indeterminate darkness. The ego and the astral body detach from the lower bodies and live in a spiritual world during sleep.

[ 14 ] Why does a person know nothing about this life in the spiritual world? Because he has no organs in his astral body, and all his perceptions can be made only through his physical organs. And these cannot be used in the spiritual world. To acquire such organs of the astral body, intimate soul processes are required. This is discussed in my book *How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. However, once the astral body has formed organs, it possesses them even during sleep. Light created the eye; in the same way, the soul can also create organs through practice, and we call a person with such higher organs a seer.

[ 15 ] At night, human beings replenish the forces they need simply to live. While awake, the astral body—which is fully immersed in the physical and etheric bodies—transfers its own forces to them. It must then replenish what has been expended, and it can do so only in the spiritual, or astral, world. The etheric body, which is the formative principle of the physical body, also needs to replenish its forces. However, it cannot leave the physical body as long as the physical body lives in the physical world. There is a law that was articulated many years ago by an Italian, Francesco Redi: “Life comes only from life.” This seems self-evident to us. At that time, however, it was not self-evident, for it was believed that earthworms arose from mud. Francesco Redi was regarded as a scientific heretic. Today, Theosophy states: The soul-spiritual arises only from the soul-spiritual. Now the same thing is happening as it did back then, when Francesco Redi contradicted the prevailing belief on the basis of his more precise observations. Today’s scientists consider us fools and dreamers. But this view of the Theosophists—that the soul-spiritual originates only from the soul-spiritual—will one day be just as self-evident as Francesco Redi’s view has become today. But from this, strength, confidence, and comfort may spring forth for us. More precise observation disproved the superstition, and only imprecise observation can claim that human beings descend solely from their parents. No, the soul-spiritual originates only from the soul-spiritual. And this is connected to the realization of reincarnation. That which lives within us as soul-spiritual is the repetition of soul-spiritual that has already existed, and is at the same time the cause of what is to come. The two higher aspects thus work their way into the human being, and this gives rise to abilities. But this occurs in a very special way, precisely because it is of soul-spiritual origin.

[ 16 ] While, upon falling asleep, the two higher members leave the etheric body and the physical body, at death this separation is extended to include the etheric body as well, and only the physical body remains behind. Now accept this with the same faith you extend to scientific researchers. When the separation of the physical body takes place at death, the liberation of the etheric body from the physical body causes a tableau of memories to appear before the human soul, for the etheric body is the bearer of memory, and this force now acts intensely without being influenced by the gross physical substance; something similar can occur just before drowning or during a nervous shock.

[ 17 ] This review of one’s entire life lasts only a short time; then the etheric body leaves the astral body, and only a summary of the abilities acquired in the past life becomes part of the astral body and remains for eternity. This is followed by a period of purification, during which the soul relives its life and recognizes every suffering it has inflicted on others as an obstacle to development, feeling it as its own suffering, and thereby receiving the impulse to make amends. Thereafter, the “I,” now connected to the fruits of life from the etheric body and the impulses for making amends from the astral body, enters Devachan, the Kingdom of Heaven, and remains there for a long time until the will to enter reality becomes so powerful that a new incarnation takes place. [Gap in the source text]

[ 18 ] The world is interwoven with spirit—we can create spirit only from spirit. Human wisdom is to be found out in nature. Just as the wasp makes paper, just as the swallow builds its nest, just as the bees construct their hives—we draw in spirit from the outside; we are fertilized by this spirit; we are constantly absorbing it. Just as the whole of life is concentrated in a plant’s blossom and finds its fulfillment in the fruit, just as so many plants die by producing seeds and developing sprouts for new plants—so it is throughout a human being’s entire life. The human soul unites with the spirit of the world; what was brought from the past is like a framework. The eternal “I” begins to connect with the outside world, and the new comes into being. Gradually, the framework will lose its significance; the soul-spiritual aspect withdraws more and more into itself and now ascends to a higher level. But the new requires something new; the old must fall away. The body, which is the result of what came before, must perish. Nature, in its spiritual nature, invented death in order to have abundant life. Human death is a necessity for development—the death of animals and plants is something else. — And so death becomes for us something that guarantees our potential for development.

[ 19 ] Under this premise, one can understand many things that were previously obscure, including the Old and New Testaments, these most exalted books of humanity. — Man is forbidden to eat from the Tree of Life, for otherwise he would have to remain stagnant in his development.

[ 20 ] Death is merely a transformation of the human form; external science cannot comprehend death, for it eludes the external organs, since it destroys them. Work on the astral body, however, can create spiritual organs, and the experiences of the seer are then akin to those of death:

Tell no one—only the wise,
For the crowd will only mock it,
I will praise that which is alive,
That longs for death by flame.

And as long as you do not have that,
This “Die and be reborn!”
You are but a gloomy guest
On this dark earth.” (Goethe)

[ 21 ] Theosophical knowledge, however, transforms human hearts; it awakens love within them—that love which is not merely preached, but lived. General platitudes are meaningless. We must penetrate bit by bit, must seek the spirit and understand what it reveals. Human beings ascend ever higher—their life is eternal and subject to the law of karma. This cannot be translated exactly as the law of cause and effect, even though all experience is conditioned by what has gone before.

[ 22 ] You might now ask: Why, if this conditionality exists, do you help one another? — Because we foresee the effect it will have on the future; that is why helping others is so comforting, and because we know that it has an eternal effect, we must do so wherever we can. If we are ordinary people, we will be able to help only a small number of people. A higher being, however, will be able to help many people, and His love—which was revealed on Golgotha—shows us the path we must follow to become helpers to the many.

[ 23 ] But the mystery of death becomes the key to life for us, for the transitory must fall so that the eternal may grow and develop to ever greater heights.