The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] I can easily imagine that someone might draw the conclusion from the observations made here yesterday that those individuals who belong to the groups of people—the nations—that are to receive their special mission only in the sixth cultural epoch, because they—as yesterday’s expression put it—belong to the time when evolution is already proceeding along a descending line, are regarded as less significant than those who belong to groups of people undergoing ascending development. I say, I can easily imagine that someone might draw this conclusion. In other words: I can easily imagine that, precisely because of everything that was said yesterday in connection with other remarks, someone might all the more readily make a value judgment under the influence of all sorts of emotions and feelings. And so it may come to pass—as I did point out—that what is said in one place, particularly regarding these matters, is bound to be misunderstood in other places. Not because it is colored by the needs of a particular place or certain people, but because it is not received with the necessary objectivity, but rather with passion and all manner of national aspirations. Someone might then say: “So you were just using words, as it were, to flatter Central European culture, and we, who belong to Eastern European culture, feel deeply offended by what was said there.” — Yes, if such a judgment is passed, it only proves that what I was just trying to describe yesterday is coming to pass: namely, that it must be detached from the sensibility of the humanities—detached in such a way that purely theoretical, purely abstract thinking is transformed into direct experience, so that what otherwise belonged solely to our knowledge now comes to us through feeling and experience.

[ 2 ] Anyone who were to judge as just suggested would be making only a theoretical, abstract judgment. For what would the concrete judgment—the one that extends into lived experience—sound like in such a case? It would state that—if what has been discussed is true—we are heading toward a time when those who wish to follow the progress of the cultural mission must no longer be absorbed in merely national experience. The fifth cultural epoch was, precisely because of its distinctive character, such that the personalities belonging to it were, in a certain sense, absorbed in national sentiment and yet personally strove to rise above it. The sixth and seventh cultural epochs will be such that those who wish to remain merely national will lag behind the tasks of humanity. But this is precisely the reason why we pursue a spiritual-scientific worldview: so that humanity may extricate itself from merely national sentiment—from that sentiment which is not a universally human sentiment. So, what must be concluded from what was said yesterday is something quite, quite different. It is this: that the Central European national cultures are those which, as national cultures, contain impulses that coincide with the great mission of post-Atlantean culture; but that cultures will then emerge that necessitate humanity’s growth beyond these national impulses, and that it will not work if those who are today the “pioneers”—one says “laggards,” after all; why not say “pioneers”?—of the later cultures become completely absorbed in their national experience, and indeed with great emphasis, as is happening among the population of Eastern Europe. In other words: Since they have not yet received their mission within this national sensibility, they are dependent on absorbing what is produced by spiritual science in order to transcend the national. Living understanding is necessary here as well.

[ 3 ] However, in our present age, in which passions and prejudices stand in such stark contrast to one another, it will be difficult to find what is necessary for people to stand fully on the ground of spiritual science—which truly strives for objectivity—and to stand fully on the ground of what is purely human. We pursue spiritual science precisely so that something may spread across the entire earth that transcends all distinctions; and therefore, those from all nations who turn to spiritual science should be able to gain an objective understanding of such a thing, as was indeed expounded in that lecture series entitled “The Mission of Individual National Souls,” which should be studied wherever there are anthroposophists. Its significance lies precisely in the fact that it was delivered years before this war, so that no one can accuse it of having been produced out of the mood of this war. The point is not that what is said here or there does not contain universally valid truths, but rather that one must realize how these truths are not universally accepted. When I spoke here months ago, I pointed out that we in Central Europe, in a sense, have it easier to be objective—easier than others. Why we have it easier is precisely what emerges from that very series of lectures. All the deeper lessons of our grave events point to the fact that, from the most diverse foundations of our present-day world culture, something must develop that coincides with our spiritual scientific striving. In a certain sense, one can say: These serious events are something like a powerful indication of the necessity of spiritual-scientific experience in the world. They prove that this spiritual-scientific experience must come. Therefore, what pertains to the immediate impressions of a place can, of course, be only secondary for us; our actual task is to transform into our spiritual experience that which can already be understood everywhere without causing inner offense, even though in so many areas there are prejudices upon prejudices.

[ 4 ] The insights gained through spiritual science regarding what is universally human in human beings prepare us to view objectively everything into which we have been placed through the evolution of the Earth and the evolution of the worlds. For this context in which we find ourselves is, in a sense, the soil from which we grow, and what enables us to grow out of it are the impulses we receive through spiritual science. After all, we are really only present with one half of our being within all the differentiations spread across the Earth—with our physical body and our etheric body, which we, so to speak, leave behind on Earth when we enter the other state of consciousness that we might call sleep. But with the “I” and the astral body, we then step out of our physical and etheric bodies and find ourselves, with our “I” and astral body, in the world that a human being otherwise enters when passing through the gate of death—the world where all earthly distinctions cease, the world into which the insights of spiritual science are meant to introduce us. Whoever can make the insights of initiation their own is, through these very insights, truly already protected from giving one-sided preference to any particular national spirit. For how do we come into contact with the specific national spirit to which we belong?

[ 5 ] When we dwell in the spiritual world with our I and astral body from the time we fall asleep until we wake up, we are not in contact with our national spirit—the national spirit that, in a sense, presides over our nationality—but we are only in contact with this national spirit during our waking daily life, from the time we wake up until we fall asleep. Among the forces into which we immerse ourselves when we enter the physical body and the etheric body are also the forces into which the national spirit of the people to whom we belong works. We enter, so to speak, the realm of this national spirit when we wake up; we leave it again when we fall asleep. But the one who acquires initiatory knowledge must, precisely during this acquisition, dwell in the world where his national spirit is not present, for he must enter the world in which we live between falling asleep and waking up. And there something special becomes apparent. Let us assume, then, that a person belongs to a very specific people. Everyone belongs to such a people, since they must identify with a particular nationality. When a person leaves the sphere of their national spirit upon falling asleep, they are no longer in contact with that national spirit until they wake up again. Those who acquire initiatory knowledge also enter this realm, and during the time between falling asleep and waking up, they come into contact with the other national spirits that otherwise live on Earth—but not with their own national spirit. Thus, one experiences a communion with the other national spirits during the time between falling asleep and waking up, and with one’s own national spirit during the time between waking up and falling asleep. However, this coexistence with the other national spirits does not mean that one lives with each one individually, but rather that one lives with their collective—as it were, with their community—with what they accomplish in relation to one another, with the totality of the other national spirits.

[ 6 ] So imagine that human life alternates—as initiatory knowledge tells us—between an experience with the national spirit while awake and an experience with the totality of the other national spirits while asleep. However, there is, so to speak, a way in which we have an abnormal coexistence with the other national spirits, whereby we do not come together with all of them in sleep, but rather with a particular national spirit. This happens when we hate a particular nation with particular passion. This is what is abnormal: we cannot escape the fact that, when we hate a people intensely, we enter the sphere of its national spirit during sleep. And anyone who acquires initiatory knowledge—if they hate a particular people intensely for purely personal, nationalistic reasons—would enter the sphere of that people’s spirit precisely as they step into the realm of initiation, and they would very soon find it impossible to remain there properly. To put it simply, I could say: Anyone who, out of personal nationalistic passions, particularly hates another people is doomed to sleep with that people’s national spirit. That is a simplistic way of putting it, but it must be taken quite literally.

[ 7 ] The realities of the spiritual world ensure that the entire human race is a unity and that it is impossible to separate oneself from it. But when we consider such realities, we can learn a great deal from them. We speak, after all, of the fact that the world in which we live outwardly with our senses and with our intellect—which is bound to the brain—is a great illusion, a Maya; but even this truth—that the world is a Maya—we take far too abstractly; we take it merely theoretically. I would say that we still allow ourselves to grasp this truth intellectually. To grasp it in a living way—this is something not only our intellect resists, but often even our will. For what lies behind the world of illusion appears in a way that we do not want it to appear. We shy away from it; we fear it, because the truth is uncomfortable for us. To know that all of humanity is, in a concrete sense, a unity—that is certainly not comfortable, for it does not allow us to view feelings and enthusiasms in a one-sided way, as they are often viewed today; rather, it teaches us what this means in the world of reality. But that is uncomfortable. The will often shrinks back from the truth even more than insight, than the intellect. Therefore, it is no surprise that in our time the truths of spiritual science are still widely regarded as folly, for the folly of the age fears the wisdom of the world. Looking beyond appearances, however, is what makes it possible to understand what is actually happening. I already pointed this out yesterday and would now like to elaborate on it using a specific example.

[ 8 ] If we follow a person as he passes through the gate of death into the spiritual world, where he spends the time between death and a new birth preparing for a new earthly life, then we must realize to what extent they are influenced in their life between death and a new birth by their last earthly life, and to what extent they, as it were, carry with them through the gate of death into spiritual life the echoes and reverberations of that last earthly life. We know, after all, that when a human being passes through the gate of death, he carries through this gate—first, after having surrendered his physical body to the earthly elements—his etheric body, his astral body, and

[ 9 ] the “I.” We also know that this etheric body soon—very soon—separates from the “I” and the astral body, with the exception of an essence that remains behind, and that the etheric body becomes etherically connected with the general workings of the cosmos. We have, after all, often considered all of this. But the fact is that after death, through the insights that remain with the human being—the insights that remain after death—he nevertheless looks back upon the destinies of the etheric body, and that these destinies have meaning for him. It means something to a person after death when they observe the destinies of their etheric body, which unfold in such a way that this course of events is a kind of result of their earthly life. And this result, this outcome of earthly life, manifests itself differently for the most varied conditions on Earth, including, among other things, the different national experiences within it. The earthly remnants that have significance for a person after death are quite different, for example, in the case of a soul that leaves a French body and passes into the spiritual world, compared to a soul that passes into the spiritual world today from a Russian body. Souls that leave a French body today belong to a culture that has, in a sense, become ripe and overripe, a culture that allows the etheric body to experience many things on Earth. The distinctive feature of French national culture—not the culture of the individual—lies in the fact that the etheric body itself is thoroughly worked through, imbued with forces and their effects, and thus passes through the gate of death in a very sharply defined manner, entering the spiritual world. Such etheric bodies do not dissolve for a long time; they remain present as spectres for a long time. In his imagination, the member of the French people—insofar as he belongs to it—has a very specific view of himself, of what he is regarded as in the world. But this is nothing other than the reflection of the firmly active forces in the etheric body. The etheric body is solidly formed and thus passes over into the spiritual world.

[ 10 ] The situation is quite different with the etheric body of a Russian person. It does not have such a fixed character; it is, so to speak, more elastic and dissolves more easily into the spiritual world; therefore, souls are less bound by it. While, when we look at the etheric body of the French person—which arises from a high culture—the French soul remains connected, so to speak, to the etheric body for a longer time, the soul of the Russian person is connected to the etheric body only briefly. This means that what the etheric body undergoes after death has less significance for this soul of the East. But this has a very specific, profound, and significant effect on what is happening, so to speak, behind the scenes of our present existence. The destinies of the Russian soul are, after all, quite different from those of the French soul in the period between death and a new birth.

[ 11 ] We know, of course, from a wide variety of perspectives that in the 20th century we are moving toward the etheric activity of the Christ Spirit. This is already indicated in an exoteric sense in the relevant passage of the Mystery Drama *The Portal of Initiation*, which speaks of the reappearance of the Christ as an etheric body. And it has also been pointed out in various meditations that this appearance of the Christ—for those people who will be able to behold him—has been in preparation since the last third of the 19th century, in that the active spirit of the age has been different since that time than it was before. For centuries prior, Gabriel was the active spirit of the age; since the last third of the 19th century, Michael has been the active spirit of the age. It is Michael who, in a sense, must prepare the appearance of the Christ as an etheric being. But all of this must be prepared; all of this must, so to speak, be fostered in the course of development—and it is being fostered. It is promoted in such a way that Michael, so to speak, leads the struggle for the appearance of the Christ, preparing souls in the experience between death and new birth for what is to take place in the Earth’s aura. Now, sharply defined etheric bodies, which are present in the elemental world around us, would always be a hindrance during the time that must come, when this etheric form that Christ must assume is to be perceived purely. Those souls who, after death, are less influenced by their etheric bodies are closer to a pure perception of this etheric form. Therefore, the following becomes apparent.

[ 12 ] We see how part of Michael’s work consists in contributing to the dissolution of the highly developed etheric bodies of Western Europe, which have a solid form, and we see how Michael makes use of the souls of Eastern Europe in this struggle. And so we see Michael, followed by the hosts of Eastern European souls, fighting against the Western European etheric bodies and the impressions that the souls have after “death.” Thus, there is a living struggle behind the scenes of present-day existence. This struggle exists—this struggle in the spiritual world. This battle in heaven, so to speak, is taking place between Russia and France in the spiritual world—a living battle between East and West. And this battle is the truth, while what unfolds in the physical world is the outer Maya, the distortion of the truth. And here too, as is so often the case when one considers spiritual realities, one gets the shocking impression that what takes place here in the realm of illusion is often the exact opposite of what unfolds as truth in the spiritual world.

[ 13 ] Imagine how incredibly shocking it is for someone who has attained initiatic knowledge to realize that there is an alliance between peoples who are engaged in the fiercest of battles in the spiritual world! Of course, such things must not be generalized; one must not draw the conclusion that everything in the spiritual world is the opposite of the physical world. Each individual case must be examined. But in this particular case, we also receive this shattering impression—an impression that, one might say, initially crushes our understanding. Thus, behind the scenes of existence, things often look very different from how they appear in the outer world. But we can only grasp these things in their true context when we are able to shed light on what lies behind the scenes of existence from the perspective of spiritual science. Then, however, those feelings will also become imprinted on our entire outlook—feelings that, as it were, allow our hearts to immerse themselves in the truth, in contrast to the prejudices in which we are bound to be ensnared when we surrender to the currents of the outer physical world. Indeed, Central Europe today is caught between two warring powers and must, in a sense, keep them apart. From this, however, arises the connection between what I described yesterday as the struggle of Central European culture and what, on the left and right, as if clamping down on it, besets this Central European culture. This is the karma of Central European culture: to see its development unfold between forces that must combat one another by a necessity of earthly history. The proper feelings regarding the tragic conflict of circumstances—insofar as they now concern Central Europe—can only emerge from such a perspective. Only then, when we take such a perspective as our foundation, do we realize that, fundamentally speaking, non-participation in the conflicts that must actually be fought out is what is truly characteristic of Central Europe—an innocent stance toward these conflicts while being entangled within the karma itself. — And we have now also seen how precisely this harmonizes with what is contained in evolution: we have seen how deeply the East and West of Europe are involved in the coming Christ event. When we consider the struggle of Central European culture with its unification—as I characterized it yesterday—of the spiritual and the physical, then we also see the particular manifestation of the Christ impulse, which is, after all, the bearer of this unification of the spiritual and the physical. Thus, right in the heart of Europe lies the phenomenon of bringing Christianity into earthly events. Here, unfolding on the physical plane, is something of immense significance, and to the right and left is something that is only being fought for on the higher planes. The physical plane and the spiritual plane come together when we view them in this way.

[ 14 ] This is a supplement to what was discussed yesterday. And this is essentially how it is with all evolution, insofar as it develops gradually under the influence of the Christ impulse. For what is now happening in the 20th century has, after all, developed gradually. The Christ impulse entered into the earthly development of humanity through the Mystery of Golgotha, and it has been at work within it. But if the Christ impulse had been able to work only as people have understood it, it would have had little effect so far. We are only just beginning to understand; we are only just beginning, through spiritual science, to grasp something of what the Mystery of Golgotha is. The Christ impulse has been at work. But truly, it had the least effect in the squabbling and clamor of the theologians. It would have been a tragedy if only as much of the Christ Impulse had been able to enter into Earth’s evolution as people have grasped with their intellects in the various epochs. But I have pointed out how the Christ Impulse has worked through the centuries in unconscious soul forces. I have described to you how, on October 28, 312, Constantine faced Maxentius, and how a battle was fought there that decided the fate of Europe. This battle was not won through the skill of the generals, but through what took place in the subconscious of the people. Maxentius consulted the Sibylline Books. They led him astray, urging him—instead of keeping his armies safe in Rome—to lead them out through the gates of Rome to face Constantine’s armies. Constantine, however, had a dream: to have the monogram of Christ carried at the head of his army. Thus, people did not follow the strategies of the generals, but rather followed dreams—that is, the impulses of the subconscious. Europe took shape as a result of what emerged from this. The true form of the Christ impulse—about which theologians quarreled—did not derive from that, but from what the living Christ was on the battlefields, where he could work. Not human concepts of Christ—those are irrelevant—but the living Christ, who works through the impulses that are his own. When people did not understand him, he entered into that realm where understanding is not required, where one receives in dreams what is to pass into the sphere of the will.

[ 15 ] And once again, it was in Europe that the Christ impulse made its way and gave Europe a specific form: in the 15th century, when, through the simple country girl, the Maid of Orleans, Europe took on a completely different form. Had England triumphed over France at that time—which the Maid of Orleans prevented—the entire course of subsequent history would have been different. But truly, the shepherdess of Orléans did not possess human wisdom; rather, the Christ impulse worked within her through its Michaelic forerunner—outwardly for the benefit of France, but in reality for the benefit of England; for otherwise England could not have undergone the development it did. But for those who seek to perceive the world spiritually, the Christ impulse at that time worked with tremendous clarity into the very events that were to unfold.

[ 16 ] I have often pointed out how those ancient legends, those old sagas and myths, contain truths that indicate that the thirteen nights between Christmas and the Feast of the Epiphany—the Feast of the Three Kings—that these nights of the deepest winter darkness are the time when the forces of the earth are particularly favorable to clairvoyance. Where, so to speak, the physical forces withdraw most into inactivity, the spiritual forces are particularly active. During these thirteen nights, from Christmas to January 6—as an old Norwegian legend tells us—Olaf Åsteson slept. And in this sleep he experienced, through inner visions, all that we now recognize in anthroposophy as the Kamaloka, as the world of the soul, as the world of the spirit. This is a truth. And many a person who, I might say, stands at the threshold of initiation can bring this initiation to its ultimate fulfillment if they achieve a very special, concentrated inner experience during this time—a time into which the birth of the Christ, the spiritual sunlight, is rightly placed. One might say: If someone is to experience an unconscious initiation, when would they best experience it? — They would best experience it if they are prepared during these nights, while in a state of sleep, a kind of world-detached state, until January 6. Could we not assume that even the shepherd girl—who was certainly not educated or trained in spiritual science, but was inwardly spiritualized—the Virgin of Orleans, could have been best initiated if she had spent these nights in a sort of sleep-like state, a state in which she did not perceive the outer world through the senses and the intellect? That is exactly what she did! In the period before physical birth occurs, one is certainly not predisposed to perceive the surrounding world through the external senses, for these senses only awaken at birth into physical existence. Nor is one capable of thinking with the intellect before birth, but the spiritual part is then in contact with the cosmic spiritual environment.

[ 17 ] Well, the Maid of Orleans spent the thirteen days leading up to January 6 in her mother’s womb, for she was born on January 6. This is a fact that speaks profoundly of the interconnections of the worlds. The World Spirit guiding evolution required, in the Virgin of Orléans, a human soul that would spend precisely the last thirteen days of pregnancy in her mother’s womb until January 6, and then be born. Here we gain a deep insight into the connections that lie behind the scenes of existence. Here we see how the world is guided in a spiritual sense. A soul was born there that had, so to speak, been initiated by the World Spirit itself right up to the moment of its birth. It is therefore a matter of our developing a sense of how, in a certain sense, the tapestry of outer material existence is spread out before us: when we tear it apart in various places, only then do we glimpse the mysteries of existence. And this must become a feeling and a sense of the transformative power of spiritual science for human culture. It must become a sense that, in order to look into the mysteries of the world, one must radically break with the mere observation of outer Maya—which, of course, was bound to take hold in the wake of the splendor and glory of scientific research. But in the future, spiritual science must supplant this splendor and glory. What humanity needs, above all else, to truly integrate spiritual science into the soul is a genuine willingness to connect one’s own soul with the spiritual worlds. All of this, however, must stem from a certain self-knowledge. Yet self-knowledge is by no means easy, and it is one of the greatest delusions to which one can succumb in ordinary life—to think that self-knowledge, which must be the beginning of all true knowledge, is easy.

[ 18 ] Even when it comes to the most external aspects, it is not particularly easy. I have a book here; it happened to fall into my hands again these past few days—what one might call by chance, or karmically: the book by a contemporary philosopher who was a professor of philosophy at the University of Vienna: *Analysis of Sensations*. The author of the book makes some very interesting confessions. On page 3, he says: As a young man, I once caught a glimpse of my face in profile in a reflection as I was crossing the street, but I did not recognize it as my own face. I thought: What a repulsive, unsympathetic face! — So you see, even to this degree, self-knowledge of one’s purely external appearance is not all that widespread. The good man admits quite openly: he is confronted by a highly unsympathetic face with a repulsive character, and then he discovers that it is his own. That is how little he knew himself in terms of his outward appearance. You see, not even outward self-knowledge can be easily acquired. One can be a university professor without any hindrance; this example attests to that. Ernst Mach—that is the professor’s name—makes a similar confession. He is entirely sincere. He says: I once returned quite exhausted from a trip and boarded a bus. At the same time, someone else got on the bus. I thought: What a run-down schoolteacher is getting on there! — And lo and behold, it was me. — He had seen himself in the mirror. — The good man knew what a shabby schoolmaster looked like; when he saw one getting on, he couldn’t identify with him—he didn’t know he looked that way. He adds to his story: “So I knew the appearance of that social class better than my own!”

[ 19 ] Even more difficult than knowledge of the outer form is knowledge of the soul—knowledge of what we truly are in our spiritual essence. But this is indispensable if one truly wishes to make progress in the field of initiation. Self-deception is one of the most common human traits, and people generally have no idea what goes on in the depths of the human soul. It is very easy to think: “Yes, I know myself; I know what I want!” — People form certain ideas about themselves; only, these are usually

[ 20 ] not really suited to expressing who we truly are. | Deep down in the soul, things often look quite different from how they appear in the realm where we form our ideas about ourselves. Let me cite a few examples that not only can occur but often do occur in human coexistence: Two people live together. One of them harbors a grudge against the other, so that he actually takes pleasure in sometimes tormenting and tormenting the other—sometimes more intensely, sometimes less so. The cause of this torment may be an innate impulse toward cruelty. For a person can go about in the world appearing completely harmless and yet actually be a thoroughly cruel fellow who feels a need to torment a fellow human being. If you speak with this person, however, he will not forgive you for thinking of him as a cruel fellow, a despicable fellow who feels satisfied only when he can torment those around him; rather, he will say: “Oh, I love this person so infinitely, so terribly much, but he just does this and that and the other thing, and precisely because I love him so much, I simply can’t stand it when he does that!”—That is in a person’s conscious mind, but in the subconscious lies the cruelty. And the ideas of the conscious mind are only there to conceal, to excuse ourselves to ourselves. The way we construct ideas in our conscious mind is only there to properly excuse ourselves to ourselves. For example, I knew a man who emphasized at every opportunity that he followed a certain spiritual path purely out of selflessness, that he didn’t particularly like this path, but that out of a sense of duty and selflessness he had to follow it. I told him: “What view you hold about the things you do and why you do them is irrelevant; what matters is why you really do them. And you do it because it gives you pleasure to do precisely this, because doing this flatters your vanity in a very special way.” — It is unpleasant to admit to oneself: ‘I am actually quite vain, which is why I do this or that.’ — That is why we love our Maya; it does things differently. The Maya we carry in our consciousness about ourselves is often even less like reality than the Maya we have about theosophy. Love is certainly a wonderful thing, and rightly so, in the eyes of human opinion; but love is often invoked unjustly! When we were still affiliated with the other Theosophical Society, we heard time and again how important it was that people truly, truly love one another! Often, this love was merely a veil draped over dogmatic squabbles. For love can often be a mask for the very strongest form of selfishness. When one takes particular pleasure in doing this or that, one often disguises what one is doing—and what actually gives one pleasure—as love; and one thereby excuses what one would never actually admit, what remains in the depths of the subconscious. Indeed, when we descend into this human being, we very soon find ourselves plunging into an abyss. A person can truly come to know themselves only by immersing themselves in the mysteries of spiritual existence, by familiarizing themselves with the great laws of that spiritual existence. For the human being is complex, and the greatest error is to believe that this human being is in any way simple. I would say: All the mysteries of the world are brought together to form the human being. But these things must be properly understood.

[ 21 ] The game of self-discovery comes to an end very quickly once one gains some insight into the spiritual mysteries of human existence. Let us suppose that a person, through some means—whether training or something else—begins to develop a certain degree of clairvoyance, and even reaches the point where wonderful images appear to him that he can focus on, so that people come and are utterly enchanted by this person’s profound connection with the spiritual world. This connection undoubtedly exists, but one must see through this spiritual connection to its true nature; one must see through what it can really be. You see, underlying what we call the physical body as its formative principle is the etheric body, then the astral body, and then what we call the “I-bearer.” All of these work upon the physical body, and each higher body, in turn, works upon the lower one. If you take the etheric body and examine it directly through clairvoyance, you will find it to be a wondrous structure of interflowing, shimmering colors. What, then, are these colors that flow within the etheric body? Yes, these are the forces that build the physical body—the forces that not only construct its organs but also act within what is carried out by the organs of the physical body during life. But human organs have different significance. Let us take two such organs as the intestines and the brain. External anatomy examines the tissues and everything else involved as if they were equivalent. But that is not the case; they are quite different. When we look at the human brain, it is, as a physical organ, something perfect; this is because those floods of color have been processed within the brain. When we look at the etheric body of the human brain, we see it in a relatively pale color, for the colors have been used to bring about the structure of the brain. When we look at the internal organs, we find the surging colors shimmering brightly and flowing wonderfully into one another, for the internal organs are truly coarser organs; there is no need to use as much of the spiritual there, so the forces remain in the etheric body, and only a smaller portion is used for their development. Therefore, the etheric body of the brain is pale, while the etheric body of the intestines is of wonderful, flowing colors—beautiful.

[ 22 ] Now imagine that someone, as I have described, develops clairvoyance. Two things can happen: Clairvoyance can occur when the etheric body of the brain is released, but it can also occur when the etheric body of the viscera is released. During clairvoyance, a person often becomes aware of their own inner being. The person who releases the etheric body of the brain will initially see a rather pale world before them; but the one who brings forth the etheric body of their intestines can reflect wonderfully flowing colors out into the etheric world. For in order to bring the pallor of the brain’s etheric body into contact with the flowing colors of the cosmos, it is necessary that we first draw in the flowing colors from the entire sphere of the cosmos. To develop the flowing colors of the etheric body of the intestines, we can radiate them outward from within ourselves, and thus a truly wondrous formation can be perceived through clairvoyance. Certainly, it is a genuine clairvoyant formation, but if one examines it, what is it? It is nothing other than one’s own digestive process; it is what the etheric body does during the human digestive process; this projects itself out into the etheric space. From an anatomical perspective, this is highly interesting, but one must be clear that it is only when one approaches the mysteries of the spiritual world that one truly gains an inkling of what actually exists in the spiritual world. Only then does one begin to grasp that from a wonderfully surging sea of colors in the etheric body springs forth that which must take place within the etheric body so that the intestines can function properly. When one observes this through clairvoyance, it is certainly a clairvoyant process; but it is not something connected to heavenly mysteries, nor is it something that brings us any closer to the great cosmic realities of the world—rather, it is something that brings us closer to our most ordinary, lower self.

[ 23 ] And it is precisely when we ascend to self-knowledge through clairvoyance that we find the first wondrous forms we experience reflect our basest nature. And only then, when through greater effort we detach those parts of the etheric body that have remained within us as lesser aspects—because the majority has been directed toward the heart and brain—only then do we succeed in radiating outward what is within us and making an impression on the outer ether through the more intensely applied forces. And then the following occurs: When we project the etheric body of the physical organs outward, we project it into space. When we develop higher clairvoyance, we also work outward, but we project that part of ourselves which we build up between birth and death, so that it may prepare what develops within us between death and a new birth. We inscribe this into space; there we create an effect extending into the etheric world. And there we move toward that which is formed through these effects—the cosmic effects, the cosmic realities.

[ 24 ] This is precisely what we are constantly striving toward. The book *How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* aims to express, in the most profound sense, that the right paths must be found—not to reveal the lower nature of the human being through enchanting clairvoyance, but to fathom the mysteries of the world. It is repeatedly pointed out that this clairvoyance is difficult, that it appears faintly, that one develops toward true clairvoyance only through great efforts of those forces that are the forces of the human being between birth and death, and that the mysteries of the world can then be unraveled. One can imagine where these forces lie by considering what was said in the 1914 Vienna Cycle. There, the text speaks of the forces that a human being develops between death and a new birth—forces for which one can only use stammering words, since words are, after all, coined for the physical world, and one can only express, through combinations of words, what in the spiritual world is entirely different from the physical-sensory world. But people find it more comfortable to imagine the spiritual world as nothing other than a kind of continuation of the physical world, only somewhat more ethereal, somewhat more fleeting. People would find it comfortable to see figures walking about in the spiritual world just as they do in the physical world; but they find it uncomfortable that one must accustom oneself to a new way of perceiving things if one wishes to enter the spiritual world. All of this is meant to prove to you that not only human understanding, but above all the human will, resists what spiritual science must now bring into the world in our time. We can truly say: It is not merely because people today, in large numbers, do not understand spiritual science that they reject it, but because they do not want it—because, deep down, they find it terrifying that the world is as spiritual science seeks and must portray it.

[ 25 ] A particularly important concept is the one concerning wisdom and consciousness that one must grasp if one wishes to understand the experience between death and rebirth. Strictly speaking, one cannot say that a person who has passed through the gate of death has no consciousness and that their consciousness must first awaken. That is not even correct; rather, the truth is that once they have passed through the gate of death, they possess an overwhelming consciousness—they are completely engulfed by it—they are disoriented, and they are utterly dazed by the spiritual sunlight of consciousness, and must first begin to find their bearings, as I have explained in greater detail in the cycle I just mentioned. Here on Earth, we must acquire wisdom as best we can; but on the other side, we are surrounded on all sides by wisdom, and there we must temper it so that we can contemplate it. The aspects that we have tempered down to human frailty are the very ones we can contemplate. So we must first find our way into the process of toning down our consciousness until we can find our bearings. This is something that becomes particularly striking when one truly observes these phenomena. You see, one then gradually tries to shape words so that they properly express these phenomena. Not long ago, a dear member of our society in Zurich passed away. Karma had it that, although I had wanted to see this member one last time in physical life, I arrived too late and did not see them. But then, a few days later, we held the cremation in Zurich. I was asked to speak at this cremation, and I tried to put into words what appeared to me inwardly as the essence of our dear member. I tried to capture this essence in a few words. Then the cremation was carried out. And it was noticeable that the first orienting emergence from the overwhelming consciousness occurred at the very moment the body was consumed by the fire—when, seemingly the flame, but in reality the heat, took hold of the body. At that moment, the scene we had witnessed earlier stood before the soul of the deceased. Before, during the eulogy, she had not been present, but afterward, as the cremation began, she looked back. And just as in physical life one perceives space before oneself, so does the deceased perceive things in time. What has passed lies beside the deceased. She sees the scenes standing before her. Time truly becomes space. The past is not past; it remains there, it is beheld. Then the deceased sank back into a general state of numbness, and it takes quite some time for orientation to take place. But such moments—one might say, moments of clarity—are preparing themselves, and they are then further processed. Then comes another immersion into the general flood of consciousness, until, later, complete orientation sets in.

[ 26 ] And so one must say that it is an important concept that conceives of wisdom and consciousness in a different way after death than before death. It is not that a certain degree of consciousness must first develop in us after death, but rather that the immeasurable consciousness must be tempered to a certain degree. We must bear this in mind. And then we must take it seriously—truly seriously—the realization that, when it comes to the truth, things are often exactly the opposite of what appears on the surface. I have illustrated this many times before with an example. A person is walking along the bank of a stream, falls into the stream, and drowns. We go after him and find him drowned, and at the spot where he fell into the stream, we find a stone. We can then quite rightly conclude that the person fell into the stream over the stone and thereby drowned. If we do nothing further, we will not arrive at any other conclusion. Here, however, with regard to the physical facts, factual logic may be incorrect. During the autopsy, we might discover that the man suffered a stroke and consequently fell into the water—meaning that cause and effect are reversed. We thought the person was dead because he fell into the water; in reality, he fell into the water because he was dead. In this case, the logic was incorrect with regard to the external facts. Thus, we often cannot make sense of the logic of external Maya.

[ 27 ] Let us consider the incident that occurred in Dornach this fall, much to our sorrow. The young son of a member of this very branch, who had settled in Dornach—the seven-year-old boy—went missing one evening. And once it became clear that the child might be lying under an overturned moving truck, the truck had to be lifted in the middle of the night, and little Theo Faiß was pulled out from under it, dead. What had happened? No moving trucks usually drive in that area—in fact, no vehicles drive there at all. It is an extremely rare occurrence for a vehicle to be driving there. No one had driven by long before or after that. And little Theo had always, whenever he had something to fetch, gone to get it a quarter of an hour early. That evening, he had been told to wait a quarter of an hour. He could also have walked on the right side of the truck instead of the left, but he had been told to exit through a different exit than usual. Everything came together in such a way that, down to the second, the boy happened to end up directly beneath that car. If one examines the case spiritually in its karmic context, then the boy’s soul had summoned this car in order to meet his death at that precise moment; everything was arranged that way, and the physical event is a consequence of spiritual connections. Then one grasps things in an entirely different way; then one also truly understands the connection between what happened and the further course of events after death. Little Theo, after all, had an etheric body that he could have retained for another seventy or eighty years—or even longer—in normal life. None of that is lost; it remains there. The etheric body of a child who died at the age of seven still contains the forces that would have been used in life; they are present in the spiritual world. And this is also very much noticeable to those who have to do with the etheric aura of our building; for the little boy’s etheric body has been there since his death—there are the forces, the strong spiritual forces of this intelligent, dear, good-natured boy. These are supporting forces and helping forces connected with the aura of the Dornach building.

[ 28 ] This is how spiritual and physical effects are connected. The times when we had to look to the spiritual worlds to understand what happens in the physical world are not over; those times are still with us. We are beginning to understand some of this through our spiritual science. But there is much in this realm for which we need the assistance of those who depart from physical life with their etheric bodies still intact. Think of the thousands upon thousands who, out there in the vast fields of today’s momentous events, are passing through the gate of death—all of them people with unspent etheric bodies. These are all spiritual forces that could have remained active for a long time had the people in question remained in the physical world. In physics, it is already recognized today that no force is ever lost. In the most eminent sense, however, this law of the conservation of force is present in the spiritual world. The forces that an etheric body possesses to sustain a life between birth and death up to the age of eighty or ninety are not lost when someone passes through the gate of death prematurely. The forces are still there. In addition to what enters the spiritual world through the “I” and the astral body and has value for the individual, the etheric body has a general value for that which passes into the general aura of human-earth evolution. Thus we can look up to the fresh, full of vitality, and unspent etheric bodies that work their way down from the spiritual worlds into the times to come.

[ 29 ] Just as we often see today that the dead continue to fight alongside the living, so too do we see, on the other hand, the etheric field—the elemental world—interwoven with forces, with powerful human forces acquired through deep confidence in the belief in ideal human goals, which are left behind by people who have passed through the gate of death with this belief. Those who will live later, however, will have to look up to these untapped etheric forces, which will continue to exert their influence. These etheric forces of those who have died prematurely will most certainly demand that their passage into the spiritual world—from where they look down upon us—not have been in vain. They will demand that they truly be able to contribute their share to the reshaping of the spiritual world on Earth, which is required of humanity. These etheric bodies are there as admonishers—admonishers who say: We have gone into the spiritual world so that forces may flow to you from there—forces that can enter your hearts and souls—with which you can work even more strongly for the progress of Earth’s development, as understood in the spiritual-scientific sense. — The interplay of the physical and the spiritual—we must understand it, not in a nebulous or vague way, but as a concrete spiritual connection between the people living here on Earth in physical bodies and the souls who have ascended into the spiritual world. A sense of common ground will emerge when we understand the facts and truly imbue ourselves with what spiritual science has to offer. Indeed, insight into the connection between the spiritual and the physical can also help us face the great gravity of our time in the right way, and allow us to fully feel how what is happening will only be justifiable to the future if it is taken as an occasion for a great, significant human struggle and human endeavor, even on the physical plane. What we emphasized yesterday—based on a correct understanding of the relationship between the spiritual and physical worlds—must come to pass; what is contained in these words must come to pass:

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.