The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. The Physical World as an Expression of Spiritual Forces and Beings

[ 1 ] Now we must shed some light on the conditions of our physical world in relation to the spiritual world described yesterday, through which a person passes between death and a new birth. For anyone open to the truths of spiritual science, it goes without saying that everything that happens in the physical world is the expression of spiritual influences, facts, and beings, so that the underlying causes of all our physical events are to be found in the spiritual world, in Devachan. Now you may ask me: Is there also, conversely, an influence from our physical world into the spiritual world? — Yes, and we will best understand these relationships when we consider human life. Here in the physical world, threads are spun from soul to soul as they arise from the manifold circumstances of life; bonds of friendship, love, and so on are formed. And everything that is thus established from person to person has not only significance and substance for this physical world but is also important for the spiritual world. Indeed, one can say that the more spiritual these relationships have been here, the more significant they are for the Devachanic world. When a person dies, everything that is physical in these relationships of love and friendship falls away, and only the soul-spiritual remains. Take, for example, the relationship between mother and child. At first, a relationship develops between these two based on natural foundations; this relationship gradually becomes spiritualized. Indeed, over the course of time, this original natural foundation becomes merely an opportunity to weave a bond between soul and soul. When a person dies, this natural foundation falls away, but what has been woven as a bond between soul and soul remains intact. And if you place before the soul the entire human race on Earth, along with all the existing bonds of friendship and love, you must conceive of these connections as a vast net, as an immense web—and this web truly exists in Devachan. And when the clairvoyant looks down upon the Earth from the vantage point of Devachan, he sees this web of spiritual connections. A person rediscovers this fabric of spiritual connections when he enters Devachan after death. He is placed within all the spiritual connections that he himself has woven. This also answers the question: Do we see our loved ones again in Devachan? — Yes, we see them again, and indeed, freed from all the obstacles of space and time that lie like a veil over all these soul relationships here on earth. In Devachan, souls stand face to face with one another. The relationship from soul to soul is much more intimate than in the physical world and much more profound. There can never be any doubt in Devachan as to whether one recognizes the other, even if one enters Devachan earlier and the other much later, after a long interval. Recognizing one’s loved ones there is not particularly difficult, for there, so to speak, everyone’s spiritual inner essence is written on their spiritual face. He utters his own name—in a far more fitting manner than is possible here—as his own “fundamental tone”—as it is called in occultism—which is also who he truly is in the spiritual world. Such undisturbed togetherness between lovers is only possible when both are in Devachan. Yet the disembodied soul is not unconscious of the one who is still on Earth; he can even follow that person’s actions. Of course, one in Devachan does not see earthly-physical colors and forms, since he no longer has physical organs in Devachan. But everything in the physical world has its spiritual counterpart in the spiritual realm, and the one who has passed on perceives this. Every movement of the hand in the physical world—for it is preceded by a will, whether conscious or unconscious—and every change in the physical human being has a spiritual counterpart that the departed can perceive in Devachan. Existence in the spiritual realm is not some kind of dream or sleep, but is indeed a conscious life. Imagine that a person receives inclinations and impulses in Devachan to remain in closer union with loved ones, so as to find them again on Earth in a later incarnation. This is often the purpose of earthly incarnation: to forge ever more intimate bonds. Life together in Devachan is at least as intimate as any life here. Empathy in Devachan is far more intense and intimate than on Earth; there, you experience another’s pain as if it were your own. On Earth, it is more or less possible to achieve personal happiness at the expense of others, but in Devachan this is impossible. There, any misfortune one might cause another in order to be happy oneself would rebound upon that person, and one truly could not be happy at the expense of others. This is the balance that emanates from Devachan. You bring back from there the impulses to realize brotherhood on Earth. What is a self-evident law in Devachan is to be realized on Earth as a task.

[ 2 ] There is still much to be said about the connection between the spiritual world and the Earth. You can now reflect on this and then answer many of your own questions about reuniting with and being together with your loved ones in Devachan.

[ 3 ] Yesterday it was said that when a person has developed their spiritual archetype in Devachan, they receive the impulse to descend once more to the physical plane, much as when a thought is ripe and you feel the urge to put it into action. But that is still a somewhat abstract way of putting it. What is it that actually prompts the soul to descend back into the physical world—what specifically gives it the impulse to do so? During the Kamaloka period, when the soul gradually weans itself from its attachment to physical life, it continually absorbs impulses from its experiences that kindle within it the will to remove obstacles to its development. It relives within itself the pain and harm it has inflicted upon others. In this experience of others’ pain, an impulse arises within the soul: “You must make amends for this!”—an impulse that is, for the time being, indelible. Thus, step by step, as the soul moves from Kamaloka to Devachan, it carries with it the impulses to correct its mistakes. In the higher worlds, there is an even greater likelihood that whatever arises will be preserved in the appropriate manner. When a person, after the Kamaloka period, sheds the astral body as the third corpse, everything that the “I” has not yet worked on dissolves from them. But something like a web remains in the astral world of what they themselves have placed into the world as obstacles to development. Human beings truly pave their own path through the world with all the forms that express the harm they have caused to others. Once a person has perfected their archetype in Devachan and woven into it everything they have brought with them as the essence of their etheric body from their last incarnation, a kind of fertilization takes place. The archetype is fertilized by the fabric of one’s own unbalanced deeds. So the first thing that happens to the soul after it has matured in Devachan is that it undergoes a fertilization with what we call its karma. And through this, it receives the impulse to descend once more to Earth in order to make amends for as much of the harm it previously caused as possible. At the end of Devachan, the soul is fertilized by the consequences of its own actions. Only then is it fully ripe to descend into a new earthly existence.

[ 4 ] The clairvoyant sees such souls everywhere in the astral world who wish to incarnate. However, the conditions of space and time in the astral world are different from those of the physical world. Such a soul can move at tremendous speed through astral space, and it is driven by special forces to the place where a physical and etheric body, properly constructed for that soul, is being formed. A distance such as that between Budapest and New York is of no consequence at all. Time considerations come into play only to the extent that they enable the attainment of the best possible conditions for incarnation on Earth. From Earth, the physical body—created according to the line of inheritance—comes to meet this soul, which, as it flies through astral space, resembles a bell shape widening from top to bottom.

[ 5 ] Now we need to discuss a little more what attracts the soul down there, and what seeks to incarnate. As you know, procreation corresponds to a certain sum of emotional impulses—more or less spiritual impulses of love, or loving sympathy. The process of procreation is preceded by a love-sympathy that the clairvoyant perceives as a back-and-forth ebb and flow of astral forces, a interplay of astral currents between man and woman. There is something alive there that is otherwise absent when a person is alone; the coexistence of the souls themselves is expressed in the ebb and flow of the astral currents. Yet every act of love is unique. Every act of love arises from the interplay of a particular individuality. And now, even before any earthly conception, before the physical act, the individuality—the nature of the being that descends once more to Earth—is reflected in the desire for love, in this astral interplay. This is what makes each act of love unique. So one can say: Even before physical conception, that which descends from the spiritual world is already beginning to take effect; the bringing together of man and woman is co-determined by the spiritual world. Here, forces from the spiritual world are at work in an intimate and wondrous way. And that which descends, which settles down, is generally bound from the very beginning to the result of fertilization. It is by no means the case that some individuality only connects with it after a certain time. From the moment of fertilization onward, this descending individuality is inseparably linked to the result of physical procreation. There are, of course, exceptions to this as well. In the first few days after fertilization, this spiritual individuality that descends does not yet influence the development of the physical human being, but it is, so to speak, present; it is already connected to the developing embryo. This intervention begins around the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first days after fertilization; by then, what has descended from a higher world is already working together with the developing human being. Thus, from the very beginning, preparations are made—in accordance with the human being’s prior capacities—for that fine, intimate organic tissue that is necessary if the human individuality is to use the physical body as an instrument. The fact that the human being is a unity stems from the fact that the smallest organ corresponds to the entire organism; that is to say, even the smallest must be of a certain kind so that the whole can be as it is, so that it can come to pass that, already from the eighteenth to the twenty-first day, the “I” participates in the formation of the physical and etheric bodies.

[ 6 ] To what extent, then, does that which reproduces physically—that is, what the parents contribute—the female and male elements—influence the development of the unborn human being? Well, if you open yourself to what underlies the physical realm in an occult-spiritual sense, much of this will become clear to you. Of course, only the essentials can be outlined here. If only the feminine were involved in human reproduction—we will hear that in the past, before the separation of the sexes, reproduction took place without the involvement of the masculine—if that were still the case today, what would happen? To what extent, then, is the feminine involved as the feminine? Let us now examine this. — If only the feminine were at work, then evolution would have proceeded in such a way that the child would resemble its ancestors to the very highest degree. Only beings of exactly the same form would ever come into being. The general, the homogeneous, stems from the feminine element. It is only through the separation of the sexes that human individuality has been able to unfold. For what causes the offspring to exhibit differences from its ancestors is the influence of the man. The masculine element specializes; in the feminine, the species is preserved—it reproduces the like; the masculine provides individuality.

[ 7 ] That is why it was only after the emergence of the two sexes on Earth that it became possible for incarnations or reincarnations to occur one after another. Only then did human beings have the opportunity to somehow embody on Earth what was the result of their past lives. The fact that what takes place down here on Earth and what must develop and enrich itself from incarnation to incarnation—that which is individual—fit together stems from the interaction of the male and female elements. The human “I” would no longer find a suitable body today if the general human principle were not modified by the masculine element—that is, if the general type were not shaped into the individual. The etheric body is essentially influenced by the feminine element. In the etheric body, where enduring inclinations reside, lies the driving force of the feminine element. Anchored within it is that which is general, that which is generic. In the woman’s etheric body, the counterpart of what is found externally as the national soul, as the racial spirit, still exists today. The national soul and the racial spirit are similar to one another. If we now consider what underlies fertilization as a spiritual process, we must say: Conception in and of itself is nothing other than a kind of slaying of the living forces of the etheric body. Already at the moment of conception, death is woven into the human body. It is something that hardens the etheric body—which would otherwise multiply into infinity—and, so to speak, kills it off. That which originates from the feminine nature—the etheric body, which would otherwise produce only copies—is condensed by the masculine influence, and thereby becomes the shaper of the new human individuality. Reproduction consists in the creation of a copy of the female etheric body; by being, in a certain sense, hardened and “killed off” through fertilization, it is at the same time individualized. And hidden within the deadened etheric body lies the formative power that brings forth the new physical human being. Thus, fertilization and procreation go hand in hand. We see, then, that two kinds of fertilization take place: below, the physical, human fertilization; and above, the fertilization of the archetype through one’s own karma. As we said, the “I” begins working on the embryo as early as the eighteenth through the twenty-first day; but only much later, after six months, do other forces begin to work on the embryo—forces we can call those that determine the human’s karmic nature. We can express this by saying: that tissue woven from karma comes into play. Gradually, these forces come into play. - However, there are exceptions here as well, so that a replacement of the “I” can occur at a later stage. We will discuss this further later. The very first thing to intervene in the formation of the embryo is the “I.”

[ 8 ] If we want to form a rough picture of what exists in the spiritual worlds and descends from there, we must say: The individual who is about to incarnate brings the lovers together. - The archetype that seeks to incarnate has, after all, united itself with astral substance, and this astral substance now influences the passion of love, the feeling of love. What surges back and forth down here on Earth as astral passion reflects within itself the astral nature of the descending being. Thus, the astral feeling of the lovers meets the astral substance from above; it is influenced by the substance of that which descends to incarnate. If we think this idea through to its full extent, we must say: The human being who is reincarnating is certainly involved in the choice of his parents. Depending on who he is, he is drawn to the particular pair of parents. The objection is valid when it is claimed that, with such a rationale for the selection of parents, one loses the feeling of being reborn in one’s children, and that the love based on having bestowed one’s very essence upon the children is thereby diminished. This is a groundless fear; for this maternal and paternal love is understood in a much higher and more beautiful sense when we see that the child, in a certain sense, loves the parents first—even before conception—and is thereby drawn to them. Parental love is thus the response to the child’s love; it is the reciprocal love. In this way, we have an explanation of parental love as a reflection of what exists as the child’s love prior to the child’s physical birth.

[ 9 ] It has already been mentioned that higher beings play a role in the incarnation of the new human being. You will understand this when you consider that there is never a complete correspondence between what descends from above for the purpose of incarnation and what it allows itself to be clothed in down below. This complete correspondence between the higher and the lower can only take place when the human being has reached the goal of his evolution, when he has attained Atma. When he has transformed the physical body into Atma, the etheric body into Buddhi, and the astral body into Manas, then humanity will stand at the point in evolution where, with completely free will, it chooses its own final incarnation. Before that, true harmony is impossible. Consider this: as human beings are today, they have transformed only a part of their astral body, a part of their etheric body, and a part of their physical body. And over only these parts do they have control. But what they have not yet transformed must be crystallized for them from the outside. Other beings must attach this to him. There are two different kinds of beings involved in this: those who attach the etheric body to him, and those who lead him to his parents. At his present stage of development, human beings are not yet able to attach the etheric body to themselves. Through the forces inherent in the etheric body, the moment of foresight—which we spoke of yesterday—arises for the human being. Once the human being possesses the etheric body and the astral body, and the physical body is then incorporated, the moment arrives when foresight must disappear; at that point, the etheric body must adapt itself to the physical body. The etheric body is, after all, not only the bearer of memory but of everything temporal: recollection and foresight. But when it enters the physical body, it is bound by physical laws, and these, in a certain sense, nullify its power. Just as a human being, under the influence of the physical body, can develop his memory only to a certain degree, whereas after death, when the etheric body is free again, he is able to reconstruct the entire picture of memory—so it is with foresight: the vision into the future is limited in the physical world by the physical body. This is the normal course of incarnation. The soul experiences the shock recently alluded to as a result of an abnormal foresight of difficult circumstances in its later life.

[ 10 ] We have now reached the moment when the actual human being—the “I”—begins to work on what has been given to him and with what he is brought together in the physical world. The forces of the various spiritual members of the human being, which are active in the time before birth, now begin to work through the corresponding members of the mother’s being. In the early period before birth, the human being can, after all, only live by being enveloped on all sides by the maternal sheath. This physical maternal sheath is cast off by the human being at birth. At first, only the physical body is set free; the etheric body—as the clairvoyant can see—remains surrounded by an etheric maternal sheath; it remains protected and sheltered by it until the physical body’s teeth change. This is an important point in human development, when the maternal etheric sheath is shed and a second birth takes place. Then, once the etheric body has shed its maternal sheath, the individual’s own etheric body is born; it becomes free. This marks a very important milestone in human development. Until the change of teeth, there is still the possibility that human forms may remain flexible and change in one direction or another; from this time onward, they only continue to grow. Essentially, the forms are fully developed by the time of the change of teeth. This is important to know. Therefore, everything that shapes the physical body from the outside—everything that is meant to be permanent in it—must be carefully considered and formed up until this time of the change of teeth. However, everything in the external world that influences a person also shapes their finer members and organs—for example, light and color. All of this essentially shapes the person up to the age of seven. It is therefore not a matter of indifference what colors and what environment the child is surrounded by, nor what activities you have them perform. If you were never to use your hand, it would atrophy. The same is true of all organs. Even the finer ones develop through activity. Red, for example, has a different effect on the finer organs in a person—which are just taking shape—than blue does; and so, depending on the color surrounding the child, the effect varies. The organs develop through activity. The eye sees out of habit, certainly, but what it sees has an effect on the entire human nature. It is not a matter of indifference for the child’s development whether the eye sees red or blue. It is here that theosophy, in the most eminent sense, will prove itself practical in the not-too-distant future. Why do we pursue theosophy? We pursue it out of love for humanity, because it allows us to intervene usefully even here in such subtle interrelationships.

[ 11 ] At the age of seven, then, the etheric body becomes free. It is the bearer of memory. The most important thing regarding a child’s memory is that it should not be trained through educational methods before the age of seven. It is only from the age of seven onward that the time comes when true education should influence the development of memory. Some object to this, arguing that nature itself ensures that the child exercises its memory long before the age of seven. That is true; but that is precisely the preparatory work that nature carries out. The child’s eye is also already naturally fully formed in the womb before birth, but what would happen if you were to expose the embryo’s eye to sunlight? Precisely so that sunlight can later act properly on the eye, nature must prepare the eye before birth. The same is true of the other organs before physical birth. Nature prepares them in advance, but they are protected by the outer covering of the mother’s womb. And so, nature must also work on the child’s memory until the age of seven, so that it can then be further developed in the proper way from the age of seven onward. And how should one influence the child’s memory from that point on? In the same way that nature influences it until the child is physically born.

[ 12 ] Human beings carry an astral maternal shell with them until the age of fourteen or fifteen, until they reach sexual maturity. Then they shed it, and the astral body is set free: a third birth takes place, so to speak. The astral body is the bearer of human judgment and human criticism. We should move away from the view that a child should arrive at independent judgment as early as possible. From the ages of seven to fourteen, it is necessary to gather a wise store of memories for life, so as to create, by the time the astral body is born, a soul content that is as mature and rich as possible. Only then should judgment begin. The earlier method of simply having children memorize the multiplication tables in school—1 × 1 = 1 and so on—is, since it relies purely on memory, far preferable to the current abstract method of “proving” the multiplication tables on a so-called abacus using red and white beads. This latter method is decidedly harmful. The same principle applies here as with a small child; the child understands language long before it can speak itself. Thus, one should not expect the child to judge until it has acquired a good store of memory for the etheric body and developed certain lasting inclinations and habits. Developing the child’s emotional life is very important: Gratitude, reverence, and sacred awe are feelings that manifest in later life as the power of blessing and radiant love for humanity. The strongest impulses are imparted to the etheric body through religious experiences, through the feeling of being connected to something divine and spiritual, to the totality of the universe. Abstract judgment should not be cultivated until a time when what flows from the etheric body has been made so soft and pliable that the danger of becoming accustomed to abstract and irreverent thinking has been averted. The more pictorial and symbolic the knowledge presented to the child, the better. The emotional world develops through parables and symbols, especially through everything presented from the stories of notable individuals, and through immersion in the mysteries and beauties of nature. Of great importance here is how questions are answered for the child. For example, when explaining the becoming of the human being, death and birth, or the emergence of the butterfly from the chrysalis. This is an image of the spiritual nature of the human being, who strives to emerge from the physical body. But of course, when one tells this to a child, one must believe in it oneself; otherwise, the child will not believe it either. Corresponding facts in nature can be found everywhere to support the truth of these images. The occultist knows that the very image of the butterfly and the chrysalis can serve as a symbol of a much higher process. We must learn to believe again in what today’s abstract philosophy dismisses as mere fairy tales. Even the stork fairy tale, and songs like “Fly, Little Beetle, Fly,” can be meaningfully understood. This fairy tale was not invented in ancient times to tell a child a lie, but was conceived by someone who knew that at birth something descends from the spiritual world. Later on, people will just as easily be able to say: It is a lie that there were people in the past who are said to have believed that, in the coming into being—in the birth—of a new human being, no other process takes place than the physical union of two people. That is a fairy tale—the fairy tale of the 19th and 20th centuries; we know better now!—is what people will say in the future. And our descendants will then, hopefully, be more understanding and forgiving of our weaknesses than we are of those of our ancestors.

[ 13 ] Symbolism is the best way to influence the astral body. The visualization should be cultivated until the liberated astral body has formed; only then should judgment be made. Why are so many people today, unfortunately, crippled in their souls? Why? Because they learned to say “yes” and “no” to things far too early. During the period leading up to puberty, they should learn to revere the great role models and the great processes of nature; judgment should not mature until between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one. There would then also be fewer of that sort of writer unleashed upon humanity—those who tend to write both below and above the line. The result of premature judgment-forming by immature yet writing individuals is the shallow materialism of our present age. This hidden materialism is far worse than the combative, scientific kind. An opinion carries weight only when it is grounded in soul experience. Human beings must learn to judge; opinions are so diverse precisely because they are formed far too early. It is not until the age of twenty-one that the “I” is born, and only from that point on can it be considered possible for a person to judge the world on their own. Only then do they face the world independently.

[ 14 ] Furthermore, from about the age of twenty-one to twenty-eight, what is called the sensory soul develops; then the intellectual soul and the conscious soul, each over a period of seven years. It is therefore an occult law that one is not capable of contributing or achieving anything in the field of occultism before the age of thirty-five. The thirty-fifth year is of particular importance. I remind you of Dante, his vision, his insight into the spiritual world: do the math—he experienced this at the age of thirty-five.

[ 15 ] Wherever occult traditions were alive, people knew that such cycles also play out within the individual human being. People knew how the spiritual forces of the human being descending into the world work, where they come into play, and how long they need to unfold properly. They knew that all life is a unity, a great whole. The way human society lives together must also be shaped by this insight. Theosophy is meant to teach us that wisdom must be translated into action—into social action and into the everyday reality of immediate life. Theosophy has all the greater value the less it remains abstract wisdom, and the more it flows through the soul into the dexterity of the hand. Dexterity is then a kind of physical expression of the spirit of the world—a sensory expression of the spiritual.