The Rudolf Steiner Archive

18. The Human Experience After Death

[ 1 ] We have often emphasized how the present can best be understood through the past and its events, and we will also most easily discover and come to grasp the distinctive features of our spiritual ideals for the future by looking back on ancient, long-past times. Today, therefore, we wish to draw attention to what emerged after the downfall of ancient Atlantis, and in doing so, we will focus on what human beings experienced in the time after death.

[ 2 ] The state of the soul between death and a new birth was not always the same; it, too, has changed in the course of human evolution. During the four great cultural epochs—the ancient Indian, that of the holy Rishis, the ancient Persian (Zoroastrian), the Egyptian-Chaldean, the Greek-Latin, and our present age—human beings became ever more closely bound to the physical plane and grew ever more attached to it. In each of these periods, the human soul descended, so to speak, ever deeper into the sensory world. The more understanding humanity had of this world, the more alien the spiritual world beyond death became to them. This was most evident in the Greco-Latin culture. The Greeks loved the physical world, this sensory existence, because they could express their whole soul through their marvelous art—this magnificent embellishment of physical existence. The Romans loved this world because, through the discovery of the “I,” they could fully develop within themselves the sense of their own personality. The concept of the Roman citizen and Roman law are milestones of this cultural epoch. The Romans felt at home in this physical, sensory world. It was only from this time onward that legal concepts began to emerge, so that one can rightly speak of the rise of jurisprudence in the Roman Empire; it is the hallmark of the reverence for the individual personality. And death became the great unknown, a source of fear. Achilles’ saying—“Better to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of shadows”—best describes the contemporary view of the condition of souls during the afterlife. It corresponds to the soul’s experience in the spiritual world. The more these souls lived out their full potential in the earthly realm, the more their ability to find their way in the spiritual world after death diminished. The soul felt lonely in the worlds it now entered. Even in the spiritual realm, it had the feeling that everything around it was dark, empty, and cold. It lacked the ability to experience the spiritual reality of the world beyond. Not even the great guides of humanity—the Initiates—could change this state of affairs, they who are teachers of humanity not only here on Earth but also in the worlds beyond. When they told the dead something about the world on this side, the dead felt it all the more painfully that they had to do without the physical world they had grown so fond of. Thus, they could not convey anything to the dead that would give them something of value, and so they all longed for reincarnation. Human beings felt cut off from their brothers and sisters; they felt abandoned even in the spiritual realm. Had this remained the case, love and brotherhood would have disappeared more and more from the earth as well. For dwelling in the spiritual realm would have had no other effect on the souls than to cause them to carry egoism—the life centered in the self—from there into their sensory-physical existence as an inherent disposition.

[ 3 ] While in ancient Indian times people still regarded the earthly world as Maya, things changed as development progressed. Zoroaster had already pointed out that human beings could rediscover the spiritual even within the physical world. He opened the path through which peoples were to come to realize that the outer body of sunlight is merely the outer body of a high spiritual being, which he—in contrast to the small human aura—called the great aura, Ahura Mazdao. By this he meant to suggest that this being—though still far removed at present—would one day descend to Earth to unite substantially with the Earth within the course of human history and to continue working in the evolution of humanity. Thus, Zarathustra pointed these people toward the very same being who later lived in history as the Christ. “When you gradually come to understand,” he said to his disciples, “that the spiritual is present within all that is physical and sensory, that the physical is permeated by the great solar aura, by Ahura Mazdao, then Ahriman will no longer be able to lead you astray.”

[ 4 ] At other times, Zarathustra spoke: “So great and so powerful is the one who has revealed himself to me in the sun that I would give up everything for him. Gladly would I sacrifice to him the life of my body, the ethereal existence of my senses, the expression of my deeds—the astral body.”

[ 5 ] That was the vow once made by the great Zarathustra. He pointed out to his disciples that the great Spirit of the Sun would reveal itself directly within the earth itself, in its very realities. Thus Zarathustra begins with the teaching that sees in the sensory world only the physiognomy, the expression, of the spiritual.

[ 6 ] Then came the time when this same being, whom Zarathustra had proclaimed, revealed itself to Moses in the burning bush and on Mount Sinai. Moses now teaches that this solar being is at the same time the “I”-being, the highest reality that a human being can take within themselves. But a drop of the solar spirit has been instilled not only within human beings, but also in everything out there in nature, in the elements, everywhere. The same divinity that revealed itself to Moses in the name “I am who I am”—that which had once revealed itself to Zarathustra as Ahura Mazda, as the innermost, most intimate essence, as the source of all being—was thus proclaimed to an entire people as the Highest, whose name was unpronounceable and could be uttered only by the priest in the Holy of Holies. The deity who lives within man—who reveals himself not only in the essence of the elements, in the flash of fire—is proclaimed here.

[ 7 ] In Zarathustra, we can thus see the forerunner of Yahweh, the very same being who, at the beginning of our calendar, dwelt in the body of Jesus of Nazareth and remained there for three years. It is the same God whom Moses and Zarathustra proclaimed.

[ 8 ] “How will you believe me if you have not believed Moses and the prophets?” says Christ. In this way, Christ confirms that the Old Testament foretold the same God, proclaiming Christ only under a different name. All events in the world require a certain amount of time to run their course. On Mount Sinai, in the burning bush, this solar being descending from spiritual heights had reached the point where it could communicate with humanity through the elements. Now it drew ever closer and closer to the Earth—at the baptism in the Jordan, into the physical form of Jesus of Nazareth—and when the Mystery of Golgotha unfolded on Earth and the blood flowed from the Savior’s wounds, this was not only the expression of a great cosmic event but also of the greatest earthly event: Christ entered the Earth’s aura as the Spirit of the Earth. A new turning point had occurred. Clairvoyantly, this could be observed in that at that very moment the Earth’s aura changed, revealing very specific colors. New colors appeared within it; new forces were incorporated into it. At the very moment when the blood flowed from the Saviour’s wounds on Golgotha—the blood that is the physical expression of the “I”—the “I” of Christ united with the Earth. But the moment had also come when things could begin to change in the spiritual world for souls after death. This is the meaning of Christ’s descent into hell.

[ 9 ] Anyone who possessed clairvoyant vision before the event at Golgotha would not have seen in the Earth’s aura what could later be perceived there, after Christ Jesus had passed through death at Golgotha. Let us consider the event at Damascus: Saul, who as an initiate into the Jewish mysteries knew very well that the great aura—Ahura Mazdao—would one day unite with the Earth, refused to believe that this being could have met its end on the shameful cross. Even though he had witnessed the events in Palestine, he did not believe that this great Spirit had dwelt on Earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. It was only when he experienced a clairvoyant vision at the gates of Damascus that he saw within the Earth’s aura the Christ Spirit, the living Christ, whom one had previously been unable to perceive there. Then he said to himself: “Yes, what was foretold—that the Earth’s aura would change—has now come to pass!”—and Saul became Paul. Paul himself calls himself a “premature birth,” one who has become clairvoyant through grace; a premature birth because he was not yet fully matured, had not descended so deeply into matter, and was less firmly bound to the physical body. Anyone who follows the history of Christianity knows that Paul is the most important figure who contributed most to its spread. It was, therefore, an occult fact—a supersensory event—that converted Paul, and one can say that through this clairvoyant event, humanity came to Christ. At that time, when the Earth’s aura was changing—and it has remained changed ever since—when blood flowed from the Saviour’s wounds, what is enshrined in the words of the Gospel of John came to pass: “He who eats my bread tramples me underfoot.” Since then, Christ has become the Spirit of the Earth, the planetary Spirit. The Earth is the body of Christ; He dwells within the Earth. This profound statement from the Gospel of John is not to be understood merely as a derogatory remark or as a reference to Judas, who betrayed Christ, but rather it must be related to the Christ-Yahweh deity and its relationship to the Earth.

[ 10 ] When the occult researcher compares Greek art with post-Christian art, he discovers the following regarding their effect on the world that humans enter after death: For example, when the clairvoyant beholds a Greek temple with its Doric columns—such as the ruins of Paestum—with the physical eye, he can revel in the harmonious forms that are born of the spiritual principles themselves and that thereby truly make this temple a dwelling place of the god, Just as a soul feels drawn to the body that corresponds to it, so the god descends into these forms, which so perfectly correspond to his nature. But when the clairvoyant’s eye then seeks to gaze upon the spiritual counterpart of this temple, he finds nothing of it in the spiritual world. How utterly erased this temple is there; how empty is the space in the spiritual world—nothing of it is to be seen there. If, on the other hand, the seer contemplates in the same spirit the works of post-Christian art or, for example, the Gospel of John—that which is connected with Christ-Yahweh, the Old and New Testaments, or Raphael’s Madonnas—and if he contemplates these creations first with his physical senses and then clairvoyantly, they are not lost in the spiritual world but shine there even more magnificently. This is especially true of the Gospel of John. Only then does the greatness of this creation become apparent to you. Only in the spiritual world does what can be described as connected to the event of Golgotha become clear and distinct to you.

[ 11 ] At the same time as the historical event on the physical plane, something spiritual took place that was also symbolic, for blood flowed from the Savior’s wounds. When Christ was no longer living in the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth—at the very moment he died on Golgotha—Christ appeared in the spiritual world to the souls living between death and birth, and then the darkness there gave way. As if by a ray of light, the spiritual world was suddenly illuminated. Just as in a dark room all objects suddenly become visible when a ray of light enters—just as you suddenly see everything that was always there but which you could not perceive before—so the light poured into that world of the departed. And they, in turn, were able to perceive what was around them, could once again feel connected in the spiritual realm with their brothers, and could now bring love and brotherhood into the physical world as a foundation. A new light thus entered this world of the dead, for the Mystery of Golgotha is significant not only for the world in which it physically took place, but also for all the worlds with which human beings come into contact during their evolution. Had conditions in the spiritual world remained as they were for the dead during the Greco-Roman era—had the soul remained in the icy cold and loneliness of that time—then what we call brotherhood and love would have disappeared more and more from the physical world. Humanity would have brought with it from Devachan a tendency toward isolation. For the light that streamed into the earthly world at that time—and which also shone into the world of the dead—is meant to establish the realm of brotherhood and love on Earth. That is the mission of the Christ impulse.

[ 12 ] Now let us examine the mystery of Golgotha—the mystery of the blood flowing from the Savior’s wounds—from yet another perspective.

[ 13 ] We know that human beings on Earth have inherited a legacy from the Moon. The three lower bodies—the physical, etheric, and astral bodies—were prepared for them, and it was only on Earth that the “I” was added, the expression of human freedom and independence. In ancient times, it was important to establish the unity of humanity. At first, relationships between human beings were preserved only by giving them a physical foundation. Blood is the expression of the “I.” Blood kinship and blood ties dominated the human race. Physical blood was the means, the medium, through which one could act from one human being to another. Such was the case in ancient times. Now, however, through Christ Jesus, love has become a non-physical bond. The activity of the human group “I” recedes into the background. In the past, the individual belonged to a collective tribal “I,” and felt secure within it, in the bosom of Father Abraham. This sense of belonging was far more important than his individual self. His higher self resides in the bond of kinship. We read in the Old Testament about Noah and other patriarchs that they lived for centuries. This is to be understood as taking us back to times when human beings not only had a memory of what they themselves experienced, but when this memory extended far back through the generations. He did not say “I” to himself, but lived as if his “I” extended all the way back to his distant ancestors. His life did not begin at his birth; he did not begin there to say “I” to himself, but rather said “I” to all that his ancestors had experienced.

[ 14 ] Throughout the ages, the Luciferic beings have waged their most fierce attacks against the love of kin. They sought to make every single human being self-centered. They sought to instill this sense of self-consciousness in human beings between death and a new birth. Divine beings, bearers of love, sought to unite human beings with one another in love through bonds other than those of blood, which do not account for freedom. The Christ principle unites the full development of the “I” with the power flowing from the Spirit of Love and allows it to act from human to human. Hence the saying: Christus verus Luciferus—Christ the true Lucifer or Bringer of Light, and ultimately the adversary of the fallen Lucifer. Christ transformed blood ties into spiritual love, into the flowing brotherly love from soul to soul. Christ’s saying, “Whoever does not leave father and mother cannot be my disciple,” is to be understood to mean that blood ties must be transformed into brotherly love, which embraces all people with equal strength. Spiritual science does not seek to take anything away from all these sayings of the Bible; rather, it can only add a deeper understanding of Christian grace when it is received in the proper sense. The power of spiritual love was what Christ first brought to the human soul upon His appearance on Earth, and with the blood that flowed from the Savior’s wounds on Golgotha, the “excess blood” of humanity, so to speak, was sacrificed; through this act, the teaching was sealed that the individual must stand before the individual as one human brother facing another. Understanding of Christ is still very limited in the world today. One must first learn to grasp the full magnitude of this most momentous cosmic event. Some have always sensed the full significance of the Christ Being and His appearance on Earth. How did they sense it? Look to the people and nations that have long maintained a connection with the spiritual world. The Indian did not attach much importance to his connection with the physical world. He sought to attain supersensible truths and the highest spiritual life in the spiritual world, but he did not wish to grow fond of physical life. Let me tell you an Eastern legend that magnificently illustrates how the Christ principle was intuitively grasped there.

[ 15 ] Over time—so the story goes—the power that guides our Earth came into being. An Eastern legend recounting this story was told in the temples of Tibet—in its northern regions—to the disciple of the Buddha’s primordial wisdom and has been preserved ever since. Kashyapa, according to the Eastern legend, the Buddha’s foremost disciple, lived in a time when there was little understanding of wisdom, even in the East. And when he sensed his end approaching, he withdrew to a cave; there he lived for a long time, and his body was to remain there, awaiting the appearance of the Maitreya Buddha, so that it might then ascend to heaven.

[ 16 ] This legend means: If nothing special had happened—that is, if the Christ had not appeared on Earth—then neither the East nor the West would have been able to find their way into the spiritual world. Kashyapa’s body will be preserved until the Maitreya Buddha liberates the corpse from the earth—that is, until humanity regains the powers in the future necessary to spiritualize all that is earthly. A being of even greater stature than any that has ever descended will come down to lead Kashyapa’s body up into the spiritual world. Christ Himself liberates Kashyapa’s body. And in the time following this event, the body is no longer there. What does this mean? The body has simultaneously been transferred into the spiritual world. In the element of fire, Kashyapa’s body can be liberated. Where is this fire? It is spiritualized, as Paul sees it near Damascus. Thus, the appearance of Christ on Earth is the great turning point at which human beings can once again ascend from the physical world into the spiritual world.

[ 17 ] And now consider what the Buddha taught. Through contemplation of old age, sickness, death, and so on, the Buddha realized the great truth of suffering. And he taught the cessation of suffering—liberation from suffering through the extinction of the craving for rebirth and for sensory existence.

[ 18 ] Now consider humanity six hundred years later. What do you see? Humanity is venerating a corpse: it is gazing upon Christ on the cross, who died and, through his death, brought life. Life has overcome death.

[ 19 ] First: Is being born suffering? — No, because Christ entered our world through birth; from now on, for me, a Christian, being born is no longer suffering. - Second: Is illness suffering? — But the great remedy will arise: the power of the soul, kindled by the Christ impulse. By connecting with the Christ impulse, a person spiritualizes their life. - Third: Is old age suffering? — But while his body becomes frail, he himself grows ever stronger and more powerful. — Fourth: Is death suffering? — But through Christ, the physical body has become the symbol that death—the physical—has been conquered by life—the spirit—that death has been definitively overcome by life. - Fifth: Is separation from what one loves suffering? - But the person who has grasped Christ is never separated from what he loves, for Christ has illuminated the world between death and a new birth, so that the person remains connected to what he loves. - Sixth: Is it suffering not to receive what one desires? - Whoever lives with Christ will no longer desire what does not belong to him, what is not given. - Seventh: Is being united with what one does not love suffering? - But the person who has come to know Christ kindles within himself that great, all-encompassing love that embraces every being, every thing, and loves them according to their worth. — Eighth: Being separated from what one loves is no longer suffering, for in Christ there is no longer any separation.

[ 20 ] Thus, for the illness of suffering, which the Buddha taught about and recognized, Christ has provided the remedy.

[ 21 ] This progression of humanity toward Christ and the body on the cross is the greatest turning point that has ever occurred in evolution.