The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. Death and Immortality in the Light of Spiritual Science

[ 1 ] When, in the spirit of modern humanities—as has been the case here for several years now—we discuss the questions and mysteries of life, it is always good to remember that great man in the history of human development, namely Copernicus, and [also] many other men who, in the same spirit, contributed to the revolution in intellectual life. In doing so, one must recall what is rarely thought of these days: what it must have meant for a thinking person of that time when, in the truest sense of the word, the ground beneath his feet began to waver—indeed, to shift—so that [it seemed as though] the Earth no longer stood at the center of the world, but rather, as a rotating body, also revolved around the Sun, whereas he had clung to the earlier, opposite assumption with all his thoughts and conceptions. Copernicus now established a worldview that turned everything that had been believed up to that point on its head. As people gradually came to grasp the core of his proclamation, they had previously believed in the arrangement of the visible celestial bodies on a lunar sphere, a solar sphere, and individual planetary spheres up to the seventh, the sphere of the fixed stars. In addition to these, an eighth sphere was believed to exist, which was supposed to mark the boundary of the cosmic realm. This was what Giordano Bruno had already considered erroneous when he said that what the eye believes it sees as a blue celestial vault is nothing other than what appears to be caused by the eye’s limited capacity for perception; rather, instead of such limited spheres, one should conceive of unlimited worlds—that is, infinite distances and an infinite number of worlds.

[ 2 ] But what was expressed there in various ways? Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, and their followers used such views to point out that knowledge is not fostered exclusively through sensory perception, but that one must move beyond sensory findings to a perspective that is rooted, first and foremost, in the supersensory element of thought. But at that time, these minds—who had moved on to a mode of understanding lying beyond the tangible observation of the world—had to contend with many factions that wished to cling to tradition and therefore rejected what the new science had to offer that ran counter to the spirit of that [tradition].

[ 3 ] The situation is similar with regard to what is presented here as spiritual science. This also intersects with the world of external temporal phenomena, insofar as the events of our own inner life unfold within it and relate to the most important questions and mysteries embodied in the two words “death” and “immortality.”

[ 4 ] We must realize that only a serious quest can lead to an understanding of these two enigmatic words, for this is not possible through idle curiosity or so-called thirst for knowledge, but only when we come to know the essence that lives within ourselves; for a person can only fulfill their tasks in the world—whether they be of greater significance or merely those of recurring daily life—if they can consciously work with and act upon what essentially dwells within them. Thus, the question of death and immortality evolves into a question about the nature of the human soul, so that in answering it, we may gain strength and security for our work in life, for life itself.

[ 5 ] A German philosopher rightly said: Immortality does not begin only after death, but must be found at all times, even during our lives, in the life of the soul. — To achieve this, however, it is necessary to understand the nature of the soul. If we trace the progress of human intellectual development before and since Copernicus, we can see that his achievements were slowly laid the groundwork for. Something similar can be observed here with regard to questions about death and immortality in the past period, although it is only recently that the research methods through which such questions can be discussed and answered have become known in wider circles. Spiritual science, however, must look to a comprehensive law in this regard—namely, the law of human development, which is fully in keeping with the evolutionary concept of modern natural science, along with all its implications. The imperative of Western intellectual life has long led great minds in this direction. I would like to point you, for example, to Lessing: When he stood at the pinnacle of his intellectual development, he wrote his *Education of the Human Race*. He sought to present a common concern of the entire human race, to show how a law runs through all the epochs of human development on Earth—a law in which cause and effect are not merely strung together in a pedantic sequence, but in which the course of humanity’s development is simultaneously its education. In this way, he indicated how humanity once needed an elementary education, referring initially to the Old Testament era, in which he called the “Old Testament” humanity’s first elementary textbook. To grasp the truth in a higher form, the “New Testament” was given to humanity during the Christian epoch, thereby elevating them to further epochs of human development. Thus, the education of humanity was carried out by a guiding divine being.

[ 6 ] But this raises the question of whether it makes sense to call the development of humanity “education” if individual souls disappear completely to make way for souls born later; it only makes sense if, in the course of renewed development, the same souls return to be reborn on Earth as human beings at a higher level. This is why Lessing conceived the idea that the human soul does not live [only] once, but returns again and again to participate anew in the education of the human race at a higher level; hence, he speaks of the repeated earthly lives of the human soul. Lessing also raises objections of his own and anticipates the thought that might easily arise—that the soul, for example, does not remember its past lives—by asking: What use would such a memory be to it? Once the soul has become sufficiently mature, the memory of past earthly lives will also awaken; and he transforms these thoughts into a feeling by saying: When we are filled with the idea of repeated earthly lives, then we can look calmly toward the future, where souls will unfold in ever higher earthly lives.

Isn't all eternity mine?

[ 7 ] It is clear that Lessing emerged from Western thought; his line of reasoning differs from that found in Buddhism, with which he is related. Therefore, his conception—as a modern one—must not be confused with that of Buddhism; for in Buddhism, one asks: How should the individual conduct himself in order to attain Nirvana as soon as possible? In Lessing, the idea springs from a Christian motive; he regards all of humanity on earth as a single, unified family, bound by eternal ties, destined to develop gradually and collectively, and to gradually come to perceive this as a common cause and consciously promote it. When so-called enlightened minds speak of Lessing today, they generally acknowledge most of his achievements; but as soon as they turn to his ideas on the education of the human race, they regard him as an aging man who set down these thoughts in his twilight years. Yet this approach fails to address the necessity inherent in the development of great minds; rather, it seeks only to accept whatever happens to suit one’s own current perspective.

[ 8 ] Hebbel once wrote in his diary: Let us suppose that Plato were to return in a new life and attend a modern high school, where he would, of course, have to read his own works again; it might well be that the reborn Plato would understand these old writings the very least of all. – This perfectly captures the idea of what great minds can contribute to the concept of progress.

[ 9 ] The idea of multiple earthly lives resurfaced in nineteenth-century intellectual life when the psychologist Droßbach drew attention to it, having revisited the concept on scientific grounds; and when, in the 1850s, a prize was offered for an answer to the question of death and immortality, a treatise was awarded the prize in which this idea had been developed in terms of successive earthly lives. It is indeed quite remarkable that, around the middle of the nineteenth century, a thinker like Widenmann answered the question of the life of the soul from this perspective—a perspective from which people later, out of what they believed to be a necessity of thought, turned away.

[ 10 ] Research in the spiritual sciences shows that these repeatedly recurring earthly lives must be a fact, so that the field now holds the view that the core of the human being has been here many times before, that it surely began as such at some point in the past and will be here many times yet, so that its human life will unfold in an earthly existence between birth and death and in a spiritual existence between death and a new birth, during which our innermost core of being continues its existence in supersensible worlds.

[ 11 ] Let us now see how life everywhere provides us with evidence supporting this view; we must begin by observing the independent development of the human being from birth, how gradually, out of the blurred features and clumsy bodily movements, distinct features and more purposeful movements emerge, and how, after a few years, the human being becomes increasingly capable of making ever better use of his brain, his noblest tool. Then, upon unbiased observation, one must admit that all this is not the result of a self-developing physical force, but that a supersensible being is at work from within in this striking development. But let us look further into whether and how we can also establish the supersensible existence of the soul through other external observations. Then we can observe how the soul’s life and activity leave a vivid imprint on a person’s physical appearance and entire being. If, for example, a person has been earnestly engaged in questions of knowledge for ten years, and his soul has ebbed and flowed through a wide variety of moods in the struggle to achieve certain results, then surely this cannot simply vanish into nothingness, even in its more far-reaching effects. This is particularly noticeable to anyone who meets such a person—who has been working intensely on spiritual matters—again after some time: how the features of the face have changed, shaped by the efforts of the struggling soul. In this way, we can perceive the unique way in which the soul is expressed through the physical form. Something else becomes apparent to us here, which turns this observation into a scientific experience; for anyone who struggles in this way can observe in themselves—and indeed without any contradiction—that from a certain point onward they see the fruits of their struggle ripen more fully and more quickly, as the answers to the questions they seek to resolve descend upon them like a blessing. Once the soul has found expression for its struggle in the physical body—as it were, in its ultimate consequences—the physical body no longer changes; and this is because these struggling forces now enter fully into consciousness, whereas previously they had also poured into the physical body and transformed it. When this transformation reached its limit, the forces transformed themselves in order to enter into conscious use according to the intention of the developed human being. We can therefore be convinced that everything that pushes its way up into consciousness and thereby brings us joy has been at work in the dark depths of the subconscious on the physical body, shaping the organs we needed so that the soul might be fully master of itself and its body.

[ 12 ] Having thus turned our attention to human development, we must point out something that everyone knows even without clairvoyant abilities: namely, that when our life lying beneath our waking consciousness shines up into our awareness during dream life—which we cannot grasp firmly, no matter how often we have experienced it, even when we experience it according to inner laws rather than in formless dream images. Let the following dream experience illustrate this: A rather eager, conscientious young man, who enjoyed drawing as much as his other classes, was given a difficult model to copy in his final year of school; because of his precise, somewhat laborious way of working, it took him quite a long time, and he therefore did not finish his work by the end of the school year; this did not harm his teachers’ assessment of him, since he had worked diligently and competently. Nevertheless, during every class—especially toward the end of the school year—he was overcome by the fear of not finishing his work, and this oppressive feeling continued to haunt him even in his dreams. Even many years later, as an adult, the experience would resurface in his dreams: he would feel as if he were a student again and, with intense anxiety—far more so than he had ever felt in his daily life—realize that he could not finish his work, just as this had so often disrupted his school life in the past. This pattern repeated itself for weeks at a time, would subside temporarily, only to resurface later. If we wish to examine this scientifically, we must look back at his entire life up to that point. As a student, he developed his aptitude for drawing and made progress as well, though this progress manifested only periodically, in spurts, and each such spurt was preceded even during his school years by a series of inner experiences; when these experiences failed to occur, he sensed that he had made some headway. The same pattern held true for the development of other abilities in his later life. Let us now consider whether it is unreasonable to assert that the inner core of his being was working within this person to bring about his progress. Before this progress took place in his soul life, everything occurred in the subconscious; yet it pressed ever further into the physical realm, and shortly before the breakthrough—that is, before his organs had developed to the point of outwardly manifesting this heightened soul capacity— that is, before the final steps, it became evident in the dream life described that the soul was nearly finished shaping the physical organ, so that it could finally—without an accompanying dream experience—emerge as a product of the spiritual core, fully usable externally, configured and transformed.

[ 13 ] From this perspective, we can proceed step by step to examine all the everyday events of life in their alternating states of wakefulness and sleep. In doing so, we can already say, by mere logic, that if we observe the purely organic forces in a sleeping person, the soul forces that ebb and flow during wakefulness cannot simply fade away in the evening only to arise anew in the morning; since they cannot be found in the sleeping physical body, they must therefore exist in a supersensible form. Through sensory observation of sleep, one can thus arrive at such a conception. How, then, does the moment of falling asleep occur? A person feels how all the senses grow sluggish, the sharp contours of images fade, everything becomes hazy, and when someone who is trained observes this stage, they form a conception of what they did the day before; they experience, with vivid feeling, whether they can be satisfied or dissatisfied with themselves. In the former case, this feeling is accompanied by a sense of bliss and the desire that this transition and these thoughts—which nourish him and flow through his limbs as if revitalizing him—might never end. But then comes a jolt, with which the spiritual-soul core withdraws as a reaction to the body, and sleep sets in.

[ 14 ] It has been pointed out before that those who have to study a great deal soon realize through their own experience just how good it is to be able to indulge in a revitalizing sleep. Physiologically, then, sleep and the refreshment gained through it are to be understood as a state—or rather, a product—in which that which was depleted during the day while awake is restored; specifically, new strength is regained through the mental and spiritual core of the being working into the sleeping body during the state of disembodiment, as was indicated earlier.

[ 15 ] When we observe a child as it gradually develops, it is a well-known fact that the child transitions into the later state of waking daytime life from a state of dream-like existence—a life of sleep interrupted only briefly, especially at the beginning. Everyone knows that it was only from a certain point onward that they could say “I” to themselves—that is, that it was only from that point onward that they became conscious of themselves. Anyone who acknowledges the principles of physics and chemistry must admit that the spiritual and soul forces, thanks to which the child can say “I” to itself after the first years of development, must have been present earlier—at a time when they were developing the most important and noblest organ of the human being, that is, when the core of the human being was shaping the brain and, in every detail, continuously refining it in a plastic manner. To the argument put forward by materialistic science—that the speech center is located in the left cerebral hemisphere, and that a person therefore cannot learn to speak if these parts of the brain are not well developed—it may be briefly countered that a person cannot learn to speak if, for example, they live on a deserted island, whereas other physiological processes, such as teething, would occur without any difficulty. The child’s mental capacity must therefore be developed to such an extent that the emergence of speech is initiated and the brain is shaped for that purpose; thus, speech is not the consequence, but rather the accompanying and continuously active cause of the development of the speech center. The spiritual-soul aspect must always first act upon the physical, working upon it so that the organs can develop that will later be used in the physical world for the purposes of conscious thought. When we summarize these individual thoughts, we are thereby constantly reminded that the course of development proceeds in such a way that the entire human body is built up from a supersensible core of being, and that we can never come to understand this supersensible being if we remain solely with its product, the physical bodily organization. We must always go back to that which takes hold of this organization at the very beginning of its formation; observation consistently teaches us this.

[ 16 ] In the natural sciences, it is always particularly emphasized that, in order to establish conclusive proof, it is necessary to reproduce the results of observation in an experiment. The possibility [of doing so] exists here as well, even if such testing is not always necessary—but how [can this be achieved]? A person must prepare and use their own soul—themselves in the fullest sense—as an instrument for perceiving the spiritual world. You will find a more detailed explanation of how this is possible in my book *How Does One Gain Insight into the Higher Worlds?*. For now, let us simply note here that a person can experience the onset of sleep even while fully conscious if they make themselves capable of doing so by concentrating on their innermost soul life and through prolonged meditation on appropriate thoughts. If we first assume, hypothetically, that at the onset of sleep the spiritual-soul core steps out of the person falling asleep and, figuratively speaking, enters a higher world, then a sufficiently trained person can directly observe this soul core through genuine, experimental observation of the spiritual world. This core of being very easily eludes ordinary perception upon falling asleep, since people usually lack the necessary energy to become conscious of this separate, soul-based state. These latent energies must be strengthened and developed; through practice, a person must cast off all hindering states and strive to reach a state in which, so to speak, their physical hearing and sight fade away. Of course, this is only possible gradually and must be initiated by first bringing about a lasting regulation of one’s previous emotional states; sorrow, anger, and agitations of all kinds must be balanced, and we must fill ourselves with peace of mind. Once we have worked on this for some time with sufficient success, we can move on to devoting ourselves to certain thoughts of the good, the beautiful, and the true—thoughts that are not borrowed from the sensory world—and to cultivating symbolic thoughts that express nothing external. When we stir and experience such thoughts within ourselves sufficiently through a free act of will, then, after a long period of strenuous devotion, we achieve the point where our soul becomes, in the sense indicated, an instrument of observation—for the forces that previously proved too weak upon falling asleep to attain self-conscious perceptions now surge upward toward ever-increasing clarity, rather than leading to a blurred consciousness in the indeterminate depths of the soul. Organs are integrated into the soul’s organism that grant us new possibilities of perception. Then the person who has developed in this way is able to vividly perceive what was previously unconscious to them and to arbitrarily suppress anything that disturbs them in the process—thus making the soul empty and receptive to the finer impressions of the spiritual world; they will then perceive that the weary soul can gather new strength in the spiritual world into which it enters upon falling asleep.

[ 17 ] It is also possible for a person to experience a state equivalent to the generally known fatigue in this sense, [however] without the disruption associated with the former, occurring during concentration of thought—that is, in such a way that the latter state allows one to remain fully awake and conscious, and thus to exert oneself to ensure that all experiences occur in conscious forms and continue uninterrupted. Then the person will perceive that he cannot use his body or his brain, but feels himself to be outside of them and cannot imprint upon them what he experiences outside the body. With the uninterrupted continuation of the appropriately applied exercises, the feeling and the ability to influence the physical body through inner soul processes will gradually develop, so that the body becomes increasingly compliant and adaptable to the demands and impressions of the soul, until it is generally prepared—and the brain, in particular, is shaped—in such a way that it is able to express what is experienced outside of itself and communicate it to others.

[ 18 ] This experiment can therefore be conducted to observe the hypothetical workings of the soul on the body itself; in this regard, there is no difference in terms of proving these processes compared to the methods of the natural sciences. We are then faced with the possibility of saying: When a human being enters earthly, physical life through birth, his supersensible core of being emerges completely from the supersensible world, and thus the human being will also have entered life for the first time in this way. As educators, we can observe that the young person brings nothing unknown to us into the earthly world—nothing that could never have been connected to our world—but rather arrives already endowed with forces that they have previously gathered in the physical world during earlier stages of cultural development. If we look more closely at life, we are immediately confronted with the fact that, upon waking each morning, a person feels confronted by their past life. Now, when a person, as mentioned earlier, struggles with their body—and this soul-level struggle finds its end in the formation of wrinkles and furrows—the soul ceases its physical reshaping, and the soul’s powers then become consciously perceptible. Thus, every morning such a boundary arises: the soul encounters its body and can guide it further, to the extent that the body’s inherent elasticity permits. We can also see from this that we experience and learn more than we can utilize through our body, because it is, after all, largely fully formed; nevertheless, it continues to influence the core of our spiritual and soul-life.

[ 19 ] All of this can be observed in everyday life, and when applied within sound educational principles, the positive effects will endure throughout one’s entire life. One will feel that throughout one’s life, one is always a student, never losing the joy of continually allowing new experiences to take root, whereas a flawed upbringing leads to complacency. When the body reaches the peak of its development and has maintained that state for a time, but then slowly begins to decline—which occurs in the second half of life—we sense how the soul can no longer work on the body as it once did, but rather that our spiritual-soul core, in constant connection with the outer, physical body, now grows all the more in our emotional stirrings and sensations. With the destruction of the brain, the soul life of the person in question will cease only in the physical realm, since it is not the brain itself that thinks and so on, but rather thinking in the physical realm takes place with the aid of the brain. However, what is not directly bound to the brain—this we feel as we grow older, and we perceive the fading of the physical, which can no longer be further developed, as a blessing.

[ 20 ] Finally, the human being passes through the gate of death. The spiritual-soul core of the being has been enriched in many ways during earthly life and now works to prepare those forces that bring about a repetition of life, in which the human being—reborn as a child—is given new life material to work through.

[ 21 ] Recollection of the previous life is immediately interrupted, especially the memory of details, since the physical body is completely surrendered as a corpse to the physical world; even that which has merely imposed itself externally upon the soul is cast off, as it were, like a second corpse, since the soul can no longer make use of it. Only that which the soul can use to attain new abilities is retained—as formative powers for a new life, suitable for building a new body. Thus, the idea of repeated earthly lives is justified in and of itself, and the concept of evolution, which is implicit here, follows as a logical and necessary consequence of what the natural sciences have established. However, one must take into account the fact that not all life courses are to be understood in the sense of a steady ascent; yet despite many fluctuations arising both within and outside the human being, the sum total of repeated lives constitutes an upward climb, a gain.

[ 22 ] Sleep can be delayed or even prevented entirely by vivid thoughts that arise in a person as soon as they relate to emotional stirrings, joy, fear, worry, and anxieties of all kinds; for these connect the core of one’s spiritual and soul nature with everyday consciousness and thus prevent it from entering supersensory worlds. A person can fall asleep only when this state is finally numbed by extreme fatigue, or when the mind shifts to calmer thoughts—especially those associated with a more ideal way of life—and is thus distracted from the earlier ones. Similar conditions are also at work in the building of a new life. This will take place in a descending manner if the forces required for this must be drawn from egoism, or if forces must be enlisted that are attached to it. This also explains the ascending and descending nature of individual life courses, so that even in this regard, life can provide us with evidence everywhere for the views presented here. The spiritual-soul core enters the developing body of the child and shapes it as the architect of this body; and whoever approaches human beings with an open mind in their natural conditions of formation and growth will find that such conditions are confirmed as facts. We were able to observe this, for example, in a man who developed particularly strong clairvoyant abilities, namely Michel Nostradamus—Notre-Dame—born in 1503 in Saint-Rémy in Provence, died in 1566 in Salon; as long as he remained undisturbed, he practiced medicine with the utmost dedication; however, he was suspected of being a follower of a secret sect. He was barred from practicing medicine and subsequently withdrew to a life of quiet contemplation in a kind of spiritual observatory, where he devoted himself to the study of nature and astronomy. Here, he allowed the constellations in particular to influence him spiritually and thereby became aware of certain inner capacities of his soul that had previously remained hidden from him; he regarded these as a divine gift bestowed upon him for his seclusion. Especially when he devoted himself to the macrocosm in complete tranquility, untroubled by the ebb and flow of his inner life, his clairvoyant gift came to the fore, enabling him to achieve great success in his prophecies about the future. Here we see how the spiritual-soul core of his being broke through the natural conditions of existence after the forces he had previously employed as a physician could no longer be utilized; they then asserted themselves in the manner described, for it was not possible to simply make them disappear; and entirely in keeping with the scientific principle of the “conservation of energy,” those forces that had previously flowed into external activity were transformed into clairvoyant powers, which in turn awakened further inner soul energies. This can also be achieved through meditation and concentration, under the influence of which a person is prepared to transcend space and time with their perceptions and to see in a way that is different from what is possible in everyday physical perception. On this occasion, I would like to refer to the book *The Mystery of Man* by Ludwig Deinhard, which demonstrates the complete harmony between external methods and those of spiritual science.

[ 23 ] Thus, from our own time—in which spiritual science can once again draw new courage for further achievements—we can look back on those upheavals in worldviews and outlooks on life, as indicated in the introductory remarks of our lecture, when new elements entered the realm of human emotions, [just] as humanity today, everywhere, finds itself in a similar situation when observing spiritual and psychological development as it did in the past, when Copernicus pulled the rug out from under [its] feet and applied thought rather than observation. Let us consider the sciences, such as astronomy, biology, and so on—which have flourished not through observation alone but primarily through intellectual insight—just as, in Copernicus’s time, he and later Giordano Bruno dissolved humanity’s narrowly limited views into seemingly immeasurable expanses of atmosphere and space and broke through the eighth sphere created solely by the world of the senses.

[ 24 ] This is the standpoint from which spiritual science operates today when it encounters people who, until now, have limited their environment according to a spatial-material perspective and their own soul-being between birth and death according to a temporal perspective. But since these conditions of life could only be limited by misleading observation, this self-imposed boundary, too, can be transcended. Just as in the case of astronomy, so too must spiritual science have a future in the same sense—so that it expands the firmament of limited soul life beyond the boundaries assumed by most people, extending beyond birth and beyond death into eternity—then spiritual science will reveal to the world the infinity and immortality of the soul. Giordano Bruno was once condemned to death by burning by his opponents and burned at the stake in Rome. Perhaps some would wish the same for the representatives and followers of spiritual science; and if this is no longer permissible today, they seek to mock and disparage spiritual science as much as possible. But those who cannot get enough of this will thereby pass judgment on themselves rather than on the one upon whom they believe they can carry it out. That worldview, however, will also face its own judgment—namely, through the further development of spiritual science—just as the time has come for the scientific worldview to be recognized, in the face of reactionary efforts. But spiritual science, too, will prove itself particularly capable of giving people real life and not merely a theory, benefiting them more than the natural sciences—not in opposition to them, but by extending their sound principles along new paths of human development. Whoever can then recognize that the world is advancing in this way will not condemn spiritual science, but will march with it toward victory.