The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Man's Passage Through the Gates of Death — A Transformation of Life

During the war years, Rudolf Steiner spoke the following words of remembrance before each lecture he gave within the Anthroposophical Society in countries affected by the war:

[ 1 ] The first thoughts we now hold in our hearts as we gather in our branches should be directed toward the spirits who protect those standing out in the fields, where they must now serve the great duties of the time with their blood and souls. Let us direct our prayers to the guardian spirits of these souls, so that the love we offer in supplication may radiate outward and unite with the power of the spirits protecting these souls on the battlefields of events.

Spirits of your souls, active guardians,
May your wings bring
The pleading love of our souls
To the earthly people entrusted to your care,
So that, united with your power,
Our plea may shine with helping light
Upon the souls it lovingly seeks.

[ 2 ] And for those who have already passed through the gates of death:

Spirits of your souls, active guardians,
May your wings carry
The pleading love of our souls
To the beings of the spheres entrusted to your care,
So that, united with your power,
Our plea may shine with helping light
Upon the souls it lovingly seeks.

[ 3 ] And may the Spirit we have sought throughout our years of striving, through the power it carried through the Mystery of Golgotha, shine upon you, so that you may have the strength to accomplish what humanity’s great duties demand of you. May the Spirit who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, the Spirit of Christ, be with you!

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[ 4 ] It is a time when, in rapid succession due to the many deaths occurring almost daily, we are confronted with humanity’s connection to the spiritual world—that world into which a person enters when they pass through the gate of death. And under very special circumstances, we are confronted with these rapidly successive, almost simultaneous deaths. These special circumstances arise from the fact that numerous earthly human beings are passing through the gate of death who, under the conditions in which one would normally expect earthly human beings to find themselves, could have lived on this earth for decades longer. And whenever a human being, so to speak, passes through the gate of death prematurely, extraordinary circumstances inevitably arise.

[ 5 ] We know that when a human being passes through the gate of death, he leaves behind—as it were, surrenders to the earth element—that which falls away from him as his physical body. We know that the so-called etheric body then comes into consideration as the second aspect, but that this too separates from the individuality—composed of the astral body and the I—which passes through the spiritual realms between death and a new birth; that this etheric body, as it were, continues to act, separated from the I and the astral body. This etheric body, which now enters the spiritual world closest to us—which we have often called the etheric world—this etheric body: you can imagine that it looks different in someone who passes through the gate of death prematurely, and different in someone who has lived their life into old age. For this etheric body, which must pass through the gate of death in the case of someone who has died prematurely, would under normal circumstances have had the power to supply the physical body with life for many years, indeed decades. Now, just as in the physical world, no force is lost in the spiritual world. This force, which otherwise supplies the physical body with life, remains intact. So that we can say: If thousands now pass through the gate of death almost every day, then etheric bodies enter the elemental world that are still viable, possessing different forces than those of etheric bodies that have grown older. What now happens to these still-viable etheric bodies?

[ 6 ] Yesterday, in my public lecture, I spoke about the real folk-soul. This folk-soul is a genuine entity. It needs very special powers, especially in our time. It needs such powers at other times as well, of course, but especially in our time. This folk-soul takes in these etheric bodies that are still viable. The human being himself, with his ego and astral body, takes other paths—those paths that then prepare him for his next earthly life. But these etheric bodies separate from the human individualities; they pass into the being, into the substance of the Folk-souls. So that after such a fateful time as we are now living through, we are moving toward a time when the folk-souls will contain within themselves—as living forces within them—the etheric bodies that have been handed over to them by those who have passed through the gate of death in the battles. A time is thus approaching when the person engaged in Spiritual Science can know that what has been sacrificed on the altar of great historical events in the form of etheric bodies is not lost. A time is approaching when an active force will radiate from the Folk-souls into the individual souls, from which will simultaneously emanate that which numerous people here on Earth have absorbed in the first, second, and third decades of their youth—that which they could have retained for many decades, but which they have handed over to the Folk-souls. This will be present in the future in the forces that the Folk-soul instills into individual souls; it is not lost.

[ 7 ] Let us take this to heart. Let us consider how our awareness of our connection to the spiritual world can be awakened within us if we hold fast to the idea that, in the future, we will be able to speak of folk-souls in such a way that the fruits of sacrificial deaths are active forces within them. And this will be particularly important in the coming period. At other times this would be different, but for the coming period it will be significant for a very special reason.

[ 8 ] We lived in a dark age of materialism. It was as if the souls who could not access Spiritual Science were immersed in a powerful aura of materialism. Combating this aura will be the task of the folk-souls in the coming period. Forces will flow to these folk-souls to combat materialism through the fact that the etheric bodies of those who died prematurely continue to live on within these folk-souls—indeed, continue to live on as forces. The strongest fighters against materialism will be these etheric bodies, sacrificed on the ‘altar of human development.’

[ 9 ] Thus, we must distinguish between what, as an individual human being, traverses the realms of the spiritual world and remains united with human individuality, and what is conveyed to the collective via the etheric body; what continues to work within the spiritual collective, in the sense described here, in the substance of the national spirits.

[ 10 ] This can make a particularly deep impression on our minds when we picture two types of people in relation to this spiritual difference: the warrior who has fallen on the battlefield, who, wholly devoted to the task of his people, passes through the gate of death—who, in a sense, at the very moment he steps onto the battlefield, the moment he merely decides to step onto the battlefield, must also resolve to look death in the face—and compare this type of person with the ascetic. It is precisely when one grasps what the forces of the etheric body mean in human life that one gains a mental image of the difference between the warrior who has fallen on the battlefield and the ascetic. The ascetic works on himself. He attempts to work on himself in such a way that he completely overcomes the physical in himself, that he becomes free from this physical even during his lifetime. Because the ascetic works in this way, a significant transformation also takes place in his etheric body. He consumes, so to speak, the forces of this etheric body in the most intense way, in order to incorporate them into his ego and his astral body. What frees the ascetic from the physical benefits the individuality entirely; it serves the transformation of the individuality. So that such a person, who becomes an ascetic, can serve humanity only indirectly through what he makes of himself. But the one who frees himself from the physical body in early youth by having to yield to the demands of war surrenders the forces of his etheric body to the community; he incorporates them into the general work. One must sense this difference; it is a significant one. It points us, in turn, a little toward what reigns as reality in human life. And it is also significant to look directly at what the etheric body is, at the passage through the gate of death.

[ 11 ] At the very moment when a person passes through the gate of death, they are still united with their etheric body. We have described what happens to this body on several occasions. This union with the etheric body gives the human being the opportunity to truly live within all the mental images that the last life has kindled within them, to become completely absorbed, as in a powerful tableau, in all that the last life has given them. But this is a state of contemplation that lasts for a relatively short time, fading away as the etheric body detaches itself from the I and the astral body. Indeed, one can say that immediately after the moment of death, a fading begins—an ever-weakening of the impressions still arising from the possession of the etheric body—and what prevails thereafter is what is decisive after physical death. What is decisive there is only to a limited extent correctly imagined by people who wish to form mental images about life after death. It is even difficult to find words to describe those conditions, which are entirely different from those experienced in the physical body. One easily believes that when a person has passed through the gate of death, they must first regain consciousness. That is not actually the case. What a person experiences when they pass through the gate of death is not a lack of consciousness. With death, a lack of consciousness does not occur; the opposite occurs. There is an excess, an overabundance of consciousness when death has occurred. One lives and moves entirely within this consciousness, and just as strong sunlight dazzles the eyes, so one is initially dazzled by consciousness; one has too much consciousness. This consciousness must first be dimmed so that one can orient oneself in the life one has entered after death. This takes a long time; it happens gradually in such a way that, after death, more and more moments occur in which consciousness makes such orientation possible; that the soul comes to itself for a more or less brief time and then again enters a sort of sleep-like state, as one might describe it. Then, little by little, these moments become longer and longer, and the soul enters more and more into such conditions until complete orientation in the spiritual world is achieved.

[ 12 ] It is also difficult to form clear, distinct mental images about the way in which those who have passed through the gate of death perceive their surroundings. In recent weeks, we cremated a dear anthroposophical friend, and in accordance with the deceased’s wishes, I was entrusted with the task of conducting a funeral service for the friends gathered at the place where death had occurred. During the time I spoke and addressed my words to the deceased, she was, so to speak, as if asleep. Then the heat took effect; the flames, so to speak, took hold of the body, and at that moment a kind of moment of consciousness came over the soul, like a moment of orientation, and there the deceased had the entire picture of what the funeral service and the eulogy were before her, just as one has something spatial before one at the same time. Time truly becomes space there. One does not see the past as one sees it in life, unfolding in time, but rather one sees what has passed as a spatial entity before oneself. So that what had already taken place, what had happened—let us say a quarter of an hour earlier—then stood before the soul of the deceased like a first flash of consciousness. Then came again a state of numbness in the overwhelming light of consciousness, in order to meet in this state those other states in which the soul then gradually learns to orient itself in the spiritual world.

[ 13 ] If we truly wish to form a good mental image of life after death, it is important that we take these entirely different concepts of time into account; that we realize how time there is not something of which one can say it has passed, and one remembers the things that happened in that time, but rather that what has passed remains there. Just as the table stands there and does not move with me when I go there, just as I look back at it, so after death what has happened—which can only be remembered—remains standing there, and the dead person looks back upon it, just as one looks back upon spatial objects while in the body. It is very important to take this into account. What is further of very special importance to grasp is that we truly remain in connection, that our earthly life remains in connection with what we subsequently experience between death and a new birth; at least it remains in close connection until the moment that was described in the last Mystery Drama as the midnight hour of spiritual existence.

[ 14 ] I certainly do not wish to fail to gradually give our friends a mental image of these circumstances, which are difficult to describe. The soul that has passed into death looks back on what we, as earthly human beings, have experienced between birth and death—but not as if what one has gone through were merely there; rather, it influences, in a peculiar way, many aspects of the dead person’s state of being. The state of being of the dead is, after all, not the same as that of those living between birth and death. The state of life of those living between birth and death is such that they feel enclosed within their own skin and look out into the world through their senses. As soon as one enters the spiritual world as a ‘dead person,’ one has flowed out into the entire spiritual world. One feels oneself gradually filling the entire spiritual world. And what one has lived through during one’s physical earthly existence is perceived as something that remains with one—not as a physical body, of course, but as that which constitutes the form and the forces of the physical body. This remains with one after death, but one possesses it in the same way that one now possesses the human eye in the physical body. Just as one has the eye for seeing, so does one then have oneself, the earthly life one has lived through, as a cosmic sense organ with which to perceive the world. What our eye is now to our body, that is what our earthly life is to our spiritual life after death.

[ 15 ] Our earthly life is, as it were, given to us as an eye, as a sensory organ. Only through prolonged meditation will you gradually come to realize the profound significance of the fact that our earthly life becomes a sensory organ for our existence between death and a new birth. When a person falls asleep and steps out of their physical and etheric bodies with their ego and astral body, the process is already similar. When initiation takes place and the human being becomes sighted in the spiritual world outside of their physical and etheric bodies, then they know: In the spiritual world, you perceive as through a sense organ with the spiritual part of your physical body, and you think in the spiritual world with your etheric body. Your etheric body is actually like your brain in the spiritual world, and your former physical body is a sense organ. You yourself, however, are poured out with all your life forces across the spiritual expanses. You have expanded; you do not feel confined to one place by your skin; you feel poured out, spread across the spiritual world.

[ 16 ] It is an entirely different existence. And connected with this is the fact that the one who enters the spiritual world—whether through death or through initiation—lives in such union with the other beings of the spiritual world, with beings of higher hierarchies, or with human souls living between death and a new birth, that he does not experience them as one encounters earthly human beings externally, where one is spatially separated from them. Rather, one experiences them as being with oneself in a shared spiritual space, mutually permeating one another. What another soul experiences is not perceived through that soul telling one something, as is the case with earthly human beings, but rather by living oneself into the other soul and sharing in its thoughts within its being. That is also why one can only be certain of truly experiencing within oneself what, for example, a deceased person experiences, when one knows: one is, so to speak, inside the deceased; one is not merely reproducing something one perceives according to the model of something experienced on Earth, but one perceives: “The deceased speaks through your being.”

[ 17 ] I would also like to explain this to you with an example. One of our members recently passed away. Even before the cremation, there was, so to speak, a sense that it was necessary to hear what this person had to say after death. To say, in that they were, so to speak, still connected to their etheric body and could, through their etheric body, express themselves in a sort of earthly way, yet still encompassed everything that had been woven into their soul through an intense immersion in the anthroposophical worldview. So we are dealing with a person who had reached quite an advanced age, who in the final period of her life had truly immersed herself intensely and with all the strength of her heart in our worldview based on Spiritual Science. Then she passed through the gate of death. Now she still had her etheric body. It was still before the cremation, and the etheric body was still there as a means of expression. This made it possible to express herself through earthly words, because the etheric body could relive them. And liberation from the body, from earthly existence, simultaneously made it possible to summarize the entire being that had burrowed into the soul through the heart. And as it was revealed to me how this personality, who had thus passed through the gate of death, wished to express her being—on about the second day after death had occurred—the words took shape that I can share with you, words that are thus to be regarded as words experienced by the deceased. So that one must create a mental image of this being of the soul, which had passed through the gate of death, being filled with the power of these words, expressing itself in the power of these words. And when one placed oneself within this soul, this being of the soul, this being of the dead, spoke through one in these words. That is why I could do nothing better than to address precisely these words to the deceased at the funeral, for they were the words that she, as it were, spoke herself to the friends standing around her earthly remains. I can assure you: I have added nothing, nothing to these words, but I have tried to grasp them from the essence of the deceased. Certainly, later on, what I have called the numbing of consciousness sets in—what one might call a kind of sleep state. Now the deceased would not be able to express this essence of hers in the same way, because she now lacks the medium of the etheric body. She will be able to do so again after some time, but immediately after death that would be impossible. The words are:

Across the vastness of the world I will carry
My feeling heart, that it may grow warm
In the fire of the sacred working of the forces;

In the thoughts of the world I will weave
My own thinking, that it may become clear
In the light of eternal becoming-life;

Into the depths of the soul I will plunge My resolved thoughts,
That they may grow strong
For the true goals of human endeavor;

In God’s peace I strive thus
Through life’s struggles and with worries,
Preparing the self for the higher Self;

Seeking peace that comes from joyful work,
Perceiving the world’s being in my own being,
I wish to fulfill my duty to humanity;

Living in anticipation, I may then move toward
a star of destiny, which grants me in
the realm of the spirit the place.

[ 18 ] In a sense, this is the culmination of years of immersion in the Spiritual Science worldview. This long immersion in the Spiritual Science worldview has become the very essence of the soul itself and has expressed itself in this way.

[ 19 ] This is a concrete, vivid example of how the forces of the soul are grasped when one does not merely take in the worldview of Spiritual Science in theory, but when one transforms it into life forces within the soul. Then the sensations and feelings that arise from the worldview of Spiritual Science transcend the theoretical and become forces within the soul themselves. For one thing is certain: no one who has not passed through the worldview of Spiritual Science would summarize their own being after death in such words:

In the realms of the world, I wish to carry
My feeling heart, that it may grow warm
In the fire of the sacred working of forces;

In the thoughts of the world, I wish to weave
My own thoughts, that they may become clear In
The light of eternal becoming-life...

[ 20 ] I would like to present this as a vivid example to your soul of the mysterious path that the human soul takes precisely through the moment that separates life between birth and death from life between death and a new birth, where, in a sense, everything that was still an external experience for us in earthly life becomes an inner wealth of the soul and thus lives within us. Here, Spiritual Science is still regarded as something external. Immediately after death, however, it becomes evident how it lives within the soul—indeed, let us say, just as muscular strength now lives within our physical body. One must first sense this if one wishes to truly grasp the inner meaning, the inner significance of what Spiritual Science can be for the human soul. One will then gradually—and for this one must have patience—acquire a concept of the quite different conditions that exist in the spiritual world. When we form words and concepts based on the conditions that exist in the sensory world, we can at most provide symbols of what is in the spiritual world. One must patiently work toward concepts, sensations, and feelings that express, to some extent correctly and truthfully, what the conditions of the spiritual world are. The logic of earthly life—yes, it is truly only a logic of earthly life—is sometimes quite fragile even for earthly life. I have already mentioned here how one can miss the real facts when using the logic of earthly life. I have often cited the example: Let us suppose a person is walking along a stream. We see that he falls into the stream. We rush over and discover that he is already dead. We see a rock at the spot where the person fell into the stream, and can now form a completely logical, yet superficial judgment. We can say: The person stumbled over the stone, fell into the stream, and drowned. He died by drowning. — But that may be completely wrong. If one examines the matter purely from an external anatomical perspective, it may turn out that the person suffered a heart attack; as a result, he fell into the water. The heart attack is the cause of his death. Using ordinary, correct logic, we draw the wrong conclusion. Such conclusions—just as an aside—are constantly being made in human life and especially in science. Science is full of such conclusions where cause and effect are confused.

[ 21 ] But the matter becomes important when questions of human destiny come into play. We experienced such a stroke of fate in Dornach this fall, one that is instructive in the most profound sense. The little seven-year-old son of our member, Theo Faiß, who was an exceptionally sweet, bright child, went missing one evening. It happened to be on the evening of a lecture. The mother searched for the child, but he was nowhere to be found. And it was only after the lecture was over that people actually heard that the mother was missing the boy, and one could think of nothing else but that the boy’s death was connected to the overturning of a moving truck. A member of our society had had her furniture sent in a moving truck, and that moving truck had overturned that evening at the spot where it was parked. It was a quarter past ten in the evening, and we tried everything possible to lift the truck. The mobilized military came to our aid to help us lift this moving truck. The moving truck was lifted, and the boy was found crushed beneath it. Now consider this: no moving truck had ever driven through this area before; nor has one since. The boy—as was later established through all sorts of what one might call incidents and coincidences—had been at the very spot where the moving truck overturned at precisely that moment—it was really only a matter of minutes, indeed a split second. It was strange, however, that at first those who were at the spot where the wagon had overturned thought only of getting the horses to safety. They had no idea that the moving wagon had fallen on the little boy.

[ 22 ] So the child was dead. The external materialistic view might say: Well, by chance the moving truck tipped over there at that very hour; the child ended up underneath it and was crushed. That, of course, is what the materialistic view would say. From the spiritual perspective, this is complete nonsense. For what we have here is the child’s karma, and this karma of the child directed all the individual circumstances. It also directed the moving truck to that spot at precisely the hour when the child needed to die, because the child’s karma willed it so. The child’s karma had run its course. We are dealing here with the necessity of truly reversing cause and effect.

[ 23 ] Through such circumstances and our perception of them, we can gradually work our way up to a true understanding of life, which leads us to turn the outward appearance of things on its head. We must reverse this in many ways. But the matter becomes truly significant when we later experience what becomes of such a fact. The soul of a human being passes through the gate of death. This soul was incarnated in a physical body for seven years. Why couldn’t little Theo have lived to be seventy, eighty, or ninety years old, outwardly speaking, if karma hadn’t made it impossible? There is an etheric body that could have sustained life for decades to come; an etheric body that was truly filled with the forces of the eternal and the good. He was an excellent boy. As for the actual individuality—the I and the astral body—you know, of course, that they then continue on their way. But the etheric body dissolves; this etheric body, into which are woven all the delicate, beautiful forces that developed during childhood, yet in which also live all the forces that come from earlier incarnations. Now consider what one has before one with such an etheric body. The individuality comes from earlier incarnations. It re-embodies itself in this incarnation; it brings with it what comes from earlier incarnations. Life in this incarnation is, so to speak, the fruit, the living out of what was the cause in a life in earlier incarnations. Throughout the entire life, these fruits could have been lived out. Then everything that comes from the fruits of earlier incarnations would have entered this etheric body. That did not happen. Instead, everything in this etheric body that still has its causes in earlier incarnations is contained within it. And the most remarkable thing is this: whoever attempts to explore the aura of our Dornach building will find this etheric body of little Theo within the aura of the Dornach building. There it is, there it hovers, there it surrounds the Dornach building. Whoever has to do with the Dornach building or will still have to do with it after that late autumn afternoon, on which little Theo passed through the gate of death, knows what has been altered in the spiritual aura of the Dornach building by the fact that this aura has been incorporated with that etheric body, which contains the forces that would otherwise have been used for decades to sustain a physical human body, and this etheric body has indeed been poured into the aura of the building.

[ 24 ] So mysterious are the paths that the wisdom flowing through the world must traverse with its creatures. One can only truly form a mental image of the nature of the course of human life as a whole—which, in the most eminent sense, includes the life between death and a new birth—by delving into the details of these matters. And since our anthroposophical movement is truly not meant to be something abstract, but rather something in which we are fully immersed with our whole being—and in which those who belong to us are also immersed—then such matters may also be discussed. After all, we do not simply unite, like other societies, around a specific program; rather, we wish to be fully immersed in our Spiritual Science movement with our whole soul. We wish to conceive of this Spiritual Science movement as a concrete current to which everyone belongs who truly commits to it in accordance with their inner feelings. And so we can say: We speak of it just as one speaks of relatives here or there within an extended family. For that which touches us in a familiar, intimate way, so to speak, also provides us with the highest, most significant, and most important insights into the spiritual world.

[ 25 ] In this spirit, I would like to mention one more of the deaths of our friends that have affected us so often, especially in recent times. Our friend Fritz Mitscher, whom we all loved so dearly, recently passed through the gates of death. And so it came to pass that I felt the need to put into words what my own soul felt as it bent down toward the soul that had just passed through the gates of death. Notice the difference between the previous words I read to you and the words I am now about to read to you. The words just read here come from the soul of the deceased. The words I am now going to read to you were inspired in my own soul at the sight of the deceased, Fritz Mitscher, who was still spiritually united with his etheric body. It is therefore the impression made by the deceased that is now reflected in these words. You may know that Fritz Mitscher, even as a young teacher in various places, especially in Berlin, was active on behalf of our Anthroposophical Society. And many of us also know how willing he was, in such a beautiful way, to combine all that he had been able to acquire in terms of earthly science and earthly learning with the noblest, most beautiful anthroposophical consciousness. This is also expressed after death, where what he was was united in his entire being, and what now radiates after death from the soul freed from the body, which still had its etheric body. And it seems to me that what Fritz Mitscher was after death had to be expressed in the words I had to send him at the cremation.

A hope that brings us joy:
Thus you entered the field,
Where the spirit’s blossoms of the earth,
Through the power of the soul’s being,
Wish to reveal themselves to inquiry.

Beings who love truth above all else
Your yearning was akin to;
To create from the light of the spirit,
Was the serious goal of life,
Which you pursued tirelessly.

You cultivated your beautiful gifts,
To walk the bright path of spiritual knowledge,
Unperturbed by the world’s contradictions
As a faithful servant of truth
To walk with sure steps.

You trained your spiritual faculties,
So that they, brave and steadfast
On both sides of the path
Pushed error away from you
And created space for truth.

To shape your self into a revelation
Of pure light,
So that the soul’s solar power
Might shine mightily within you,
Was your life’s care and joy.

Other cares, other joys,
Barely touched your soul,
Because knowledge, as light,
That gives meaning to existence,
Appeared as the true value of life.

A hope that brings us joy:
Thus you entered the field,
Where the spirit-blossoms of the earth
Through the power of soul-being
Wish to reveal themselves to inquiry.

A loss that pains us deeply,
Thus you vanish from the field,
Where the spirit’s earthly seeds
In the bosom of soul-being
Matured in your sphere of perception.

Feel how we gaze lovingly
Toward the heights that now
Call us onward to other work.
Grant to the friends you have left behind
Your strength from the realms of the spirit.

Hear the plea of our souls,
Sent to you in trust:
Here, for our earthly work, we need
Strong power from the lands of the spirit,
For which we thank our departed friends.

A hope that brings us joy,
In a loss that pains us deeply:
Let us hope that You, far yet near,
Unlost to our lives, shine
As a soul-star in the spiritual realm.

[ 26 ] These are the words that were sent to the deceased from the essence of the deceased. And then, after these words had been spoken at the cremation, some time passed. And from the being of the deceased—not yet from the well-ordered consciousness, but sounding as if from the being itself—the following words resounded; words that thus now came from the deceased during the night following the cremation.

To shape my self into a revelation
Of pure light,
So that the soul’s solar power
Might shine powerfully within me,
Was my life’s concern and joy.

Other cares, other joys,
They scarcely touched my soul,
For knowledge appeared to me as light,
That gives meaning to existence,
As the true value of life.

[ 27 ] That is how the words echoed back. It was only later that I myself discovered that the two stanzas in the middle can be directly transformed from “you” to “I” and from “you” to “me.” I hadn’t known that before. For I had heard the stanzas just as I first read them to you. And now they came back from the essence of the dead man, spoken by him:

To shape my self into a revelation
Of pure light,
So that the soul’s solar power
Might shine powerfully within me,
Was my life’s concern and joy.

Other cares, other joys,
They scarcely touched my soul,
For knowledge appeared to me as light,
That gives meaning to existence,
As the true value of life.

[ 28 ] This shows how, even in the period when consciousness has not yet taken the form it will later regain from the soul throughout the entire realm between death and rebirth, the words that are spoken to the deceased arise—even in a living transformation, indeed in a meaningful transformation. One need only feel how the worldview of Spiritual Science truly comes alive in the creation of connections between the physical and spiritual worlds. For a shiver can truly run through our soul when, through such an example, we sense how words are called out to the dead—and he returns them to us in a transformed form. On the one hand, we feel that they have gone to the dead person, because they resound from him, but they do not merely resound like an echo; rather, they are meaningfully transformed and adapted for him.

[ 29 ] These are things that give us, even in the present, the certainty and confidence that the souls living here in earthly bodies are connected to the spiritual powers that reign and weave throughout the world, and that, in turn, the human souls that have passed through death are woven into this stream of ruling and weaving spiritual forces, are within it, for it is there that they experience their further, post-mortem destinies.

[ 30 ] If we allow the connection between the physical world and the spiritual world to truly sink into our hearts, we can indeed contemplate various things. I have already pointed out here before that in this interaction—in this concrete interaction between the physical world and the spiritual world—what particularly strikes us is the impulse of the Mystery of Golgotha. We know, after all, that it is only now that we are truly beginning, through Spiritual Science, to fully grasp the meaning and significance of the Mystery of Golgotha and the Christ Being. Up to now, people have approached this with their intellect—rightly so, with their intellect. And what has come of this intellectual approach? Well, if the working of Christ in human life on earth had depended on what people understood of it, then the working of the Christ impulse on earth could not have been very great. Theological squabbling, all sorts of disputes—that is what people have grasped of Christianity with their intellect. But Christ worked through living power.

[ 31 ] I believe I have already cited here the example of the battle that Constantine fought against Maxentius, which decided the fate of Europe at that time. It was through this battle that Christianity was first recognized and then became the dominant power in Europe. This battle was not won through military strategy nor by Constantine’s armies. Maxentius had to defend Rome. By consulting the Sibylline Books and through a dream he had, he was inspired to believe that his army—which was five times stronger than Constantine’s as it marched toward Rome—should be led out of Rome by him; then he would destroy Rome’s enemies. Now he actually led his army out of Rome—strategically the most unskillful thing he could have done, for from a strategic standpoint, everything pointed to keeping his army in Rome and letting the enemy armies approach; but he led his army out of Rome. And on the side of Constantine, who led his armies against Rome, it was not military-scientific reasons that gave him the strength, but he, too, had a dream. The dream told him: If you have the monogram of Christ carried before your armies, you will defeat Rome. — Through Constantine’s victory with his weaker army, the entire map of Europe was transformed at that time and for the future. The spiritual life of Europe, too, was thereby transformed. What people were able to comprehend at that time would not have been sufficient to accomplish these feats. The Christ impulse worked its way into the subconscious of human beings, into that which lived in the depths of their souls—things of which people could only dream, things that arose in them at most as dream images.

[ 32 ] We find a later, highly significant example of the influence of the Christ impulse in the Virgin of Orleans. Anyone who truly studies history—not in the way history is often studied today, but by attempting to recognize the true connections—can see that what the Maid of Orleans did absolutely determined the fate of Europe for the centuries to come. It was not military strategy, nor the wisdom of politicians, but what the shepherdess of Orleans did that was decisive for the fate of Europe, and especially for the fate of France. But the Christ impulse was at work in the Maid of Orleans through its Michaelic representative. It worked into the soul of the Maid of Orleans. Her soul was completely permeated, thoroughly inspired by the Christ impulse. Just as back then, when the battle between Constantine and Maxentius was decided, the Christ impulse was at work without people in their conscious minds being aware of it, so too did the Christ impulse work when the Maid of Orleans sent the French armies against the English armies. The entire continent would have turned out differently, including England, had France not triumphed back then. England, too, would not be what it has become had it not been defeated. But as I said, what brought about the victory were the subconscious forces that arose in visions; through them, the abilities of the Maid of Orleans were inspired. So that one can say: What the Maid of Orleans did was under the influence of a more or less unconscious initiation. It is, of course, an unconscious—one might also say, an atavistic—initiation. A pure soul vessel, such as the Maid of Orleans was, simply had to be seized unconsciously, through which the Christ impulse could work via its Michaelic representative—a pure vessel.

[ 33 ] Let us now take a closer look at this matter. If someone today consciously undergoes an initiation—well, there are rules for that. The basic principles are, of course, set forth in my book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?*. There are rules through which one can gradually work one’s way upward. Of course, there could be no question of such a conscious initiation in the case of the Maid of Orleans. But a spirit that is not otherwise united with the human soul had to take hold in this human soul, to permeate this human soul. For this to happen, particularly favorable circumstances had to arise. After all, a spirit from higher spheres cannot always intervene in souls that are capable of receiving it. Particularly favorable circumstances must arise for an individual human soul to come into contact with higher worlds without initiation, without conscious work on oneself. Particularly favorable circumstances exist during the time when, so to speak, the Earth spirit awakens in a special way: from December 25 to January 6. When the sun is at its highest in summer, when the physical heat of the earth radiates most strongly, the conditions for initiation are at their worst, because the spirit of the earth is asleep then. The spirit of the earth is most awake in the darkness of winter, at the winter solstice.

[ 34 ] Therefore, it is not merely a legend, but corresponds to the truth when ancient legends recount that during the thirteen nights preceding January 6, certain particularly suitable souls were initiated so that they could enter the spiritual world and experience there what we call Kamaloka and Devachan. We well remember that here in Hanover the legend of Olaf Åsteson was once recounted, who, during those thirteen nights, traveled the entire path—which may be the path through Kamaloka and Devachan—while asleep. Olaf Åsteson then recounts what he experienced during those thirteen days.

[ 35 ] Thus, when the external physical darkness of the earth is at its deepest, conditions are most favorable for guiding a soul into the spiritual world. For souls who are initiated not through direct conscious effort but through particularly favorable circumstances—for all of humanity, for a deed such as that accomplished by the Virgin of Orleans—it would therefore have been most favorable if she could have slept during those thirteen nights, and if she could have been brought into contact with the spiritual world while asleep; if she could have gone through all of this in a sort of sleeping state. Now, it is indeed the case that the Maid of Orleans went through such a sleeping state. And this came about because the Maid of Orleans spent these thirteen days up to January 6 in her mother’s womb in a state where the human being is still asleep. For the human being does not awaken to physical life until he is born and takes his first breath. In the case of the Virgin of Orleans, the final nights of sleep in the embryonic state fall within the period of the thirteen nights, for she was born on January 6. Therein lies a profoundly significant inner historical connection. Therein lies the foundation of the mission of the Virgin of Orleans, who was destined, as this pure soul, to receive her initiation in this state of sleep during the last thirteen nights of her mother’s pregnancy—before taking her first breath—precisely within the particularly favorable circumstances of earthly life. Here the calendar simply shows you this. For if you look it up in the calendar: on January 6th you will find the birthday of the Virgin of Orleans. There the calendar shows you how a deeply inner connection exists here between the physical world and the processes in the spiritual world. Of course, the soul of the Virgin of Orleans, prepared through her previous incarnations, was necessary. But since this soul and that which could come through it came together during those thirteen nights, what then took place—as it did historically—was precisely to make possible, at this very point in human development, the influence of the spiritual world upon the physical world.

[ 36 ] The spiritual world, with all its elements, is therefore always present. The spiritual world is always among us. And the paths the spiritual world chooses to work in the physical world are many and varied. And our awareness of our connection to the spiritual world grows ever stronger the more we express the connections between the physical and spiritual worlds in such details with particular depth, as these connections live vividly in our souls.

[ 37 ] On the other hand, it must be said: Even what happens here in the physical world can serve as a preparation for the nature of the connection between the spiritual world and our physical world. And when someone who has absorbed as intensely as Fritz Mitscher what flows through our Spiritual Science and passes into the spiritual world in the thirtieth year of his life—February 26 would have been his thirtieth birthday—and has imbued his soul with what can penetrate the soul as a force through our Spiritual Science, then we have a powerful individuality who will remain with us in the spiritual world, who is a helper of the most tremendous kind. And when one considers how difficult the pursuit of spiritual science is, especially in our time, in this age so thoroughly permeated by materialism, then it may perhaps also be said that the one who is connected to the spiritual world with every fiber of his being places the greatest hopes in those who can become spiritual helpers, who become spiritual helpers after shedding their physical body. It goes without saying, of course, that passing through the gate of death must never be a personal decision, but must be brought about solely by karma. These spiritual helpers are those who give us comfort and hope when we see how difficult it is, especially in the present, to carry our Spiritual Science movement through the manifold obstacles. But we know how higher spiritual forces work upon the Earth so that the current of the spiritual worlds may flow into the physical goals of the Earth. Thus the unspent forces of human souls ascend into the spiritual worlds to work there with their powers, united with other forces. That is why I truly called out these words to our Fritz Mitscher from the depths of my heart:

Hear the plea of our souls,
Sent to you in trust:
For our earthly work here,
We need the strong power from the realms of the spirit,
For which we thank our departed friends.

[ 38 ] When we sincerely strive to advance our spiritual movement toward its goal, we are aware that the forces we employ here on Earth are also influenced by those that our friends have already carried through the gate of death into the spiritual world.

[ 39 ] We can now bring all of this together to understand the general state of the world. The human souls who are now passing through the gate of death as a result of these fateful events bring, on the one hand, their etheric bodies to the national spirits. On the other hand, they carry into it all the self-sacrificing devotion they have mustered by passing through the gate of death with their individuality precisely through these events of the times. And all of this will be poured out as a force into the coming age. And it will be up to the people who then live through the peace to establish the connection of their own accord with what will be up there. Those who today, as mothers and fathers, as brothers and sisters, or other relatives, experience the passing of a loved one on the battlefield can take into their consciousness the fact that, with the etheric body, something of immense significance for the future passes into the general activity of humanity on Earth. Not only can they know that the individualities, strengthened and invigorated by the sacrifice of death, are heading toward a later, more vigorous earthly life, but they can also know this: that which the warrior who has passed through the gate of death has bequeathed to the Folk-souls is weaving and living on. In a double sense, one must say, both within the general folk-souls and as individualities, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers now have among themselves those who have passed through the gate of death at a young age. And this idea will only have great value when it has become a feeling in its entirety, so that we will not merely speak of immortality, but will know in our hearts: the dead are here, are in our midst—when this bond becomes so strong that, even for our feelings, death will actually be a falsehood. For the dead can reveal themselves even more truly than they often do in physical embodiment when they can gather all their being together and when they are no longer hindered by their physical body. Immense streams of comfort, streams of inner strength for self-consolation, flow from what Spiritual Science can give to souls in living consciousness and living feelings. Then, when this is felt in this way, those who profess Spiritual Science in particular can look to the future with hope. In these present events, which are heavy with destiny and bear the weight of fate, they can sense something like a twilight at the turn of the ages, which will be followed by a time of peace and sunshine. But a key aspect of the spiritual power of this era of peace will be what has been achieved through the sacrificial death of so many.

[ 40 ] This will bear fruit here on earth especially through the creation of a bridge, a connection, between the living—the souls embodied in physical bodies here on earth—and the souls who are above and wish to radiate down what they have taken with them. And this is where a true understanding of Spiritual Science truly touches our hearts and calls upon us to do what we can, out of the consciousness we have acquired through Spiritual Science, and what we can do through feeling, so that the great, fate-shaping, pain-inflicting events of the present time may, as far as it is in our power, bear fruit for the benefit and healing of humanity. Those who know something of Spiritual Science can know through feeling and feel through knowing, thereby creating a bridge up into the spiritual world: through the souls who have remained below sending upward thoughts and feelings that can be kindled by Spiritual Science. The horizon for this will be a horizon of peace. Above will be the souls who wish to send down rays of spiritual light. Below there must be people who have learned to send upward from their souls such thoughts and feelings as are inspired by Spiritual Science. Then, when there are truly souls who consciously direct their sense of purpose toward the spiritual realm, the bridge will be built, then the time will have come when, precisely through such pain-filled, fateful events as are unfolding in our time, an intimate bond must be woven between the physical world and the spiritual world toward which we strive through our Spiritual Science.

[ 41 ] We summarize what our understanding and our mission should be—and what should inspire confidence—in the following words:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of battle,
From the suffering of the forsaken,
From the sacrifices of the people
The fruit of the spirit grows—
Guiding souls, spiritually aware,
Toward the realm of the spirit.