The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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

[ 1 ] The meaning of the word “death” is undoubtedly something that appears to the human soul as a great mystery, and it should be assumed a priori that whoever can understand this mystery of death can also understand the true meaning of life. For who does not have a personal sense of how, both in our human existence and in all other forms of existence around us, everything that lives is governed by that which we call death? For not only does death close off our human life like a gate, but everywhere in nature we find death widespread. Thus we see how the flowers that burst forth so hopefully in the days of spring soon wither and fall; how every autumn the summer leaves turn yellow and are scattered by the wind; how death spreads over life everywhere.

[ 2 ] When we then turn our gaze to humanity, we find that, like other beings before us, generation after generation, just as we have, have experienced joy and sorrow, hatred and love; and when we look back on all that these generations have experienced, what we call death also unfolds. Thousands of generations have lived before us; and we know that a time will come when not the slightest trace will remain of the masterpieces with which, for example, a Raphael, a Titian, and other great figures of humanity now inspire us; but on the other hand, we also sense that a time will come when humanity will have reached a level of development that stands as far above our own as our development stands above that of the generations that have passed.

[ 3 ] From the Earth’s interior, we find evidence that the Earth, too, has undergone various periods of development: life forms have become extinct and new ones have emerged, all of them testaments to death’s dominion over everything that was once—if one may say so—filled with life in a thousand ways. Yes, entire planetary systems, entire solar systems, have been swept away by death.

[ 4 ] Now the big question for us is: What does death actually mean, and what lies behind its mystery? And when we ask this question, it seems to us that if we could gain clarity about the meaning of death for our own lives, we would also be able to understand the meaning of death for the rest of the world.

[ 5 ] It is easy to understand why this question cannot be answered by so-called external science. For what are the instruments by which human beings acquire knowledge of what exists in the world around them? To this end, he has his sense organs—his eyes, his ears, and so on—as well as his mind, with which he processes the impressions received through the sense organs. But the phenomenon we call death puts an end to these instruments; and the fateful aspect of this is that death destroys both the sense organs and the intellect, which is bound to the brain. If, therefore, there were no other means of knowing the world besides these, human beings would never discover the mystery of death and, consequently, would never understand the mystery of life either. Now, however, human beings have the ability not only to perceive the external world through the intellect but also to glimpse into the spiritual world that underlies the physical one, by developing within themselves—if one may say so—spiritual eyes and spiritual ears.

[ 6 ] If you want to learn more about what this means, you will need to familiarize yourself with the spiritual movement that has been developing for about 30 years and is called “Theosophy” or the science of spiritual matters (spiritual science). This science deals not only with physical existence but also extends to an entirely different existence that forms the foundation of the physical world. One might object: “Yes, but humans can know nothing about that.”—But to that we reply: No one can speak of what they cannot know; one can only say what one can know.

[ 7 ] Let’s suppose that a person born blind were brought into this room with all its colors, shapes, and shifting lights. For this blind person, this light, these colors, and these shapes would not exist; everything would be dark to him, yet the light is still there. Let’s further suppose that someone tried to describe these light phenomena to him. “Oh,” he would reply, “everything you’re talking about is just daydreams and fantasies. Such things don’t exist.”—Let’s further suppose that we were fortunate enough to successfully operate on his eyes. Immediately, colors, shapes, and light would exist for him; and he would suddenly experience what had always surrounded him but which he had previously been unable to perceive. But the fact that he could not perceive the light did not give him the right to deny the existence of light. Only after he had regained his sight through the operation would he have the right to express an opinion on the question of whether light and colors exist.

[ 8 ] Just as our entire world of light and color did not exist for this blind person, one can logically imagine that countless worlds could exist in the same space as our world without us knowing anything about them—precisely because, like the blind person, we lack the organs necessary to perceive these worlds. This raises the question: Is it possible to awaken faculties within us that are capable of perceiving the spiritual world? As for this question, it can only be answered through experience. We therefore ask further: Are there people—or have there ever been people—who were truly able to perceive spiritual phenomena? – Such people have existed and still exist, and they are able to have experiences with spiritual worlds at a higher level, the so-called level of initiation. Just as we construct a microscope to see the cells that make up a flower, for example, so can we transform our soul into an instrument through which we can see new worlds around us—spiritual worlds.

[ 9 ] Through theosophy—or the science of spiritual matters—we gain insight into what the spiritual researcher experiences and learns in this way. One might object here: What business do ordinary people have with what exists in other worlds, if only a few highly developed individuals can glimpse into these worlds, while everyone else cannot? – To this we reply: Just as not everyone can readily conduct scientific research—say, in a chemistry laboratory—no one can ascertain the facts of the spiritual world without preparation; yet one can recognize the truth and rationality of what is communicated. We can all know about the spiritual world, for the human soul is founded on truth and not on lies.

[ 10 ] What, specifically, does Theosophy have to say about death? From the perspective of Theosophical research, human beings are not merely the simple beings that the external physical eye can see, that the hand can touch, and that rational science can comprehend. In addition to the external, visible body, Theosophy also distinguishes invisible bodies within human beings. According to theosophy, therefore, human beings first and foremost have a physical body—by which is meant that part of the human being which we can perceive with our ordinary external senses and understand with our ordinary intellect. Human beings share this body with all the entities of the external world that surround them, including the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms. However, the human physical body—as well as those of plants and animals—differs significantly from the bodies that surround it in the mineral world. For although the same physical forces that operate in the mineral kingdom are also found in the physical bodies of so-called living beings, these bodies are not subject to the decomposing effects of the physical and chemical laws of nature in the same way as the mineral world.

[ 11 ] We can easily see this for ourselves. Throughout the entire period between birth and death, the physical body never reveals its true nature. Only when it has become a corpse through the onset of death does it fall prey to its own laws. During life, it carries within it a faithful warrior who protects it from falling prey to the physical and chemical laws to which it is subject in death. We call this warrior, who permeates and sustains the physical body, the etheric or life body. Human beings share this body with both the plant and animal kingdoms, but it is absent from the mineral kingdom.

[ 12 ] Modern science disputes this; but anyone who truly understands the situation knows full well that what theosophy teaches on this subject does not contradict real science.

[ 13 ] As for the etheric body, even if a person has not developed spiritual faculties within themselves, they can still comprehend its existence through their logical mind. For those who have developed their spiritual faculties, however, it is a reality just as real as what we see with our physical eyes. Just as one walks past many things on the street without paying attention to them, so too can the spiritual clairvoyant, through sheer willpower, disregard the human physical body and instead observe only the etheric body, the architect and builder of the physical body.

[ 14 ] However, human beings possess a third body that is even closer to them than their physical body. For what do people really know about their physical body—what do they know about its blood circulation, its nervous system, and so on? But there is one thing that is a reality for every human being, and that is their joy and their pain, their feelings and their ideas, which fill their soul from the morning, when they wake up, until the evening, when they fall asleep. This third body of theirs, the astral body, is also a reality for the spiritually clairvoyant person. It is the bearer of our joy and our pain, our instincts, desires, and passions—this entire sea of feelings and ideas that ebb and flow within us all day long. This body, which has no counterpart in the plant kingdom, is something humans share with the animal world.

[ 15 ] In addition to these three bodies, human beings have a fourth body, the bearer of the human “I,” through which they—[human beings]—have become the core of creation and are distinguished from all other creatures. In every European language, there is a small word that differs from all other words in the language. Every object can be designated by others using its name. One can say “the table” for every table, “the chair” for every chair, and so on. But the little word with which a human being designates himself—namely, the word “I”—cannot be spoken by anyone else on his behalf; every human being can use this word only to designate himself, yet as a designation for himself, it never reaches his ear from the lips of another. With the word “I,” a person designates the innermost core of their being, and for any outsider, this word is therefore unpronounceable when referring to another. For this reason, this word has been adopted by all religions and all philosophical schools as the name of the divine within the soul. “Jehovah” means “the unpronounceable name” in the ancient Hebrew language. It was the name for the divine within human beings.

[ 16 ] No one should take offense at this and say that Theosophy makes human beings into God simply because it speaks of the Divine within human beings. Such a conclusion would be just as wrong as saying that a drop is the ocean simply because a part of the ocean is contained within the drop. We do not say that man is God, but that through the “I,” he is one with the Divine.

[ 17 ] Human beings thus possess four bodies or parts: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the ego; and only when we know how these four bodies relate to one another can we understand human life. There are four words that contain the greatest and most important mysteries of life, although—due to our everyday tendency to let our attention wander—only two of these words actually seem mysterious to us. These four words are: sleeping and waking, death and life. What does this regular 24-hour cycle of sleep and wakefulness mean? When we retire in the evening, exhausted from the day’s work, and fall asleep, we all know how all the joy and pain, all the impulses, ideas, and feelings that arise within us and then fade away in the time between waking and falling asleep—how all of this, as it were, sinks into an indeterminate darkness and is enveloped in the night of the unconscious. Only the clairvoyant can observe what happens during this process. He sees that when a person falls asleep in the evening, only the physical body and the etheric body remain in bed, while the astral body and the Self separate from them and enter the spiritual world, where they actually remain from the moment of falling asleep until awakening.

[ 18 ] In his current normal state, however, a human being is not aware of the spiritual world—and why? Well, because in this state they lack the organs for it. In their physical body, they possess sense organs such as eyes, ears, and so on; however, in its present state, their astral body lacks such organs and therefore cannot have any specific perceptions of the spiritual world. The occult researcher, on the other hand, who has devoted himself to deep and effective visualizations during meditation and concentration, possesses developed spiritual sense organs in his previously undefined and unstructured astral body, through which he can make observations in the spiritual world.

[ 19 ] Why, then, do the astral body and the “I” leave the physical body at night? Before we answer this question, we must remember that it is in fact the astral body that, through its power, conjures up this entire world of feelings, ideas, and sensations that fill our consciousness from morning to night. These astral sensations of ours—which we colloquially call our emotional life—are reflected by the etheric body, which then transmits the impressions to our physical brain. Over the course of the day, the astral body expends its energies and would very quickly become exhausted if it remained only in this physical world. Our life from morning to evening is thus the result of the astral body’s work in the spiritual world from evening to morning. We must therefore return again and again to our true home, the spiritual world, to gather new strength for our work on the physical plane; for the physical has its origin in the spiritual, and not the other way around.

[ 20 ] Let’s illustrate this with an example from the history of the natural sciences. In the seventeenth century, it was commonly believed that lower animals arose from the mud in lakes, rivers, and so on. Then Francesco Redi argued that life can only arise from life; the prevailing theory—that earthworms, for example, arise from mud—was therefore based solely on inadequate observations. Francesco Redi narrowly escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno, yet what was considered incredible heresy at the time is now taken for granted. No one today would dare to argue that life can arise from inanimate matter. Similarly, spiritual science has established, at a higher level, the principle that the spiritual-soul aspect can arise only from the spiritual-soul aspect. This principle will suffer the same fate as that of Francesco Redi. True, heretics who oppose the prevailing view today are no longer burned at the stake, but are persecuted and ridiculed with the weapon of irony. It will not be long, however, before this principle of spiritual science, too, becomes part of humanity’s common heritage. For just as a child’s physical life develops over the years, and the facial features and physical constitution increasingly adapt to and take on the characteristics of the family type, so too does the human being increasingly embody the specific soul qualities that are found within them as predispositions from a previous life. And just as the living core of the earthworm is not a product of its external environment, so too do the soul qualities of the human being not have their foundation in physical ancestry. For the qualities that a person acquires during their earthly existence are not lost upon death; rather, they are carried into the spiritual world like seeds that will sprout in the next earthly life. The spiritual-soul aspect has existed within us as a predisposition for centuries, for our true life stretches like a chain through the centuries, and the occult researcher can trace the spiritual core of this person’s life from one life to the next.

[ 21 ] We will gain a better understanding of this process of human development if we consider the final stage of human life: existence after death. When a person dies, a great transformation takes place. The etheric body, the astral body, and the I then emerge from the physical body, which remains as a corpse after its faithful companion, the etheric body, has left it. At that moment, the person feels as if their entire being were expanding into space. Then comes the great moment when their entire life unfolds before their inner gaze like a vast panorama, encompassing everything they experienced during their last earthly existence. For the etheric body—the bearer of the person’s memory, which until then had been bound by the physical body and thus hindered in its free functioning—has, through death, been released from its connection to the physical and has regained its characteristic mobility and speed. It is this circumstance that enables him to unroll this vast tableau of memories at the moment of death. This moment can last a few hours or a few days, depending on how long the person was able to remain awake during their earthly life.

[ 22 ] What happens at the moment of death is, in fact, something we are already familiar with from everyday life. We all know how people who were close to drowning or were otherwise in great danger saw their entire lives flash before their eyes at that moment. This is because the etheric body stepped out of the physical body for a very brief moment and, freed from its restrictive influence, was able to create this mental image. These people thus had the opportunity to experience life at the moment of death from their own perspective.

[ 23 ] Once this first phase is over, another phase begins in which the person must look back on the fruits of their earthly life and, so to speak, extract and retain an essence or summary of all their memories and experiences from this life. Afterward, they undergo another process of death in which the etheric body is separated like a corpse. The third phase that then begins is of longer duration; it usually lasts about one-third of the length of the person’s earthly life thus far. For a person who was sixty years old, for example, this period would last about twenty years. During this time, the person must free themselves from all desires and sufferings that still bind them to physical existence. Imagine, for example, that you are in an area where there is no water. You feel thirsty but have no way to quench it. The same is true after death for a person who, for example, devoted themselves heavily to sensual pleasures during their earthly life. As is well known, all sufferings and desires are rooted in the astral body and are therefore not destroyed by physical death. The physical body, on the other hand, has no desires; it is governed only by physical and chemical laws. However, in order for the astral body to satisfy its desires, it must serve the organs of the physical body. When this body is shed through death, the astral body lacks all means of satisfying its desires and therefore suffers the most severe torments. This state of purification and refinement, called Kamaloka in theosophical terminology, continues until the person is freed from everything that binds them to the temptations of physical life. Thereupon, he also leaves the astral body behind as a corpse, and just as he previously took with him an extract from the etheric body upon separating from it, so too does he now take an extract from the astral life with him to the next stage.

[ 24 ] The period now beginning—the last in the ascending series—lasts several centuries. During this time, the fruits of the last earthly life are integrated into the human being’s spiritual core and mature so that, transformed into aptitudes and talents, they may come to light in his next incarnation. For just as the soul is sustained during its earthly life by the forces flowing to it from the spiritual world, so now, from the accumulated results of its previous lives, it creates the archetype of the personality it will become during its next incarnation.

[ 25 ] The life of the spiritually evolved human being in Devachan—as the Theosophists call this higher spiritual existence—is filled with an indescribable bliss that is comparable only to a small degree to the joy an artist feels when creating a work of art.

[ 26 ] But eventually the time approaches when a person feels the inner urge to gain new experiences in a new earthly life. Following the same path by which it came, the soul now descends once more to Earth: From the astral world, it takes its astral body; from the etheric world, its etheric body; and is then brought to a specific couple, a specific people, to whom it feels drawn because through them it can best inherit the physical characteristics necessary for the realization in its new life of the original image created in Devachan.

[ 27 ] The Bach family of musicians provides us with a vivid example of how inherited physical traits can give rise to purely intellectual abilities. Over the course of 150 years, there were no fewer than 20 musicians of varying degrees of prominence within this family—and why? Because certain purely physical characteristics, including a very specific structure of the ear, are necessary prerequisites for a musician. For it is true that no one becomes a musician without bringing the necessary mental faculties from a previous life. However, in order to express these faculties, one requires inherited physical characteristics that are in harmony with the former. And these predispositions are the center around which we build the physical organs we need to process the fruits of our past lives.

[ 28 ] Centuries have now passed since we were last incarnated in a physical body. Now we encounter a new world, a new world that we must make our own; we have new experiences, make new observations, and our spiritual self grows more and more. But during our life on Earth, we cannot recreate our physical organs; consequently, over time, our physical body becomes an inadequate instrument for our spirit, and it gradually becomes an absolute necessity for us to go through this entire cycle of death, spiritual existence, and rebirth—as just described—once again, in order to build new physical organs suited to our now more highly developed spiritual qualities. This is the reason why human beings so desperately desire death. From a materialistic perspective, however, it is claimed that as a person ages, their spiritual powers decline in the same measure as their physical powers. But this is not the case. As a person grows older, they become weak and powerless only in terms of their purely physical attributes. And this decline in physical powers is necessary so that higher, spiritual faculties can emerge. The decline of physical strength is by no means a sign of decay, but merely proof that a person is beginning to shed the layers that stand in the way of the free unfolding of the spiritual powers acquired in their last earthly life. If we were unable to shed these outer layers, new spiritual faculties could never emerge within us. Just as a tree gathers all its strength for the fruit and, when the fruit is ripe, sheds its leaves, so too do our physical bodies fall away when they can no longer serve as an expression of our inner, spiritual life; and in the coming spiritual existence, we certainly have no use for purely physical attributes.

[ 29 ] Thus, while in the second half of earthly life the physical faculties wither and fade, and the human being becomes outwardly weaker and weaker, the immortal part within him grows, which will emerge in a later incarnation as a new personality. With the guidance of Theosophy, we can thus begin to understand the nature of death and [we can] recognize that death is merely a means for the higher development of humankind; and if death did not exist, we would be deprived of this beautiful hope for everlasting development. In this way, one form of existence is destroyed so that a new and richer one may arise. Death is not hostile to life, but rather a vital and indispensable good.

[ 30 ] But people were not always able to view death in this way. When the Great Buddha left his palace 600 years before Christ and encountered illness and death for the first time, he said: “Illness is suffering, death is suffering, life is suffering.” Several centuries pass, and Christ works on earth, is crucified, and dies. What do we see now when we look up at his cross? We see the cross as a symbol of life and as a testimony that a life lived in the Spirit overcomes death; and whereas previously even a man as great as the Buddha could see only the suffering in death, we see in it an image of life in constant development; and beyond all physical existence, we see in the Spirit that which develops within the human being from one life to the next. And just as we laid the foundation for our physical existence in our previous earthly life, so too do we lay the foundation in our present life on earth for our future path upward.

[ 31 ] The poet's beautiful words are therefore true when he says:

Just as on the day you were born into this world,
The sun stood in greeting to the planets,
And so you flourished from that moment on, time and again
According to the law by which you came into being.
This is how you must be; you cannot escape yourself.
So said the Sibyls, so said the prophets;
And no time, no power can break apart
A form that has taken shape and develops as it lives.