The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. The Essential Aspects of Human Life Between Death and Rebirth

[ 1 ] The times in which we live will, in fact, make it particularly clear to us just how urgently necessary it is for people today to explore the meaning of life on earth. And the meaning of earthly life can never become clear to us if we turn our gaze solely toward what takes place in the sensory world. For everything that takes place in the sensory world only acquires its deeper meaning through the spiritual finding expression within the sensory. Our time is a time of severe trial. And those who are willing to stand faithfully and steadfastly by our cause will have to understand, in particular, how this time of ours is a time of severe trial, how its meaning—yes, its very meaning!—can only be revealed within our souls if we rise to that which finds spiritual expression even in such grave events as those unfolding on the physical plane.

[ 2 ] Given that we are looking out upon fields where, in countless instances, the gates of death stand open, and in light of the thought that many of our friends have already left the physical plane in large numbers, we would perhaps do well today to turn our attention to what can be said about the world into which a person enters when they pass through the gate of death here. From this perspective—as you know, there are many, many perspectives from which we can begin our consideration—let us once again today consider the life between death and a new birth.

[ 3 ] In our Spiritual Science, we first seek to understand the human being as he stands before us: We know that he stands there in such a way that he unfolds both his physical and spiritual aspects before us. We know that these spiritual aspects remain beyond the physical plane; the spiritual can only reveal itself and make itself known through the physical. And when we thus observe the human being here on the physical plane—in order to understand him in the sense of our Spiritual Science—we say: First of all, as you know from my exposition of “Theosophy,” four main aspects of the human being are revealed to us, which we call the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. Starting with the etheric body and upward, the aspects of human nature are supersensible to physical observation. But we do experience our “I” and our astral body. We experience them inwardly. We experience them precisely because we are able to know ourselves as the “I,” even though this “I” remains invisible and supersensible. In short, even if one limits oneself to what the physical world reveals, one can still understand why we view human beings in terms of these four aspects.

[ 4 ] Now let us consider today that we can view the human being who lives between death and a new birth in a similar way—that it is possible to speak of the “limbs” of the human being who is in the course of life between death and a new birth. As you know, we surrender the physical body to the elements, the substances of the earth; the etheric body is surrendered to the general etheric world; after some time, that which is primarily in our astral body—of which, however, the earthly human being is already unaware—also dissolves, so to speak, and the I then goes its way through the world we are currently experiencing between death and a new birth.

[ 5 ] Now, we should not believe that the human being who stands between death and a new birth is not a being just as differentiated and just as structured as the human being here in the physical world. We can also speak of aspects of human nature between death and a new birth; we will simply have to speak of them in the following way.

[ 6 ] Here, when we consider human beings on the physical plane, the “I” appears to us as that which, at first—if we may use the expression—presents itself to us as the highest. Human beings share the physical body with all minerals, the etheric body with all plants, and the astral body with all animals. The “I” is unique to human beings. In the spiritual world, the “I”—which here appears to us, so to speak, as the highest link in human nature—is, in the world between death and rebirth, the lowest link in human nature. Just as we begin here with the physical body, so must we begin in the spiritual world with the “I,” which is enveloped, as it were, in a mist of the astral only during the time a human being passes through the soul world, yet which is nonetheless the lowest link of the human being between death and a new birth. And just as we envelop ourselves here when we enter the physical world from the spiritual world through birth or conception, so too do we envelop ourselves in the spiritual world—one might say—with spiritual members. We actually already know the names for these spiritual members. Let us simply consider them from a slightly different perspective. For when we have passed through the gate of death, we clothe ourselves in the Spirit-Self. This is, after all, a member of human nature that the human being will develop within themselves in the future during the Jupiter evolution. What I now call the Spirit-Self for the world between death and a new birth is not exactly the same as what will then develop as the human being progresses from Earth toward Jupiter; rather, what the human being will develop on Jupiter will be a kind of external image, a kind of sensory counterpart to the spiritual being in which the human being envelops himself as he passes through the time between death and a new birth. It is indeed true that this very element, in which a human being envelops themselves while passing through the time between death and a new birth, can be described as the Spirit-Self.

[ 7 ] As the process continues, the human being then envelops itself in that aspect which can be described as the Life-Spirit, which in turn is a spiritual counterpart to something that will only emerge in the physical realm during the Venusian stage of evolution. And the true spiritual human being is that which develops within the human being as the spiritual counterpart of what the human being, in its physical form, will possess in the highest sphere to which we can still look today—during the volcanic stage of physical evolution. Thus we can say: Just as human beings here clothe themselves in the astral, etheric, and physical bodies, so do they clothe themselves—as they grow into the spiritual world—in the Spirit-Self, the Life-Spirit, and the Spirit-Man.

[ 8 ] Now I would like to describe to you in a little more detail how things unfold as a result of what might be called “initiated knowledge.” You are, after all, already half-familiar with these matters. When a person has passed through the gate of death here, their physical body is surrendered to the elements of the earth. This detachment of the physical body is of extraordinary importance for the life between death and a new birth. Certainly, it seems trivial to say that death is actually birth for the spiritual world; yet it is nonetheless a valid statement. We simply need to accustom ourselves to making our concepts a bit more flexible, so that we do not cling with our concepts directly to what the earth presents to us. We are accustomed to forming our concepts solely on the basis of what the earth presents to us. We must be able to adapt these concepts. Life in the spiritual world is entirely different from life on earth. The spiritual experience that a person thus undergoes in the spiritual world as they pass through the gate of death is that the physical body falls away from them. This is a significant, an immensely significant experience! And first of all, it must be said of this experience that it stands in complete contrast, with regard to the beginning of spiritual life after death, to the way human birth stands in relation to our physical life between birth and death. After all, no human being can look back upon their birth with the physical powers of perception they possess here on Earth. Human beings do not experience birth with their physical powers of perception here on Earth. Just as we do not experience physical birth—just as human beings have no memory of the events of their birth (memory begins only later)—and just as this is correct for earthly life and must be so, the opposite is true for the life between death and a new birth. For the moment—the instant of, I cannot say “dying,” but of “having died”—remains as something that a person can look back upon again and again throughout the entire course of life between death and a new birth. Just as we in physical life never remember the events of our birth, so too do we have before us, throughout our entire lifetime between death and a new birth, the moment of death—but from the other side, from the side of spiritual experience, as it were, from the other shore. For the earthly human being, death can, with some justification, have something frightening about it. It represents the decay of the physical human being on Earth. The exact opposite is true when a human being, between death and a new birth, looks back upon the state of having died: then it reveals to them, in an everlasting way, the victory of the spirit over the physical; then death represents the most beautiful, the greatest, the most glorious, and the most sublime thing that can, in essence, ever be experienced. And because a person is able to look back on the state of having died throughout their entire spiritual lifetime between death and a new birth, this perspective on having died is what gives us consciousness after death, so that we know: We have shed our physical body. And the fact that we experience this—that we always have this before us—is what gives us our self-awareness after death, just as we attain our self-awareness here in the physical world through the fact that we have our physical body.

[ 9 ] When we are outside our physical body with our astral body and ego—from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up—we have no awareness of the physical world. Upon waking, we must physically re-enter ourselves; only then can the sense of self blossom anew. Every time we look back after death upon the state of having died—when the entire event, this sublime and beautiful event (as seen from the other side), stands before our soul—consciousness is kindled again and again after death. This depends entirely on the ceaseless contemplation of this moment. And something else is connected with this. It is somewhat difficult to speak about these things because, as I said, there are no corresponding experiences here in the physical world, but one must try to characterize these things as they actually are. So when, in our continued existence after death, we look back on our own passing, we have, above all, the sensory and imaginative impression that where we died, now that we have died, there is nothing—not even space. As I said, it is difficult to describe, but it is like this: There is nothing there. And speaking in an external sense: The whole thing appears magnificent and sublime precisely because a new world is opening up to us everywhere else. The surging spiritual world presses in from all sides, but there is nothing there from which we have died.

[ 10 ] Described in such theoretical terms, the matter may seem somewhat terrifying, but in the experience of death itself, there is nothing terrifying about it. In the experience of death, a deep sense of satisfaction wells up within the soul. One learns, as it were, to expand into the whole world and to look upon something that seems empty in the world. And from this arises the feeling: This is your place in the world, the place that lies beyond all expanses, and that is yours. — And one gets the sense, precisely from this emptiness, that one has a purpose for the whole world, that every single human existence—one first perceives this, of course, as an explanation for oneself—must be there. This place would always be empty if I were not there—so every soul tells itself. That everyone, every human being, has been assigned a place in the universe—this sensation, this incredibly heartwarming sensation—arises from this contemplation: that the whole world exists, and that this entire world has brought forth, as if from a symphony, the single note that one is, and that must exist; otherwise, the world would not exist. This feeling is the one that arises from looking back on the experience of death. It remains, for it is primarily this that gives rise to the sense of self, the self-awareness, between death and a new birth.

[ 11 ] Then there is a relatively short period of time—but it is enough—during which one is still united with the etheric body. Everything one has experienced in life, even the smallest events, suddenly stands there as if in a vast tableau of one’s life, for days on end; they remain there for days on end. One has the very intense feeling that the Earth, on which one has stood until now, continues to move, but one remains behind; one begins to stand still. One no longer moves along with the Earth’s spatial motion. And as this happens, the tableau of life unfolds.

[ 12 ] When we speak of a memory of life, we are not speaking in the strict sense of the word, for memories are something we have when we look back in time. But that is not the case here; rather, it is simultaneous; it is a tableau, a moving tableau. As I said, this extends even to the smallest events.

[ 13 ] Then one detaches oneself from this ethereal experience. What follows, as one is wont to say, is the detachment of the etheric body. That which one was connected to as the etheric body—which one previously had to regard as one’s inner self—is now external, and it grows ever larger and weaves itself—that is actually the correct expression—into the spiritual world into which one has now entered. However, in this spiritual world there is the empty space I spoke of; it remains vacant. And the etheric body weaves itself in all around it externally, growing ever larger and larger.

[ 14 ] Now we must certainly note that it would be a mistaken mental image—I must admit, in all cases where I have been able to examine this very fact I am now speaking of in depth, I have become convinced that it would be a mistake—to believe that in the life between death and a new birth we would not see what we have woven into the general spiritual world as the etheric body. We see it constantly. We are always looking at it; it belongs to our outer world. What previously belonged to our inner world within our etheric body now belongs to our outer world. We look at it. And it is important that we are able to look at it, for through this so much of the outer spiritual world becomes understandable to us, since there is a connection between what we have woven into it and the entire outer spiritual world.

[ 15 ] You may recall from the lectures I once gave in Vienna on the period between death and a new birth that I said: At first, the human being is woven into a world that is full of wisdom. While here he searches intently for wisdom, there he is completely immersed in the light of wisdom. And this wisdom, in which they are immersed, overwhelms them. And it would continue to overwhelm them if they could not weave into the world the wisdom they have woven into their etheric body during their lifetime. In this way, the immense abundance of light in the general world ether is tempered for him, and he begins to gain an understanding of that which, in the general world ether, weaves through, animates, and spiritualizes the world.

[ 16 ] This is what, so to speak, falls away from the human being when he or she is received into the spiritual world. For of the earthly components of human nature, essentially only the “I” and the astral body remain. The physical body has been shed. What remains, however, is what I have called “the void.” The etheric body is subsumed into the general world ether. The human being continues on their path. In exchange for what they now surrender to the world ether as their etheric body, they envelop themselves in what we have called the Spirit-Self. This is now, in a sense, an outer member. Indeterminate ether approaches them; it envelops them with a kind of Spirit-Self.

[ 17 ] Now it would be good if we paused a little longer to consider what, I might say, remains at first: the concept of the human being. We need not speak of this void, for it is, above all, of the greatest significance only for the human being himself who has died, who has had the experiences I have described. But with the etheric body, it is a different matter. The etheric body, after all, objectively weaves itself into what is generally called the world ether. It is then contained within it—this etheric body of the human being.

[ 18 ] Now you will understand that, in a sense, the etheric body of a person who dies at a young age is something different in the outer world than the etheric body of a person who, so to speak, reaches the normal age limit. Every etheric body, of course, has its own purpose, and what I am about to say should not give rise to any desire to die early or late; that would be a completely distorted and false—the most false—understanding of the matter. Nevertheless, what I am about to say is true.

[ 19 ] When a person dies at a young age, they have an etheric body that might still have been able to sustain the physical body for decades, might still have been able to work within the physical body. Now, just as in the physical world, no force is lost in the spiritual world. This means that the etheric body, which the person leaves behind after death, still contains the force that might have sustained the physical body for decades to come—if the person had been in their twenties or thirties. This force is no longer within a physical human body; it is out in the world. An example might best illustrate this to our souls.

[ 20 ] We had a little boy working on the construction site in Dornach—I’ve already spoken to some of our friends about this—who died at the age of seven due to a tragic accident. That evening, the little boy had gone to fetch food supplies from our cafeteria, which is located near the construction site in Dornach, and a strange chain of events led to him leaving the cafeteria and walking through a reed bed next to a path where, at that very moment, a fully loaded moving truck was driving by. And the fully loaded moving truck was overturned and crushed the little boy. It was a truly tragic event. Right after the lecture that evening, after ten o’clock, we received word that the little boy was missing. There was nothing else to do but investigate what had happened with that moving truck. The external circumstances were also quite peculiar. The boy had wanted to leave a quarter of an hour earlier but was held back by someone who wanted to go with him. He had intended to go out through a different door; if he had, he would have passed the moving truck on the right, whereas he was crushed on the left. He had been told to go out that door, so he was literally sent there. Moreover, it’s a route that perhaps no moving truck has traveled for years, and perhaps none will travel it again for years to come. It was a moving truck that, as a one-time exception, had brought furniture to one of our members. — So they searched for the boy. The moving truck was so heavily loaded and, unfortunately, had tipped over in such a way that it couldn’t be lifted right away, because the people driving the truck hadn’t brought any equipment for that and simply walked away. They planned to lift the truck the next day. — But now, of course, it had to be lifted that very night, and they found the dead little boy underneath it.

[ 21 ] So this little boy had been immersed in the atmosphere of the building for some time. Now it is truly the case that since that time, shortly after that death, the etheric body of that little boy has been woven into the aura of the building. And anyone who—and it is certainly not immodest to say this—is, like me, involved with all the artistic aspects of the building, notices how that unspent etheric power of the etheric body provides the inspiration needed to artistically incorporate this or that element into the building.

[ 22 ] Of course, it might be more appealing to human egoism to attribute all of this solely to one’s own genius. But it is indeed the case that even what arises within us stems from external spiritual influences. And we can demonstrate these spiritual influences in concrete detail. We are dealing here with the etheric body of a boy who has reached the age of seven—a boy who could have sustained the physical body for another six to seven decades—and who, with all the immense, wise creative power necessary to artfully shape the physical human body, is present in the etheric aura of the Dornach building.

[ 23 ] And I dare to say to the artists themselves, with absolute certainty: The art required to form the physical body from the etheric body is far greater than any art practiced by human beings on Earth. Human beings are already the greatest work of art. And all the impulses needed to form the physical human body are contained within the etheric body. Artists, too, bring these impulses forth from their etheric bodies when they create art.

[ 24 ] This is just one example; others could be cited in which the carrying capacity of the unspent etheric bodies can be observed. Just this year, dear friends of ours have passed through the gate of death even while still young. And so we see how, especially now, countless people are passing through the gate of death while still in the prime of life, leaving behind their etheric bodies—bodies that could all have continued to work with the physical body for decades to come. These etheric bodies, which are further invigorated and strengthened by the fact that they have undergone sacrificial deaths, exist and will continue to exist. And those people who will be in a position in future times—when events other than the present ones are unfolding over the European continent—to experience what will then be taking place across Europe, will live in a spiritual, etheric atmosphere in which these unused etheric bodies are found. And when souls are found here on Earth who will have an understanding of that which will live spiritually—not merely as an abstract remembrance, but as real etheric forces—this understanding can only be gained through Spiritual Science—they will surely feel the inspiring forces of what will be present through these etheric bodies.

[ 25 ] And this is one of the feelings that now weigh heavily on our hearts—heavy because, on the one hand, we must look at the monstrous consequences that could ensue if a great many people were to become aware of what is being sown through the deaths that are now occurring all around us as a result of the great events of our time, while, on the other hand, the handful of people who can understand these things is so small. And it could very easily happen—due to people’s lack of understanding of Spiritual Science, stemming from the materialism that pervades all of humanity—that people in the future might go on living without the slightest inkling of what arises from death.

[ 26 ] We should not allow such a statement to take root in our own hearts in any other way than by, as far as it is up to us, allowing ourselves to be completely imbued with this awareness, fully embracing it, and doing whatever we can on our part to understand such a matter. We should not, I would say, allow ourselves to be filled with anxious concern about just how much materialism there is. We should certainly recognize how much materialism there is on earth, but we should not, in response, shut ourselves off from the ever-expanding materialistic worldview; rather, we should all the more do what is incumbent upon us.

[ 27 ] So much for what can be said about the etheric-physical body. Then the human being moves on. First, he has enveloped himself in a kind of Spirit-Self, which is formed in a somewhat different way than everything that is formed while we live here in our earthly existence. One could say: The Spirit-Self is something that approaches us from all sides, and in whose center we feel ourselves to be. Then the human being continues to settle into the other bodies, while at the same time experiencing, as I have often described, a kind of spiritual regression—experiencing, though now in a different way than through the mere tableau that has been described, that which acts as a kind of contrast to earthly life. One can understand how the period that follows unfolds after the etheric body has been shed and we continue to live with our astral body and our “I,” enveloped in the Spirit-Self. This Spirit-Self is a kind of driving force. It leads us back, so that we relive—truly moving backward—our last earthly life from death to birth. For example, if we have said something to someone here on Earth that caused them suffering, we experience such an event from our own perspective here on Earth in the physical body. We cannot experience it from the other person’s perspective. After all, we would not be able to live in the physical body at all if we wanted to live in any way other than by experiencing everything from our own standpoint. But let’s take the extreme case: We have deeply hurt someone with a word spoken out of revenge. What that person feels, what they experience—we do not experience that here. In the journey backward that I am now describing, we experience what the other person feels always as the effect of what we have done. In other words, we live within the world of effects. Having stepped completely outside of ourselves, we experience what others have gone through because of us during our physical life, until we reach the point where we arrived at our birth. Then we envelop ourselves in what one might now call the spiritual counterpart to what will develop on Venus: we envelop ourselves in the Life-Spirit.

[ 28 ] And this Life-Spirit now determines the life that follows—which I have, in fact, described on several occasions. You will find it described from a wide variety of perspectives in the Vienna lecture series on life between death and a new birth. I would like to describe it here once again from a different perspective.

[ 29 ] We are thus, as it were, enveloped by the Life-Spirit. This manifests itself in a certain way, and it is essential that we understand this. The Spirit-Self first guides us back; the Spirit-Self is primarily concerned with our essence, with our individuality, and it then also leads us further. After bringing us to our birth, it guides us further along the paths we must follow in the spiritual world.

[ 30 ] The situation is different when it comes to what the next layer—the Life-Spirit—does within us. Here in the physical body, we are permeated by the etheric body, which also contains the life ether and everything that animates us. We are, so to speak—as you know, the etheric body protrudes only slightly beyond the physical body, but otherwise has a very similar form—permeated by the etheric body, and we live through this etheric body. Anyone who does not have an etheric body cannot live on the physical plane.

[ 31 ] Once we have shed our astral body, we know: We are enveloped by the Life-Spirit. — Now we also realize: We had been enveloped all along, while our Spirit-Self was guiding us back. But we are only realizing it now. We only realize it afterward, once we have gone through the entire process known as the Kamaloka period. And we now become aware of something very remarkable: it is precisely because we are enveloped by the Life-Spirit that our life between death and a new birth is possible at all. For here in the physical body we must live—I would say, within our skin. We cannot do that between death and a new birth in the spiritual world. If we were to want to live only within ourselves in the spiritual world—in a sense, only in a single place within the spiritual world—then we would have to die continuously, and thus could not live. Rather, we must live with the entire universe. We must experience the entire universe as one great living entity and must live with it.

[ 32 ] Now, however, this could happen in two ways. We could flow out into the entire universe. But if we were to flow out all at once, the consciousness we possess—the self-consciousness I have described—would also flow out into the nebula. Rather, we must be moved about within the great, living world organism. Here in our physical body, a part of us—let’s say the hand—is in a specific place. In the spiritual world, we must always be guided around. We must always be carried from one place to another. The Life-Spirit does this. Through this, we leave one place and arrive at another. This, however, takes place rhythmically, so that we return again and again to one and the same place. But we must be guided around within the world. A life of movement—a spiritually active life—arises for us. Here, as physical human beings, we are, with certain exceptions, bound to a single place. The spiritual, however, is always carried into the physical to some extent, and through this we are able to move about on the physical plane. This is essentially an Ahrimanic effect, since the spiritual is carried into the physical by Ahriman. But in the spiritual realm, it is right that we be guided through the entire corresponding world organism. And in this way, just as we settle into one place here on Earth, we settle into—I would say—the entire sphere of earthly life. And as we are guided within it from one spiritual place to another—you will find more details in my Vienna Cycle—what we need in terms of powers to prepare for our new earthly life, so that we may once again be drawn toward earthly life, is simultaneously implanted within us. For life between death and a new birth proceeds, in its first half, in such a way that we detach ourselves from earthly life; in the second half, we find ourselves preparing to enter a new earthly life.

[ 33 ] You see, materialism today essentially turns everything into its opposite. It will lead people into the gravest errors—errors that are not only plausible but almost self-evident. When a genius like Goethe, for example, appears on the scene, people view him in a purely materialistic way. A very thick book has been written and published about Goethe, in which all his ancestors who could be traced are examined—physically and mentally—in a materialistic sense—though the materialist considers only the physical body—and then it is shown how Goethe inherited one trait from one ancestor and another from another. Goethe himself once said ironically: “From my father I got my stature, from my mother my cheerful disposition”—and so on. Right here in Kassel, in a series of lectures, I once explained how people take this entirely materialistically, by demonstrating how we have “inherited” everything through the physical current of heredity, especially genius. And I have said many times before: The whole thing is absurd, ridiculously foolish, and yet so plausible, because it makes immediate sense to the materialist that when certain qualities are amplified over many generations, they then appear to be inherited in the case of genius. The materialist even believes he is expressing an empirical fact. But he is expressing no other experience than, say, the fact that someone who falls into water and is pulled out is wet. — The soul naturally passes through all its ancestors in a certain way, and through this, everything it has drawn from its ancestors clings to it. Just as the person who fell into the water is wet, so too does a human being possess the characteristics of his ancestors as he passes through the generations. It would be different if the opposite were true—if it could be proven that genius is passed down to descendants: but it is not. Let people try to prove that! But they will probably leave it at that. People examine Goethe’s ancestors; but they are careful not to go as far as his son or his grandchildren! Just take a look and see whether these genius-like traits are passed down to descendants! There may be cases where the trait is concealed, but there can be no question whatsoever of genius-like traits being inherited by descendants. That’s when it would really become apparent—that’s when we’d find out. But such inheritance of genius-like traits simply does not exist.

[ 34 ] But the situation is actually different. If one tries to trace back a human individuality that enters a physical body at a specific point in time—since it comes from the spiritual world—it is this very same individuality that brings the father and mother together, that plays a part in bringing the father and mother together for their conception. Indeed, it is already at work even further back. In a sense, it orchestrates the entire succession of generations in such a way that, ultimately, the two people through whom this one individuality can find its embodiment come together. The individuality is already at work in what unfolds over the centuries, from ancestors to descendants. As strange as it may sound, it is so. Goethe had a father and mother, a grandfather and grandmother, and so on. If we go back through the centuries, we see that Goethe’s individuality is already at work from the spiritual world in such a way that those who ultimately became the old Kaspar Goethe and his wife Aja always find their way to one another. For centuries, the individuality has already been at work from the spiritual world; it works its way into the succession of generations.

[ 35 ] The opposite of what is commonly assumed is actually the case. Human beings do not physically inherit what they carry in their souls from their ancestors; rather, they assemble their ancestors from the spiritual world—beginning at the “midnight of the worlds,” which lies midway between death and a new birth—so that they may then find those through whom they make their way into earthly life. That is the mystery that emerges from this. This is something immensely significant—in fact, something truly profound. And through this we see precisely that there really is an intimate connection between what happens in the spiritual world and what happens further down in the physical world. And at the same time, we see how strangely our spiritual-soul life between death and a new birth is interwoven with what happens here—something that is simply not taken into account here.

[ 36 ] In modern philosophy, people speak of the mind in a very peculiar way. There was a professor in Halle—who is now regarded as a leading figure in the field of philosophy—who published a book— “The Philosophy of As If”—in which he attempts to demonstrate that concepts such as mind and soul do not represent reality, but that they are nonetheless useful in humanity’s view of the world. One should not, he says, view human beings in such a way as to say that they have a soul. But then, he moves his hands and speaks in such a way that one might say: We regard him as if he had a soul. For the rest, we let the soul be the soul. We deny its existence; we pay it no mind; but we regard it as if a human being had a soul, as if the soul were the force behind all of this.

[ 37 ] It is a convenient, but also a terribly thoughtless philosophy. However, anyone who tries to apply this philosophy to real life will see that this “as-if philosophy” is of little use, even as a method. And a person like Fritz Mauthner, who wrote a philosophy of language and who reduces everything to language, should actually be viewed from the perspective of this “as-if philosophy”: as if such a person could also possess a spirit. But if one makes this attempt, the method proves ineffective. One cannot conclude that he can be viewed as if he had possessed a spirit; it cannot be applied. Where there is no spirit, it cannot be applied. — You know, of course, what I mean by this. But I mention this Fritz Mauthner only because he belongs to those who deny the very meaning of history altogether and who, from the standpoint of contemporary materialism, has most clearly stated that history can never be a science. He says: When a raindrop falls to the earth, one can discover the laws governing the raindrop through the natural sciences, because many raindrops fall according to the same laws. There, one can compare the individual cases with one another, and there one can discover the laws. — This is what philosophers today believe leads to specific laws: observing many cases and finding that the same pattern always emerges. But in history, events all occur only once—the Thirty Years’ War only once, and so on; and therefore, for Fritz Mauthner, all of history is merely a series of coincidences. People today must arrive at such assertions if they truly deny the spirit; for history would also be nothing more than a series of coincidences if it were not for the very thing we have just pointed out—which acts as a reality within history—that which works from the spiritual world and in which human beings participate between death and a new birth. In a sense, we weave at what happens here on Earth between death and a new birth. We weave only according to the impulses that then come to us from the spiritual world.

[ 38 ] One can truly say: Do not for a moment believe that any serious objection to the Spiritual Science can come from any scientific quarter; for when one compares what modern science is truly capable of achieving with the Spiritual Science, modern science is in fact the best support for the Spiritual Science. One simply has to approach the matter in the right way.

[ 39 ] When we pick up any book today in which a materialistically minded person expresses views that are half psychological—that is, concerning the soul—and half physiological, we find the following. These people seek, as one might imagine, to make the mental image tangible by pointing to the thinking apparatus—nervous activity, brain activity. They examine the thinking apparatus and can then indeed demonstrate that when any mental image takes hold within us, a brain process occurs. So they say: “See, we can prove to you that without a cerebral process, a thought or a mental image could not be conceived at all; so what do you want with an independent soul? After all, only the thinking apparatus exists!”

[ 40 ] But these materialistically minded people go even further. If you look through the standard textbooks, you will find that they aim to describe the “thinking apparatus” and to link all thinking and mental images to the mechanical processes in the brain and nervous system; but they must deny emotion and will. Emotion and will cannot be explained by physical processes. Therefore, they are simply dismissed. And today, if you open the books, you will find this everywhere: Although people have, based on their prejudices, assumed the existence of a will and emotion, these are actually nothing—they do not exist at all.

[ 41 ] Thus, the natural scientist draws the line precisely at emotion and will. Now that we know that thoughts separate from us along with our etheric body, it becomes clear to us that this separated part, which leaves us along with our etheric body, also works on our outer form here on Earth, first preparing the thinking apparatus; and once the thinking apparatus is formed, then thinking arises with the help of the thinking apparatus formed by thinking itself. Feeling and will remain with us in the astral body and in the “I.” We carry these into the spiritual world. No science compels us toward materialism; on the contrary, true modern science justifies our Spiritual Science in every respect. Modern materialism is entirely dependent on the fact that people have no inclination toward spiritual life, that they do not wish to have a sense for spiritual life. Nor is there any lack of understanding. For truly, if one engages with what the spiritual researcher is able to convey from the spiritual world—even regarding such topics as those we have allowed to come before our souls today concerning life between death and a new birth—it can indeed be understood; one merely needs a finer, more subtle understanding than the coarse understanding that modern people often seek to apply to the external world. But we also live in an age in which materialism has reached its peak. The spiritual researcher can even specify precisely that the year in which materialism reached its peak was approximately 1840–41. Since then, it has even begun to wane somewhat; but the aftereffects are, of course, significant. But what does this materialism mean for our understanding of physical human life? It is precisely the most astute minds of our time who, under the influence of materialism, are leading humanity into a profoundly lamentable error.

[ 42 ] He is a truly astute man; by profession, he is a criminal anthropologist. He has examined many criminal brains. He first discovered a famous, significant observation about criminal brains: that in the criminal brain—in the vast majority of cases—the occipital lobe, which covers the cerebellum, is underdeveloped, just as it is in monkeys. The monkey is distinguished precisely by the fact that it, too, has a small occipital lobe. This, of course, was grist for the mill, allowing people to say: “Aha, this is a regression to monkey nature when a human is criminal; he is born with an occipital lobe that is too small!”

[ 43 ] But just think what immense significance this must have for moral life if one is only willing to admit that human beings have a physical body. One must then say: What are you all talking about when you speak of responsibility? What are you talking about when you say you want to morally improve people through this or that form of education? That’s all nonsense: Those born with an occipital lobe that is too small—which, of course, cannot grow beyond the size of the cerebellum during this lifetime—will become criminals; they are bound to become criminals. And if materialism were true, then this would also have to be true: We would not hang people because they murdered someone else, but because they have occipital lobes that are too small! One would simply have to admit this: We could not possibly live in this world if we did not admit such a thing. One cannot be a materialist in this sense without admitting: People are hanged because they have occipital lobes that are too small. — Anything else would merely be a veiling of the truth.

[ 44 ] But is that the truth? We must speak of the etheric body—as we have done today—in the sense that it still exists, that it is the etheric body which, after death, actually expands and weaves itself into the general world ether. Now, when we encounter a young person whose occipital lobe is too small, we cannot make it grow—no physical science will ever be able to achieve that—but we can structure their education accordingly by telling ourselves: There is also an etheric body present, and a part of the etheric body that corresponds to the occipital lobe; and through appropriate education, we can develop the etheric body of the occipital lobe properly, and it is just as effective in life—perhaps even, in a certain sense, more effective than the physical occipital lobe—because it must overcome a certain force. And that comfort then springs from our realization that the physical structure of our occipital lobe is not the decisive factor, but that in the case of a person whose occipital lobe is too small, we can develop the etheric lobe accordingly by evoking certain feelings within them when we notice that they have a certain predisposition toward wrongdoing. Then we will be able to save them.

[ 45 ] You see, that is the truth. That is the moral aspect of Spiritual Science! It is indeed a reality. Despair and desolation—especially in moral and ethical terms—would emerge from a materialistic worldview if one were only willing to be truthful. A comforting possibility for actively intervening in what people become can be seen emerging from what spiritual science can offer us. If we notice certain tendencies in a child at just the right moment that could lead to criminal acts, then, through a certain kind of education, we can specifically develop what has a particularly strong effect on the occipital lobe in the ether, and thereby weave into the person the strength that now lives on with them between death and a new birth and, precisely in the physical realm of the next incarnation, develops the occipital lobe particularly well. Not only do we help the person in this incarnation; we also lay the foundation for a particularly well-developed brain, which the person can then carry through the life between death and a new birth to be incorporated into their next physical incarnation.

[ 46 ] This is how Spiritual Science practically brings us into life. However, it will have to do more than what is being done today. Today, people still think far too much that they have done enough with Spiritual Science if they have listened for a while and believe it has had a beneficial, uplifting effect on their souls. That is not enough! Spiritual Science must permeate all areas of life through practical application. The fruits of Spiritual Science must be evident in all areas of life. Education, which is particularly bleak today because it is based solely on—and believes only in—what the human being possesses physically, must be especially enriched by Spiritual Science.

[ 47 ] Today there may still be many people who say: “You can certainly tell us about Spiritual Science, but why should we believe what you’re telling us? After all, we can’t see it for ourselves.” At most, it could be seen by someone who, in a certain way, finds the path into the spiritual worlds, as described in How Does One Gain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?. — If one says, “Above all, I want to see something practical”—and in doing so thinks to bring the spiritual into the physical world in this way, to perceive the spirit outwardly just as one perceives the physical, because one is too lazy to seek the spirit in a spiritual way—then that is a thoroughly selfish point of view. And if materialism today is linked to selfishness—it is, after all, a worldview!—then materialistic spiritualism is even more selfish. For materialism at least amounts to recognizing only the physical world and then seeking to satisfy that physical world. Spiritualism, however, seeks, first of all, a sensory perception of the spiritual world, and secondly—I would say—constant satisfaction, and that too in a physical sense. But in its confusion, it creates a mental image of this physical sense as the spiritual; in short, it wants to remain in the physical world and yet possess something spiritual! It is actually lamentable that such an escalation of our materialism has become possible, as evidenced by the popular form of Spiritism that is flourishing especially in America; for there is a tendency to coarsen the spiritual, to create a material image of the spiritual and spiritual processes.

[ 48 ] But there are many other ways to recognize what exists on the physical plane as an imprint of the spiritual world. And one of these ways—though, of course, not all can be listed here—is to seek the spiritual where it is at work, for example in children, where it is meant to develop. And this is where education must be enriched. Education will only flourish when people come to develop a sense, a feeling for the spiritual, so that the teacher does not merely practice education according to all sorts of guidelines, but above all proceeds from the premise of observing the developing individuality, of seeing what seeks to unfold from within it. This must be achieved—truly achieved! And it is good, so that we may believe in this achievement, to draw our attention to the fact that people today are actually terribly short-sighted. They believe that we have come a wonderfully long way in our time, that we have finally shed all the childish notions of earlier centuries. But it is not true that we have shed our prejudices. All we had to shed—in order to see the physical plane clearly and attain freedom—was the old, atavistic clairvoyance, and that was shed in its final vestiges not so long ago. The day before yesterday, I was able to speak to our dear friends in Hamburg about a particular example of this clairvoyance. If one had the opportunity to walk around here, one might perhaps find such an example as well. But I’ll tell you about the Hamburg example; perhaps you can look for a similar one in Kassel yourself.

[ 49 ] When the Fall in Paradise—that powerful image in the Bible representing Lucifer’s temptation of humankind—is depicted by a painter today, Adam, Eve, and the serpent are portrayed realistically, with the typical serpent’s head. Now we know from our Spiritual Science that this serpent is Lucifer. The physical serpent on Earth can at most be a kind of symbol for Lucifer, but this physical serpent is not Lucifer; nor is the great serpent that is depicted coiled around a tree, with an ordinary, common serpent’s head at the top, Lucifer. Lucifer is a being that has remained at the stage of the Moon, a being that, of course, cannot be seen with the senses. On the Moon, after all, one did not see in such a sensory way; it was the Earth that first brought forth this sensory perception. The Earth serpent can be seen with the senses. Lucifer, of course, cannot be seen with the senses; he must be perceived inwardly. When one looks inward, it is an inner sensing. And one senses: Aha, this is the one whose upper part resembles the human head; he has, after all, driven out the eyes: ‘Your eyes will be opened, and you will see’—he is inside the head and extends through the nervous system all the way down to the spinal cord—a human head that continues into the serpent’s body, but all of this is conceived only in the etheric realm. He would therefore have to be perceived from within. If one were to paint Lucifer—and if one wanted to paint him according to the Bible—one would have to depict the etheric aspect of the spinal cord, and at the top something that is also still etheric, not yet physical: the human head. Captured in a picture, this would be the teaching of what we have today.

[ 50 ] In Hamburg, one can see biblical paintings by Master Bertram, including the Fall of Man as I have just described it: not an ordinary snake, but a snake with the usual form, yet with a human head. In the 14th and 15th centuries, in the middle of the Middle Ages, painters depicted it that way—which means people still knew about it back then. There you have tangible proof of how things really are! The painter did not simply go and paint an ordinary snake; rather, people were still able to do that back then because atavistic clairvoyance was still present. It has only been completely lost for a few centuries, and it must be regained. It can be regained in no other way than by preparing ourselves to understand the spiritual world once again through Spiritual Science.

[ 51 ] Therefore, anyone who is fully committed, with all their soul and heart, to our Spiritual Science embraces it in such a way that they see: The most important task of our time is for people to learn to understand what exists in the spiritual world, so that they may thereby prepare themselves once again to look into the spiritual world—into that which is at work within the world around us. How differently we as human beings will walk through the world when we know: We are surrounded not only by air, but this air is permeated by the weaving forces not only of the visible world—after all, light itself is not visible, but colors are visible—but within the light, the dead etheric bodies are weaving. Natural science and Spiritual Science will unite in a beautiful way, but Spiritual Science will be available to all people, for it will offer something to everyone.

[ 52 ] I believe it is especially necessary in our time that we feel a strong sense of obligation to frequently allow truths such as those we have been able to experience today—regarding life between death and a new birth—to enter into our meditation. This, too, is good material for meditation: if we allow the beginning of life between death and a new birth—this emptiness that assigns us our place in the world, this guidance from the etheric world, the weaving of our own etheric body into the etheric world—to come before our soul through meditation quite often. Through this, what lives within us is stimulated to grow ever more deeply into the direct experience of the spiritual world. And this is precisely what humanity needs at the present time. When we observe current events, we can sense just how necessary this immersion into the spiritual world is for humanity today. The current time of trial can only be endured in the right way if a number of people can feel, with faith and human devotion, what lives in Spiritual Science and how this Spiritual Science must prepare the human future.

[ 53 ] These signs of the times are indeed serious, and that seriousness becomes apparent when we reflect on various matters that are so close to our hearts. Just think: we speak of what should guide our path with a serious principle—seeking out what is common to all human souls and across all nations and races. We rightly regard this as a lofty ideal of humanity, but we must not hide from ourselves the immense contrast that the life of present-day Europe presents to this ideal. Can we really say that European humanity today, in what it professes, comes even remotely close to this ideal? How far removed it is from that ideal! And may we—may we, I say—regard this ideal as one that we can apply so directly today? Are we not, as Germans, obliged—so as not to delude ourselves—to be clear that, given the circumstances in Europe, we cannot even remotely conceive of realizing such an ideal? We would be failing miserably in the mission specifically entrusted to us as Germans if we were to simply lose ourselves today in general, vague ideals. The times compel us to unfold the distinctive nature of our Central European identity. And in connection with this, we must also consider the karma that has, I would say, specifically befallen us.

[ 54 ] Just consider that, when you look at world events today, we have not been guided all that badly in light of these great world events. Karma has brought it about that our movement initially belonged to the general Theosophical Movement. Long before this war revealed what it can show the Germans today, our German movement completely separated itself from the Theosophical Movement and emphasized how necessary it is that a spiritual movement grow out of the very substance of the German people—one that can sustain us and that will also have to sustain the rest of the world. We can say that, as the anthroposophical movement, we have felt the English hatred in our particular field for years. It has only intensified now, for one cannot remain silent there; what has been written about us in recent times by the so-called English Theosophists exceeds anything that could possibly be excused from a human standpoint. So we may well say that, when we survey the course of our movement, we find our karma unfolding through our movement in such a way that it is in full harmony with what the great movement in the world is revealing to us even today. That our karma led us early enough to independently emphasize German spiritual life, we may indeed, in all modesty, regard as favorable karma; and that anthroposophy has found its center in German spiritual life, we may regard as a kind of shining morning star for our karmic currents. And since, I would say, the signs of what is unfolding out in the world have already manifested themselves among us much earlier, we can already derive from this single fact the conviction that there is something in our movement that serves as a force for the great universal movement of humanity.

[ 55 ] Let us learn, my dear friends, to trust in the spiritual power that lies at the heart of our movement, for it is among the very best things to which our souls can ever be attached. Let us experience the full weight and significance of thought, feeling, and the impulse of the will—the full weight and significance of what it means that there must be individual souls who understand, in the face of the great demands of our time, how spiritual impulses must interact with what is to unfold in the future history here on Earth. Let us learn to understand, not merely in the abstract but also in the concrete sense, what the countless deaths now flooding the earth signify. Let us learn to understand how faithfully our souls must remain committed to our movement, so that there may be people who can look up in the right way into the sphere where the etheric bodies and the individualities—who have made sacrifices for our time on the great historical stage—will continue to work and will work together with those who will later walk the Earth in times of peace. Let us learn to understand what it means to find the true meaning in the fact that a spiritual dimension also permeates what is taking place today on the physical plane, and that the adherents of Spiritual Science are here to turn their attention upward toward what arises spiritually from the courage and sacrifice of our time. Let us learn to understand in the true sense the words with which we wish to conclude our reflections:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
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 spirits.