The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] When referring to the external physical world, we speak of “history.” We look back, guided by external documents and records, into the past eras of the history of peoples and of humanity. As you know, by examining many recent documents, we can look back as far as the early millennia before the birth of Christ. Now, from the lectures we have heard in the field of spiritual science, you have been able to gather that, on the basis of occult documents, we can look back even much further, into the boundless expanses of the past. We thus acknowledge an external history of the external physical world. We know that when we speak of the ways of life, of knowledge, and indeed of the experiences of the peoples who lived in the centuries immediately preceding our own—when we wish to speak of their discoveries and inventions—we must speak differently than when we go back one or two millennia and speak of the customs and habits, of the knowledge and insights of peoples from a much more distant past. And history becomes ever more different as we go further back in time. It may be appropriate to ask, for once, whether the term “history, “historical development” has only one meaning for this outer, physical world—whether it is only there that, in the course of time, events and the nature of what happens change—or whether the word “history” might also have a meaning for the other side of existence, for that side which we describe precisely through spiritual science, which the human being must experience in the time between death and a new birth.

[ 2 ] First of all, looking at it purely from an external perspective, we must admit that, based on everything we know, human life in these other worlds—which are supernatural to people today—is actually longer than life in the physical world. Does the word “history” also have any meaning for this world, for this other side of existence? Or should we accept the view that in the realms that human beings experience in the time between death and a new birth, everything always remains the same—that it is the same whether, for example, we go back through the 18th and 17th centuries all the way to the 8th, 7th, 6th centuries after the appearance of Christ Jesus on Earth and even further back, into the pre-Christian centuries? After all, people who enter earthly existence at birth encounter different conditions on Earth with each new birth. Let us imagine for a moment the soul of a human being—and these are, after all, our own souls we are speaking of—who appeared in an incarnation in ancient Egypt or ancient Persia. Let us vividly imagine the circumstances into which a person was born—a person who, in ancient Egypt, stood before the gigantic pyramids and obelisks and all the living conditions that existed in ancient Egypt. Let us consider what kind of living conditions these represent for life between birth and death. Now let us say that this person dies, undergoes a period between death and a new birth, and is now reborn into the 7th or 8th century of the Christian era. Let us compare the eras: How differently does the world appear to the soul in its earthly existence during the times before the coming of Jesus Christ, outwardly here on the physical plane! And let us ask further: What does the soul experience—one who perhaps appeared in the first centuries of the Christian era and who is now entering our physical plane once again?—There it finds the newer forms of government, of which there was no mention back then. It experiences what our modern cultural achievements have brought about; in short, a completely different picture presents itself to such a soul compared to what was presented to it in its previous incarnations. And we are aware, when we compare these individual incarnations, just how different they are from one another. Is it not justified, then, to raise the question: What is the nature of a person’s life circumstances between death and rebirth—that is, between two incarnations? If a person once lived in ancient Egypt and, after death, entered the spiritual world, where they encountered certain realities and certain beings; if they then returned to physical existence in the early Christian centuries, died again, and passed over into the other world once more, and so on —is it not legitimate to ask whether, on the other side of existence, with all the experiences a person goes through there, a “story” does not also unfold, and whether, over the course of time, many things do not change there as well?

[ 3 ] As you know, when we describe human life between death and rebirth, we are presenting a general picture of what that life is like. Starting from the moment of death, we describe how a person—after that great tableau of memories has unfolded before their soul—enters the period when their instincts, desires, passions—in short, where everything that still binds them to the physical world is still within them—where what has come to be called Kamaloka takes place, and how, after shedding this connection, the human being then enters Devachan, a purely spiritual world. And we will then go on to describe what continues to develop for the human being during this time between death and the new birth in this purely spiritual existence, right up to his return to the physical world. You have seen how what we are describing here has, at first, always been discussed, so to speak, with the understanding that it relates to the present, to our immediate life. And that is indeed the case. Of course, one must start from somewhere; one must take a certain vantage point when describing things. Just as one must base descriptions of the present on observations and experiences in the present, so too, in descriptions of the spiritual world, it is necessary to depict the picture that presents itself to the clairvoyant gaze—of life between death and rebirth—in much the same way as it typically unfolds in the present when a person dies and passes through the spiritual world toward a new existence. But a comprehensive occult observation clearly shows that the word “history” is also quite appropriate for this world that a person experiences between death and rebirth. There, too, events unfold in much the same way as they do here in the physical world. And just as we recount a succession of distinct events—as when we begin with the 4th millennium B.C. and describe events up into our post-Christian era— so too must we acknowledge a “history” for that other phase of existence; we must also realize that life between death and rebirth during the era of Egyptian, ancient Persian, or ancient Indian culture was not exactly the same as it is, for example, in our own time. So, once we have formed a preliminary conception in our present time of life in the Kamaloka and life in the Devachan, it is surely time to expand these descriptions and move on to a historical examination of these worlds. And in order to gain clarity on these matters, when we present some points regarding the chapter on “occult history,” let us adhere strictly to very specific spiritual facts. However, in order to communicate effectively, we must go back quite far—as far back as the Atlantean era. After all, we have reached a point today where we can assume that everyone is familiar with these concepts when we speak of such times.

[ 4 ] We wonder how, in those times when one could already speak of birth and death, human life—to use an expression—unfolded in the afterlife. Life in the afterlife back then differed from life in this world in a way quite different from how it differs today. When an Atlantean died, what happened to his soul? It passed into a state where it felt safe in the most profound sense—in a spiritual world, in a world of higher spiritual individualities. We know, after all, that even here on this physical Earth, the life of an Atlantean unfolded differently from our life today. The modern alternation between waking and sleeping, and the state of unconsciousness during the night—which has often been discussed—did not exist in Atlantean times. As a person drifted off to sleep and as knowledge of the physical things around them receded from their consciousness, they entered a spiritual world. There, the sight of spiritual beings appeared to them. Just as they are here among plants, animals, people, and so on during the day, so too, during the state of sleep, a world of lower and higher spiritual beings emerged to the same extent as the person fell asleep. The person immersed themselves in this world. And when the Atlantean passed over into the world beyond at death, this world of spiritual beings and spiritual events appeared all the more vividly. In those Atlantean times, human beings felt much more at home in these higher worlds—in these worlds of spiritual events and spiritual beings—than in the physical world. And we need only go back to the earliest Atlantean times to find that people viewed this physical existence—all their souls did so—as a visit to a world where one simply stays for a while, but which is different from their true home, which did not lie within this earthly sphere.

[ 5 ] There was, however, one peculiarity of this life between death and new birth during the Atlantean era that is difficult for modern people to imagine, because they have lost it entirely. That ability to say “I” to oneself, to feel oneself as a self-aware being, to perceive oneself as an “I”—which constitutes the very essence of modern human beings—was completely lost to the Atlantean upon leaving the physical world. As they ascended into the spiritual world—whether in sleep or, to a greater extent, during the life between death and rebirth—the following took the place of “I”-consciousness: “I am a self-aware being,” “I am within myself”—in its place arose the awareness: “I am sheltered within the higher beings,” “I am, as it were, immersed in the very life of these higher beings.” Humanity felt at one with the higher beings, and in this sense of oneness, they experienced infinite bliss in this afterlife. And so their bliss grew more and more the further they moved away from the consciousness of physical-sensory existence. The further back we go in time, the more blissful life was. And we have often heard what the meaning of human development in earthly existence consists of. It consists in the fact that human beings become more and more entangled with physical existence on our Earth. While the human being of the Atlantean era, in the state of sleep-consciousness, felt completely at home in the afterlife—perceiving that world as bright, clear, and friendly—his consciousness in this life was, by contrast, still half-dreamlike. There was not yet a true sense of ownership of the physical body. When a person awoke, in a certain sense he forgot the gods and spirits he had experienced in sleep, but he did not immerse himself in physical consciousness as deeply as he does today when he wakes up in the morning. Objects did not yet have clear outlines. For the Atlantean, it was always as if you were to go outside on a foggy evening and see the streetlights surrounded by a halo, an aura of all kinds of colors. That is how indistinct all objects on the physical plane were. Consciousness of the physical plane was only just dawning. The strong consciousness of “I am” had not yet taken root in human beings. It was not until the latter days of the Atlantean era that human self-consciousness—the awareness of personality—developed more and more, to the extent that human beings lost that blissful consciousness during sleep. Human beings gradually conquered the physical world; they learned to use their senses more and more, and as a result, the objects of the physical world took on ever firmer and more definite outlines. To the same extent that human beings conquered the physical world, however, consciousness in the spiritual world also changed.

[ 6 ] We have traced the various periods of the post-Atlantean era. We have looked back into ancient Indian culture. We have seen how, in that era, human beings had conquered the external world to such an extent that they perceived it as Maya, and longed to return to the realms of the ancient spiritual land. We have seen how, during the Persian cultural epoch, the conquest of the physical plane had already progressed so far that human beings sought to unite with the benevolent forces of Ormuzd in order to transform the forces of the physical world. We have also seen how, during the Egyptian-Babylonian-Chaldean-Assyrian period, people found the means—in the art of surveying, which led to the cultivation of the earth, or in astronomy—that advanced them in their conquest of the outer world. And finally, we saw how the Greek-Latin period went even further, how in Greece that beautiful union came about between humankind and the physical world—in Greek urban planning or in Greek art. And we saw how, in the fourth epoch, the personal—which was present for the first time—emerged in ancient Roman law. Whereas human beings had previously felt secure within a greater whole, which was still a reflection of earlier spiritual entities, the Romans first came to see themselves as citizens of the earth. The concept of the citizen arose.

[ 7 ] The physical world was conquered bit by bit. But in return, humans also grew to love it. Human inclinations and sympathies became bound up with the physical world, and to the same extent that sympathy for the physical world grew, human consciousness also became bound up with physical things. But to the same extent, human consciousness of the afterlife—the time between death and rebirth—also became obscured. That blissful sense of security in the presence of higher spiritual beings—man lost it in the beyond to the same extent that he grew to love this world in the course of his successive conquests of the physical world throughout history. Humanity’s conquest of the physical world grew step by step; they discovered ever-new forces of nature and invented ever-new tools. He grew fonder and ever fonder of this life between birth and death. In return, however, his old, twilight-like clairvoyant consciousness in the world beyond grew dim. It never ceased entirely, but it did grow dim. And while humanity conquered the physical world, the history of the world beyond represents a decline. This decline stands in contrast to the rise of culture that we describe when we observe people in the earliest, most primitive stages of civilization—how they grind their grain between two stones—and then see how they advance step by step, how they make their first discoveries, acquire tools, and learn to use them, and how this process continues to advance over time. Life on the physical plane becomes ever richer. Humanity learns to erect gigantic structures. But as we trace history in this way—through the Egyptian-Babylonian-Chaldean-Assyrian period, through the Greco-Roman period, and on to our own time—we must, of course, mark a turning point if we are to describe the progression of cultural history. To the same extent, we would have to describe a path of decline in the connection between higher gods and what human beings were permitted to offer the gods—what they did in the spirit of the spiritual world and in the midst of the spiritual world. And we see how, in later times, human beings increasingly lose their connection with the spiritual worlds and their spiritual abilities. We would have to write a history of decline for humanity in the afterlife, just as we can write a history of ascent—of the ongoing conquest of the physical world—for this life. Thus, the spiritual world and the physical world complement one another, so to speak, or, better yet, they are mutually dependent.

[ 8 ] As you well know, there is a connection between this spiritual world and our physical world. Much has been said about the great mediators between the spiritual world and the physical world—the initiates, those who, although incarnated in a physical body, yet whose souls reach up into the spiritual world between birth and death—a time when human beings are otherwise completely cut off from the spiritual world—and who, even in this era, can have experiences in the spiritual world and immerse themselves in it. What did these messengers of the spiritual world—whether great or small—mean to humanity, when we speak of the foremost among them, such as, for example, the ancient holy Rishis of India, the Buddha, Hermes, Zarathustra, Moses, or all those who in earlier times were the great messengers of God? When we speak of all those who were messengers of God or of the spirit for humanity, what were they in terms of the relationship between the physical and the spiritual world?

[ 9 ] During their initiation—and through it—they experienced the conditions of the spiritual world. Not only could they see with their physical eyes and perceive with their physical minds what was happening here in the physical world, but through their heightened powers of perception they could also perceive what was happening in the spiritual world. The initiate does not merely live on the physical plane among human beings; he can also observe what the dead do in the period between death and rebirth. These beings are just as familiar to him as the people on the physical plane. From this you can see that everything recounted as an occult story stems precisely from the experiences of the initiates.

[ 10 ] An important turning point—one that is also significant for the history we are now discussing—occurs on Earth with the appearance of Christ. And we gain a picture of the progression of history in the world beyond when we ask ourselves: What significance does the deed of the Christ on Earth have? What significance does the Mystery of Golgotha have for history in the world beyond?

[ 11 ] In various places, during some of my lectures, I have been able to point out the profound significance of the event at Golgotha for the development of history on the physical plane. Let us now ask: How does the event at Golgotha appear when we view it from the perspective of the beyond? We can answer this question by focusing on the specific point in the development of the beyond when human beings had most fully emerged onto the physical plane, when personality consciousness had developed most strongly: the Greco-Roman era. And this is also the time of the appearance of Christ Jesus on Earth: on the one hand, the most intense sense of self, the most intense joy in the sensory world; on the other hand, the strongest, most powerful call to the world beyond in the event of Golgotha, and the greatest deed—the overcoming of death through life, as it is manifested in this event of Golgotha. These two things coincide perfectly when we consider the physical world. There was truly great joy and an heightened appreciation for external existence during the Greek era. Only such people could create those marvelous Greek temples in which, as has been described to you, the gods themselves dwelt. Only these people, who related to the physical world in this way, could create those masterpieces of sculpture in which such a wondrous union of spirit and matter is revealed. This involved joy and sympathy for the physical plane. These qualities developed only gradually, and we can truly sense the progression through history when we compare the Greeks’ immersion in the physical world with the sublime worldview that the first post-Atlantean civilized people received from their sacred rishis. These people had no interest in the physical world; they felt at home in the spiritual world, and they looked up with bliss toward the world of the spirit, which they sought to reach through the teachings and practices given to them by the holy rishis. Between this rejection of sensual pleasure and the greatest joy in the sensory world during the Greco-Roman era lies a vast stretch of human history—up to the point where that union between the spirit and the sensory world came into being, in which both found their rightful place.

[ 12 ] But what was the counterpart to this conquest of the physical plane during the Greco-Roman era in the spiritual world? Anyone who can look into the spiritual world knows that what the Greek poets say about those who were the finest people of their culture is not a legend, but is truly based on truth. Those who felt so completely at home in the physical world with all their sympathies—how did they feel in the spiritual world? It is entirely true to say that such a person would utter the words: “Better to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of shadows!” The dullest, least intense state of consciousness set in precisely during this time between death and rebirth. Despite all his sympathy for the physical world, the person did not understand existence in the world beyond. It seemed to them as if they had lost everything, and the spiritual world appeared worthless to them. To the same extent that their attachment to the physical world grew, to that same extent did the Greek heroes feel lost over in the spiritual world. And a figure like Agamemnon or Achilles felt over there as though they were drained of life, as though they were nothing in this world of shadows. Admittedly, there were times in between—for the connection with the spiritual world was never entirely lost—when even these people were able to live among spiritual beings and engage in spiritual activities. But the state of consciousness just described was certainly present. Thus we have a history of the world beyond, a history of decline, just as we have a history of ascent for the world of the living.

[ 13 ] Those who have been called messengers of God or of the spirit have always had the ability to travel back and forth, from one world to the other. Let us try to imagine what these spirit messengers meant to the people of the physical plane in pre-Christian times. They were the ones who, drawing on their experiences in the spiritual world, could tell the people of the ancient world what the spiritual world was actually like. Of course, even on the other side they experienced the dimmed consciousness of physical Earth humans, but they also experienced the entire spiritual world in all its resplendent fullness. And they were able to bring news to Earth humans that a spiritual world exists and describe what it looks like. They could bear witness to this spiritual world. This was particularly important in those times, when people on the physical plane were increasingly focusing their interests on the physical plane. And the more people conquered the Earth, the more joy and affection took root in relation to the physical world, the more the messengers of God had to emphasize that the spiritual world exists. They would often say: “You know this and that about the Earth. But there is also a spiritual world. This and that must be told to you about the spiritual world”—in short, the entire picture of the spiritual world has been revealed to humanity by God’s messengers. People were familiar with it through the most diverse religions. But whenever, so to speak, these messengers of God returned after their initiation or following a visit to the spiritual world, they were able to bring back to the physical world—which was, after all, becoming ever more beautiful for life on the physical plane—refreshment and inspiration from the spiritual world, something of the treasures of the spiritual world. Thus they brought the fruits of spiritual life into physical life. It was always the case that, through what the messengers of God brought them, people were led into the spirit. The physical world, this life, has gained much through the messengers of God and their messages.

[ 14 ] These messengers of God were not able to work as fruitfully for the world beyond to the same extent. You can certainly imagine it this way: When the initiate, the messenger of God, passes over into the world beyond, the beings there are just as much his companions as the beings in the physical world. He can speak to them and inform them of what is happening in the physical world. But the closer we approach the Greco-Latin period, the less of value the initiate could offer the souls in the beyond when he passed from Earth into the afterlife. For they felt too keenly the loss of what they had cherished in the physical world. Nothing the initiate could tell them was of value to them anymore. Thus, in pre-Christian times, what the initiates conveyed as their messages to people in the physical world was most fruitful, whereas what they could convey to those who had departed from the physical world was fruitless for the spiritual world. Buddha, Hermes, Zarathustra—no matter how great a message they brought to the people of the physical world, they could achieve so little on the other side. For they could convey few joyful and uplifting messages into the afterlife.

[ 15 ] Let us now compare what Christ accomplished for the afterlife—which, so to speak, occurred during the period of deepest decadence, as we describe in the history of occultism, in the Greco-Roman era—with what the initiates had accomplished previously. We know what the event of Golgotha means for the history of the Earth. We know that it is the victory of the life of the Spirit over earthly death, the overcoming of all death through the evolution of the Earth. Even if we cannot go into everything today that the Mystery of Golgotha signifies, we can nevertheless summarize it in a few words: It signifies the definitive and irrefutable factual proof that life conquers death. And on Golgotha, life conquered death; the Spirit planted the seed for the final conquest of matter! What is recounted in the Gospel about Christ’s visit to the dead in the underworld after the events at Golgotha is not a legend or a symbol. Occult research shows you that it is a truth. Just as truly as Christ walked among humanity during the last three years of Jesus’ life, so too were the dead able to rejoice in his visit. Immediately after the events at Golgotha, he appeared to the dead, to the departed souls. This is an occult truth. And now he was able to tell them that in the physical world over there, the spirit had irrevocably triumphed over matter! This was a flame of light in the world beyond for the departed souls; it struck them like a spiritual-electrical shock and stirred the dormant consciousness of the afterlife that had prevailed during the Greco-Roman era, ushering in an entirely new phase for human beings between death and rebirth. And since that time, human consciousness between death and rebirth has grown ever brighter and brighter.

[ 16 ] Thus, when we describe history, we can supplement the information about present-day conditions with what we have to say about Kamaloka and life in Devachan, and we must point out that the appearance of the Christ on Earth marks the beginning of an entirely new phase for life in the beyond—that the fruit of what the Christ has accomplished for Earth’s evolution is manifesting itself in a radical transformation of life in the beyond. This visit of the Christ to the beyond is of immense significance—a renewal of life in the beyond between death and rebirth. Since that time, those who had passed on—who, at that crucial moment in the Greco-Roman era, despite all their joy in the physical world, felt like shadows, so that they would rather be beggars in the upper world than kings in the realm of shadows—have now felt themselves becoming more and more at home in the afterlife. And since then, it has been the case that people have been growing ever more deeply into the spiritual world, and a period of ascent and flourishing in the spiritual world had thus begun.

[ 17 ] Thus we have touched upon the event at Golgotha from the perspective of the other world—albeit only in outline—and at the same time pointed out that there is a history for the spiritual world just as there is a history for the physical world. And it is only by exploring these real connections between the physical world and the spiritual world that one world becomes fruitful for the other in human life. We will always see what we gain for our understanding of human life on Earth when we hold the true characteristics of the spiritual world before us.