The Rudolf Steiner Archive

19. The Living Interaction Between the Living and the Dead I

[ 1 ] I warmly return the kind greeting just expressed by your representative. And I am convinced that those friends who have come up here to this city with me to cultivate anthroposophical life with our friends in Bergen wholeheartedly join in this welcome. It was undoubtedly a beautiful journey here through the mountains, which seemed so friendly and magnificent to us, and I believe that our friends will feel at home in this old Hanseatic city during the days they are able to spend here. Not only did the marvel of human engineering that is the railway on which we traveled give us, in this very region, an intimate sense of something rarely experienced in other parts of Europe—namely, that, in close proximity, we encountered human creative energy in the midst of primeval nature: when one sees how stones that had to be quarried to achieve what the human spirit accomplishes today lie right next to those that nature has piled up, then impressions arise that can truly make a visit to such a land the most wonderful thing one can undertake today. In this ancient city, our friends will spend the days we are privileged to be here in a beautiful way and will cherish them especially in their memories because of this sublime backdrop to our stay. They will be days of remembrance. But they will be so, in particular, because we have been able to convince ourselves through the outward, physical appearance that even here in this region we can find anthroposophical hearts that beat in unison with us in the pursuit of humanity’s spiritual treasures. Surely the visitors to this city will feel even closer, even dearer, even more cherished in their connection with those who have welcomed us so warmly here.

[ 2 ] Since this is, in a sense, the first time we have gathered here, what I would like to discuss will take on a somewhat aphoristic character. I would like to discuss certain aspects of the spiritual world that are easier and better expressed orally than they can be recorded in writing. It is easier to say this orally not only because, in the face of the world’s prejudices today, it is still difficult in many respects to entrust to writing, so to speak, everything that one would gladly entrust to devoted anthroposophical hearts, but also because spiritual truths are truly better expressed orally than they are when entrusted to writing and print. This must apply in particular to the more intimate spiritual truths. One always has a somewhat bitter feeling, even though in our time it is indeed necessary that these things be written down and printed; it is always problematic to write down the more intimate spiritual truths, which relate to the higher spiritual worlds themselves, and to have them printed. It is awkward for this very reason, because writing and printing belong to the things that the beings in question—the spiritual beings—cannot read. Books cannot be read in the spiritual world. Although we can still read books from memory for a short time after our death, the beings of the higher hierarchies cannot read our books. And if you ask whether they do not wish to acquire this art of reading, I must admit, based on my experience, that for the time being they show no desire to do so, because they do not find the reading of what is produced on Earth necessary or useful for themselves. The reading by spiritual beings begins only when people on Earth read the books; that is to say: when what is written in the books becomes the living thought of human beings, then the spirits read in the thoughts of human beings. But that which is written or printed is like darkness to the beings of the spiritual world; so that one has the feeling, in relation to these spiritual beings, that when one entrusts something to writing or printing, one is communicating behind the backs of the spiritual beings. This is a real feeling that a cultured person of the present day may not fully share; but every true occultist will have this feeling of aversion toward writing and printing.

[ 3 ] When we penetrate the spiritual worlds with our clairvoyant vision, it seems to us, especially in the present, to be of particular importance that, starting from the present and extending into the near future, knowledge of the spiritual world should spread more and more widely, because much will depend on this spread of Spiritual Science with regard to a change in human soul life that is becoming ever more necessary. You see, when we look back to ancient times with our spiritual vision—even if we go back only a few centuries—we discover something that may come as quite a surprise to the uninitiated. For one finds that communication between the living and the dead is becoming increasingly difficult, that even a relatively short time ago the living interaction between the living and the dead was much more active. When the Christian of the Middle Ages, or even the Christian of centuries not so long past, directed his prayer in remembrance of deceased relatives or acquaintances, the feelings and emotions of such a person praying were, in those bygone centuries, far more powerful than they are today in reaching up to the departed souls. In the past, the departed soul felt much more deeply permeated by the warm breath of love from those who looked up to it or thought of it in prayer than is possible today, when we devote ourselves solely to the external flow of time. And again, today the dead are much more cut off from the living than was the case even a relatively short time ago. The dead today find it, so to speak, much more difficult to perceive what is happening vividly in the souls of those left behind. This is part of the evolution of humanity. But it must also be part of the evolution of humanity to rediscover this connection, this living communion between the living and the dead. In earlier times, a living connection with the dead was still naturally inherent in the human soul, even if not with full consciousness, since people have not been clairvoyant for quite some time now. In even earlier times, the living could still look up to the dead with clairvoyance and follow the lives of the dead. Just as it was natural for the soul in the past to have a living interaction with the dead, so today the soul can, by acquiring thoughts and ideas about the higher, spiritual worlds, find the strength once again to establish communication with the dead, that living interaction. And among the practical tasks of the anthroposophical life will also be this: that the bridge between the living and the dead be built more and more through Spiritual Science.

[ 4 ] To ensure we understand each other correctly, I would first like to draw attention to certain aspects of the interaction between the living and the dead. I would like to start with a very simple phenomenon and explore it from a spiritual research perspective. Souls who sometimes take a moment to reflect on themselves will be able to observe the following—I believe there are many souls who have observed this in themselves: Let us suppose that someone in life hated another person, or perhaps simply had to admit to themselves that they found this other person unpleasant. When this person who was hated or toward whom someone felt antipathy then dies—I believe that many souls know this intuitively—then the one who hated or felt antipathy in life, upon learning of the death, feels that they can no longer hate this person in the same way or maintain that antipathy. And if the hatred persists beyond the grave, then more sensitive souls feel a sense of shame regarding such hatred, regarding such antipathy that lasts beyond the grave. This feeling, which is found in many souls, can now be observed clairvoyantly. During the research, one may ask oneself: Why does this sense of shame arise in the soul in the face of hatred or antipathy? Why does it arise when one has not even hinted to a second person in life that one harbors this hatred?

[ 5 ] When the clairvoyant follows the person who has passed through the gate of death into the spiritual worlds and there casts a glance upon the soul that has remained here on earth, it turns out that, in general, the departed soul has a very clear perception, a very clear sense of the hatred in the living soul; as it were, if I may use an image: the dead person sees the hatred. The clairvoyant can state quite precisely that the dead person sees such hatred. But we can also trace what such hatred means for the dead person. For the dead person, such hatred constitutes an obstacle to the good intentions in their spiritual development—an obstacle that can be compared to the obstacles we might encounter on Earth in achieving an external goal. This is the reality in the spiritual world: the dead person encounters hatred as an obstacle to their good and highest intentions. And now we understand why, in the soul that reflects a little upon itself, even hatred that was justified in life dies away: because it feels shame when the hated person has died. If a person is not a clairvoyant, they do not know what is happening there, but it is as if a natural feeling were planted in the soul that they feel observed; they feel: the dead person sees my hatred; indeed, this hatred is even an obstacle to their good intentions. — There are many deep feelings in the human soul that become clear when one ascends into the spiritual worlds and grasps the spiritual realities underlying these feelings. Just as one does not wish to be physically observed in certain matters on earth, or rather, just as one does not do these things when one knows one is being observed, so too does one not hate beyond death when one has the feeling that one is being watched by the dead. But the love, or even just the sympathy, that we show toward the deceased is actually a relief to the deceased on their journey; it clears away obstacles for them. What I am saying now—that hatred creates obstacles in the afterlife and love removes them—is not a violation of karma, just as many things happen here on Earth that we do not have to directly attribute to karma. If we stub our toe on a stone, we do not always have to attribute that to karma, at least not to moral karma. Likewise, it does not contradict karma when the deceased feels relieved by the love flowing to him from the earth, and when he encounters obstacles to his good intentions.

[ 6 ] Another point that, one might say, speaks even more forcefully to the souls regarding the interaction between the dead and the living is that the souls of the dead also need nourishment in a certain sense—though not the kind of nourishment that people on Earth need, but rather spiritual and soulful nourishment. Just as it is a fact that we humans on Earth—if I may use this comparison—must have our fields of sowing where the fruits grow from which we physically live on Earth, so too must the souls of the dead have fields of sowing where they can harvest certain fruits they need during the time between death and a new birth. When the clairvoyant gaze follows the souls of the dead, it sees how the sleeping human souls are the seedbeds for the dead, for those who have passed on. It is certainly not only surprising, but for one who sees this for the first time in the spiritual world, even deeply unsettling, to see how the human souls living between death and a new birth, as it were, rush toward the sleeping human souls and search for the thoughts and ideas that are within the sleeping human souls: for they feed on these, and they need this nourishment. For when we fall asleep in the evening, we can already say: there the ideas and thoughts that passed through our consciousness during our waking state begin to live, becoming, as it were, living beings. And the departed souls come near and partake of these ideas. In the sight of these ideas they feel nourished. Oh, there is something deeply moving about directing one’s clairvoyant gaze toward departed souls who come every night to those left behind who are sleeping—we must consider here both friends and, especially, blood relatives—and wish, as it were, to refresh themselves, to nourish themselves on the thoughts and ideas that the living have taken with them into sleep—and find nothing that is nourishing for them. For there is a great difference between ideas and ideas with regard to our state of sleep. If we occupy ourselves all day long only with the material ideas of life, if we direct our gaze only toward what is happening in the physical world and what can be accomplished there, and if we do not even have a thought of the spiritual worlds before falling asleep, but on the contrary, in many respects, carry ourselves over into the spiritual worlds by means other than thought, then we offer no nourishment for the dead. — I know regions in Europe where young people at universities are educated in such a way that they lull themselves to sleep by drinking the so-called “sleep-inducing” amount of beer. This is a transmission of ideas that cannot live on the other side. And when the dead souls arrive, they find an empty field; then it is with these dead souls as it is with us regarding our physical body when famine breaks out due to barrenness in our fields. Especially in our time, much spiritual famine can be observed in the spiritual worlds, for materialistic feelings and sensibilities have already become widespread. And there are already numerous people today who consider it childish to concern themselves with thoughts of the spiritual world. In doing so, they deprive the people who are to receive nourishment from them after death of this nourishment, this nourishment for the soul.

[ 7 ] To properly understand this fact, it must be noted that after death, one can draw sustenance only from the ideas and thoughts of those souls with whom one had some connection during life. One cannot draw sustenance after death from those with whom one had no connection whatsoever. If, in our present time, we wish to spread spiritual science so that we may once again have spiritual life in our souls from which the dead can draw sustenance, we are truly not working merely for the living, nor merely so that the living may find theoretical satisfaction; rather, we strive to fill our hearts and souls with thoughts of Spiritual Science, because we know that the dead who were connected to us on earth must, after death, nourish themselves from these ideas and these feelings for spiritual life. Today we feel ourselves to be not only workers for the so-called living people, but at the same time also workers in such a way that the work of Spiritual Science, the dissemination of anthroposophical life, also serves the spiritual worlds. By speaking to the living for their daily lives, and through spiritual soul-satisfaction for their night-life, we create ideas that are fruitful nourishment for the souls who have the karma to pass away before us. And that is why there is an urge not only to spread Spiritual Science or anthroposophy through the ordinary means of external communication, but— one might say, lies secretly at the root of our longing to spread this Spiritual Science or anthroposophy in societies, in branches, because there is value in those people who practice Spiritual Science being together personally and physically in community, in society. For I have said that as a dead person one can draw nourishment only from the souls with whom one was together in life. We seek to bring souls together in order to make the seedbed for the dead ever larger and larger. Many a person who, when they have passed away, finds no seedbed today because their family consists only of materialists, finds it among the souls of the anthroposophists, because they have been brought together with Spiritual Science. This is the deeper reason why we work on a societal level, why we have a certain concern that those who pass away may, before they die, come to know people who are still engaged with spiritual matters while on earth; for from this they can draw sustenance when these people are in a state of sleep.

[ 8 ] In the early stages of human development, when a certain religious and spiritual life still permeated the souls, it was the religious communities—and especially blood relatives—to whom people turned for refuge after death. But the power of blood kinship has waned, and it must increasingly be replaced by the cultivation of spiritual life, as we are attempting to do. Thus we see that anthroposophy can promise us that a new bond, a new bridge, will be created between the living and the dead, that through anthroposophy we can, in a sense, be something for the dead. And when we already find people today, through the clairvoyant gaze, in the life between death and a new birth who suffer the misfortune that those who knew them—even their closest relatives—have only materialistic thoughts, then we recognize the necessity of permeating earthly culture with spiritual thoughts. When one encounters, for example, a person who died some time ago, when one finds them in the spiritual world, and one knew them when they lived here on earth, and they left behind certain members of their family whom one also knew—their wife, children—in the outer sense good people who truly loved one another— and then, with clairvoyant vision, one finds the father who has passed away, for whom his wife was perhaps like a kind of sun in his life when he came home from hard work, then one finds that, because this wife cannot have spiritual thoughts in her mind and heart, he cannot look into the soul of this wife, and that he asks, if he is able to do so: “Yes, where is my wife?”—He looks back only to the time when he was united with her on earth. But where he seeks her most, he cannot find her. That can happen, too. There are already many people today who, in a sense, believe that the dead have simply entered a kind of nothingness; they can only think of the dead in a completely materialistic way, not with a fruitful thought. When looking at the realms of life between death and a new birth, at someone of whom one knows: is still down here on earth, that he loved someone, but one does not connect this with the belief in the soul’s survival after death—it is precisely at that moment after death, when one focuses one’s attention most intently on this—through this desire to look upon the living person one loved—that all vision may die. And one cannot find the one who is still living, cannot make contact with him, though one knows that he could exist if there were spiritual thoughts in the soul of the living one down there. This is a frequent, painful experience for the dead. And so it can happen—as can be observed through clairvoyant vision—that many pass away and, despite the best of intentions, encounter obstacles due to the thoughts of hatred that pursue them, and find no comfort in the loving thoughts of those who loved them on Earth, since they cannot perceive them because of their materialism.

[ 9 ] These laws of the spiritual world, which can be observed in this way through clairvoyance, are in fact absolutely valid. They are as absolutely valid as a case demonstrates that has been observed on several occasions. It was instructive to observe how thoughts of hatred, or at least thoughts of antipathy, take effect, even where they are not consciously harbored! One can observe schoolteachers who are usually described as strict, who have not been able to win the love of their still-young students—there are, as it were, innocent thoughts of antipathy and hatred. When such a teacher dies, one sees how, even in these thoughts—which, of course, remain—he faces obstacles to his good intentions in the spiritual world. The child, the young person, often does not realize, once the teacher has died, that they should no longer hate, but rather retains this in a natural way through the lingering feeling of how the teacher tormented them. Through such insights, one learns much about the interrelationship between the living and the dead.

[ 10 ] And that is really all I have been trying to explain, so that I might mention to you something that can truly develop into a fruitful outcome of Spiritual Science endeavor. I am referring to what is known as “reading aloud to the dead.” For it has indeed been shown, particularly within our anthroposophical movement, that we can render extraordinary service to the souls of those who have passed away before us by reading spiritual texts to them. This can be done by directing one’s thoughts toward the deceased and, to make it easier, trying to picture them as one remembers them: standing or sitting before one. One can do this with several people at the same time. One does not read aloud, but follows the thoughts attentively, always with the thought of the deceased: the deceased is standing before me. This is reading aloud to the dead. You do not need a book, but you must not think in an abstract way; rather, you must actually think through every thought: this is how one reads to the dead. One can even take it so far—though this is more difficult—that if, within a shared worldview, or regarding any area of life at all, one has shared a thought with the deceased and had a personal relationship with them, one can also read to someone who was a stranger. This happens in such a way that, through the warm thought one directs toward them, they gradually become aware of you. Thus, it can even be beneficial to read aloud to strangers after their death. This reading can take place at any time. I have been asked what time of day is best for this. It is entirely independent of the hour. One must simply think the thoughts through thoroughly. A superficial approach is not enough. One must go through the text word for word, as if reciting it inwardly. Then the dead read along. And it is also incorrect to believe that such reading aloud can be useful only to those who have approached Spiritual Science during their lifetime. That need not be the case at all.

[ 11 ] Some time ago—perhaps not even a year ago—one of our friends, along with his wife, began to feel uneasy every night. They sensed a sense of unease. And since the man’s father had recently passed away, our friend immediately thought that his father wanted something, that his spirit was trying to make contact with him. And when our friend consulted with me, it turned out that the father, who had wanted nothing to do with Spiritual Science in life, had the most vivid need after death to learn something about Spiritual Science. And when the son, together with his wife, read to the father the lecture series on the Gospel of John that I had once given in Kassel, this soul was deeply satisfied and felt lifted above many of the disharmonies it had previously experienced shortly after death. This is remarkable in this case because the soul in question was that of a preacher who had always and everywhere represented his religious standpoint before people, but who, after death, could only find satisfaction in being able to read along with a discussion of Spiritual Science concerning the Gospel of John. Thus we see that the person we wish to help, the person we wish to serve after death, does not necessarily have to have been an anthroposophist in life, although we will of course serve them in a very special way when we read to them.

[ 12 ] But when we consider such a fact, we also learn to think about the human soul in a way that differs from what is usually believed. Human souls are, in fact, much more complex than is generally thought. What takes place in the conscious mind is really only a small part of the life of the human soul. Much takes place in the subconscious depths of the soul, of which a person may at most have a vague inkling, but of which they are scarcely aware in their clear daytime consciousness. And the opposite can often occur in the subconscious life—the opposite of what a person believes or thinks in their conscious mind. A very common scenario is when a member of a family comes to Spiritual Science. A brother or a husband or a wife with whom the others are connected becomes increasingly hostile toward Spiritual Science, often angry and increasingly so, furious and increasingly so, because the spouse or the brother or the wife has come to Spiritual Science. A great deal of antipathy toward Spiritual Science then often develops within such a family, so that some people find it difficult for this reason, because good friends or relatives often become very angry and furious. When one examines such souls, one often realizes that in the subconscious depths of such a soul, the deepest longing for Spiritual Science is developing. Sometimes such a soul longs for Spiritual Science more than the one who, with his conscious mind, is an eager attendee at Spiritual Science gatherings. But death lifts the veil from the subconscious; death balances such things out in a remarkable way. In life, it often happens that someone numbs themselves to what lies in the subconscious, and there are indeed people who actually have a longing—a deepest longing—for Spiritual Science, but they numb themselves. By raging against Spiritual Science, they numb their longing and deceive themselves about it. But after death, that longing emerges all the more powerfully. And it is often precisely those who raged against Spiritual Science in life who, after death, experience the most intense longing for it. Therefore, do not fail to read aloud to such deceased individuals who fought against Spiritual Science in life! In doing so, you may often be doing them the greatest service of all.

[ 13 ] A question that frequently arises in connection with all this is this: Yes, how can one know whether the dead can really hear us? Well, without clairvoyant vision it is difficult to know, although gradually, as one engages with the memory of the dead, one will find oneself surprised by a feeling: the deceased is listening. One will not have this feeling only if one is inattentive and does not pay attention to that peculiar warmth that often spreads while reading aloud. One can truly cultivate such a feeling. But if one cannot do so, my dear friends, it must be said that in our approach to the spiritual world, a rule must apply even in this case—one that must often be taken into account. That rule is: Yes, when we read aloud to the deceased, we are helping them under all circumstances, provided they can hear us! If they do not hear us, we are first and foremost fulfilling our duty; we may even bring about the situation where they do hear us after all; but otherwise, we at least gain something, filling ourselves with thoughts and ideas that will certainly serve as nourishment for the dead in the manner first indicated. Thus, nothing is lost under any circumstances. But practice has shown that, in fact, this hearing of what is read aloud is something extraordinarily widespread on the part of the dead, that an immense service can be rendered to those to whom we read aloud in this way what can be drawn upon today in terms of spiritual wisdom.

[ 14 ] Thus we may hope that the barrier between the living and the dead will grow ever thinner as Spiritual Science spreads throughout the world. And truly, it will be a beautiful, a magnificent achievement of Spiritual Science—as paradoxical as that may sound—when in the future people will know—but know in a practical sense, not merely theoretically: that passing through so-called death is really just a transformation of experience, and that we are together with the dead as well; one can even let them share in what one oneself shares in during physical life. One forms a false mental image of the life between death and a new birth if one were to ask, for example: “Yes, why is it necessary to read aloud to the dead?” Don’t they know from their own experience what a person here on Earth can read aloud—don’t they know that much better? Of course, only someone who is unable to judge what one can experience in the spiritual world would ask this. You see, one can indeed be in the physical world without experiencing the knowledge of the physical world. If one is not able to judge this or that, then one simply does not experience the knowledge of the physical world. Animals, after all, live together with us in the physical world and yet do not know of it what we humans know. The fact that a deceased person lives in the spiritual world does not mean that they also know anything about this spiritual world, even though they can observe it. What is acquired in Spiritual Science is acquired only on Earth as knowledge; it can only be acquired on Earth; it cannot be acquired in the spiritual world. It must therefore, if it is to be known by beings in the spiritual world, be experienced by those beings who themselves experience it on Earth. This is a significant mystery of the spiritual worlds: that one can be in them, can observe them, but that what is necessary as knowledge of the spiritual worlds must be acquired on Earth.

[ 15 ] Yes, my dear friends, there is something I must tell you regarding the spiritual worlds—something that will resonate in many ways and be elaborated upon in our reflection tomorrow—about which people usually do not have a clear mental image. When a human being lives in the spiritual world during the time between death and a new birth, they direct their longing toward our physical world in much the same way as, in a certain sense, the physical human being here directs their longing toward the spiritual world. And what a human being must expect from people on Earth between death and a new birth is that these people, from Earth, show him and let shine forth that which can only be acquired on Earth. The Earth has truly not been established in the spiritual world for nothing. It has been called into being so that that which is only possible on Earth may come into being. Knowledge of the spiritual world that goes beyond merely observing or gazing at the spiritual worlds is possible only on Earth. And if I have said before that the spiritual beings of the spiritual worlds cannot read our books, I must now say: That which lives within us as spiritual knowledge is for the spiritual beings—and also for our own souls after death—what books here on our Earth are for physical human beings, what it is through which physical human beings learn about the world. Only these books, which we ourselves are, are alive for the dead. Feel the weight of this word: that we must, in a sense, provide reading material for the dead! Our books are, after all, more patient in a certain respect; our books do not cause their letters to be swallowed up into the paper, for example, while we read them. We humans often deprive the dead of reading by filling ourselves only with what is truly invisible in the spiritual worlds—by filling ourselves only with material thoughts. I must say this because the question often arises as to whether the dead might not know for themselves what we can give them. They cannot, because Spiritual Science can only be founded on Earth and must be carried from there up into the spiritual worlds.

[ 16 ] And when we enter the spiritual worlds ourselves and experience a little of life there, we encounter conditions that are quite different from those here in physical life on Earth. That is why it is so extraordinarily difficult to convey these conditions of the spiritual worlds in human words and human thoughts. And it sometimes sounds so paradoxical when one tries to speak concretely about the conditions in the spiritual worlds. You see, I could tell you about a being—to pick just one example—a departed human soul with whom I was able to explore certain aspects of the spiritual world, because she had special knowledge of him: the painter Leonardo da Vinci, specifically regarding what the famous painting in Milan actually looked like. When one explores a spiritual fact in collaboration with such a soul, that soul can point one to many things that one might otherwise not find in the Akashic Records through mere clairvoyant vision. But the human soul that is in the spiritual world can point these things out. It will, however, only be able to point them out if one has an understanding of what it is trying to point out. Something peculiar emerges here. Let us suppose one investigates with such a soul the manner in which Leonardo da Vinci created his famous Last Supper in Milan. Of what this painting is today, one sees little more than a few patches of color. But one can observe Leonardo painting in the Akashic Records; one can observe what this painting was like, though this is not easy. If one conducts research with a soul that is not incarnated but has a connection to Leonardo da Vinci and his painting, one sees that this soul shows one this or that. It could, for example, make clear what the faces of Christ and Judas actually looked like in this painting. But one realizes that the soul could not show this to you unless, at the very moment it shows it, understanding were to enter the soul of the living researcher. The soul needs this understanding. And the dead soul itself only begins to understand what it otherwise merely looks at, at the very moment when the living human soul allows itself to be taught. That is why—the expression is, of course, symbolic—such a soul, after one has experienced something with it that can only be experienced in this way, says: You have brought me here to the picture—the soul says this to the living person because the living person had the need to explore the picture—and now I feel the urge to contemplate the picture together with you. — So says the dead soul, and then all manner of things are experienced. But there comes a moment when the dead soul is either suddenly no longer there or says that now it must depart. In this case, which I am just describing, the dead soul said, for example: While Leonardo da Vinci’s soul has looked upon this place with pleasure until now, it no longer wishes for further exploration.

[ 17 ] I want to describe something very important about spiritual life. Just as in physical life one always knows what one is looking at—one always knows: one sees this or that, one sees the rose, one sees the table—so in spiritual life one always knows: this or that being is looking at one. One walks through the spiritual worlds and always has the feeling: these beings are looking at you now. Whereas in the physical world one has the awareness of moving through the world while perceiving it, in the spiritual world one has the experience: you are now being seen by this one, then by that one. One feels constantly exposed to gazes that at the same time prompt one to decide to do something. Knowing that one is now being looked upon with favor or not, so that one should or should not do something, one does it or does not do it. Just as one reaches for a flower that one likes because one has seen it, so in the spiritual world one does something because some being likes to see it, looks upon it with favor, or one refrains from doing it because one cannot bear the gaze that is turned toward this act. This is something one must certainly accustom oneself to. There one has the feeling of being seen oneself, just as here one has the feeling of seeing. In a certain sense, what is active here is passive there, just as what is passive here is active there. — From this you can see that one must, so to speak, acquire entirely different concepts if one wishes to grasp descriptions of the spiritual world in the right way. And you will therefore understand how difficult it is to express in ordinary human words what one so readily wishes to present as descriptions of the spiritual worlds. Thus you will understand how necessary it is that, for many things, the necessary preparatory understanding be first established.

[ 18 ] I would like to draw attention to just one more point. The question might arise: Why does Spiritual Science literature generally describe what happens in the spiritual world immediately after death—what occurs in the Kamaloka and in the spirit world—and why is so little described about individual clairvoyant insights? For one might easily believe that it would be easier to observe a single, specific deceased person after death than what is generally described. That is not the case. And to indicate how it is, I would like to use a comparison. It is easier for properly developed clairvoyance to survey the great conditions—such as the passage of the human soul through death, how it ascends through the Kamaloka into the Devachan—than to survey any single experience of an individual soul. Just as it is easier in the physical world to recognize that which is, so to speak, under the influence of the great celestial movements, and more difficult to recognize that which is, in a certain sense, irregular in relation to the great celestial movements. Now, each of you will be able to easily predict for tomorrow that the sun will rise in the morning and set again in the evening. Everyone will know that roughly. But what the weather will be like tomorrow is known with less certainty. It is the same with clairvoyance. The conditions we usually describe in our accounts of the spiritual worlds can be compared to knowledge of the general course of the celestial bodies; these are known first in the clairvoyant consciousness. And one can always count on events generally unfolding in this way. But the individual events in the life between death and a new birth are like the weather conditions here on Earth, which of course also follow laws, but are more difficult to discern even on Earth itself; for one cannot know from every place what the weather is like in another place. That is simply how it is. It is difficult to know here what the weather is like in Berlin, but not where the sun or the moon is there. It requires special training of the clairvoyant gift, since it is more difficult to follow the individual life after death than the general course of the human soul. And on the right path, one first acquires knowledge of the general conditions, and only at the very end, when it is attained through training, does one acquire that which seems easiest. One can see very clearly regarding Kamaloka and Devachan for a long time and yet find it extraordinarily difficult to see what time it is on one’s own watch, which one carries in one’s pocket. Things in the physical world are the most difficult of all for clairvoyant training. The exact opposite is the case when learning to perceive the higher worlds. One is prone to errors in this area because natural clairvoyance is still present; although it is unreliable and subject to manifold errors, it can persist for a long time without one having the clairvoyant insight into the general conditions described in Spiritual Science, which are easier for the trained clairvoyant.

[ 19 ] These are the things I wanted to describe to you today regarding the spiritual worlds. Tomorrow we will continue these reflections and explore them in greater depth.