The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday we saw how, in the post-Atlantean epoch of human development, people gradually conquered the physical plane—that is, our physical world; how they gained an ever-deeper understanding that this physical world—into which humanity had only entered over the course of time, after it had previously appeared to them in vague outlines—is the expression of spiritual powers and forces lying behind it. We have seen how, during the period when the Greeks and Romans were the leading peoples, there existed, so to speak, a kind of equilibrium between the understanding of the physical-material world and the spiritual world born from within human beings themselves. Humanity has, if one may say so, come to terms with the external material world; it has gradually learned to understand and love it. Now, we must not believe that these processes did not have their corresponding parallels in the other, spiritual world. Indeed, we can even go further back in human development and find that, to the same extent that external conditions for human beings change with regard to the observation and perception of the physical world, the conditions for the other consciousness also undergo a fundamental transformation. Up to now, we have actually placed the main emphasis on what this consciousness was like when the human being had withdrawn from his physical body during sleep; we have seen how, in the Atlantean era, after perceiving blurred contours while awake, the divine-spiritual beings appeared before him in a kind of twilight clairvoyance.

[ 2 ] However, to understand the whole of human existence, we must also take into account those other states of transition in consciousness that are connected with what we call death and what lies beyond death; and there we will see that our ordinary life, which we can observe between birth and death, has yet another, fundamentally different aspect. We must frame the question as precisely as possible. We have, after all, examined the destinies of human beings in the life between birth and death from Atlantean times through to the Greco-Roman period. What are the destinies of human beings like between death and a new birth, for human life does, after all, continue after death? At the very moment when, during the ancient Lemurian era, a human being enters into an earthly incarnation for the very first time—and thus, so to speak, an alternation arises for him between a life in a physical body and a life outside of it— that is, between death and rebirth—at that very moment, when a person contemplates their entire life, they in a sense lead a double life, a dual destiny: one on Earth and one between their death and rebirth in the spiritual world. And although it is widely believed that changes occur only in the physical, earthly world, and that everything between death and a new birth can essentially be described in just a few characteristic words, this belief is thoroughly incorrect. Destinies also change within this spiritual epoch of human development.

[ 3 ] We will best understand how these changes take place if we take a very general look at the life that human beings lead here in the physical world and at their relationship to the other realms around them. After all, human beings, as they are now developed, are by no means beings who exist solely for themselves; rather, they are connected in the most manifold ways to everything around them. Just imagine how human consciousness—self-consciousness—depends on what is around him! If there were no other realms around us—no mineral realm, no plant or animal realm—if there were no atmosphere, no cloud formation to reflect light back to us, then our “I,” as it is now, would not have been able to be kindled by an external world. Thus, even in terms of self-consciousness, human beings are, as it were, immersed in their environment throughout the day. They are also immersed in an environment between birth and death by virtue of having an etheric body and a physical body. They derive their sustenance and nourishment from the lower kingdoms of nature. The mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms provide him with substances and forces that pass through him, so that human beings, so to speak, allow the kingdoms of external nature to flow through them. We can say: As human beings develop up to birth and thereby enter earthly existence, they enter into a connection with the lower kingdoms of nature. However, human beings enter into this connection only to the extent that they assume a physical body; only then are they dependent on taking in the other kingdoms as their nourishment, as the means of their sustenance. Human beings are therefore not absolute beings here in the physical world. Consider, for example, how human beings are constantly dependent on taking in a certain amount of air and exhaling it again. Thus, they are not at all enclosed within their skin; their being extends out into the air. So when human beings enter physical existence, they, in a certain sense, enter into a relationship with the realms below them and immerse themselves in them.

[ 4 ] When a person leaves his body at death, he ascends into the higher realms—the realm of the angels, the archangels, the primordial forces—and indeed, he ascends into even higher realms. Just as they enter into a relationship with the lower realms through the needs of their physical body, so do they enter into a relationship with the higher realms after death. And now let us transport ourselves back to the time when human beings first began to take on their earthly incarnations, to the Lemurian past, when human beings, although they had entered into a physical body, but still had very little connection to the physical world—a time when his physical body had scarcely yet incorporated the rudiments of sense organs, so that he had almost no perception of the external physical world; a time when he still had little need for physical substances and forces, and when he was still not very at home in the physical world. Such a state, in which human beings still had very few connections to the physical world, did indeed exist at the beginning of human incarnations. All the more, however, they were at home in the spiritual worlds. This was, in fact, the time when, upon leaving his physical body—not only in sleep but also after death—a person would plunge into a world full of spiritual light, where he perceived a world of spiritual beings and, in a sense, drew his strength from these spiritual beings just as just as human beings do now from the physical world; where they extended themselves into the higher realms built above them just as they now extend themselves into the physical world; where they expanded into the realms of the angels and archangels and the higher realms that reached into their own. It was the case that it was only with death that human beings truly attained their consciousness—admittedly dim and dull, but consciousness nonetheless. Thus he immersed himself in life, nourishing himself spiritually—figuratively speaking—through the contemplation of divine-spiritual beings. Man has conquered his “I” over the course of time, as he has passed through various incarnations in the outer physical world; he did not possess it before.

[ 5 ] Other beings, of whom we have said that they had lived through their humanity at an earlier stage, possessed the “I,” and by beholding these beings, human beings came to know the “I”; in fact, they only truly came to know it in the proper measure during the time between death and a new birth. It was the case that back then, when a person died, they had the feeling: “Now I am truly beginning to live; now I live in the presence of divine-spiritual beings.” And it was indeed so: the further they moved away from death, the longer the time they spent after “death,” the higher the stages they reached, and the more they entered the spheres of ever higher beings. They became more and more conscious until a time came—between death and a new birth—when the very Being appeared to them who had actually given their life its true meaning, and in whose presence they felt: “I am from this Being; I belong to this Being.” In that ancient time, this was the same Being who later appeared on Earth, incarnated as the Christ. Although human beings did not see the Christ in a physical body during the ancient Lemurian era, they did see him in the interval between death and a new birth; and in this way they had come to share in him—they knew him in the spiritual world. And the time drew ever closer when human beings became more conscious in the physical world. We know that this full consciousness did not arise until the middle of the Atlantean era, but it happened gradually. The more human beings became conscious in the physical world—the more they possessed the seed of the “I” in the physical world—the less their consciousness reached up into the higher worlds after death. At first, they could no longer rise to the vision of the Christ figure; they saw only angels and archangels; and later, during the Atlantean era, even the vision of angels and archangels was no longer granted to them—only the advanced were granted this vision. Normally, human beings perceived angels only in that ancient, twilight state of consciousness; and angels, in the Christian sense, are what the Greeks, in their memory, addressed as their deity in Zeus, and the Germanic peoples in Wotan.

[ 6 ] We have spoken of how, during the Atlantean era, human beings were companions of the gods even in sleep, but especially during the time between death and a new birth; these were angels, and in the highest cases, archangels; and only when a human being had prepared himself in this life through what were perceived as good deeds was the vision of Christ, in a certain sense, conveyed to him through the subordinate beings of Christ. But the human being still knew him—this Christ—as it were, through the deeds and the beings of the angels and archangels. Just as light appears through colored glass—colored, yes, but still visible—so the figure of Christ appeared with gradually diminishing intensity. It was nothing other than the Sun Spirit appearing with diminishing intensity; the reason for this diminishing intensity was that the human being was moving further and further toward the other side of the world—the physical side—and growing fond of it.

[ 7 ] This is how humanity carried on from ancient times. And we have seen how, during the cultural epochs of the post-Atlantean era, the memory of that ancient, actually lived-through epoch was revived; during the Egyptian era, the memory of the Lemurian era was revived. How, then, would the initiate have portrayed life after death to people? He ensured that people, even if only as a faint echo, could experience after death that they had risen to the point where ancient humanity actually felt secure—to that pinnacle that was the Sun Spirit in ancient times. This was the meaning of what is called the ancient Egyptian Judgment of the Dead—this judgment in which the deceased was, so to speak, brought before his judge, who weighed his deeds. If the deeds were found to be worthy, then through his merits he might become a part of the physical world of the Being, might behold what was perceived—in the characteristic manner—as a god of light, as a sun god. It was, in turn, the Being who was now called Osiris. The journey to Osiris, the becoming one with him—that was what was to be granted to the dead in the repetition of an earlier, actual state. Thus we understand what has been preserved for us in the Book of the Dead, that remarkable document of the Egyptian people. In my work *Christianity as a Mystical Fact*, due to the nature of the circumstances, it was of course not possible to address the full esoteric meaning of such matters; but the point is that these matters can be explored in much greater depth. If, in accordance with the ancient Egyptian view, it was found that such a soul was worthy of this vision after death because of its deeds, then it was permitted to unite with Osiris. Indeed, the soul is even addressed as Osiris itself, since it had united with him. The formula was: Osiris was purified in the pond that lies south of the Field of Hotep and north of the Field of the Locusts, where the gods of greenery bathe in the fourth hour of the night and in the eighth hour of the day with the image of the heart of the gods, passing from night into day. - It is impossible to express all the profound connections of this formula. It is important to understand the phrase “from night to day.” It is night beforehand; but the soul is carried over into a day, a spiritual day, where it will be united with Osiris, where it itself may become an Osiris.

[ 8 ] Thus, the soul does indeed experience its destiny in another world that lies between death and birth. And consciousness grows darker and darker, though never completely, for consciousness is never extinguished between death and birth. But it does grow darker; to put it simply: the more a person becomes attached to the sensory-physical world, the more he must content himself with the presence of lower beings; the higher beings are increasingly unable to maintain communion with him, and he slips away from them. All those beings who, in the Atlantean era—when human beings were still clairvoyant—were good companions to them, especially during the time between death and rebirth, are disappearing; little by little, the bond between human beings and those ancient gods is being lost. We have seen how there were still stragglers of the old clairvoyance well into later periods of European culture, and how there are still people who, in certain states of consciousness, can rise to the vision of the gods. Such people enjoy an all the more vivid communion with the gods even after death; they live all the more intimately with them. And this is not only good for human beings; it is also good for the gods, for human beings bring up to the gods what they have attained here in the physical world in the form of love. The gods receive back as an offering what human beings receive in the physical world as love. But human beings are becoming less and less suited to this, because they are increasingly drawn to the physical world.

[ 9 ] And as for the souls of those who live in the regions from which the Germanic peoples originated, it is the case that, little by little, they rarely partake of the sight of the gods between death and birth, and that the gods have little communion with them. This gives rise to a certain underlying mood, a certain sense that the gods are losing their hold on—and their dominion over—the earth, which they themselves created. And from this sense springs the idea of the twilight of the gods. This is the real reason for the depiction of the twilight of the gods: the gods must, so to speak, withdraw from the world they themselves created. They, who had themselves descended into the bodies of exceptional human beings as far back as the Atlantean era and taught the higher mysteries in the Atlantean rites, had to withdraw gradually, and their only remaining means of coming into contact with the physical world was by making the most advanced human beings their instruments, their vessels. It certainly happened in the post-Atlantean era—and those who were initiated into the ancient Druidic mysteries know this—that, for example, an ancient Atlantean individuality, always referred to as “Sig,” continued to appear in the most varied ways within the bodies of European people long after the Atlantean catastrophe; and all the names that have been preserved—such as Siegfried, Sigurd, are meant only to point exoterically to the fact that an ancient individuality was present time and again, though ultimately perceptible and visible only to those initiated into the mysteries. They connected with such a higher initiate, and as we enter our present age, it has become increasingly necessary for such an individuality to seek out those who had already passed through many incarnations and were thus purified human beings.

[ 10 ] Now, in order to fully understand our time, we must touch upon the edge of a great mystery that helps us make sense of much of what has taken place in our culture. We turn our gaze once more to the center of Atlantean development, where human beings, one might say, first gained access to the physical world. This was a kind of crossroads for the gods—for those who, in higher realms, were humanity’s ancient companions. Humanity had descended from spiritual heights, ever deeper into the physical world. It had passed through three epochs. The third was the Lemurian epoch, the fourth was the Atlantean, and three others followed. We are now in the fifth epoch. The Lemurian epoch was destroyed by great fire catastrophes; the Atlantean epoch perished through massive ice and water catastrophes; our time will meet its end through other forces—through a massive prevalence of egoism in human nature—and, consequently, through a war of all against all. Only those who turn to the spiritual life will—just as a small group of people found their way out of the Lemurian and Atlantean eras—find a way through the catastrophe that is the war of all against all, and this war of all against all will be far more terrible for the masses of people among whom it occurs than the fire and water catastrophes were—no matter how terrible humanity may imagine them to be. And it can only be the task of those who turn to the spiritual life today to do everything in their power to ensure that as much as possible of the good seeds of our time is preserved and carried over into the sixth epoch, which will succeed the fifth. This fifth period, after all, consists of major subdivisions: the ancient Indian epoch, the Persian, the Egyptian, the Greco-Latin, and “our own,” in which we live; and two others, the sixth and seventh, will follow it until the war of all against all.

[ 11 ] This is where we stand today in the course of evolution. We have passed the midpoint of Earth’s evolution. If, back then—around the middle of the Atlantean era, that is, just before the point at which human beings fully entered the physical world—human beings had once again turned toward spiritualization, then none of the achievements of the physical plane that we spoke of yesterday would have come to pass. In truth, humanity has gone down a path, delving ever deeper into physical evolution. Humanity has descended below the point that would have represented the lowest point had it turned toward spiritualization again at that time. This point, which lies right in the middle of the Atlantean epoch, was an important crossroads for certain spiritual beings. For them, it was, so to speak, a matter of deciding whether they wanted to descend into a kind of abyss—from which they could later rise again all the more powerfully, precisely because they had sunk deeper and would therefore have to develop greater powers—or whether they wanted to take the direct path. Certain spiritual beings, who had formerly been companions of human beings, now took the direct path; they resolved, as it were, never again to enter human bodies, and remained in the realm of the spirits. This development of humanity thus passes them by more or less without a trace. In contrast, there were other divine beings—among whom, for example, a large number have been preserved in the memory of European and other peoples under the names Zeus and Wotan—who decided to repeatedly take on human bodies for the benefit of humanity and to descend to work on their behalf. But it was not possible for all of them to descend to the same degree, for as human beings descended ever further into the physical world, the bodies became an increasingly unsuitable instrument for the divine beings. These bodies were increasingly able to accommodate the evolving human souls, and increasingly less able to serve as instruments and vessels for the divine beings. Only those who, in a certain way, purified their bodies upward—who, through many incarnations, had brought about a noble body—who had etheric and physical bodies so thoroughly purified that they completely eradicated certain connections with the physical world within their souls; people who, in their entire disposition and being, lived more in what was not on Earth than in what the Earth offered—only such people could still receive within themselves the souls of higher spiritual beings, just as a human being receives his soul into his physical body. But this is also why such beings—in whom divine-spiritual beings were hidden, beings who, so to speak, could not descend deeply enough into the physical world—stood before the world in a peculiar way.

[ 12 ] Let us imagine such a being who, through many incarnations, had developed its body—that is, the powers of its body and the inner mastery of those powers—to such an extent that it lived more in the spiritual world than in the physical world and could thereby become the bearer of such a higher being. Could such a being be fully understood by those people who had descended entirely into the physical world, who were striving more and more to grow fond of this very physical plane and to carry out their work on this physical plane? Or could it not rather be better understood by those who had retained more of the character of an earlier time, who had remained more like the stragglers of earlier ages? In fact, such a being could be understood far better by the stragglers of the Atlantean era themselves. Specifically, it is the Mongolian peoples who have not descended so deeply, have not become so entangled in the physical plane, nor have they done as much to conquer it as the European peoples. We see, after all, how it is precisely the latter peoples who have achieved what we call external physical culture—the conquest of the physical plane—while the stragglers, the latecomers of Atlantean culture, possess a certain static quality and are therefore unable to find their place in the world of post-Atlantean development, because they have retained certain character traits and have subsequently degenerated. It is often pointed out today that the Japanese are undergoing a significant development based on their own character traits; this is an illusion. This is not a development arising from their own characteristics; when they triumphed in the last war using warships and cannons invented by European peoples, they were making use of a foreign culture. It is not further development when a people has adopted what has sprung from the essence of a foreign people, but only when it can develop from its own essence. That is what matters. Such peoples—who have, in a certain sense, remained static, representing conditions in a later era that the European peoples have outgrown through personal consciousness and a sense of freedom—could be understood by spiritual individualities who were still companions of humankind during the Atlantean era. Their education therefore had to be directed toward such people as well. And we see that great mystery unfolding there: that indeed these beings, who were fully understood back then when the European population was still at an earlier stage of development, also incarnated there and appeared as teachers in the great schools of initiation, and were therefore later worshiped as gods. We see how Wotan, who had previously dwelt in a human body as an initiate and taught in the sacred mysteries, how Wotan—precisely because he had not descended deeply enough— was able to incarnate within that group of people who, in a certain sense, had remained behind—who, precisely for that reason, sensed something of the futility of the physical plane, did not regard it as a full expression of the Deity, but viewed it as a place of suffering, woe, and pain, so that it was truly in keeping with bliss to withdraw from this physical plane.

[ 13 ] This individuality of Wotan—we are speaking within a community of students of spiritual science, and therefore such a secret may be touched upon here—this individuality, who truly taught as Wotan in the mysteries of the Germanic peoples, is the same one who later reappeared for the same mission as Buddha. No other individuality was the one who, as the Buddha, mediated the connection between our world and the higher worlds than the one who once traveled across the regions of Europe and whose memory has been preserved in Northern Europe under the name Wotan,

[ 14 ] In this way, we see how provision was made, so to speak, for those people who had retained certain inclinations and connections to earlier states, who led a religious life, and who did not wish to become attached to the physical plane. And the outward historical manifestation of Buddhism’s warm reception among the Mongol peoples will now also become clear to you. All of this is in keeping with such wise guidance of humanity.

[ 15 ] Thus, as humanity had to increasingly conquer the physical plane, it became impossible in later times for such spiritual beings to incarnate directly into a human body. This required a more powerful spiritual being—the very being who had been proclaimed by all those who taught before him. Even the ancient Egyptians, who in the name of Osiris still recalled their connection to the ancient Spirit of the Sun, said: “The kingdom of Osiris will be reestablished on Earth.” — Such an individuality was necessary for this, one that we recognize as the Christ. As he withdrew, so to speak, more and more from the realm of the dead—and we see him literally vanishing to the side beyond life—he drew ever closer from the other side, until in the fourth epoch he was visibly incarnated in a human body, albeit one that had to be specially prepared for this purpose. A human body such as those that have descended all the way down to the physical plane could not immediately receive the Christ principle. Something else was necessary for that. Even a being such as the one we refer to as Jesus of Nazareth—who had lived through many incarnations, had reached a high level, and had attained a high degree of initiation—even she was not capable, at her birth, of becoming the bearer of the Christ Individuality. However, after preparing himself through a life spanning thirty years, he had become capable of purifying and cleansing the outer human veils—the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body—to such an extent that the individuality of Jesus of Nazareth could leave these purified bodies. In the thirtieth year of his life, the individuality of Jesus of Nazareth left the outer bodies, which had been purified by the power of this individuality. This departure from the outer bodily sheaths is alluded to in the Gospel through the baptism by John in the Jordan. That is where the essence is exchanged, where the Christ individuality takes possession—now not of an ordinary human body, but of a body that has been purified and refined over the course of thirty years. Thus we have the three years during which the Christ walked on earth in the body of Jesus, and which are alluded to in the Gospel as the years between the baptism and the Mystery of Golgotha. Unlike in the ordinary course of events, an individuality did not appear here in such a way that it was already able, at birth, to take on the form made possible by the experience of many incarnations, but rather in such a way that this individuality was received into a body that had lived through thirty years of entanglement in the physical world, a body that was fully turned toward the physical world, which was to receive the great impulse through the Christ. Consequently, something very, very significant took place when the Christ Individuality was received into the three bodies of Jesus of Nazareth—something that the esotericist can also read in the Gospel, if he truly knows how to read it. It is written there, but such things are veiled.

[ 16 ] At this baptism, where the meaningful symbol of the dove appears above the head of Jesus—who is not merely inspired by the Christ but directly intuited by him—something shoots through the entire body of Jesus of Nazareth, penetrating even into those parts that, in the current stage of human development, are most removed from human influence: something happens right down to the very bones. Now I am going to say something that appears to the materialistic consciousness of the present as madness, but that does not matter. The effect extended right down into the bones as the body of Jesus of Nazareth was purified and transformed by the Christ Individuality, by the high Solar Spirit. If you burn a bone, the cartilage burns away, and the bone ash remains. This illustrates that the mineral mass of the bone and the cartilage mass are held together, so to speak, by a power that is opposed to fire yet is also connected to it. Today, this is completely beyond human control; but it was placed under the control of the one who was later to undergo the event at Golgotha. Today, a person is able to move his hand, but he has no power to influence the chemical forces within his bones; he is fixed in his bones. The body of Jesus of Nazareth, as the only body that has ever existed on Earth, gained mastery over the force that holds the cartilage and bone ash together through the intuition of the Christ. This is indicated to us by the fact that, through this mastery of the bones, the force entered the world that is capable of truly overcoming death within physical matter. For the bones are to blame for human death; by being formed in such a way that the solid bone mass became part of him, the human being became entangled with the mineral realm of the Earth. Thus, death was inherent in him, and it is not without reason that death is represented by the skeleton; such a representation is fully justified.

[ 17 ] This is the living force capable of eventually transforming the bones back—that is, of gradually leading them into the spiritual realm—which will occur in the future mission of Earth’s evolution. Therefore, no external physical force was allowed to interfere with this bone tissue: You shall not break any of his legs! The legs of the others who were hung on the cross were broken. The words of the prophet had to be fulfilled in him: “Not a bone of him shall be broken,” so that what had been imparted to the Earth as a great, mighty central impulse would not be destroyed by an external influence. Thus, in the mystery that unfolded at the baptism of John, the high Sun Spirit—who, through his separation from the Earth, had brought humanity into physical matter and had first led it into ossification—acted in such a way that humanity now received the impulse to overcome this ossification and spiritualize it. As daring as it may seem to say such things in our time: it is the mission of the anthroposophical world movement to eventually speak these things aloud—things that were always known in the mysteries and were always taught and beheld. But because this took place, another mystery became possible, and only through this did it become possible.

[ 18 ] You all know that the individual parts of the physical body correspond to the human constitutional elements: the physical body corresponds to itself, the glandular system to the etheric body, the nervous system to the astral body, and the circulatory system to the ego. Externally, on the physical level, the “I” entered humanity through the fact that human beings were endowed with more and more blood, and as a result, human beings became increasingly capable of descending into the physical world, into the material realm, as the world of blood grew stronger and stronger. A time had to come when the excess blood had to be sacrificed. As horrifying as it may seem to the chemist, it is nevertheless true that the excess “I”—that “I” which would have plunged humanity entirely into a war of all against all through the prevalence of egoism—that excess blood flowed out through the wounds of the Redeemer on Golgotha. At the very moment the Savior’s wounds bled, at that very moment the seed was sown within humanity to rise again from the depths to which it had sunk. Had people turned back then, during the Middle Atlantean period, they would never have attained full independence. They had to conquer the physical plane. But then, on this physical plane, an even stronger impulse was needed, and this impulse came through the Christ. And because it was stronger, it was able not only to lead humanity out of its state of decline, but something else, something important, also came to pass as a result! A part of the world has been conquered by humanity, which is incorporated into the spiritual worlds and carried back to the spiritual worlds.

[ 19 ] We saw yesterday that, when the Greco-Latin era had arrived, human beings had advanced so far in their conquest of the physical world—and were so deeply entangled in it—that they needed a god in human form in order to perceive him at all, for they could no longer ascend into the spiritual world to comprehend such a thing. In the meantime, conditions had also changed on the other side of life—between death and rebirth. As human beings descended more and more onto the physical plane, grew ever more attached to it, and drew ever more pleasure from it, what lay beyond life became less and less perceptible to them. Human beings, so to speak, retained a good portion of their memory of this world when they lived on the other side, between death and rebirth. This, too, has been preserved in legend. When Greek culture tells us that the hero Achilles says, “Better to be a beggar in the physical world than a king on the other side,” this is a true expression of that era. Because human beings had conquered so much of this physical plane, they longed to return to it; yet in those days, it did not allow them to take much with them across to the other side. It was only through the appearance of Christ on Earth—through humanity’s prior exposure to Christ during the Old Testament era—and only by taking in, so to speak, the form of Christ into their spirit and imagination here in earthly existence, that human beings carried with them from the physical world into the afterlife that which in turn brought them light in the world beyond. They carried over what makes this world beyond bright and clear again, what restores Christ to them there—and does so in a greater splendor than in this world. Thus we see how humanity’s consciousness in the afterlife grows increasingly clouded the closer it approaches the time we described yesterday, and how it then brightens through the fact that human beings come to know Christ in this life, that they come to know what is reported about Christ. For what a person takes in from Christ in this world is not lost to him during the time between death and rebirth; he takes it with him, and this is what corresponds to the expression “dying into Christ.”

[ 20 ] Thus we see how, through this development of the world, not only the lives of the living but also the lives of the dead are transformed. And because the dead draw upon what they learned here from Christ—upon the power they acquired here from Christ—between death and birth, because this bears fruit for them there, and because they return again and again in ever-new incarnations, they also appear in ever more powerful, Christ-filled human bodies and will increasingly make the Earth an expression of what Christ can become in the transformation of the physical world and in the elevation of the Earth to future stages.

[ 21 ] Thus we see how the earthly realm and the spiritual realm work together to prepare the Earth once more for what we have been considering: that through the incorporation of the Christ Spirit, it will reunite with the Sun, and that through this, a higher stage will be attained within the entire cosmos. Therefore, this event—the appearance of the Christ—is not merely a fact of importance to human beings, but one that holds significance for the evolution of the cosmos.