The Rudolf Steiner Archive

11. What is immortal about human beings?

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Aside from the general interest in questions such as the one that is the subject of today’s reflection, there is, in our time, a very special reason for human souls to engage in such reflection. At the present time, as I took the liberty of hinting at yesterday—and as must be evident to everyone’s sensibilities today—we are passing through blood and death, and the question of the nature of the human soul confronts us a thousandfold. Parents mourn or fear for their sons, as do sisters and brothers, and we also see various [signs] that, among the great and significant events—which we must assume lie at the heart of our difficult times—there may also be a factor that once again directs people’s attention toward reflections such as the one that is to occupy us today. Now, from the standpoint of spiritual science—which I have been privileged to speak about here in this city for many years now—it is truly not at all easy today to discuss the question: What is immortal in the human being? For one might well say: Faced with the claim to treat such a question in a truly scientific manner, the most diverse habits of thought and the most varied modes of conception of our time must, quite understandably, come into play—which, I say again quite understandably, seek—on the basis of what they consider to be the prerequisites of genuine scientific rigor—to rightly oppose what must be said from the standpoint of spiritual science. It is indeed true that the entire development of scientific thought in particular, as we can trace it through the past centuries and especially through the nineteenth century, stands in stark contrast to what spiritual science has to offer on such questions today.

[ 2 ] And it must be emphasized again and again, my esteemed audience, that from the perspective of spiritual science, as it is understood here, I truly would not wish to speak about such questions as the immortality of the human soul if I were not certain that what spiritual science has to say can fully stand up to scrutiny, but also fully takes into account—or at least is capable of taking into account—all that we call genuine, true scientific progress and scientific achievements in our present time. True spiritual science does not wish to be confused, in what it has to say, with certain things that claim to be related to true spiritual science and that also put forward all sorts of reasons and opinions on subjects such as the one that concerns us today. In the face of such opinions, it must be emphasized that considerations and views have indeed arisen from genuine, honest research and honest thinking—views which, I would say, run completely counter to everything that seems to speak in favor of the immortality of the human soul. And it must be said—it must truly be said in all sincerity—that the acumen and power of judgment displayed by the opponents of the idea of immortality are, to the highest degree—if one considers merely the capacity for thought and the power of judgment—worthy of recognition, and anyone well-versed in these matters will say that the quality of what has been put forward in recent times by the opponents of the idea of immortality is based on much sounder foundations than much, much of what is put forward in favor of this immortality. I am familiar with countless arguments and reasons put forward by the opponents of immortality, and I must say that I have the utmost respect for what is presented from their perspective. It is only on the basis of such premises that we should examine what can be said in a positive sense regarding the question: What is immortal in the human being?

[ 3 ] This question can truly be answered only from the perspective of spiritual science—and answered in such a way that the answer can truly stand up to comparison with what is otherwise regarded as science today. In order to investigate the nature of immortality, the human soul must follow the path that leads it into the realms of spiritual existence, into the realms of the supersensible world. And I have often taken the liberty of discussing here the manner in which the human soul must proceed in order to truly find its way into the spiritual worlds, into supersensible existence. Today—since during my last visit here I spoke specifically from a certain perspective about the human soul finding its way into the spiritual worlds—I will take what was said then as a given and will not speak again about what the human soul must do in order to truly engage in spiritual research. I would only like to mention that only those who are able to adopt the same perspective toward questions of spiritual science as one takes toward scientific research in purely physical, chemical, or any other sensory realm can arrive at a truly scientific examination of such questions.

[ 4 ] Anyone will admit that, when faced with water, no speculation or judgment can help them conclude that this water contains a substance like hydrogen, that water is a liquid, or that water extinguishes fire; hydrogen is a gas that burns; and when one observes water, it is impossible—based on this observation alone, through reasoning or any kind of research that does not amount to what the chemist calls the decomposition of water—to state that there is something within the water that possesses properties entirely different from those of water. Keeping this point of view in mind, as spiritual science penetrates ever further and further into human spiritual development, we will come to acknowledge that the human being’s true spiritual essence—the human being’s true soul essence—cannot be recognized from what we encounter of the human being in the external world, any more than the nature of hydrogen can be recognized from water. Just as the chemist must isolate hydrogen using his special methods—must extract it from water so that he has its properties before him—so too must the spiritual researcher extract from the human being that which is spiritual and soul-related, and that which cannot be recognized in the human being as he stands before us; he must, as it were, extract it from the ordinary human being through a kind of spiritual chemistry. Then, however, it reveals itself just as hydrogen reveals itself in relation to water; this spiritual-soul aspect possesses entirely different properties and an entirely different inner nature than the human being’s nature in everyday life—that is, in sensory reality.

[ 5 ] But the method of separating the spiritual-soul aspect from the sensory human being is, after all, a purely spiritual task; it cannot be accomplished through any external activity, but only through what the soul works out within itself—what the soul works out by experiencing itself. And I have often explained here how, through a certain way of concentrating on thoughts, through certain kinds of inner experience that can be described as meditation—in short, through certain intimate inner processes practiced with patience and perseverance—the soul can arrive at a discovery within itself. Further details can be found in my work *How Does One Attain Knowledge of Higher Worlds?* and in my *Esoteric Science*, as well as at the end of my *Theosophy*. As I said, what is described there is a description of inner processes of thought, sensation, will, and feeling—of a certain inner behavior of the soul—through which the soul makes an inner discovery, namely, the discovery that within this soul lie forces and an inner life that are not observed at all in everyday life. In everyday life, when we look at the soul, we become aware that our soul activity unfolds in the life of thought and imagination, in the life of feeling and sensation, and in the life of volitional impulses.

[ 6 ] Now I would like to say that, considering what we can observe in the soul that imagines, feels, and wills, people today argue about the question of immortality just as Simmias opposed Socrates in the ancient Platonic dialogue on immortality. Socrates confronts us directly as he faces death. What he has experienced through his philosophical life is revealed to us when he speaks—it has led him to the realization that powers can be found in the soul that do not come to the fore in everyday life prior to this spiritual experience. Simmias, who responds to him, knows nothing of such a possible deepening of the soul’s life. Therefore, he says: What the soul experiences is nothing other than, for example, the sounds of a lute; when the lute sounds, the physical parts of the lute are in motion, and this manifests itself in sounds; but when the lute is destroyed, all sound ceases. In this way, he compares human life—including its spiritual aspect—to that of the lute. The lute is, as it were, the physical realm, and as physical activities take place, these physical activities resound—figuratively speaking—in the experience of the soul. But when the external instrument of the physical realm is destroyed, the same is true of the life of the soul, just as the entire sound of the lute can no longer exist when the lute itself is destroyed. One might say: In what Simmias replies to Socrates, everything that today’s habits of thought—which seek to stand firmly on the ground of natural science—object to regarding the idea of immortality is already contained in principle. And these objections seem well-founded, for any psychiatrist can tell you how what is called the human soul life—this unfolding of the soul in thoughts, images, feelings, and impulses of will—is disrupted when something is amiss in the external organs or the nervous system. And one might say: Such arguments, quite understandably, must have a decisive influence on today’s convictions. Why do they have a decisive influence?

[ 7 ] Well, you see, ladies and gentlemen, the question of immortality is, in essence, posed entirely incorrectly within the broadest scope of contemporary thought. People look at the life of the soul as it unfolds in thought, feeling, and the impulses of the will, and then they ask: Well, what actually remains of what the soul experiences within itself in everyday life when death overtakes the physical body, when the body is destroyed? And there are certainly many who say to themselves: As I look at thinking, feeling, and willing, I experience inwardly something that is not identical with the physical and that must continue to exist when the gates of death open upon physical existence. Now, spiritual science reveals precisely what this imaginative, perceptive, feeling, and volitional life of the soul is. Just as we experience it in the soul, this entire inner life of the soul is, in essence, nothing other than a reflection. And what we experience in the soul—this is a comparison that is entirely grounded in reality—what the soul experiences inwardly as it simply observes itself in its physical existence can be compared to the image a mirror reflects when we walk past it. And whoever seeks the eternity of this inner life of the soul is seeking the eternity of mere mirror images, and these images are truly brought about in such a way that what is actually spiritual is reflected, and the mirror is the body, is the physical being of the human being. When we walk past the mirror, the mirror is the reason we see the image; but the image is reflected back to us by the mirror. Anyone who asks, “What is immortal in what we experience of the human soul in everyday life?” should ask: “Where, then, has the reflection that the mirror throws back at me gone when I am no longer standing in front of the mirror?”

[ 8 ] That is what is so incredibly misleading: that one seeks the essence of immortality in what is, in essence, merely an image. And then it is only natural that one can cite reasons—countless reasons—because what appears in the image obviously cannot exist once the mirror—that is, the physical body—has passed away and life has ceased. It goes without saying that one can cite reasons why this cannot be immortal, since these images must vanish when a person passes through the gate of death. If one knows nothing other than what constitutes human physicality—and what can be elucidated in the fields of anatomical, biological, and chemical science—and if one knows nothing other than what the ordinary psychologist regards as the life of the soul, then one is not within the realm of what is immortal in human beings, and one is right to say: “The immortality of all that one experiences in this way cannot be proven in any way. Therefore, the objections to immortality raised from a scientific standpoint are so convincing because they prove the [mortality] of that which is truly mortal.”

[ 9 ] Spiritual science, on the other hand, has the task of moving beyond this mortal realm into another realm, where the very essence of what is immortal in the human being can be found. This immortality does not lie in the experiences the soul may have in everyday life, but rather in deeper essences of the soul, into which the soul must first enter through the spiritual path of knowledge—must enter by energizing its thinking to the point of meditation, concentration; by also intensifying the life of feeling and sensation; and by thus bringing up from the depths of the soul into its consciousness that which is not present in its consciousness during everyday life. We best arrive at what is immortal in the human being when we first ask about what, so to speak, stands as a kind of endpoint in our everyday experience.

[ 10 ] What stands there like a endpoint is what we attribute to memory, to recollection. We remember experiences we have had, or things we have encountered in life. What does that mean? It means nothing other than this: from the experience, from the observation, an inner essence remains in the soul—an image remains—and this image can, even when the experience or the object is long gone, reappear before our consciousness. Then an image stands before our consciousness. How did this image come into being? It came into being because the person, so to speak, faced the event or the thing with an inner, living soul force and did something inwardly through the experience, through the thing. And what the person did inwardly, they can experience again; it can reappear in the image. We retain this memory of our life experiences—of what we have lived through in the life between birth and death—only up to a certain point in time. In ordinary life, everyone remembers back to a certain point in time—a point that, admittedly, lies in early childhood but does not coincide with birth. Something happens to a person between birth and the point to which they can later recall their memories. What actually underlies this fact?

[ 11 ] Yes, the powers of the soul through which we recall what we have experienced are already present in human nature prior to the point in time up to which we can recall. No force—not even in the spiritual realm—is created from nothing—this is a law that applies just as much to spiritual life as it does to physical life, where it is recognized—all forces merely transform. The forces we can call the powers of memory, which play such a major role in the unfolding of our soul life, are also present before the point in time up to which we can recall our past experiences. But what is the purpose of these forces before that point in time? Their purpose is to work formatively within the human organism; they are formative forces.

[ 12 ] As a human being enters physical existence, he must first, over a certain period of time, work through what has been given to him through heredity in a formative way—this can also be traced anatomically and physiologically—and he works through it from within. The still-undeveloped nervous system and other organs are first shaped by the inner forces of the soul, and what is now again expressed figuratively but points to a reality, is that at a certain point in time—namely, the point up to which one can recall—the human external physical organism has, as it were, hardened, has been so thoroughly shaped, that these formative forces can cease their shaping, their plastic formation. At that point, because the formative forces are no longer being used to sculpt the body, the body begins to no longer absorb these formative forces into itself, but instead reflects them back into the innermost depths of the soul; it reflects them back like a mirror. At this point, we begin to no longer pour our soul activity into the body. The reflection of soul activity is the basis for all human memory.

[ 13 ] We thus truly stand before our body as if it were a mirror, and memory, in particular, can show us how inner psychological experience is a sum of reflections. When we stand before a mirror, we have nothing else to do but surrender ourselves completely and passively to what is happening. Physical forces alone cause an image to be reflected back from the mirror. But let us now suppose—which, of course, is not possible in the external physical realm—that we were able, through our own power, to do what the mirror otherwise does: We would be able to experience ourselves inwardly so intensely that we could project an image of ourselves before us without a mirror—we cannot do this physically, but it can happen spiritually and psychologically. Spiritually and psychologically, this can happen precisely by the soul intensifying its experiences of thought, feeling, and will. Then the soul is able to strengthen the power that otherwise presents itself to us in ordinary everyday life as the power of memory to such an extent that the soul no longer needs the body to experience inner images—as it otherwise has before it only in memory such images of past observations. Then the soul attains such inner strengthening that it truly stands as if we were projecting a mirror image into the air through our bodily powers, without a mirror being present. The powers through which the soul, as it were, forms a spiritual image of itself without regard for the body’s reflection—these do not lie within ordinary everyday consciousness, but must first be drawn up from the depths of consciousness through a strengthening of the soul’s life. But then, when the soul brings up these powers—which are indeed always present within it but which it does not take into account in ordinary life—it has experienced within itself what acts as formative powers when a human being has received their body from their ancestors; then the soul lives within these formative powers, not in something mediated by the body, but in that which shapes the body itself in the first place. Then something similar happens with the soul as with hydrogen when it is truly extracted from water.

[ 14 ] Through such inner psychological processes, the soul is truly liberated from the body, lifted out of the physical realm in such a way that it now experiences itself in that which is independent of the body—indeed, in that upon which the body itself depends. You see, if one merely looks at what the soul experiences within itself, one does not arrive at what existed before birth—or, let us say, before conception—and what can pass through the gate of death; rather, one must, as it were, go beneath the surface of ordinary experience and draw up deeper forces that only manifest themselves once the soul has been freed from the body; and this liberation can truly occur, and the methods through which it occurs are precisely those that can be called the methods of spiritual chemistry.

[ 15 ] But once we have detached the soul, it truly confronts the physical realm with characteristics as different from it as hydrogen is from water. While in ordinary everyday life we certainly need the body to have images for our spiritual perception, once we have detached the soul, we are empowered and prompted—whenever we wish to experience anything—to experience it through the soul’s inner, active forces. Human beings must make a constant effort; they must be constantly active. If they wish to become researchers of the spirit, they cannot simply surrender themselves passively.

[ 16 ] So the first thing we encounter is an intensification—an elevation of what we would otherwise encounter in our power of recollection, in our memory—that is, a free formation, now again of images, which are called “imaginations,” that we create by becoming inwardly aware, through experience, of what the soul is, free from the body. The soul creates its own counter-image of itself and becomes aware, precisely in this process, that it is something beyond the physical that it can carry through the gate of death. Because people expect that a human being can remain confined to the inner experiences they already have in everyday life, they make so many mistakes regarding immortality.

[ 17 ] If one still believes that the answer to the question: “What is immortal in the human being?”, one can only rely on what a person experiences spiritually and inwardly in everyday life, then one cannot counter anyone who seeks to prove immortality; one cannot oppose them, for they will always be right. It is simply inconvenient to be forced to find concepts entirely different from those one already has—to discover, as it were, an entirely different scientific language and way of speaking. That is precisely what one experiences time and again when such matters are discussed; then comes the one who wants to refute them and says: I have these or those concepts that contradict what you have said. Certainly, the person speaking about this knows this quite well on their own; for one cannot find immortality from the concepts and ideas one already possesses; one must move on to other concepts, just as one cannot form a concept of hydrogen from the ideas one has about water. The ultimate stage reached in ordinary soul life is passive memory, which our physical organization helps us achieve. The first activity, so to speak, through which we enter the immortal human being from a spiritual-scientific perspective is an activity carried out by the soul freed from the body, which, through its own inner power, conjures up an image of the soul being before itself.

[ 18 ] But when we develop the soul along the path into the spiritual worlds, the ordinary thinking we are accustomed to—in which we use our senses to take in the external world and then form mental images within ourselves—actually changes within our soul. It becomes different. Just as the power of memory is transformed into a higher power, so too is the power of thought transformed into a higher one. While our thoughts are usually fleeting shadows of thought, the soul begins to become aware of the path that also leads—I might say—to the free shaping of images from memory. Yes, something develops out of our thought life that one could describe, by way of comparison, as if a shadow—which we have recognized as a shadow—were suddenly to begin developing a life of its own, as if a shadow cast by a person were suddenly to start running away. So it is with our thoughts; they begin to develop a life of their own; one is no longer in the same position with regard to them as one is with regard to ordinary shadows of thought.

[ 19 ] In the past, one would unite one thought with another and then separate it from that other; now thoughts are beginning to develop a life of their own. A thought, as it were, saturates itself with reality; it becomes substantial and moves toward another thought like an inner entity. The life of thought saturates itself with reality; it fills itself out. One moves from the shadow life of thought into the living weaving that thinking itself chooses and evolves into.

[ 20 ] And so it is with the life of the will and the emotions. We experience the life of the will in our ordinary existence by doing this or that through the mediation of our body; it arises from the life of desire. What we experience as the will—which we say emanates from our soul—ceases to take this form. One learns to recognize how something that is outside oneself—something that lies beyond the realm of the soul—flows into the life of the will, how one is drawn into a will that permeates the entire world. One is thus lifted out of one’s body with one’s thinking, feeling, willing, and remembering, and is transported into another world.

[ 21 ] One’s relationship to the body—and likewise to external life—is then the same as one’s relationship to external objects in sensory perception. Just as a table stands outside of you and you look at it from the outside, so you look at the body and the ordinary experiences between birth and the moment you begin your observation; one regards them as something external, because one has stepped out of the body with the soul. That is why it is so immensely important that self-knowledge—true self-knowledge—play a major role on the path the soul must take into the spiritual world. And anyone who knows how difficult self-knowledge is and how, fundamentally, it is far removed from everyday life will already realize that it must be difficult to arrive at the inner experience of the soul through spiritual research, in which the soul, independent of the body, experiences itself with entirely new qualities.

[ 22 ] If we consider what people understand as self-knowledge, we will have to admit what has just been said. Let me cite one example among many. A very famous contemporary philosopher, Dr. Ernst Mach, made a very remarkable statement on the very third page of his famous book *Analysis of Sensations* regarding—I would say—a lack of self-knowledge in relation to the ultimate question. There, the famous contemporary philosopher recounts the following about himself.

[ 23 ] He says: When he was very young, he was walking down the street one day and came across a person, and he had the feeling: What a repulsive face is coming toward me! And then he realized that he had walked past a row of mirrors, which were angled in such a way that he had seen his own reflection. He had taken that for a “repulsive face”—that’s how little he knew what his own face looked like. He goes on to recount how, when he was already a university professor, he got on a bus after a tiring train ride and saw someone else getting on as well. He thought to himself: “What kind of shabby schoolteacher is getting on there?” And once again, he had to realize that it was his own reflection that had met him there. “That’s how I came to recognize,” he said, “my generic habitus better than my individual, specific habitus.”

[ 24 ] Just as it is foreign to human beings, in the ordinary course of life, to look upon their own outward, physical form, so it is even more foreign to them to do anything at all to truly come to know their soul, to truly see through it. But if one wishes to walk the spiritual path—the path of supersensory inquiry, which, as it were, tears the soul from the body—one must support oneself through self-knowledge. For it is only by not merely focusing on what one is doing at the moment, but rather on one’s actual character—so that one has the habit of imagining things in a certain way, reflecting one’s deeper nature in the recesses of the soul— only in this way does one develop the capacity needed to truly perceive with the spiritual eye the entirely different qualities of that which is immortal in the human being, as opposed to what one usually regards as one’s own soul.

[ 25 ] If I return once more to the point that one of the first characteristics of the soul—when it enters the spiritual world and grasps its immortality—is a highly developed capacity for memory, a capacity for memory that is freely formed, then one must say: This kind of inner soul activity is now quite different from that of ordinary memory. This kind of inner capacity can be compared to a habit one has acquired. For if, for example, one has truly succeeded—through the strengthening of the soul’s powers—in conjuring up in one’s imagination something that is now a counter-image of the disembodied soul, then it is not possible, at a later time, to recall this counter-image of the disembodied soul in the same way that one uses ordinary memory to recall something one has experienced in the past.

[ 26 ] With ordinary memory, one has images that, as it were, rise up from the horizon of the soul’s life. This is not the case with what the soul experiences as its immortal essence. Even if one has experienced it once, it is entirely in vain for it to rise up; one must summon it a second time through the same activities as the first time. If it is already difficult to remember a fleeting dream—because the dream arises only when one sets in motion the forces that evoked it—it is even more difficult to have an experience of the kind described again through ordinary memory, because it does not exist as an image. The image must be evoked anew. What remains is the intensified experience of the soul itself. These are, therefore, entirely new forces, in relation to which one must acquire new ideas and new concepts if one wishes to approach them.

[ 27 ] That which is immortal in the human being lies—I might say—veiled behind the ordinary life of the soul. And what one thinks, feels, and wills in the ordinary life of the soul is not enough to characterize that which is immortal in the human being. But this immortal aspect lies behind the ordinary soul, and spiritual research is the method for bringing this immortal aspect to light. And when a person has truly strengthened their soul powers to such an extent that they can, through free inner activity, transform their very being into images, then the supersensible world reveals itself to them through several stages.

[ 28 ] The first thing one comes to realize, once one has revitalized and strengthened one’s inner spiritual life through the processes described, is that one sees the world—the same world one faces even while in the body—from the perspective that the soul assumes when it is outside the body. Everything is different there; for example, when outside the body, we cannot think about things in the same way as we do when in the body. This is because the life of thought within the body consists in the soul, as it were, presiding invisibly behind everything, casting its inner rays of activity onto the body, and the body reflecting these back to it. These are then the thoughts; they have, in essence, no external reality.

[ 29 ] But when we face the same world from outside the body, we cannot think in this way; for then we cannot allow the inner activity of the soul to radiate back from the body, but must allow it to radiate back from that which lies beyond the sensible world. Then we must live and weave within the supersensible; then we must allow the spiritual to radiate back to us from the things themselves; then no thoughts are reflected back to us, but rather we experience what were once animated thoughts. Thus, we experience the shadows of thoughts that have come to life. We feel, as it were, spread out over everything we look at. When we are with our soul outside the body, we unite with everything that can become an object of contemplation, and we immerse ourselves in what thought activity is. But these are now, in fact, living, essential thoughts.

[ 30 ] And the same is true of our emotional and volitional life. We have now moved beyond that which we have just described—the realm outside of which we live when we stand opposite it in the body. There we experience that, in fact, in all that which otherwise presents itself to us in veiled thoughts and abstract mental images of things, [something] essential lives. The world is then filled with an essential reality that lies hidden behind sensory existence. That which appears to us as a colored surface—we immerse ourselves in it in such a way that we live within the surface and perceive the external production of color. We immerse ourselves in a world of elemental movement. This, I would say, is the first stage of how we experience the world outside the body. All abstract thought ceases; everything is set in motion; and we ourselves are transported into this moving life. And so, once we have completed the first stage, and what we undertake in the intimate development of the soul continues to affect that soul, we arrive at another stage. At this first stage of spiritual experience, we have, as it were, seen the same world that we also see from the sensory side while within the body.

[ 31 ] But the next stage is one in which we truly perceive an entirely new world that no longer has anything in common with the external sensory world. Perhaps the easiest way for me to express what can be observed here is by drawing attention to the following. In my *Secret Science*, I have attempted to describe how our Earth, as it is today, with everything that develops on it, evolved from earlier planetary states—how, before it became the Earth, it was a different celestial body. I then attempted to describe this other celestial body, which had already perished. Since nothing of it remains today, one can see this other celestial body only by making genuine observations of the cosmos from outside the physical body; for then a perspective opens up that extends into time periods which otherwise cannot be grasped.

[ 32 ] Now I would have to describe this in such a way that anyone who considers what his five senses tell him to be possible—anyone who is willing to admit only that—must, in essence, regard the description of how the Earth came into being as twisted and insane, because what is now possible on Earth was impossible on the Earth’s predecessor, and because back then, events were possible events were possible that are impossible on today’s Earth. But such events can only be seen if one steps out of the world in which we are now enclosed and enters a world entirely different from the ordinary one. Thus, on the next level, one arrives at worlds that possess entirely different characteristics, that are shaped quite differently from what can be observed from Earth. And by entering these worlds, one is then able—one is able—to observe what constitutes the soul’s environment, what constitutes the soul’s spiritual life, before the soul, through birth or, let us say, through conception, takes on what is assigned to it in terms of the physical, material, and corporeal. When one observes this world of a completely different nature, one looks into the world that the soul passes through from the moment of death—which concludes a previous earthly life—until birth, or, let us say, conception, when it begins this earthly life. First, the soul, by separating itself from the body, comes outside the body and observes the world in which we, too, usually find ourselves. But as it progresses, it sees a new world, and in this world it experiences the formative forces through which, by the natural course of development, it itself lives within a spiritual world during the periods when it is not physically embodied.

[ 33 ] And then, when the soul is ready to perceive this spiritual world —which is a completely different world from the one we perceive through our senses—then it can, in turn, observe from within this spiritual world what is actually the deepest, innermost core of human being, that which endures through births and deaths, and which is truly the eternal, the immortal essence of the human soul. We become aware of that which dwells deep within us only when we view it from another world with different characteristics than this world—which is, after all, merely an image, projected [by] our soul through the mirror of the body; we come to know our deepest inner self from the perspective of a world that we do indeed acknowledge, but within which we do not become aware of our innermost being, even though it is within us, when we make use only of our everyday faculties. And then, when we thus observe our inner self from the other world, only then are we able to look back on past earthly lives we have lived; for these can be perceived only by looking at that which is supersensory in human nature.

[ 34 ] Of all our previous earthly lives, that which we experience in everyday life as mortal human beings has passed away. The eternal, which also rests within all this transitory existence as our very being, has passed through births and deaths, through life between birth and death, and then again through life in the spiritual realm; it will pass through lives that in turn will unfold between death and new birth, and between new birth and death. The immortal begins where the mortal ends; the mortal is but a fleeting metaphor for it. The immortal lies deep within human nature and is connected to worlds hidden from sensory perception. Thus, not by invoking a definition or anything else, but by describing how the soul finds its way to worlds other than those perceived through the senses—this is how one can shed light on the question, or rather, show the path to illuminating this question: What is immortal in the human being?

[ 35 ] There will come a time when what has been briefly hinted at here—as it were, in rough outlines—will be regarded as true science, just as physics and chemistry are regarded as true science today. No matter how many established ways of thinking may stand in the way—humanity will grow accustomed to bringing this supersensible realm into the realm of science. Truly, just as humanity has become accustomed to accepting the ordinary physical worldview of the Copernican worldview—which likewise contradicts the perceptions of the five senses—for even the physical world, when viewed in the proper light, must be seen as contradicting the perceptions of the five senses— and humanity has become accustomed to—and will become accustomed to—accepting a science of the supersensible, even if this science also contradicts what is commonly called the reports of the five senses and the intellect. And in our time, it is indeed the case that, for centuries, external science has made its progress. This external science—we must admit—quite understandably leads to the denial of the possibility of answering the question: What is immortal in the human being?

[ 36 ] Let it be emphasized once again: Everything that is said here—that even a slight destruction of our brain would disrupt our spiritual life, and that this proves that spiritual life is bound to the brain—all of this is irrefutable. And it is not the science of immortality that opposes the natural sciences that will prevail and become established in culture, but rather the science that acknowledges that, from its own standpoint, the natural sciences are correct in their assertions—that is the science that will prevail. The science that seeks the immortal in the human being through the paths the soul must first traverse—the science that does not speak in the usual scientific language about what is already known, but speaks of the immortal as something still unknown to ordinary soul life—that science will prevail. Misunderstandings regarding the natural sciences arise simply because it is easy today for the natural scientist to win an argument against what is told to him by a so-called spiritual science. He need only point out how ordinary thinking is disrupted by brain disorders, and how the life of the soul weakens with age. What grows weaker are merely the images of that which has yet to be discovered; and when one contradicts him, one merely disturbs him, one merely makes him uncooperative; for he is right in regard to what he alone perceives as the life of the soul.

[ 37 ] Humanity will have to get used to delving much deeper if it is to meet the needs of a science of the supernatural in the future—needs that already exist today, consciously in numerous human souls and unconsciously in countless others—so that these human souls can no longer be satisfied with what the old traditions or emotional notions can offer them regarding the question: What is immortal in the human being?

[ 38 ] But a spiritual science will emerge in the course of cultural development that will investigate the immortal nature of the human soul in such a way that it will in no way contradict the fact that one can recognize the immortal no more from what one sees of human beings in everyday life than one can recognize hydrogen from water. A spiritual science will emerge within the development of human culture that will speak of what must be discovered as the immortal aspect of the human being. It is indeed there, but it must be discovered, just as what pertains to science has always been there but first had to be discovered. And just as there was once no natural science in the modern sense—but rather, it only came into being—so too is that which is immortal in the human being always lying beneath the mortal part of the human soul; yet for consciousness, it must first emerge. As the need for such knowledge develops, it will become for people that which, in the most difficult moments of life, will fill them with comfort, certainty, and strength, and which will answer questions that ordinary science cannot answer.

[ 39 ] A time will come when human life would be only half complete if people knew nothing of what spiritual science reveals; and even if many people today still believe that one could live without this spiritual science, needs will develop throughout all of humanity that will make spiritual science, in the sense indicated today, an absolute necessity for life. Today, the situation is still such that those who stand firmly on the ground of natural science cannot be refuted regarding what is commonly believed about the immortal soul, since their objections must necessarily be valid; but a time will come when people will realize that while these objections can certainly be raised, they do not apply to what spiritual science actually reveals as the immortal human being.

[ 40 ] If you have a mirror that is irregular, then the reflection will also appear irregular; and if you have no mirror at all, then there will be no reflection—and you will see that these are the analogies for the immortal soul in relation to bodily life. If something in the physical body is disturbed, the mortal soul must be disturbed as well, and what science says must be correct. Likewise, if something in the body has become unusable as a result of old age, the ordinary life of the soul—which is experienced in isolation—cannot express itself. True spiritual science will be in complete harmony with what natural science has to say in the future; but we will have to overcome many things that still cling to people today as prejudices.

[ 41 ] For example, certain philosophical concepts regarding the human soul will have to be overcome. I am well aware of what philosophy has said about the concept of substance; but everything it conceives regarding what develops as the soul is such that it allows something substantial—which is in some way a finer form of what one ordinarily experiences—to pass through the gate of death, whereas what truly passes through is something purely spiritual, a spiritual process, leaving behind everything one experiences in ordinary life. But we have surely heard that the first supersensible power of the soul is a further development of the power of memory, that it is a higher form of the power of memory. And this is important; for as the soul passes through the gate of death, it develops, during the period it then undergoes, certain abilities—foremost among which is this heightened power of memory, this contemplation of the mirror image of what the soul itself is. In other words: what remains with the soul after it has passed through the gate of death from its present life is a truly higher form of remembrance, a gaze upon this life.

[ 42 ] In the true spiritual-scientific sense, nothing contradicts the accepted fact that, as a human being passes through the time between death and a new birth, he can always look back—through a higher form of memory—on what he has experienced here between birth and death. I would like to say: Where memory ends, higher memory begins, and after death we stand in a full, living relationship to what we have experienced here. All of these are undeveloped, primitive thoughts that can still evoke anxiety in people, as if the connection—the ability to look back on—what they experienced here were missing. That is not missing. In its spiritual existence, with its entirely different abilities and qualities compared to what exists between birth and death, the soul experiences a full connection, a continuation of the life it undergoes between birth and death. And this is the significant point: that by artificially lifting itself out of the body, the soul develops, as its primary faculty, an elevated, heightened power of memory. Just as this supersensory, perceiving soul can form a counter-image of itself, so after death it has the power to see, in the form of an image, what it has lived through in the body. One need only add to these considerations that such qualities of the soul—which are truly explored by spiritual science—are just as little contained within everyday life as the properties of hydrogen are already contained within water.

[ 43 ] A science—a spiritual science—is on the horizon for humanity, one that is not merely abstract, not merely a science of thought, but one whose effects will flow into the life of sensation, feeling, and emotion, so that in the future the anxious question may arise in people: What of that which is immortal in the human being? Then he will know that there is a spiritual science that speaks of what, even in present-day human life, is independent of death and birth. Then human beings will know that their immortality does not begin only after death, but that what is immortal are the forces that exist in ordinary life, yet lie beneath the surface of that life. And the forces that must be appropriate for the new life of the future will flow to them from such an awareness of their living, immortal part.

[ 44 ] Those who say that one should not concern oneself with this immortal aspect will stand in opposition to the beneficial content of the human-spiritual realm that spiritual science will bring about, just as one who says: “I have a piece of round iron before me; you tell me there’s a hidden force inside it. What’s that got to do with me?” The one who acknowledges the magnetic force hidden within the iron will put the iron to higher use. This person brings about the full life that must be characteristic of a human being who not only knows what everyday life reveals, but who knows it to be permeated by that which, as an immortal core of being, passes through a person’s birth and death. And although it may not be directly related, it is perhaps worth mentioning that this spiritual science, as understood here, is truly what was described yesterday as a possible fruit of German idealism in particular.

[ 45 ] As I said, even if what is to be said now is demanded only by external historical events, perhaps it may still be said. We see here how German intellectual life at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries developed into ideas—into the ideas of German philosophical idealism in Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, those philosophers who are so fiercely opposed today, but whose greatness will one day be recognized once again. What, then, is the distinctive character of this German idealism, as it also extends to the poets Lessing, Herder, Schiller, Goethe, and so on? The essential point is that these figures sense something alive in the life of thought, and that they speak of these thoughts not merely as one speaks in ordinary life of the shadows of thought, but they sense that there is truly something alive in thoughts, even though the science of the spirit could not yet be a product of their time; yet they speak of the reality of thoughts. Today we know that this stems from the fact that when the soul lives out its full potential, it no longer dwells in the shadows of thought, but reveals this shadow life that lies outside. Hence, just as the fruit is hidden within the blossom, something is now revealing itself that can truly give us the sure hope that, in the ongoing development of German spiritual life, the transition from idealism to true spiritual science will be revealed. This can be seen in various ways.

[ 46 ] Indeed, other nations have also sought to penetrate the spiritual world, but they have always approached it in a much more superficial way. When one sees how a philosopher who is now virtually unknown—Troxler or Schubert—strived to ascend into the supersensible world by enriching the soul, rather than by attempting to reach it through external machinations, one can discern the inner path of spiritual development leading into spiritual science. And in a thinker—a thinker with a broad perspective, such as Herman Grimm—one can see how the fruitful shoots of spiritual insight develop everywhere from German spiritual life, from the roots and blossoms of German spiritual life. Two examples of this are given below.

[ 47 ] Herman Grimm—one can admire him as an art scholar. In his art scholarship, one sees how he immerses himself in the work of art, how he brings to life from within—from the other soul—that which he wishes to portray, how he truly reaches out with his own soul even in his artistic contemplation. If one asks about the reasons and does not want to stray into the abstract, then one finds the reasons for this special ability in the way he himself behaved in his poetic artistic work. He says, for example, when writing a novella such as “The Singer” or a novel such as “Invincible Forces,” that he wants to pour his consciousness into all his works of art, that life is not confined to what takes place between birth and death, but extends beyond death.

[ 48 ] “The Singer” depicts how a man falls in love with a somewhat coquettish woman, how this man then descends into terrible despair, and how he shoots himself. The story then depicts how this man’s friend must keep watch over the singer during the following nights, and how this singer—as Herman Grimm portrays the scene in such a way that one is clearly aware he does not wish to depict something that is mere suggestion, but rather something connected to objective world events—speaks to the one who must watch over her because she cannot sleep. Then the man who shot himself enters through the door and approaches her. And one sees that this is not meant to be an ordinary tale of imagination, but that Herman Grimm wants to depict how what happens in life continues to have an effect. It is portrayed how the singer’s death is connected to what remains of the other man, showing that life extends beyond ordinary life.

[ 49 ] And if spiritual science teaches that what I have described as the soul separated from the body becomes visible once again, to a certain extent, through clairvoyant perception, then it becomes clear to us that, through the particular upheaval in the life of the human being who has been torn away by death, it is truly that person who appears. I do not cite such examples because they happen to appear in the literature; rather, the spiritual scientist who approaches these matters from a scholarly perspective may say: This description is accurate in Herman Grimm’s work. This point should be used to demonstrate how, in outstanding minds, such a spiritual experience gradually takes shape, enabling them to portray—with true artistic mastery—how the human being, with his immortal essence, extends beyond death.

[ 50 ] And in *The Invincible Powers*, Herman Grimm’s wonderful novel—such works are far too little known—Herman Grimm shows how, once again, because her beloved has been shot dead but remains immortal in the spiritual world, the bereaved lover dies. She already carries the seed of death within her physically, and she fades away. And now Herman Grimm shows, in a marvelous and expert spiritual-scientific depiction, how—as Emmy, for that is her name, dies—a form emerges from the body, hand by hand, head by head, a spiritual likeness of what was physical. There we see how truly—I would say—the germinal impulse of spiritual science was contained in the flowering of German spiritual life, in German idealism, and how it continued to generate a spiritual current that points to what spiritual science seeks today.

[ 51 ] If such people, who wish to engage with the most intimate essence of the German national spirit, would only go to the right places, then they would not, like Rolland, portray a somewhat narrow-minded schoolmaster as the archetype of the Germans, but they would see how, behind what is currently alive within German cultural development, something great and mighty is taking shape—everywhere. Hundreds of preparatory works could be cited that show how what is essentially contained as formative forces in German intellectual life points toward spiritual science.

[ 52 ] Among the many hundreds of examples, let us cite this one: A school principal in Bromberg, who lived a solitary life and died in 1868, wrote a treatise on the immortality of the soul. It is not of particular value, for it presents rational arguments that can be refuted by the natural sciences. But the person to whom this school principal—whose name was Johann Heinrich Deinhardt—bequeathed his estate was able to attest that Deinhardt had planned to publish a second edition of the aforementioned essay. In it, he intended to present once again all the rational arguments he had previously put forward, but at the same time to explain how, through inner contemplation of the soul’s powers, he had come to realize that the soul develops within the body a higher, ethereal body, which it carries through the gate of death so that it may continue to live in a new body thereafter. This new body, of which Deinhardt speaks, is nothing other than what the spiritual scientist experiences when he liberates the soul from the instrument of the body. Thus we see how the first stirrings of the fruits of spiritual science are emerging everywhere within German spiritual life.

[ 53 ] It is precisely when we compare this German spiritual culture with other spiritual cultures that we find how particularly well-suited this spiritual culture is to walking the path into the spiritual world—the path that must be the path of the future—namely, the path that, through energization and the strengthening of the forces of the human soul itself, leads to what would otherwise never enter human consciousness. This is what I, as I said—even if it is only superficially connected to what was to be discussed today—felt compelled to mention—perhaps not from a logical, but from an emotional connection—at a time when, due to current events, the question “What is immortal in the human being?” arises before our souls day after day in such a profound way—a time when death raises the question of the immortal in a hundred different ways every day, when we see how our courageous, self-sacrificing contemporaries go forth to pass through the gate of death, and truly do not, with the will with which they pass through the gate of death, to provide evidence for a materialistic worldview, but rather to demonstrate that within them—whether consciously or unconsciously—lives the certainty: With death, it is not merely death that comes; rather, a life—a higher life in the most diverse forms—is attained.

[ 54 ] What one must already feel today—the longing for certainty regarding the question of immortality, which will grow ever more urgent— and in this regard, too, the present fateful times—which hold so much in their bosom—can be a torch whose light signals that the time has come for humanity to embark on a new exploration, a new search, regarding the question of immortality. This exploration, this search, will lead to a supersensible science, to a spiritual science. A few outlines of the nature of this spiritual science should be presented today. Above all, it should be explained how, in the future, the spiritual researcher will show those who raise the question under consideration today something that he first separates from ordinary human life and which, through the very way it presents itself, proves to be the immortal essence of the human being.

[ 55 ] Just a hint—of course, in a debate that has already gone on far too long, it is not possible to present all the evidence that you can find in the literature— I simply wanted to offer a hint as to how the humanity of the future will be able to learn from those who will be spiritual researchers about the question of what is immortal in human beings, just as people today learn from physicists and chemists about what is contained in material forces. Just as not everyone today needs to be a chemist, a physicist, or a biologist in order to benefit from the achievements of chemistry, physics, and biology in their various forms, so too in the future not everyone will need to be a spiritual researcher if they wish to draw from spiritual research what it can offer to strengthen their lives. And if we can only dispel the prejudices of the present age and its habitual ways of thinking, we will come to acknowledge that, while the findings of spiritual science can indeed be discovered only through spiritual science itself, every person’s sound common sense and healthy sense of truth can perceive, comprehend, and find confirmation of what the spiritual scientist says. It is not that anything in the human soul truly contradicts the statements of spiritual science; rather, it is the prejudices with which people place obstacles in their own path that still hold spiritual science back today.

[ 56 ] With this, however, I would like to summarize once again, in a few words and in accordance with my feelings, what constituted the actual content of today’s reflection, by expressing in a few lines the feelings that arise from this reflection. That which can pour into one’s entire being as a realization—for those who will raise the question “What is immortal in the human being?” in the future—I would like to condense into the following lines, which are meant to be the emotional outcome of what I have attempted to expound.

They speak to the human senses
The things in the vastness of space;
The power of the soul proclaims
The change in the course of time.
Awakening itself to spiritual existence,
Man’s inner being
Frees itself from the body’s constraints
And beholds in thought the realities
Of the profound workings of its own existence
In the realm of eternities.