The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. Natural Death and Spiritual Life

[ 1 ] Ladies and gentlemen! Anthroposophy, which I have had the privilege of representing here for many years now, is initially met with bewilderment for a very specific reason: namely, because, based on its particular methods of knowledge, it is not only compelled to speak of things other than what we are accustomed to on scientific grounds today, but also because it is compelled to speak in a different way, to use a different mode of expression. But this—my esteemed audience—does not merely lead into the essence of anthroposophy in an external, formal way; rather, as this evening’s reflections on a specific case aim to show, it leads deeply into the very essence of the anthroposophical worldview.

[ 2 ] The ideas and concepts through which anthroposophy must express what it gains, in a certain sense, through so-called supersensible knowledge, have something about them— one might well say, a livelier quality—something that, without departing from the scientific foundation, stands out in a certain way from that which is bound solely to the external world of facts, perceptible through the senses and accessible to the intellect. Anthroposophy turns away from this external world of facts toward another world of facts, and regarding this other world of facts, it must not only proclaim things that go beyond what the senses are capable of perceiving, but it must also speak in a different way.

[ 3 ] This is particularly evident in the fact that most intensely defines human destiny on earth: the fact of death. For linked to the fact of death are humanity’s hopes of transcending death through its very nature; and linked to the problem of death is the problem of immortality. And to speak of the problem of immortality today is, after all, considered unscientific.

[ 4 ] Now—my esteemed audience—when one considers such a fundamental question, such a fundamental mystery of life, one must, precisely at that moment, draw attention to how the very nature of thought manifests itself in the most diverse ways across the various regions of the world. I would like to say: We here, within the German-speaking world of Central Europe, find ourselves caught between the West and the East precisely because of such questions. And I would like, by way of introduction, to point out the Western way of thinking and the Eastern way of thinking, in order to then show how it may well be the task of the German spirit, by avoiding the one-sidedness of both the West and the East, to arrive at a higher understanding in this area.

[ 5 ] When we look westward, we encounter, above all, a thinker who has profoundly influenced Central and Eastern European thought for nearly a century—a thinker who has exerted more influence on the scientific concepts of Central Europe, in particular, than is generally realized. That person is Herbert Spencer. He contemplates human life, and it is most interesting to examine his view of life where he applies it to the problem of education. He asks: What must be the true goal of human education? And he concludes—as I said, I only want to mention this by way of introduction, not elaborate on it—he concludes by saying that the true goal of education must be to make proper parents and educators out of all people. Now, what he presents as the goal of education may perhaps interest us less today, but the reason why he recognizes precisely this educational goal as his own certainly does. He says: Human development reaches a certain conclusion at the moment when a person becomes capable of procreation—that is, when a person enters sexual maturity. And if the power to produce one’s own kind is the highest achievement a person can attain in the course of life, then the highest goal of education must also be to raise and instruct these offspring in the appropriate manner. And it is evident from the overall context—more so than from this single assertion—that this Western thinker actually sees a reliable, epistemological understanding of humanity only in tracing natural processes to their pinnacle, to the production of one’s own kind; that, in a sense, he regards everything that a human being then has to strive for most significantly, once he has reached sexual maturity, and that he regards all so-called intellectual development merely as a kind of superstructure, merely as a kind of appendage—one might almost say—to the secure natural foundation of human development.

[ 6 ] Now it is extraordinarily interesting to contrast this thinker—who is Western in the most eminent sense—with an Eastern thinker: Vladimir Soloviev, the most significant Russian thinker of recent times, who lived during the second half of the nineteenth century, whose life came to an end with the close of that century, and whose most significant works thus still extend historically into the present. We hear this Eastern thinker speak from a completely different spirit, from entirely different spiritual depths; for—one might say—even though he expresses himself entirely in Western and Central European forms of thought, the entire Orient still resonates in his mood and feelings, nuancing everything he has to say in a warm, deeply heartfelt way.

[ 7 ] Soloviev now also speaks about the human life journey. And he says: A person must have two goals in life. One goal can only be the pursuit of perfection through ever-greater progress in the knowledge of truth, but the other must be to become attuned to that which grants a person immortality. One might now say: Soloviev continues to speak not from abstract concepts, but from the very essence of humanity, when he says: A life that were to be perfected solely in truth would be meaningless if it were not accompanied by immortality, for without immortality, the pursuit of truth—the pursuit of perfection in truth—would be meaningless, a mere fading away, a passing of the essential; the pursuit of truth would be meaningless. And immortality without the pursuit of truth would be just as meaningless; life would be a universal deception if the pursuit of truth were not supported by the reality of immortality. And drawing on these underlying thoughts, Soloviev speaks out sharply against precisely that—without mentioning Herbert Spencer on this occasion, but discussing it nonetheless—which Herbert Spencer sets as the goal of human development. He says: Let us just suppose for a moment that this human development consisted solely in individual generations producing further generations—that is, the same thing over and over again; a rolling wheel of this kind would be the most senseless thing one could imagine.

[ 8 ] Now—my esteemed audience—if one delves more deeply into what underlies these two completely opposing views, one finds a very different approach to the inner life of the soul. In Herbert Spencer, one finds a thorough familiarity with the concepts that have emerged as scientific concepts in the course of human development over the past few centuries, and one finds in him the view that truth and knowledge can be attained only through such concepts. In Soloviev, one finds that although he expresses himself entirely within the same conceptual frameworks as Western thinkers, one also finds that he speaks from something within the human being that is not subsumed by these concepts—that, in a sense, merely makes use of these concepts as a language. And one has the feeling that ancient times of human cultural development, ancient times of human thought, come to life in Vladimir Soloviev—the thinker of the East—through a religiously colored worldview, and that something deeper in human nature speaks than that which can be expressed in external, sensory, and rational concepts.

[ 9 ] But while in Spencer we find—I would say—a rigorously structured logic, and while reflecting on his work one moves within the realm of a certain certainty of concepts and ideas, in Soloviev one finds, as an underlying foundation, something that cannot be held fast with the same certainty; one finds in him something that seeks to renew the act of soaring beyond the conceptual world of the ancient thinkers, the ancient seekers of a worldview. And in modern times, especially when discussing the deepest mysteries of human existence, one feels placed between these two worlds. But perhaps one may say: It is the destiny of Central Europe to observe these two one-sided approaches in the course of development and to seek a path that transcends both, a path that then leads into a truly supersensible world, in which the problem of death on the one hand and that of immortality on the other can truly present themselves to the human soul in a satisfying way. This path—my esteemed audience—is what the anthroposophical method of research seeks to pursue.

[ 10 ] The anthroposophical method of research can neither remain confined to the Western conceptual framework nor to that world which—I would say—externally makes use only of concepts, much like a language, but which draws from a more or less mystical obscurity that characterizes the very essence of the East. On the one hand, the anthroposophical method of research must avoid losing itself in this mystical obscurity; on the other hand, it must strive to overcome that which seeks to confine the human being—who lives solely within concepts—permanently within the sensory world. This becomes particularly evident when one first considers, from an external perspective, precisely that which presents itself as the most intense element of fate in human life—when one considers death—in order then to ascend, through the understanding gained from the experience of death, to an understanding of immortality.

[ 11 ] Death confronts us within nature itself—to which human beings, after all, belong with one aspect of their being—as the great mystery of existence. And if, on the one hand, one could intellectually link it to what Herbert Spencer presents as the goal of the human life course—the production of the like—and, on the other hand, link it to that for which one cannot -logical but a purely human appeal—Vladimir Soloviev directs toward immortality—then one would finally provide human knowledge with the kind of conclusion that transforms it from a mere factor dominating the external world into one that can now also carry the inner self of human beings through life with certainty and a firm foundation.

[ 12 ] Let us consider—my esteemed audience—how death manifests itself in the natural existence of human beings in particular; and I would like to emphasize: Today I will speak only of human death, not of the various forms of death that we might observe in the animal kingdom or even down to the plant kingdom. Within the human realm—how does death confront us? In a certain sense, it is condensed into a single moment—namely, the moment when life comes to an end—and that is what makes it so enigmatic. We live out our lives, we take delight in this life of ours, enjoy it, apply it in the outer realms of humanity and the world, and in this experience of existence we are not initially directly aware of death, but are only aware of it as a mystery surrounding the fact that this life, as we live it day to day, simply comes to an end.

[ 13 ] When one now places this single fact of life before one’s soul, what does one actually find there? Human beings leave behind from their life in the physical world that which we call the corpse. The substances and forces are arranged in a certain configuration within this corpse; once the human being, as a physical being, has become a corpse, they exist in a relationship from which they cannot remain, from which they must emerge—and indeed must emerge through the very same forces, through the very same laws of nature that we find externally with our senses and our intellect throughout the world in which we are placed as sensory beings. One must say: In a certain sense, upon the onset of death, the human interplay of matter and forces is taken over by that world from which we actually draw our knowledge—insofar as it is knowledge derived from the senses and the intellect—from birth to death.

[ 14 ] And what, exactly, does this external world do to the human body? It consists in the fact that it dissolves this human body, that it destroys its form, that—in other words—it causes it to pass from the individual existence in which it was bound from birth to death into a general physical existence in the world. We look at this physical existence in the world and must first call it: “the end of life”; we must admit, as we observe the processes the human corpse undergoes from the moment of death onward until it is completely dissolved in the course of the world, that these processes are entirely unlike those which—though initially unknown to human cognition—nevertheless unfold with the utmost clarity up until death. For as soon as death occurs, as soon as the outer forces of the world take over the human body, its constituents and forces take paths that are, at first, different from those they followed between birth and death, at least as far as outer sensory existence is concerned.

[ 15 ] Between birth and death, they are held together by something; one may conceive of this something as this or that; one might even deny it and attribute everything that exists to a mere, different context during life than the one that exists after death, but one must at least call this context something else. And so, on the one hand, there stands the human physical body after death, absorbed by the general forces of nature; on the other hand, there stands this very same human body, removed from general dissolution, renewing itself again and again from birth to death, preserving itself in its individual form. The contrast, the polar opposition, is initially a great one, and the question must be asked: How can knowledge come to terms with this polar opposition?

[ 16 ] Now—my esteemed audience—it will never succeed unless it draws upon that which anthroposophical research seeks to introduce into scientific life—that which I have attempted to describe in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* as a path that leads beyond mere sensory and intellectual knowledge, by making the human being aware of certain deeper powers of cognition present in the human soul, which are simply not utilized by ordinary consciousness. These powers are always present in the human soul. Ordinary consciousness leaves them in the unconscious; the higher path of knowledge brings them to the surface through meditation and concentration; it devotes itself to certain exercises—intimate exercises of the soul—through which it strengthens thinking, feeling, and willing, thereby evoking in the soul more intense experiences of this inner life than are ordinary, and thereby also transcends what ordinary cognition can achieve.

[ 17 ] I cannot go into detail today about the nature of this particular path, which I have, after all, described here on several occasions. I will touch on this briefly in my lecture next Tuesday here in Stuttgart. Today I simply want to point out that this path consists in bringing to the surface—through meditation and the concentration of the soul’s life—the spiritual forces that every human being possesses at the very core of their soul, and applying them to the world.

[ 18 ] And what happens as a result? As a result—my esteemed audience—a third state of consciousness is added to the two states of consciousness between which a person alternates in ordinary life. The two states of consciousness I am referring to are the one we experience from morning to night, which encompasses our ordinary inner life and also encompasses everything that external science considers accessible—it is, in fact, the waking state; the other state of consciousness cannot, strictly speaking, even be called a state of consciousness at first—it is the state of sleep. But out of this state emerges the wondrous life of human dreaming—that human dreaming which is perhaps accepted by some in a superstitious manner, marveled at by others at first, and regarded by a third group as something mysterious unknown—but which nevertheless draws the attention of many people to the fact that perhaps directing the soul’s gaze precisely toward this emergence of dream waves from the deep oceanic depths of human soul life could be of particular importance for the understanding of life as a whole. Certainly, anthroposophy cannot have the slightest connection with any kind of superstition about dreams, but while it does not derive any knowledge from dream life—that is entirely foreign to it—it must nevertheless point to the dream world as something deeply mysterious and important for life. It must, after all, say the following in its defense.

[ 19 ] Is not that to which ordinary cognition is devoted also something turned away from life, when we devote ourselves to life in the usual, robust way, when from morning to evening we simply live out our existence in the world through the exertion of our physical bodies? This cannot give rise to what we call “knowledge” even in ordinary life. The finer concepts, the more intimate connections regarding the world that are sought through knowledge, depend—at least in a formal sense—on the external, robust way of life. In a sense, one must withdraw to a place of existence in the process of cognition that lies apart from external life. And yet, one must admit that through what one explores intimately in this secluded place—by observing, experimenting, and thereby also stepping away from the ordinary course of life through observation and experimentation—light actually enters into life; that is, light enters into life from something that withdraws from life. Could it not also be the case that, although the enigmatic world of dreams might at first seem meaningless to outward, robust life, it is precisely in its remoteness—and indeed in a remoteness in a higher sense than ordinary cognition—that it points to the very essence of life?

[ 20 ] And indeed, this dream world—that which resonates and carries over into waking consciousness from the time we spend between falling asleep and waking up—contains something that can indeed be further developed. And this further development occurs precisely through the higher knowledge of the human being, through the attainment of a third state of consciousness. By strengthening thinking, feeling, and willing, we achieve something that, on the one hand, is similar to the world of sleep from which dreaming wells up, and on the other hand, is completely opposite to it. When we say we fall asleep, we allow the dream to well up from the world of sleep; thus we must say: In the world of supersensible consciousness, into which anthroposophical research seeks to penetrate, there is not a falling asleep, but on the contrary, a higher awakening. What takes place is an experience in a world that is similar to—and yet entirely different from—the world of dreams; similar insofar as, when we immerse ourselves in full physical-bodily life—and the dream world, which, after all, flits past us in moments, let us say, of waking—ceases, it immediately gives way to that life permeated by will-infused thoughts. That life of consciousness, attained in the manner described, can just as easily cease—and must just as easily cease—when it is immersed in ordinary human physicality. Just as the dream fades away, so does the higher consciousness cease when it is immersed in physicality. This awakening, this higher state of alertness—if I may use the much-debated term—hovers, I would say, with a lightness just like that of the dream world—yet is, on the other hand, its opposite because it is permeated, in an equally rigorous sense, by certain thoughts, just as waking daytime perception is.

[ 21 ] Thus, anthroposophical research consists of an advance toward a form of knowledge that is experienced with a lightness akin to a dream, yet at the same time is experienced with a firmness that is in some way comparable to the logical within the context of knowledge. But both aspects are present in both cases. When one becomes aware, from one or the other realm of consciousness, of the full connection with one’s physicality, then both appear in such a way that the dream is erased by waking daily life, remaining at most as a memory, but as a memory it becomes integrated into waking daily life; the content of the higher insight, however, is not erased, but stands alongside ordinary daily cognition—standing in such a way that it clearly stands out from it—so that a person can then experience their own existence as if with two personalities, one of which can control the other, can illuminate what they experience in ordinary waking consciousness from morning to evening with the higher knowledge they have attained, and in turn can examine that higher knowledge through their ordinary logical thinking to determine how it harmonizes with what can be experienced in the sensory world. This higher insight transports us into a purely soul-spiritual experience; it is a soul-spiritual experience full of content, full of inner reality. Just as in ordinary sensory life one is able to distinguish something merely imagined from reality in life itself—just as one can distinguish the mere idea of hot iron from the actual hot iron one touches through life itself—so too can one distinguish something merely imagined from that which is truly beheld in higher knowledge, that which is directly experienced.

[ 22 ] But this reality confronts human beings in such a way that it stands in complete contrast to what we encounter in natural death. In natural death—as we have seen—we are confronted with the fact that the human body is subject to the general, natural laws of the world, which dissolve it, strip it of its form, and cause it to pass into their general existence. In higher knowledge, the life of the soul becomes more powerful, permeates itself with purely soul-spiritual reality, and is encompassed within purely soul-spiritual reality. But it does not flow out—as the human body flows out into the general laws of nature after death—it does not flow out into the general laws of nature; nor does this soul-spiritual experience initially flow out into any general laws of the universe.

[ 23 ] In this soul-spiritual experience, one comes to know something about which one must say: It is different from what we otherwise experience in waking daily life between birth and death; viewed from within, it is something as different from this waking daily life as a dead corpse is from the living human body that we carry within us between birth and death. From the outside, we look at something in the human corpse that confronts us with the mystery of death in the realm of nature; we look at something that, in its innermost essence, is different from what we carry within us between birth and death in the same organism. And in higher knowledge, we look at something—spiritually and soulfully, inwardly—that is just as different from everything we experience inwardly, soulfully, through our human organism, which becomes a corpse in death. One might say: On the one hand, the dead corpse is separated from life for our external perception; for our inner perception, what is separated from the same experience is that which, as a spiritual-soul reality, can be beheld by our soul’s gaze in higher knowledge.

[ 24 ] Ladies and gentlemen! In this confrontation with death, which stares at us from nature—when we consider it, I might say, in the form in which it presents itself to us; when we trace the fate of the human corpse after death; in the juxtaposition of this fact of death and that which arises through higher knowledge—when a person brings into their inner life the soul forces that initially exist subconsciously, one might also say, superconsciously—into his soul life—in this juxtaposition lies the very source from which, in a certain sense, the most important problems of human life spring forth, even those that lie directly before anthroposophical research. It is an inner consolidation, an inner strengthening within that which the human being grasps as his spiritual-soul life. Human beings feel as if they have been restored to their innermost being; they feel fully at one with themselves when they grasp this reality of their spirit and soul, apart from the life between birth and death.

[ 25 ] And a particular nuance of the idea he derives from this perspective emerges for him when he contrasts this idea with that of natural death. But then, when a person has experienced through higher knowledge this reality consolidated within themselves—this spiritually and psychologically invigorated life— and then immerses themselves once more in the physical body—that is to say, as I have mentioned, the consciousness derived from higher knowledge is experienced side by side with the consciousness bound to the body, which accompanies us during physical life between birth and death, from waking to falling asleep.

[ 26 ] If one compares these two side by side—that is, if one penetrates the human being in his ordinary physical existence with what he appears to be when he beholds his true, higher existence—then, my esteemed audience, then one encounters the mystery of death for a second time, and one encounters it in a way that simply does not present itself to ordinary life and ordinary science. Then one plunges back into this physical organization with that which has first emerged from the instrument of the body, from the entire physical organization; and one now experiences this physical organization in a different way than in ordinary life. One now experiences what it means that we always carry within us during this physical life that which falls away from us with death as a corpse—that which, after death, must move according to entirely different physical laws than during physical life. And one actually perceives it as an illusion that this moment of death stands as an isolated event in human life. One now senses with understanding: You constantly carry within you that which you see in a dead person, in a physical sense, as the forces of destruction before you; you always carry these forces of destruction within you. This is a significant realization, my esteemed audience!

[ 27 ] One immerses one’s soul-spiritual being—which one has come to perceive through higher knowledge—into physicality, and only then does one realize how one actually carries the forces of death within oneself at all times; and how these forces of death are now constantly overcome by the life forces; how a constant struggle takes place within the human organism—the struggle that unfolds between the forces of death and the life forces. Only now does one feel what it actually means when, in ordinary life, waking and sleeping alternate. One feels that the entire human being steps out of the physical body during sleep, just as the human being, with the higher insight I have described, steps out of this physical body. But one also feels how, in ordinary life between birth and death, a person is dependent on using his physical body to exercise his logical faculties and his powers of thought. For when a person is not in their physical body during sleep, they experience at most a confused, chaotic dream life that must vanish immediately when the person returns to their physical body. But through higher knowledge, one also learns to perceive what is constantly at work within the human body to counteract the dissolving forces that are present within us from birth to death. One learns to recognize that this counteracting force is most intense precisely from the moment of falling asleep until waking up. And one learns to recognize how waking life, precisely through one’s thoughts, is bound to that which manifests itself separately from the physical body. One comes to recognize how the forces at work in the physical body are in fact always carried within oneself as the forces of dying. And through higher insight, one learns that the very thoughts through which we permeate and organize our existence in ordinary life—and through which we actually manage it in the right way—are thoughts that we cannot carry up into this higher insight. Into this higher insight, into this higher reality—my dear friends here present—we actually carry with us from our ordinary daily life only a part of our emotional and volitional life, and in a higher world we acquire new thoughts. The sphere of thought that is bound to the physical body—and of which one realizes: it is bound to that which is always within us in the physical body—namely, the forces of death—this sphere of thought is grasped through higher knowledge. One also realizes that one must strengthen thinking, feeling, and willing in order to carry not only the thoughts that the body carries for us in ordinary life, but also the Self.

[ 28 ] For this reason, my esteemed audience, the entire inner life of the soul and the entire inner life of the spirit must be strengthened and invigorated for the sake of higher knowledge. What we can leave to the forces of the body in ordinary life, we must bear and accomplish ourselves, spiritually and soulfully, in higher knowledge. And we experience this personal achievement. We experience ourselves through thoughts that are no longer bound to the outer, physical body—thoughts of the world. We do not experience the laws of nature; we experience thoughts of the world! Through higher knowledge, we experience the way in which that which is the outer revelation of the world is drawn forth and shaped from the world-thought. And what the ordinary world of thought is—and what that world of thought is like, the very world of thought into which one first enters through higher knowledge—unfolds before this higher consciousness. One now learns to recognize the intimate connection between the forces of dying and death in human nature and those forces that actually manifest themselves in our thinking, in our ordinary imagination, from [waking up to falling asleep].

[ 29 ] We are in a dull state of consciousness that reaches only as far as the dream, a state that is illuminated only by higher knowledge and thereby becomes transparent. This state of consciousness, too, extends only to the imagery of the dream, which is not permeated by thoughts. In order to have thoughts in ordinary consciousness, one must immerse oneself in the physical organism, which carries within it the forces of dying and death. And if we did not have these forces of dying and death, we would not have a self-contained world of thought in ordinary consciousness between birth and death.

[ 30 ] We now learn how human beings must, so to speak, harden themselves into a physical organization that wrests itself away from them, that acts in the same way as the physical forces do in death—forces that can only be overcome when human beings are permeated by their spiritual and soul aspects. We come to recognize these forces of dying and death precisely because, through higher knowledge, we possess a world of thought that does not sink into these forces of dying and death. And so, for this higher understanding, spiritual life stands alongside natural death, and thus the human being learns to recognize how precisely the powers of thought—those forces that inwardly connect our life with the sensory world, which mediates the external—how these powers of thought are bound to the forces of dissolution and dying within the human organism. That—my dear friends here present—is a significant insight, for through it we perceive the mystery of death in a new light. We come to understand that death is not merely an essential reality before us—appearing, as it were, as the final link, the conclusion of physical life—but rather we perceive death as it continually works within the human being between birth and death, and we perceive its intimate connection with ordinary thought life. But with this—my esteemed audience—the very essence of this life of thought also becomes clearly evident to us.

[ 31 ] Precisely because what we carry within our souls—in terms of feeling and will—must, so to speak, unite with the forces of decay so that it can be permeated by the world of thought we need for ordinary life, it is precisely through this that our soul life takes on the character that has reached its highest flowering in the present age—a character of which it is, in the present age, most eminently and rightly proud.

[ 32 ] Let us try to imagine what this world of thought—which we now know to be bound to the dying and death forces of the human being—is capable of. It is capable of penetrating what is also outwardly dead nature, and in this regard, modern science has celebrated its great and well-deserved triumphs. It has spread more and more across the realm of dead, inorganic, lifeless nature; it seeks to penetrate this dead, this lifeless nature in such a way that it might one day—this is the ideal it holds before itself—be able to perceive the emergence of the living within the dead as a combination of the forces at work within the dead. Today, in a certain sense, it is believed that we are on the path to such an understanding of the organic arising from the inorganic. But even if such an ideal of scientific knowledge—which, as such, is entirely justified in its own field—were to be realized, one would still recognize in the living only that which is dead within the living. Let me express this in the following way, ladies and gentlemen.

[ 33 ] When I look at a plant: it is a living being; substances circulate within it, and forces are at work within it. Within what I see before me in this living being, the same forces and laws are at work that I explore in physics and chemistry; there is a physical aspect to it, and a chemical aspect. This physical aspect and this chemical aspect exist within the living being in a different way than they do outside of it, but they are nonetheless merely non-living elements within this living being. And one may succeed in discerning the particular way in which this non-living aspect manifests itself within the living, reveals itself in the living, but one still remains confined to the non-living. And one remains confined to the non-living, even when one studies it all the way up to the human being. The human being carries within himself the forces, the mode of action of dead matter. But precisely because he carries within himself this mode of action, these forces of dead matter, this means that he always has death and dying within him. Through higher insight, one comes to understand that, in ordinary consciousness, the human being thinks precisely because he carries within himself this inanimate, this inorganic, this which continually endows him with the forces of death. It is significant to realize that what human beings initially recognize as their highest achievement in physical life is, in fact, bound to that which is constantly detaching itself from life—that is, that human beings are able to think, and in doing so, they are constantly detaching the forces of death from life.

[ 34 ] And this is also why, at the very moment when the life processes intensify in ordinary physical life—say, during a fever or in abnormal, pathological states—human consciousness also shifts into a pathological state; that a person can have a healthy consciousness only when the life forces—the effervescent, warm life forces—are kept in check by the forces of death. The thoughts we have in ordinary life insert themselves into the emotional and volitional forces that are bound to the living; they insert themselves into these forces precisely because the forces of death enter into human life. The conscious powers of thought in physical life are bound to death and dying; they are intimately, most deeply, connected to these forces of death and dying.

[ 35 ] And so, through such contemplation, that which confronts us precisely in our external perception of the inanimate, the inorganic, is placed in its proper light. If one comes to know, with one’s entire human nature, the world of ideas and concepts as it appears precisely in its highest form between birth and death in physical life, then one perceives it as something that, in its nature and essence, is devoted to the inanimate and also to external, lifeless nature. And one discovers the great law of human existence: because the powers of thought and cognition within us are connected to the forces of death, we can therefore perceive only the inorganic, the lifeless, through ordinary cognition. But through the entry into this life of higher spiritual knowledge—as pursued by anthroposophical research— ordinary thoughts are, so to speak, raised into a higher sphere, just as that which in the human being is a constant process of death and dying—a constantly active corpse with the destructive forces that dissolve its form—is raised into life. And we have—my dear friends here present—a self-sustaining process before us in the transition from ordinary knowledge to anthroposophical knowledge.

[ 36 ] We recognize the ideas and concepts of ordinary knowledge as bound to death; we recognize that which anthroposophical knowledge strives toward as that which brings the ordinary, dead, lifeless concepts and ideas to life. We recognize not merely a formal process of cognition, but a revitalization of our soul life; we recognize the direct presentation of that which has nothing to do with birth and death, that which truly transcends birth and death because it does not partake in the forces of death and dying. We recognize the immortal part of the human being; we learn to distinguish it from that which is perpetually bound to death. As in higher knowledge—I would say—spiritual life arises from natural death, not merely a formal spiritual cognition. That is why—my esteemed audience—this anthroposophical knowledge initially strikes people as strange. It is usually taken as a mere continuation of ordinary knowledge. It is that in the full sense of the word, but it is such a continuation that even the character, the very nature of this ordinary knowledge, is transformed, so that we experience something like the birth of a living being within the thoughts and ideas—which are otherwise useful only for the inanimate—in those thoughts I have called “world-thoughts.” In today’s reflection, we are confronted precisely with that into which a human being is first absorbed when, as a spiritual-soul being, he separates from his life between birth and death. When his physical body is separated through natural death, his physical form is absorbed into the general natural forces, and his form is destroyed. If the spiritual-soul aspect is received into that world which higher knowledge has already reached in a living, cognitive sense, then the human being consolidates. Then the human being is not dissolved into the rest of the world; rather, with his full individuality—indeed, [this higher individuality is strengthened and intensified]—he enters the spiritual world together with this world.

[ 37 ] In this way—by further developing the powers of human consciousness—anthroposophical knowledge seeks to approach the problem of immortality. And you see, my esteemed audience: For this anthroposophical insight, the aim is to approach the problem of immortality in such a way that one does not merely philosophize about the immortal, but rather investigates: Where in the human being is the immortal to be found? It can be found through higher knowledge when one attains that which, by returning once more to the body, objectively perceives death in its ceaseless activity within us and thus knows what alone can fall prey to death.

[ 38 ] Only that which already lies continually in the bosom of death can succumb to death. By seeing through this continual dying, the actual moment of death is recognized merely as a kind of summary of what is always there. And while we continually save our lives—I would say, from death—by constantly overcoming the forces of death in physical life—and we overcome them precisely because within us there is always that which is perceived only through higher knowledge—it is precisely this spiritual-soul aspect within us that overcomes, in physical death, that which—completely overcomes, I would say overcome in its totality—that which, in its individual components, in its individual elements, must be overcome from one moment of life to the next. In every moment, through our spiritual life—which has nothing to do with death—we overcome natural death. And when one attains such an insight into the overcoming of mortality through immortality, then the mystery of death also presents itself to the human soul in precisely that renewed form which I took the liberty of describing to you this evening—my esteemed audience.

[ 39 ] And therein lie the reasons why anthroposophy must not only speak about different things, but also speak differently than ordinary science. It must take its concepts and ideas—which, after all, deal with spiritual worlds—and raise them up from what we ordinarily understand as concepts and ideas, which are applicable only to the dead because they originate from death and dying; it must elevate these concepts into spiritual life. And therefore, only those who possess the will to move from dead concepts to living concepts can enter this world of thought that is anthroposophy; who possesses the will to shape the soul’s activity in such a way that they grasp what must be grasped in life, rather than merely seeking, in a complacent manner, to grasp what can be grasped only in death. Today, we develop our physiology and anthropology largely by observing human beings after death and reconstructing life from death. Anthroposophy seeks to enliven that which in the human being is bound to death, and thus to raise the inner world of the soul itself—as living spirituality—to a higher level of knowledge.

[ 40 ] One truly does not need to become a researcher in this field oneself—as I have often taken the liberty of mentioning here—in order to grasp the validity of the anthroposophical worldview. Those who become researchers have the spiritual world directly before them, just as I have been describing it here for years. They then describe it based on what emerges for them when they translate what they perceive into the form of human thought. But in describing it, they appeal not merely to their own perception, but to the inner vitality of the human being. And because human beings carry this inner vitality within themselves, just as they carry within themselves the forces of death, they can gradually—even if they do not themselves become researchers in the field of spiritual science and anthroposophy—acquire an understanding of what the researcher brings forth from the spiritual world. Admittedly, the publication of works such as my book *How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* it is pointed out how anyone can at least take the first steps toward their own exploration of the spiritual world; yet it is also pointed out that, first and foremost, such books are written as they are so that everyone may, in a sense, receive the spiritual researcher’s justification for what he actually does. But what presents itself to humanity as ideas and concepts can be grasped by common sense. For this common sense is that which can rise to living thoughts just as it can remain with dead thoughts. And this understanding is not mere faith, not merely an emotional grasp, but rather an understanding arising from free human nature, which simply connects that which is of the world’s essence within it with what can be revealed through research from this world’s essence.

[ 41 ] It must always be emphasized, time and again, that what is most important is that anthroposophy, so to speak, submits itself to the world so that it may be tested against ordinary, sound common sense. If one exercises this common sense—allowing it to play out in a comprehensive, rather than one-sided, way—then one will see that it takes a different stance toward anthroposophy than is still widely believed today. One can then look at concepts such as those presented by Herbert Spencer, which remain confined to physical life in the manner I described in the introduction; on the other hand, one can look at concepts such as those presented by Vladimir Soloviev, which arise from the fullness of human life. With Herbert Spencer, one will see why he must remain confined to physical life, because everything he expresses stems from a mode of thinking bound to the forces of dying and death. And with Soloviev, one will see that, although he makes use of concepts that are common in the West—and which, in fact, embody to the highest degree the conceptual form bound to dying and death— But one will see in Soloviev how these concepts remain external to him, while what he actually wants to say he dreams forth from a mystical darkness and a mystical depth, and thereby becomes one-sided in the opposite direction.

[ 42 ] We shall see in anthroposophy how, by not allowing what is dead in the Western world to remain dead—by not simply adopting it as something dead and using it as a means of expression—but rather by bringing what is dead back to life, it thereby leads us from the mortal to the immortal.

[ 43 ] It seems to me, my esteemed audience, that German Central Europe, given the unique preconditions that exist for its thinking, feeling, and willing—those great surges that came to light in Goethe and in those who, in a sense, can be described as belonging to the Goethean movement— has the task, by continuing in the direction of these aspirations, of avoiding both extremes and, in fact, of elevating our scientific conceptual world—which binds us to the earth and, in truth, has something to say only about natural death—to a spiritual life that has something to say about immortality.

[ 44 ] Many will object: This science that you describe as anthroposophy is, in a sense, up in the air; one does not stand on the solid ground of fact. Ladies and gentlemen! Today I have tried to show you how this anthroposophy can only be properly understood when viewed in the context of the entire evolution of the world and of humanity’s place within that evolution. When we look at the things closest to us here on Earth, we must say of everything: It needs a foundation upon which to stand. If we wanted to keep something with earthly weight floating freely in the air, it would fall down. That which surrounds us as our immediate environment needs a foundation; that which surrounds us as the knowledge necessary for life between birth and death needs the facts of the external sensory world and the reasoning intellect in order to have such a spiritual foundation. At the very moment we look out from earthly life into the life of the worlds, it would be foolish to say that the Earth needs a foundation upon which to rest in order to exist in the world.

[ 45 ] In the physical world, we have already become accustomed to the idea that one celestial body freely maintains the balance of another through the forces that such a foundation generates. As science ascends from the mortal to the immortal, it must realize that in the spiritual-soul realm it must follow the same path as that which confronts us in the mortal realm. For knowledge, it needs a foundation. That which confronts us in the various realms of the immortal world must be self-sustaining. And until we are able to grasp this picture, we will not understand how anthroposophical spiritual science relates to external science, which it does not deny but fully acknowledges. But spiritual science must not only investigate different subjects than ordinary science; it must also investigate them differently and speak of them differently.

[ 46 ] That is what I wanted to present to your souls—my esteemed audience—through today’s reflection, drawing from the very essence of this spiritual science, and what I would now like to summarize in a few words by saying: It is precisely a more intimate consideration of the relationship between anthroposophy and the world that leads us to a very special perspective on the connection between natural death and spiritual life. But we gain such insight only when we fulfill what anthroposophy, in essence, calls out to us from the very depths of the world’s being itself, by telling us: Human being, if you wish to recognize that which lives immortally in the spirit, first enliven your own world of knowledge. If you wish to grasp life in the spirit, first enliven your own knowledge within yourself. Understand what it means when we speak not in dead but in living concepts. Rise up from that which, being dead, requires a foundation, to that which, as spiritual, moves freely within the spiritual, in the spiritual worlds—that which is not bound to what weaves and exists in transience, that which lives within itself, and that which can be grasped when the human being places precisely the great, significant opposites before his soul: natural death itself, and the spiritual life that one can grasp when one frees oneself from that which is bound to the transitory aspects of earthly life!