The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] Now, at a time when death has afflicted us so deeply, I would like to touch upon some questions from Spiritual Science related to the problem of death; specifically, I will offer a sort of introduction to these issues today, tomorrow I will speak in more detail about various aspects related to the topic, and on Sunday I will then make the transition from this problem to more general questions regarding the artistic conception of life, which will in turn lead us back to some reflections on our building.

[ 2 ] If we wish to consider those experiences connected with the problem of death, we must first and foremost be clear that human beings are, in essence, quite ignorant of their true nature—that which reigns and weaves within them. Not only ignorant regarding the deeper aspects of their own hidden existence, but also regarding many things that actually play a significant role in everyday experiences. We must indeed be fully aware that we actually observe, so to speak, almost exclusively from the outside using the most important organs of perception we have for the physical world—the senses—and that in this observation from the outside, what we might call our skin indeed separates us from the perception of our true human being. And as soon as we judge our true human being, as soon as we want to form a picture of this true human being, we must apply our intellect, our power of imagination. But this intellect, this power of imagination, is, in the course of our development within the physical body, very strongly influenced by forces from both the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic sides, and all these influences—those exerted from the Ahrimanic and Luciferic sides upon our intellect, insofar as it is bound to the brain—are capable of clouding to the highest degree the judgment we form of ourselves.

[ 3 ] The situation with all human self-knowledge today is really just like the extreme case I cited last time during our discussion—that of the university professor who himself recounts how, as a young man, he was walking down the street and suddenly saw a young person approaching him with a face he found terribly unsympathetic, and how he was startled when he realized he had seen himself through the reflection of two mirrors placed opposite each other, which showed him his own physiognomy; so that one sees he had no idea what he looked like based on his outward appearance, which he found extraordinarily unappealing. I have already mentioned how he recounts a second similar incident involving himself. But it is really no different with what we call our more precise self-knowledge. That which sets out with us on the journey through the worlds once we have passed through the gate of death—our I, our astral body—eludes our observation during our physical life; for when we wake up, this I and this astral body do not reveal themselves to us. They do not reveal themselves to us in their true form, but rather as they are reflected through the images that the etheric body and the physical body project of the I and the astral body. We would indeed be able to see our astral being and our I in their true form between falling asleep and waking up, were we not then in a state of unconscious sleep. Even the dreams that unfold in ordinary life are, in a limited sense, only true expressions of our being, because they are reflections of what takes place in our astral body from within our etheric body, and because we must first, so to speak, understand the language of dreams in order to arrive at the correct interpretation. Then, of course, if we understand the language of dreams, we can gain insight into our true nature from the dream processes. But in our ordinary life, we are accustomed to simply accepting the images of the dream. Yet this is no wiser than if we were not really reading a text, but were taking it according to the signs of the letters that the letters describe.

[ 4 ] That which constitutes our true being eludes us during our life between birth and death. We must be clear that within our astral body and our ego lie all those feelings and all those impulses of will that lead us to our actions, to our deeds, but also to our judgments and our views of the world. There, in the depths of our being, where our astral body and our true self reside, there we have a whole world of emotions, a whole world of feelings, of impulses of the will. But what we form as our own view of these emotions, volitional impulses, and feelings in everyday life is, for the most part—truly for the most part—in a rather distant connection to what we truly are in the innermost depths of our being.

[ 5 ] Let us take the following example. It can certainly happen in life that two people face each other, that two people live together for a long time, and that through the peculiar forces which play into the astral body and the ego of one person from the unknown aspects of the astral body and the ego of the other person —for these forces remain hidden—that, as a result of these forces, one person develops a veritable desire to torment the other, a kind of need for cruelty. It may well be that the person who harbors such a desire to torment, such a need for cruelty, is completely unaware of these emotions in the astral body and the ego, and that regarding these things they do out of the impulse toward cruelty, they construct a whole set of mental images that explain their actions on grounds entirely different from the impulse toward cruelty. Such a person might tell you that they did this or that to the other person for this or that reason. These reasons can be very astute, and yet they are not there to express the truth. For the concepts we form in ordinary life about the motives of our own actions, indeed even of our own feelings, are, as I said, often in a very, very distant connection with what truly lives and weaves within us. Indeed, it may be that the Luciferic power actually prevents—truly prevents—the personality in question from becoming clear about its need for cruelty, about its need to inflict all manner of things upon the other personality, and that under the influence of this Luciferic power, everything this personality says about the reasons for their actions is there only to spread a veil, a mask, over what is truly present in the soul.

[ 6 ] The reasons we give in our conscious mind are often intended precisely to conceal from ourselves, to cover up from ourselves, what truly lives and stirs within our soul. Often these reasons also have the character of a defense against ourselves, for we would find ourselves as unsympathetic as that professor found his own physiognomy. Thus we would find ourselves unsympathetic in our soul if we had to admit to ourselves which impulses, which emotions actually reign in the soul. And because we feel the need to protect ourselves from the sight of our own spiritual being, we invent all manner of things with Lucifer’s help that truly grant us protection—protection by numbing us to what truly reigns in our soul. Just as it is true that what appears to us in the outer world becomes a maya through the nature of our imagination, so it is also true that what we tell ourselves about ourselves is, for the most part, a maya in ordinary life.

[ 7 ] In particular, certain inner drives and needs of our inner being lead us to deceive ourselves about this being time and time again. Let us suppose that a person is vain, suffering from a certain vain megalomania. There are said to be quite a number of such people in the world. One admits this. But if one did not, in the manner just described, put on a mask over what one actually carries in one’s soul, one would admit even more readily that there is vain megalomania in many souls—in many souls that suspect nothing, absolutely nothing, of it.

[ 8 ] Such megalomania desires many things; but when I say “desires,” please understand me correctly: this desire does not rise to consciousness; it remains entirely in the subconscious. Such a personality may wish to exert a certain dominant influence over one personality or another, but because it would have to admit that this drive for dominant influence over the other personality stems from vain megalomania, this particular personality does not admit it to itself. Now, naturally unconsciously, they must appeal to those seductive forces that Lucifer is constantly able to exert upon the human soul. And under Lucifer’s unconscious influence, such a personality never comes to say to themselves: What is within me, what generates the desire to dominate others within me, is vain megalomania. They do not say this to themselves; instead, under the influence of Lucifer, they often invent an entire system to explain their feelings, which they sense vaguely but whose true nature they do not wish to admit to themselves. Thus, this person feels certain emotions toward this or that individual, but cannot admit to themselves that they actually wish to dominate this person and cannot do so, perhaps because the person cannot be dominated. So the soul, under the influence of Lucifer, invents a system. It invents the system that the person in question is plotting something evil against them, and imagines in detail the specific things that person is supposedly plotting; they feel persecuted by this or that person. But this entire system of judgments and concepts is a mask; it exists solely to conceal that which is not meant to rise from the inner life of the soul, to shroud it in a veil, a true maya.

[ 9 ] A man once told me, regarding a series of his actions, that he had undertaken them all out of the most solemn sense of duty, out of an infinite devotion to the cause he was representing. I had to reply to him: What you think about the motives behind your conduct, your actions, is not at all decisive. The only thing that determines a judgment of a person’s behavior is reality, not what he believes about his own actions. — But reality showed in this case that the cause of this action, too, was the impulse, the inclination, to gain a decisive influence in a certain direction. I told the person in question quite openly: While you believe you are acting out of an iron sense of duty, you are acting out of an impulse, out of a selfish urge to gain influence, and you reinterpret this course of action as purely dutiful, as selfless. You do what you do not because that is the way it is, but because it pleases you, because it gives you a certain pleasure—in other words, again out of a selfish impulse.

[ 10 ] Thus, what reigns and weaves within our soul can be extremely complicated, and bears not the slightest resemblance to our opinions or our mental image of ourselves. That can be very, very complicated. You will admit from the outset that one must know this if one is to live in a world of truth, not in a world of maya, and that it is also necessary to express this in a radical way from time to time. The reasons that drive us to act—the real, true reasons—can only gradually and slowly become clear to us as we truly learn to recognize the secret connections between the human being and the world through Spiritual Science.

[ 11 ] Let’s take a very specific case. You’ve all heard that there are people in the world who are called chatterboxes. You’ve all heard that somewhere in the world there are people who can be called chatterboxes. If you ask such chatterboxes why they gather at their coffee klatches or elsewhere and talk so endlessly—they are even said to talk far more than they can account for—if you ask such people, you will hear many reasons why they must discuss this or that. You can meet people on the street who are hurrying here or there to get there quickly; and when you find out what they’re up to, you see that it’s often just the urge to engage in the most vain, useless, and foolish chatter there. If one asks such individuals for their reasons, these reasons will often sound extraordinarily beautiful, nice, and wonderful; at the very least, however, they will be very effective at actually concealing the true facts. Now let us point to these true facts.

[ 12 ] What happens, then, when we chatter—when we speak, of course the same thing happens—what happens then? Well, you see, through our respiratory organs, through our speech organs, we set the air in motion in a way that corresponds to the forms of the words. We generate those physical waves within us, and of course also the corresponding etheric waves, for when we speak, something very significant is always taking place in the etheric body. We generate physical waves—the air waves—and then the etheric waves that correspond to our words, that give expression to our words. Just imagine this very clearly: While you sit there like this—no, not you, pardon me!—while a person sits there like this with a coffee cup on the table in front of them, they set a whole inner organism in motion, that inner organism which corresponds to the form of expression, the outer physical and etheric form of expression of their words. He indeed has something within him that undulates and weaves; he generates this within himself, but he also senses it, he feels it. He feels this movement of the physical and etheric bodies because the astral body and the ego are constantly interacting with them. The astral body is constantly bumping against the etheric wave and becomes aware of it, and the ego is even constantly bumping against the physical wave of the air, so that the astral body and the ego are constantly, while we speak, touching something, coming into contact with something.

[ 13 ] In this contact, in this interaction, we become aware of our ego and our astral body, and this is the highest sense of well-being a human being can experience: when they can enjoy themselves. In this contact between the astral body and the ego with the etheric body and the physical body, something similar indeed takes place to what happens on a small scale when a child licks a candy, for the joy and pleasure of licking candy lies in the fact that the astral body comes into contact with what is happening in the physical body, and the human being thus becomes aware of himself. One becomes aware of oneself in this process; one enjoys oneself.

[ 14 ] In truth, it is self-indulgence that draws those who sit down with a cup of coffee to chat away for an hour or two. It is self-indulgence, then, that people are seeking there.

[ 15 ] One cannot become aware of these things unless one knows that human beings are actually fourfold beings, and that all four aspects are engaged in every activity in the outer world.

[ 16 ] There may be something else at work in various ways. We have seen from the example just given how human beings have an instinct to derive pleasure from the contact of their astral body and their ego with the etheric body and the physical body. But human beings also often feel the need to simply touch their etheric body with their astral body. In this case, the etheric body must, in a certain way, generate movement, generate inner activity, so that the astral body can touch it. Such things take place much more in the subconscious than other things. There is an impulse in human beings to touch their etheric body with their astral body—of which they are, of course, unaware. This impulse manifests itself in the most curious ways: we observe that one or another young man—and in recent times it is said to occur among young women as well—that this or that young man cannot rest until he has been pressed against someone. It is sometimes an immensely pleasant feeling to see oneself in print, but it is mainly a pleasant feeling because, in seeing oneself in print, one indulges in one of the worst illusions of all, namely, that one is also being read! Well, the latter is not always the case—that one is actually read when one is in print—but one believes it at the very least, and that produces an immensely pleasant feeling. And many a young man, and as I said, many a young woman as well, cannot bear it; they are constantly anxious until they are in print. What does that mean?

[ 17 ] Yes, you see, that means that when we are published and actually read—which, as we know, happens only very rarely these days—our thoughts pass into other people, and our thoughts live on in other human souls. But these thoughts live in the etheric bodies of other people. But within ourselves, the thought takes root: what you yourself had as a thought in your etheric body now lives out there in the world. One has the feeling that out there in the world, our own thoughts are living. If they truly live out there, if they truly exist out there—in other words, if what we have printed is actually read—then it exerts an influence on our own etheric body, and then we come into contact with what lives out there in the world. Because it lives in our own etheric body, we collide with it—together with our own astral body. This is a very different kind of collision than when we merely collide with our own thoughts; after all, human beings do not always have the strength for that, because these thoughts must be drawn from one’s own being with a certain energy. But when thoughts live out there, when we can have the awareness: out there live the thoughts that originate from you—then our astral body, at least in our belief, collides with what of us is in the outer world. But this is an eminent self-indulgence. This self-indulgence underlies all craving for fame, all craving to become known, all craving for recognition in the world. Underlying this drive toward self-indulgence is nothing other than a need to collide with our astral body against the objective thoughts of our etheric body and thus to become aware of ourselves in the collision. You see what a complex process—a process between the astral body and the etheric body—lies at the root of what plays a certain role in the outer world.

[ 18 ] Of course, these things are not mentioned in order to hold them up before your soul as a scarecrow, so to speak, to ward off humanity’s moral judgment. They are certainly not meant to be that, for everything that has just been mentioned is part of the perfectly normal peculiarities of life. It is simply a matter of course that, as we speak, we also enjoy ourselves, even if the speaking does not consist of idle chatter. It is also quite natural that when we have something printed—not out of a desire for fame, but because we feel obligated to say something to the world—we also come into contact with the thoughts of our etheric body; then the same process is at work. One must not, therefore, conclude that one should always flee from these processes, that one must always regard these processes as something immoral, for I mean all this only symbolically. If a person were to flee from everything that impinges upon them from the Luciferic and Ahrimanic sides, they would have to—I mean this symbolically—jump out of their skin the moment they become aware of it. It goes without saying that Lucifer and Ahriman exert no other influences on us than those that are also fully legitimate, normal influences in human life; it is only that Lucifer and Ahriman carry them out in a distorted manner, as I have indeed expressed in various lecture cycles.

[ 19 ] But if you bring all this to mind, you will see how infinitely varied, how infinitely complex those threads in life are that run from one human soul to another, and that extend from the human soul back out into the world—how infinitely complex it all is. But at the same time, you will realize how little—how very little—human beings truly know about their relationship to other people and to the world through what they perceive and imagine. What we imagine about ourselves is really only a tiny fragment of what we experience. And this mental image is mostly a maya. Only by making Spiritual Science a true asset in our lives, rather than a theory, can we actually see beyond the maya; only then can we gain some understanding of what is, in essence, constantly at work within us. But the fact that we have only a small, and moreover mostly untrue, fragment of the fabric into which we are woven in relation to the world does not change things; things are still as they are. All these hidden forces, this hidden web from human soul to human soul, from human beings to the various agencies of the world—all of this is there, all of this plays into the human soul every minute of sleep and wakefulness. And you will be able to gauge from this how much work is required to arrive at a true understanding of the human being.

[ 20 ] But it is one of the emotional nuances we need if we are to truly feel what belongs not to earthly incarnation but to eternity—namely, that we engage in reflections such as those we have just made. For by cultivating such emotional nuances, we become aware of what the conflicts that arise in life are actually based upon. These conflicts, which life brings about and which rightly become the subject matter of poetry and other art forms, are based precisely on the fact that an unknown, hidden wave of togetherness extends, in which we swim through life, and that only a small fragment reaches our consciousness, and this fragment is usually still distorted.

[ 21 ] But we cannot live according to this small fragment; we must live with our whole soul according to the vast, manifold ramifications that exist in life. And with that come the conflicts. How can this small fragment—which is, in many cases, distorted—how can it relate properly to human life? How can it truly understand what human life actually entails? Because it cannot, it happens that human beings inevitably come into conflict with life. But where reality plays out, there truth also plays out. Reality does not conform to the mental images we form of it. And the moment there is some opportunity for reality to come into play, we see in countless cases how this reality—I would say—often mercilessly corrects our conceptual Maya. And this kind of correction that reality bestows upon our conceptual Maya provides the most significant challenges for art, for poetry.

[ 22 ] In keeping with the line of thought in today’s reflection, I would now like to begin with something artistic—specifically, something poetic—so that tomorrow’s lecture can lead into a reflection on life between death and new birth, and then, on Sunday, move on to the artistic aspects related to our building in a broader sense.

[ 23 ] I do not wish to start from something merely artistic, but from something that, in the most eminent sense, illustrates what I am to present to you as an understanding of the reality of spiritual life. But I choose the example I have chosen for the reason that reality is truly captured in an excellent little work of art. Only the occultist can judge whether this has happened, because we see in the little work of art how, when the human being as an artist attempts to penetrate the deeper problems of life, he often has no choice but to touch upon the occult aspects of life, which, in the conflicts I have spoken of, surge up from the depths like waves into the life that we, with our veil of consciousness, so often fail to penetrate deeply.

[ 24 ] What is artistically and occultly important to me is actually contained only at the end of a novella, which I wish to discuss merely as an example. Therefore, I will only sketch out the beginning in narrative form and then read the closing lines. The point is not merely to speak of a work of fiction, but to speak of this work of fiction precisely because here a poet has, in accordance with the truest occult laws, brought to life that which could be.

[ 25 ] Since the novella was written as early as the 1860s, you will see from the facts I am about to present, you will see how what we refer to as Spiritual Science—that which must necessarily come into our cultural movement on Earth—has in a certain way always been reflected and prepared for in human consciousness, and how that which is to come into fuller consciousness through Spiritual Science has been reflected, at least unconsciously, in many a soul. Perhaps such a soul already knew something of it, but because the time was not yet ripe, did not dare to express this knowledge in any other way than in the unassuming form of poetry. After all, people are much more forgiving nowadays when someone presents occult facts in the form of a novella or poetry. Even in this materialistic age, people are much more forgiving of that than if someone were to come forward directly with the truth and say that these things are realities. If they can tell themselves, “Well, that’s just fiction,” then people will sometimes still accept these things.

[ 26 ] The novella is roughly as follows. It is written as if one of the characters in the story were narrating it themselves. It is what is known as a “first-person novella.” The narrator recounts how he is friends with Mademoiselle Manon de Gaussin—the novella is set in Paris—and how, for a certain period, he visits the home of Mademoiselle de Gaussin, who is a celebrated singer, day after day. He describes how he meets a wide variety of people there—admirers of the lady of the house—including a man who is, in fact, always present whenever one enters Mademoiselle de Gaussin’s salon. But the narrator of the novella’s events notices that this man harbors more than just friendly feelings toward the lady, and he also realizes that these feelings are not reciprocated by the singer. And what is unfolding there, unfolding in the most manifold ways, is actually a conflict that arises from the fact that there is a man who ardently loves the singer, whose love is not reciprocated, but who is also not simply rejected, who is actually, at the very least, drawn to her more and more, but who thereby becomes increasingly restless and agitated.

[ 27 ] This is noted by the narrator of the novella—who is not the author of the novella (it is a so-called “first-person novella”)—and he means well by the “other.” It should also be mentioned that the actual “I” of the novella is engaged and intends to marry in the coming weeks, so that it is, of course, out of the question that there could be any jealousy. The “I” of the novella means well by the other man and one day explains the situation to him. This, as it were, opens the other man’s eyes, and he feels compelled to have a talk with the singer. This confrontation results in him leaving the house and retreating to an area outside the city. But even though he has promised not to think of this lady anymore, to forget her, and to occupy himself with all sorts of other things: he is no longer capable of doing so, is no longer able to escape this turmoil. The thoughts that had occupied him during his acquaintance with the lady keep running through his mind again and again. He leaves the city and lives outside it for some time. During this time, the protagonist of the novella has married and then had to undertake a journey. On this journey, he meets the other man, finding him in a terrible state in a hotel. The other man tells him—this comes out as they speak—how he has just withdrawn from Paris, how he tried for a while to live alone, how he then took a ride outside his estate, how he unfortunately happened to encounter the lady’s traveling party, who were also outside Paris, how all his feelings were rekindled, and how he is now actually carrying two revolvers around with him, intending to end his life at the first opportunity.

[ 28 ] The narrator of the novella still means well by this other man and invites him to his home, where he has made a life for himself: he hopes to take his mind off things. The man in question accepts the invitation, which would seem to offer him a pleasant environment in the hospitable home. But he cannot pull himself together; rather, he sinks deeper and deeper into despair and finally reaches the point where he has decided to commit suicide. The two friends talk, and the narrator of the novella manages to persuade the other man to grant at least a brief reprieve. The narrator of the novella says he must go away, and because he did not want to say, “Wait until I return”—the other man might not have done so; he might have shot himself in the meantime—he extracts a promise from him that is binding on the other. He says: “Protect my wife until I return.”

[ 29 ] After the other man has made the promise, he travels to Paris, intending to persuade the singer to come out to the country so that something might happen to rescue his friend from his miserable situation. So he goes to the city and returns to the country with the singer. They drive up to the fence of the narrator’s country house. Just as the fence allows them to pass, the narrator notices a man who had been standing at the gate running back. They continue toward the house, and then a shot rings out. The other man has kept his promise, faithfully guarding the woman. But he has posted a sentry to report to him immediately if the traveler returns. The sentry tells him: “He’s coming back now.” — And then he shot himself.

[ 30 ] So the narrator of the novella now brings the singer into the house, and from this point on I will read the text to you.

“... We reached the castle in the evening. It struck me that, as I drove into the park, a farmer who had been waiting for us ran toward the castle at lightning speed, and that, as soon as we had driven halfway down the avenue, a shot rang out. However, I was so filled with the success of my undertaking that it did not even occur to me what it might mean. The surprise was not to be kept from me for long; we drove up, no one came out; the coachman cracked his whip, I jumped out, the maid followed me; the first thing we heard was the scream of my wife’s chambermaid, who came toward us deathly pale and, with the cry, ‘He has shot himself,’ sank down before us. We rushed to the Marquis’s room; the room was full of people. I sent them all out, closed the door, and stood alone with Manon beside the young man’s body, which lay on the floor. She stared at him for a few moments, then let out a scream, sank to her knees, and fell to the floor beside him. She did not faint. She took his hands, placed hers on his forehead—he had a wound right in the middle of his chest—looked up at me, down at him, and suddenly began to sing in a loud voice. This filled me with horror; I thought she had gone mad.

Meanwhile, one of my stewards came over; he knew a little about medicine and usually acted as a doctor in cases where there wasn’t much at stake. I will never forget the terror of death that was written on his face when he saw the pair—the dead marquis and the singing gypsy girl beside him. She was silent now; she stood up, looked at me once more for a long moment, and left the room. I followed her to receive her orders. She said, “I must have a room to myself!” I led her to the first available one, had her chambermaid summoned, and hurried to my wife. Fortunately, I heard that she was out for a walk; I went to meet her and told her what had happened. Since we had both often spoken of the Marquis and had thoroughly considered such an end among all possibilities, she was less frightened than saddened. I escorted her to the castle and gave my orders regarding the Marquis. The body had been laid on the bier; his servant sat beside it, weeping bitterly, and said: ‘My master told me he must not shoot himself until you were back. That reassured me.’ So he had secretly arranged with Jean that he should keep watch over the carriage. He did just that, and no sooner had he come running with the news that the carriage had entered the park than my master stood up, made a note in the book he was reading, reached into his pocket, gave him a louis d’or, took the pistol from the table, and went into the other room; no sooner had he closed the door behind him than he was dead.” I blamed myself. Perhaps I could have saved him if I had been more forceful. Had the woman from Gauss arrived at the right moment, we might not have experienced this misfortune. I also thought: Perhaps Providence wanted to spare him from something even more terrible; for even if the singer had decided to marry him—and I believe her, though she only assured me of this afterward—the misfortunes that such a step would inevitably have entailed would not have been avoided and might have brought in their wake a misery against which everything else would have seemed desirable.

I went to see her. She was composed; one could not, so to speak, tell much by her appearance. She discussed with me the Marquis’s state of mind and his natural predisposition toward such a sad end to his life. Yet, as composed as she was, I sensed that the emotional shock she had received must have been very strong, and I feared the aftereffects. I introduced her to my wife; we ate together and then retired.

The next morning, I noticed the change that had come over her. She said she was feeling well, but there was something so strained about her appearance and something so broken about her demeanor that her looks belied her claim. She spoke of leaving soon and asked that another room be assigned to her for the following night. This was done; we spent the day in silence, and she did not retire until all the arrangements for her departure had been made.

The next day, she did not come down for breakfast. Her maid asked me to come to her mistress’s bedside. She greeted me with a faint smile and looked so pale and hollow-eyed that I could not hide my surprise.

“Dear friend,” she said, “you think I'm ugly and won't even talk to me?”

Don't you think that's natural?

Yes, you're always the sensitive, reserved one. But hiding won't help here. I feel death within me.

“My dearest friend!” I cried out in horror. “I can feel him; for I have seen the Marquis for the past two nights. Standing watch! Coming right up to me! — He is drawing me toward him!”

I looked at her closely. There was nothing frantic in her eyes, nothing mad in her voice.

“When I saw him lying in his own blood,” she continued, “the feeling that I was to blame for this tragedy became so overwhelming that I cried out, because I could no longer bear it.” It was as if something were shouting into my ear with incredible urgency: You are to blame! You murdered him! So, just to stop hearing that voice, I began to sing, louder and louder, but I couldn’t drown it out. I hear it over and over again. At night I could not sleep; I lay there watching the shadows cast by the furniture in the light of the night lamp. Then the door flew open, leaving only a thin dark strip of light. Through it, the Marquis slipped in like paper-thin smoke; his eyes were closed; he floated or walked slowly toward me, stood beside my bed, as real as you are and with his eyes closed. I didn’t want to look at him, but he forced me to; I had to fix my eyes on him; then he suddenly opened his and looked at me; I couldn’t bear it, I lost consciousness. Last night the same thing happened. I can’t take it much longer! I feel how he sucks the life out of me with his eyes.

I tried to dissuade her from believing in the apparition, citing every argument from physics, philosophy, and religion, but she remained steadfast... “I am determined to leave,” she said. “Perhaps his shadow is merely bound to this house.” I objected. I could not let her travel alone like that, nor could I leave my wife again, who was about to give birth. I therefore suggested that she move into my steward’s house and promised to watch over her bed the following night. She finally allowed herself to be persuaded, stood up, and staggered about like a shadow.

That evening, after she had gone to bed, the chambermaid called me to her. I had a table with lamps set up close to her bed, a folding screen placed around it, and, after talking with her for a while, began to read a book. She seemed to be asleep; the lamps were burning dimly. I trimmed the wicks, drank some wine and water, and kept an eye on the door. Suddenly—it was made of old wood and not very sturdy—it sprang open; the latch must not have been properly secured. I was about to go over quietly to close it silently when, turning toward Mademoiselle de Gaussin, I saw her sitting upright in bed with staring eyes. She stretched out her arms toward me, clung to mine, and pointed straight ahead:

Here he comes!

There was absolutely nothing to be seen.

“Where?” I said.

There!

I broke free from her and stepped forward.

Here?

“Come on,” she cried, “he's right in front of you!”

I was right next to her.

Cover my eyes, I can't stand it! There he is! He's touching your knees!

I pressed both her hands over her eyes; she was breathing heavily, but she couldn't see a thing.

After a moment, she pulled her hands back. “I have to see if he's still there,” she said quietly.

“There's nothing here, best friend!” I replied and let go of her. She looked around.

He's gone again! Oh, if he keeps coming like this a few more times, things will soon be more comfortable for him. Then we'll sneak through the doors arm in arm.

The thought made me shudder. She leaned back and declared that she would certainly leave the next day and go to a convent. I tried to talk her out of it. “Go to Paris,” I said, “there you will be forgotten...”

“I deserve it!” she interrupted me; “I also deserve for you to make such a proposal to me. I will never forget that! Him, perhaps, if he stopped tormenting me, but my guilt—that remains set in stone!”

“You are hardly to blame,” I said. “That he loved you was a twist of fate; that you did not love him was beyond your control; and that you believed him cured was only natural, given his pretense.”

“Oh,” she cried, “can a mother ever find comfort after letting her child fall into the water? Do you think it was merely ill will that caused the guilt? Couldn’t all remorse be washed away by the thought of a higher necessity? If God makes us guilty, then He also wants us to bear the consequences. It is said that I will hear these chains rattling for all eternity.”

I had soon run out of excuses. She left the castle; I did not accompany her. The birth of a son tore me away from all my gloomy thoughts. I held celebrations in honor of this happy event; the christening, his early upbringing, and caring for my wife occupied me so completely that everyone will find it understandable that I made no inquiries about the unfortunate, beautiful creature, whom I did, of course, think of from time to time. One day I received a package from Paris that had been delivered to my manager there under my address. It contained a case and a letter, both sealed. I opened the latter first; it contained only a few lines.

Dearest friend!

If you are reading this, I am no longer here. I knew the Marquis would summon me to him. Even though he no longer came to disturb my nights, I carried something in my soul that took his place. Tell me

_ To your wife: There is nothing I would have liked to remember more than her kindness toward me. Protect your son from people like me. Please find a quiet place for the enclosed portrait. You need not break the seal. I could not bring myself to destroy it; I did not want it to fall into the wrong hands. When you look at it, think that perhaps I did have a heart after all.

Manon de Gaussin.

I opened the case, and the poor girl—whose death I had recently been informed of—beamed at me with all the charm she had possessed in her finest days. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I thought of all the happy hours I had spent in her home.»

Well, here we have a very accurate description of how the etheric body of a deceased person appears to another human being—a very accurate description. Immediately after death, Manon de Gaussin saw the walking etheric body of the deceased. From this apparition—I simply wanted to show you how it was rendered in a novella dating back to the 1860s—that is, from the apparition of a dead person’s etheric body, and from what we can learn from such an event about the secret, hidden relationships that can exist between people, we shall then proceed to further reflections tomorrow. Try to sense how, behind what was present in Manon de Gaussin’s consciousness in the excerpt from Maya, a vast realm is at play, and how, from this vast realm of waves, that which unfolded as an encounter with the etheric body of the deceased arose during the hours she experienced immediately following the Marquis’s death.

Yes, this etheric body of the human being is more intimately connected to the manifold relationships into which we are woven in the universe than what we carry within us of it in our self-knowledge and consciousness.