The Rudolf Steiner Archive

12. Knowledge and Immortality

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! When a person takes a moment to step back from the ordinary work of the day—the tasks that occupy him from morning to night—those great questions surely touch his soul: those great questions concerning what we might call human destiny, which a person must ask himself when he reflects on the highest goals.

[ 2 ] One of these questions is undoubtedly that of the nature of knowledge. Linked to its dignity and nature is the question of what must distinguish it from the things around it. And when a person asks about the value and significance of knowledge in relation to the insights gained from daily experiences, he does not need to think long and hard. Even when insights do not relate to daily life, they still hold the highest value for him. Am I merely an idle spectator of these insights into the laws of the world and so on? Do insights still have value in that case?

[ 3 ] These are questions that weigh heavily on our minds this evening and should be considered in context. First: the question of the value, meaning, and nature of human beings; second: the question of mortality or immortality. Will humanity endure beyond transience? It is not vanity that poses this question, but a yearning for higher understanding. We see life sprouting and flourishing all around us, everywhere. But we also see death spreading everywhere. In spring, we see fresh shoots emerging, which grow ever larger in summer. And when we look at autumn, we see a withering that spreads ever further throughout the winter. Geological excavations bear witness to the fact that life was there, that death was there, and if we look back at Greek or other cultures—where once there was fresh, joyful Greek life—death has spread over this artistic life. Death will spread over the paintings of Raphael and Michelangelo, which delight us so much today. Bit by bit, they will vanish. And chemistry and physics speak of the death of entire plant systems; death has spread everywhere.

[ 4 ] A question arises: Is what has passed away futile? Has it fallen into nothingness? Is everything completely gone? One might resort to the easy excuses: New things are always coming, spring and so on. — Certainly, but one must think more deeply about this. According to this interpretation, one could say: The forms change, but not in such a way that the old ones pass anything on to the new ones. In truth, however, the question is whether anything of what lives and weaves within the old passes over into the new. This interests us particularly in the case of human beings.

[ 5 ] There is one thing we can assert regarding death: that the ordinary means of science cannot possibly suffice to comprehend what lies beyond death. We initially comprehend only through our sensory organs. All science is bound to the knowledge provided by these organs, and it is precisely death that puts an end to these organs. It is not surprising that conventional science must come to a halt in the face of death; if conventional science is insufficient to answer questions that go beyond death, then one must turn to what is known as spiritual science, which is commonly referred to as theosophy.

[ 6 ] We can only understand one another if we consider the difference between conventional science and spiritual science. “How far can human knowledge go?” asks conventional science; humans can only go so far—the organs form this limit. Spiritual science says: Human cognition is unlimited, in accordance with the law of evolution. Evolution is the magic word. Form has evolved from other forms and will continue to evolve into ever-changing forms. Powers and abilities lie dormant in the human soul; spiritual science speaks of these.

[ 7 ] But what must we do to cross the boundary that is drawn around human beings today by their physical organs? Is it contradictory to say that powers and abilities lie dormant within human beings, and that these can be developed? Is it contradictory to say that a person born blind could undergo surgery that would open up the world of colors and light to them? In this way, organs can be opened up within a person, granting them access to spiritual light and spiritual colors—which is, in fact, an awakening. This applies to human beings just as much as it does to a blind person who has undergone surgery. There are as many worlds as a person can access through their organs. Once these organs are opened up, then a person can understand the nature of death.

[ 8 ] Waking and sleep, life and death—these are four important words. The human mind easily overlooks the first two, since they are too familiar to us to give them much thought. The spiritual researcher is aware of the connection between sleep and death, as is often intuitively felt and has frequently been sensed. What actually happens when a person transitions from consciousness to unconsciousness? To answer this, we must consider the nature of the human being: first, the physical body, which humans share with the rest of nature—subject to the same laws and so on. However, the physical body only follows these physical and chemical laws at death. So there must be something within the physical body—a force that prevents the physical body from following these laws while still alive. This is, secondly, the etheric body.

[ 9 ] Human beings share the etheric body with all living things, such as the plant kingdom. Third: The astral body—shared with the entire animal kingdom. It is the bearer of desires and passions. Fourth: There is a small word that can never be uttered when one wishes to refer to another being. This little word can only arise from one’s own inner being. That little word is “I.” What lives in the “I” within a human being is the same as what lives throughout the entire universe; it is a part of it; but of course, it is not “God.” From waking to falling asleep, these bodies interpenetrate one another. But as one falls asleep, a person endowed with spiritual organs can observe how the “I” and the astral body withdraw into a spiritual world. Why do the astral body and the “I” emerge from the etheric body and the physical body?

[ 10 ] We perceive only what our astral body experiences when we experience it as a reflection in our etheric body. That is why the astral body must immerse itself in the etheric body in the morning so that we may experience the world as a reflection. The entire life of the soul arises through the interaction of the astral body with the physical and etheric bodies. Why do we get tired in the evening? Because our astral body is certainly capable of interacting with the etheric body, but since it grows weary—since the astral body cannot draw the strength needed to present all this to us from the physical body—it therefore submerges into the spiritual world every evening to gather strength, so that it can build up our entire soul life during the day. We truly immerse ourselves there in our true home from evening until morning.

[ 11 ] What, then, can the astral body do with these powers it draws from the spiritual world? It can use them to build up the life of the soul. Let us consider how it does this. What is required for the art of writing? We had to make many attempts to attain this ability. We do not recall, every time we write, all the futile attempts we may have made in the process, nor all the love we may have received along the way. Such attempts give rise to abilities; these are abilities of our own soul life. When the astral body immerses itself in the etheric body, our organs—both physical and etheric—remain uninvolved in the process. Let us consider the marvelous structure of the heart, the larynx, and so on. We might possess even the most refined soul abilities—such as a musical sense, for example—but we would be unable to use them if we did not possess the corresponding organ.

[ 12 ] A person’s work on their astral body is complex. It occurs as a result of the person receiving impressions from the outside. Soul experiences are what take place within the astral body—emotions and so on. At a lower level, the “I” is like a slave to the astral body, but this “I” can work its way free. Let us compare a person at a lower level with a developed person. The latter rules over his astral body. The “I” dominates and governs it, wresting it from the drives, desires, and passions. We call this the inner processing of external impressions. The ordinary person sees, tastes, and smells whatever comes to them from the outside, whether it is pleasant or unpleasant. But another person—one who processes such impressions in moments of stillness—only such a person can become richer and ever richer.

[ 13 ] But one shouldn’t always just work inward; that would be like crawling into one’s inner self. That wouldn’t be the only right way. Now a person must step back out of themselves. What we feel inwardly becomes wisdom that can be applied to the outer world, so that concepts and ideas arise within a person—that is insight. First, one must gather these impressions, then process them within oneself, and then apply them to the outside world again. Only then is a person able to allow something new to flow into themselves. In this process, something opens up in insight; sensory impressions tell us what is pleasant and what is unpleasant to us. But the “I” discovers moral values through the circuitous path of insight.

[ 14 ] Here lies what the martyrs died for. These concepts, these precious insights that a person thus gains, were more valuable and more important to them than their own lives. These insights can be discovered by the “I” when it frees itself from the physical organs and from the external world. If this essence is to permeate us completely, then we must be able to become an expression of what has been gained in this way. We cannot conjure it into our organs. It cannot pass into our flesh and blood. This could only happen through a specific law.

[ 15 ] As late as the seventeenth century, people still believed that lower animals arose from substances surrounding them. This was accepted as scientific fact. For example, regarding how bees come into being: when rotten oxen are struck, bees grow out of them; from horses, hornets; and from donkeys, wasps. Such things were written in the seventeenth century. Francesco Redi said in the seventeenth century: “Only from the living can the living arise.” Today this is taken for granted, just like all views that first have to gain acceptance. Only from the spiritual-psychic can the spiritual-psychic arise. “The earthworm arises from river mud”—this statement is based on the same “spiritual” point of view as if one were to say: All character traits, talents, and so on are inherited by a person from their father, mother, grandfather, and grandmother.

[ 16 ] We must go back to the spiritual and soul seeds. But that is the previous life. We must look back at the life before this one, and we must look forward to the life after this one. This is the law of reincarnation. This law will spread just as widely as that of Francesco Redi, who was nearly burned at the stake in his day. Today that is no longer in vogue—at least not everywhere; today such creative spirits are called fantasists or dreamers, perhaps even fools. That may be so, but before long people will accept that the spiritual and soul-related can arise only from the spiritual and soul-related, just as the living can arise only from the living.

[ 17 ] We are thus dealing with souls that have already passed through death once before. It is something different from sleeping at night. Now, after death, a passage through the spiritual world takes place. The experiences one was unable to assimilate in life are now assimilated; one builds them up into a spiritual body. Now we build new organs for ourselves; we do not return to the old organs, as we do in the morning after sleep. Now we incorporate into our organs what we have gained through knowledge.

[ 18 ] These abilities become increasingly evident in young children. Every human being is a unique mystery to us. Human beings are the result of the insights gained in previous lives. This gradually comes to light; what a person has worked on in one life is passed down to the next.

[ 19 ] One grows through what one creates. That carries over into the next life. A person builds, so to speak, a framework for themselves with the insights gained from one life. But nothing new could be built unless what has already been built were to dissolve. Thus, we see in death a part of life that can always allow life to appear to us on a higher level. By passing through death, we can always build something new. And at the center of it all is the self.

[ 20 ] Why no memory? The “I” is the first supersensible reality within us. Whoever has recognized and understood the “I” can look back. This recognition of the “I” brings awareness of past earthly lives. From the life in which the “I” is not merely a word to a person—from that point onward—he remembers the “I.” Immortality is of no use if one has no understanding of immortality; the more one understands one’s “I,” one’s inner soul core, the greater and higher one’s knowledge of immortality becomes. Thus, understanding becomes the source of immortality. This teaching of reincarnation gives us strength and security in our daily lives.

If yesterday is clear and open to you,
If today you feel strong and free,
You may hope for a tomorrow
That is no less happy. (Goethe)

Orphic primal words: (“Demon”)

Just as on the day you were born into this world,
The sun stood in greeting to the planets,
You flourished immediately and continued to do so,
According to the law by which you came into being,
So you must be; you cannot escape it,
As the Sibyls and prophets have said,
And no time, no power can shatter A form that has taken shape and develops as it lives. (Goethe)