The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Twelfth Lecture

[ 1 ] In hardly any other period of human development has it been as necessary as in the present one to delve into the mysteries of the supersensible life, even though hardly any other period has been marked by as much resistance to this delving into supersensible problems as the present one. It is precisely the seemingly most remote questions that must be of particular concern to the human soul today. And so, let us begin today by considering that which the materialistic mindset of the present believes it must push as far away from human consciousness as possible, yet which is in fact infinitely close to human life. And to know that what is meant here is infinitely close to human life—that is precisely one of the special tasks of our time. Let us begin with a few remarks on a subject well known to us, in order to approach a topic—one we have already considered frequently from this or that perspective—from yet another perspective today.

[ 2 ] We all know, of course, that from the perspective of the humanities, it is of particular importance to repeatedly and consistently examine the entirety of human life in terms of its two great opposites—which play a role in everyday life—namely, the alternating states of sleep and wakefulness. It is precisely these polar opposites of sleep and wakefulness that we have had to examine time and again from a wide variety of perspectives through our spiritual scientific investigation.

[ 3 ] Now, as you already know from various sources, this distinction—the one commonly made between sleeping and waking, according to which human life is divided such that one spends about two-thirds or more of the day in waking consciousness — or even less — and one-third in a state of sleep, is, at first glance, merely an external and superficial observation. Even if one explores the matter further, as it is immediately given in this way, in order to get to the essence of sleep and wakefulness, it still remains somewhat superficial for spiritual-scientific perspectives when compared to the depths that can be reached here. For we must be clear that the state of sleep is present in our soul life not only when we are asleep in the superficial sense—not only during the time that elapses between falling asleep and waking up—but that our soul also carries the state of sleep, to a certain degree, into the so-called waking state. In truth, even when we are awake in the ordinary sense of consciousness, we are only partially awake. We are never fully awake in this ordinary state of consciousness. And when we ask ourselves from the perspective of spiritual science: To what extent are we fully awake? — we must answer: We are awake in relation to everything we call the perception of the external sensory world, as well as the processing of these perceptions of the external sensory world through our concepts. In our life of perception and imagination—that is, in our life of thought—we are undoubtedly awake. We would not even think to speak of our waking state if we did not wish to designate as such a certain inner state of the soul that is present when we perceive the external world in a fully conscious state and think about it, forming concepts about it.

[ 4 ] But we cannot say that we are as awake to our emotional life as we are to our life of perception and imagination. It is merely an illusion when a person believes that, with regard to their emotional life—their life of affect and emotion—they are as awake from the moment they wake up until they fall asleep as they are with regard to their perception, thinking, or imagination. Those who succumb to this illusion do so because our feelings are always accompanied by mental images. We do not merely imagine external objects—we do not merely imagine a table, a chair, a tree, or a cloud—but we also imagine our feelings; and by imagining our feelings, we remain awake within the images of those feelings. But the feelings themselves well up from the depths of the subconscious soul. For those who can observe the inner processes of the soul, feelings, affects, emotions, and even passions do not well up with any greater inner awareness than the impressions of a dream. The impressions of a dream are pictorial. In ordinary consciousness, we know exactly how to distinguish them from external perceptions. Our consciousness is no more alert to real feelings than it is to dreams. If, upon waking from every dream—without being able to distinguish between the dream and the idea of the dream—we were to add an idea to it, just as we always add a thought or an idea to our feelings, then we would also regard our dreams as the content of a waking experience. In and of themselves, our feelings are not experienced in a more wakeful state than our dreams.

[ 5 ] And our volitional impulses are experienced even less while we are awake. As far as the will is concerned, human beings are constantly asleep. They imagine something when they want something; they have a mental image when—to take a simple volitional impulse—they reach out their hand to grasp something. But what is actually happening in our inner life and physical life when we reach out a hand to pull something toward us remains as hidden in the unconscious as dreamless sleep. While we daydream about our feelings, we are in reality sleeping through our volitional impulses. As emotional beings, we dream; as beings of will, we sleep even in the so-called waking state, so that even when we are awake—that is, from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep—we are actually awake with only half of our being, while the other half continues to sleep. We are awake in regard to our perceptions and our life of thought; we continue to sleep and dream in regard to our life of will and our emotional life. Such things can hardly be proven or substantiated more strongly than by what has just been hinted at. For whether one recognizes such things depends on whether one can correctly observe the life of the soul. Anyone who can observe this inner life correctly will inevitably discover the inner psychological unity of feelings, emotions, passions, and dreams. There is a very fine essay by Friedrich Theodor Vischer—known in this city in particular as “V-Vischer”—on “Dream Imagination,” in which he beautifully highlights this accurate observation of the kinship between the life of feelings and passions and the world of dreams.

[ 6 ] So we also go through life while awake, not only surrounded by the world we perceive through our senses, by the world we think about, but also surrounded by a world that we can actually only dream of in our feelings—a world in which, as we are immersed in our impulses of will, we experience no more than we experience of our surroundings while asleep, namely, actually nothing. But a world of which one experiences nothing while asleep is, after all, right around us. Just as the tables, chairs, and other objects are in the room where a sleeping person is, yet that person knows nothing of them while asleep, so too does a person know nothing of the world from which his emotional and volitional impulses arise, because he is constantly asleep with regard to that world. Yet it is precisely this world—in relation to which we are so constantly asleep—that we share with human souls who are no longer embodied in a physical body.

[ 7 ] We have attempted, from a wide variety of perspectives, to build a bridge—from a spiritual-scientific standpoint—between the so-called living and the so-called dead. We can also build this bridge in our imagination by becoming aware that we are connected in our ordinary waking state to people embodied in physical bodies, because they are accessible to our powers of perception and our life of thought. We are not connected to the so-called dead in our ordinary waking state, because we are, after all, constantly sleeping through a part of the world around us. If we were to enter this world that we sleep through, we would no longer be separated from the world in which a human being lives between death and a new birth. Just as we are surrounded by air, so are we surrounded by the world in which a human being finds themselves between death and a new birth; we simply know nothing of this world for the very reason mentioned: because we sleep through it. Clairvoyant consciousness, as we have often described it, leads us to recognize this world that is otherwise slept through—this world in which a human being finds themselves between death and a new birth. To penetrate this world in such a way that one gains a certain assurance that one’s own soul passes through the gate of death while still spiritually alive, in order to enter another world and return to a new earthly life—this is, relatively speaking, not difficult if one carefully allows what is contained in the book *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* or in similar books.

[ 8 ] It is much more difficult to penetrate this world—the one a person experiences between death and a new birth—in such a way that concrete, specific relationships can be established between the person here in the physical body and specific deceased individuals. These relationships are, in a certain sense, always present, at least between certain living people and certain deceased individuals. But precisely in what I have already said today, one can see the reasons why a person is not aware that relationships between them and certain so-called dead people are always present. And it is precisely what the contemplative consciousness experiences when it is able to establish a connection with individual deceased persons—precisely that—that can teach us why, in ordinary waking consciousness, a person is unaware of their relationships with the deceased, which, as I have said, are always present as real relationships. If such conscious connections are to be established between the intuitive, awakening consciousness and certain deceased individuals, one must acquire certain soul experiences that are entirely different from the soul experiences to which we have become accustomed in waking consciousness. It is precisely in this area that it becomes clear how one must shed all the habits one has developed for perceiving the physical environment and replace them with others if one wishes to penetrate the concrete spiritual world with a contemplative consciousness. When the contemplator stands face to face with a very specific, individual so-called deceased person, he can indeed communicate with that person properly, but he must transcend certain soul habits. The nature of the soul’s experience in such a case naturally evokes a sense of alienation in those for whom such perceptions are entirely unfamiliar.

[ 9 ] When we stand face to face with another person here in the physical world and talk with them, we know that when we say something to that person, what we say comes from our own vocal organs; it radiates from us, as it were, and goes out toward the other person. And when they answer us or communicate something back to us, it radiates from their vocal organs and comes toward us. — It is quite different when one has concrete connections between the observing consciousness and a specific deceased person. In that case, one must completely adjust one’s approach. When we ourselves communicate something to the “deceased,” when we ask the deceased a question, when we say something to them, then—as strange as it may sound—we must have acquired the ability for what we ourselves say to come back to us from them, to emanate from them and radiate toward us. We must be able, in order to communicate with a deceased person, to set ourselves aside to such an extent and live within them to such an extent that they are, in fact, the ones speaking when we ask them a question or convey a message to them. And conversely, when he answers us, when he wants to convey a message to us, then it wells up from our own soul; it announces itself in such a way that we know: it radiates from us, so to speak. So we must turn completely around, reverse our orientation, if we wish to enter into a genuine relationship with a specific deceased person. Although this can be described in simple terms, it is an extraordinarily difficult matter in terms of spiritual experience. To behave in a manner that is virtually the opposite of what one is accustomed to in the physical world is something that is extremely difficult to master. Yet genuine communication with the so-called dead is possible only under these conditions.

[ 10 ] But if, on the other hand, you consider that one must completely re-educate oneself inwardly, you will understand that connections can always exist between the so-called living and the so-called dead, but that the so-called living will show little inclination to acknowledge these connections. For the living are accustomed—and such an habituation means more than one usually thinks—to perceiving what they themselves say as radiating from themselves; and when another says something, to perceive it as radiating from that other person. And anyone who is completely entrenched in the prejudices of the physical world will, from the outset, naturally find something like what I have just described to be utter nonsense. But the fact is this: One cannot enter the spiritual world unless one familiarizes oneself with the fact that, in the spiritual world, many things—I say many, not all—actually behave in a manner directly opposite to the habits we have acquired here in the physical world. And what I have just explained is precisely such a fundamental contrast. Only when one has found one’s way into such an unfamiliar realm through very intimate practice can one form a judgment about the nature of every person’s ordinary relationships with certain deceased individuals, and how these relationships take shape.

[ 11 ] As I said, these relationships are constantly present. If we wish to examine these relationships, we must not overlook the fact that, in addition to the usual polar opposites of daily experience—waking and sleeping—we must include two others that are particularly important for the relationships between the so-called living and the so-called dead, but which, when experienced consciously, run counter to human habits. In addition to the usual waking and sleeping, there is, in fact, falling asleep and waking up. These fleeting states of falling asleep and waking up are just as important for the entire spiritual life of a human being as prolonged sleeping and waking, but they simply flit by. The reason people do not experience the moment of waking is that full awakening follows immediately afterward, and people are not inclined to perceive it as quickly as they would have to if they wanted to grasp the fleeting moment of waking; it is drowned out and drowned in by the waking life that follows. In more naive societies, where people knew a great deal about such things, they also hinted at what this means for the human soul in this regard. But as materialism advances, these insights are gradually lost. Among naive, primitive people out in the countryside, one still often hears them say: When you wake up, you shouldn’t look straight into a bright window; you shouldn’t open your eyes right away. — Such talk springs from a very deep instinct—the instinct not to immediately let waking daily life drown out the moment of waking, so as to be able to hold on to something of what is present at the moment of waking.

[ 12 ] Equally important, however, is the moment of falling asleep, though one usually drifts off immediately afterward. Consciousness then ceases. And for this reason, the moment of falling asleep is not given due attention by ordinary consciousness.

[ 13 ] What can be experienced—and is indeed experienced—at the moment of falling asleep and at the moment of waking up proves to be particularly important for the relationships of the human being, who is incarnated here in the physical world, with the dead. Such things can, of course, only be observed with the contemplative consciousness. But once the observing consciousness has succeeded in establishing such relationships with certain deceased individuals—relationships that can only be established through the aforementioned complete transformation and readjustment of the soul’s state—then it can also assess what the actual, though unconscious, relationships of the so-called living to the so-called dead are like. The most favorable time to convey to the dead all manner of relationships we ourselves have developed in our souls toward certain deceased individuals is the moment of falling asleep. And the most favorable time to receive answers and messages from the dead into physical earthly life is the moment of waking up.

[ 14 ] You need not take offense at the fact that what I have just said does indeed imply that, when falling asleep, a person asks the dead some question, sends a message to the dead, and only receives an answer or a reply at the moment of waking up. With regard to the supersensible world, the temporal relationships are quite different. What is separated by hours here in the physical world need not necessarily be separated in actual supersensible life. One can certainly say: Whereas here in physical life, when one asks someone a question, one expects an immediate answer, there the relationship is such that when one addresses questions to the dead as one falls asleep, one receives the answer upon waking. This connection truly always exists between the living and the dead. In fact, every person who has lost loved ones on the physical plane because they have passed through the gate of death has such relationships, which find their most significant expression in the moments of falling asleep and waking up. They are not brought into consciousness simply because these favorable moments pass by so quickly, and people are not accustomed to taking into consciousness what approaches their soul during these fleeting moments. To grasp what approaches us in such fleeting moments, nothing is more suitable than engaging with the finer, more subtle thoughts of spiritual science. Whoever makes spiritual science their own in such a way that it is not merely intellectual knowledge but an inner substance of the soul itself—something grasped not only with intelligence but with love, so that it passes entirely into the soul— who does not merely cling to the ideas of spiritual science out of scientific curiosity or a thirst for knowledge, but pursues them with love—it is precisely this love that instills such power into the soul that, with a little attention, he gradually becomes aware of the great significance, as mentioned here, of the moments of falling asleep and waking up. And the more spiritual science sinks into people’s souls, the more people will take into their real lives not only what they experience while awake, but also what comes to them from a supersensible world as they fall asleep, and especially as they wake up. We must simply be clear that we can actually establish such real connections—as I mean them now—only with those who have passed away with whom we are somehow karmically connected. But we are karmically connected to far more souls than we realize. For conscious or unconscious communication between the living and the dead, however, the karmic connection is as necessary as it is necessary to direct one’s gaze toward a sensory object in order to perceive it. Just as the sensory connection must be established in that case, so too is it a prerequisite for communication between the living and the dead that certain karmic relationships exist between them—or at least are established.

[ 15 ] If we now consider the moment of falling asleep, this is the moment that is particularly favorable for bringing to mind—in relation to someone who has passed away, who was dear and precious to us, and who was otherwise karmically connected to us—the bonds we developed with that person. The moment of falling asleep is particularly well-suited for this. Naturally, we develop our relationships with the dead to whom we are karmically connected during our waking daily life, from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep. We remember the dead. Everything we think about the dead—things we would like to convey to them, things we would like to tell them—comes together at the moment of falling asleep and, even if it remains unconscious to us and beyond the reach of ordinary consciousness, reaches the dead. However, a certain state of mind is particularly conducive to these communications, while another state of mind is not.

[ 16 ] You see, a mere dry, cold way of thinking about the dead is hardly suitable for truly reaching the dead or for communicating with them. If we want the moment of falling asleep, so to speak, to truly become a gateway through which our own soul experiences—those connected to the dead—can reach the dead, then we must engage with the dead while awake in a different way than through cold, dry thoughts. We must try to bring to life the thoughts that connected us to the deceased while he was still here among the so-called living. But we must then infuse those thoughts especially with what can establish a heartfelt connection. Thinking of the deceased in an indifferent manner does not help much. But everything that keeps us connected to him in a heartfelt way—it is good to recall such things to our soul: How one was with the deceased here or there, how one was just conversing with him, by developing a lively interest of one’s own—out of genuine feeling—in something that particularly interested him; or recalling a situation in which one was once together with the deceased here in life, and something that touched him also touched one, or vice versa; how one was tempted to share something one had experienced with the other—simply because one cared for them—in order to experience it together with them. Not dry thoughts, but thoughts imbued with love and warmth! These thoughts then remain in our soul until the moment we fall asleep. And there we find the gateway through which they are safely conveyed to the deceased.

[ 17 ] We really shouldn’t delude ourselves about these things. We dream of a dead person. When we dream of a dead person, in very many cases—though of course not in all cases—this stems from a real relationship with that person. But what we dream—insofar as it follows the moment of falling asleep—is really just a dreamlike, pictorial transformation of what we communicate to the deceased. We do not experience the moment of falling asleep, when thoughts such as those just described are actually transmitted to the deceased, because that moment of falling asleep passes so quickly. But this moment of falling asleep actually lingers on into the sleep that follows, finding its resolution in the dream. If we understand the matter correctly, we will not interpret dreams about the dead as messages from the dead. They could be, but as a rule they are not. They are impulses that come half-way into our consciousness, telling us what follows. If we dream of a deceased person, it means: On a previous day, we directed a thought toward the deceased—whether voluntarily or involuntarily—of the kind I have described. This thought found its way to the deceased, and the dream indicates to us that we were actually speaking to the deceased. What the deceased then answers us, what the deceased communicates to us—these messages from the deceased—come through particularly easily at the moment of waking. And they would occur much more easily for the so-called living if, in our present time, they only had the time—or the inclination—to pay a little attention to what rises up from the deep recesses of consciousness between the lines of life.

[ 18 ] Yes, people today are vain and selfish, and when something stirs within their soul, they are usually well aware that it is their own genius that has brought it about. To be humble—that is, after all, an admonition set before us in life; but to be humble at the core of one’s being is not all that easy for human beings. To be humble also means learning to truly distinguish between what arises from the soul’s own power and what arises from foreign, supersensory impulses within one’s own soul. Just as the person who possesses the contemplative consciousness feels and perceives the dead person’s response rising up from their own soul, so do these responses from the dead—these messages from the dead—rise up from the depths of the soul during waking hours, from the moment of waking until falling asleep. Yet one can say: Just as a person does not see the stars during the day—even though they are constantly in the sky—because the sunlight drowns them out, so too does a person in ordinary consciousness fail to perceive what is constantly rising from the depths of their soul, because external life, driven by sensory impressions, drowns it out. If one becomes, I would say, intimately acquainted with one’s own soul—if one learns to distinguish that which originates from within oneself from that which resounds as something foreign from one’s own soul—then, little by little, one learns to recognize messages from the dead even in waking daily life. But then one associates something extraordinarily important with this realization. Then one says to oneself: We are not actually separated from the dead; the dead live among us. They simply do not announce themselves in the same way as other sensory beings who send us their impulses from the outside; rather, they announce themselves from within, they speak to us through our own inner being, they carry us.

[ 19 ] However, humanity today and in the near future—as necessary as it may be—will find it difficult to get used to no longer believing that the impulses driving its actions come solely from the external sensory world; to recognize that in what we call our social and other aspects of life, not only the so-called living exist, but also the so-called dead—that the dead are always present and work within us and alongside us. The ancient peoples knew this in mythical form. When the ancient people revered the departed as tribal leaders or ancestral gods, this stemmed from the fact that, in their atavistic consciousness, they had an insight into the fact that the dead are always present, that they are always at work through the living. This consciousness, however, had to be lost to humanity for good reasons, but it must return! We will have to realize once more that the dead are present in our surroundings, that the dead speak through our souls, and that we are in communion with the dead. We will have to acknowledge that spiritual science must be consulted to understand the true nature of life, and that external science must lead us astray regarding life because it cannot distinguish between what comes from the sensory world and what comes from the supersensory world. Our historiography has, after all, gradually become something quite grotesquely nonsensical. People speak of ideas that are supposed to live on in history, as if these ideas were fluttering in like hummingbirds or other birds, whereas in truth the impulses that are often present as historical impulses are precisely the impulses of the dead.

[ 20 ] This awareness of our shared life with the dead must develop. And as this awareness develops, and as human soul life is refined through the concepts of spiritual science—which fail to refine human life only when they are approached theoretically rather than lovingly—as all this takes place, the dead will, in a sense, also become present to the consciousness of humanity. Then that large part of reality which today remains unconscious and unaccounted for will be taken into account. Only then will people live with the full reality and within the full reality. This is a task for humanity from this time onward. For humanity is currently living through a great catastrophe. The deeper reasons why this catastrophe has arisen are that people have forgotten how to live in reality. Through materialistic consciousness, people are far removed from reality. They believe they are close to reality because they acknowledge only one part of reality—sensory reality—and regard the other as a mere figment of the imagination; but it is precisely by failing to acknowledge one half of reality that one separates oneself from it. As a result, one fails to arrive at profound understandings of reality. If only people would realize that what I have just said contains a great deal of truly practical insight for the present!

[ 21 ] Our children and young people are learning history today. In this day and age—and for a long time now—people have become accustomed to learning history, that is, what they regard as history. But how much have people actually learned from history? Well, people today are very often called upon, in the face of events that occur as fundamental occurrences at every moment, to ask themselves: What does history teach us about this? — One can read this phrase over and over again: “From history, one can learn this or that.” — People simply learn nothing from reality. Never before could one have learned so much from reality as in the last three and a half years. But countless people are sleeping through this infinitely significant reality. When these catastrophic events began, very intelligent people—who believed they had learned a great deal from history—spoke out about how long these “war events,” as they call them, might last. Based on the evidence they had at the time, they were able to substantiate their claims; they said: four to six months; according to the knowledge available, this war catastrophe could not possibly last any longer. — These were, without a doubt, experts who made such statements. Well, the facts turned out differently. And one truly need not be a man of little intellect to make such a judgment, seduced by what is called “history” in modern times. A truly not insignificant man took up his professorship of history at the university in 1789 and delivered an inaugural address in which this truly not insignificant man said at the time that history teaches us it is very likely that, in the future, the peoples of Europe will indeed have all sorts of disputes with one another, but that they will no longer be able to tear one another apart; for humanity had, after all, progressed too far for that. In 1789, a man of no small significance—Friedrich Schiller—made this statement upon assuming his professorship, based on his own interpretation of history, to which Schiller himself was rightly devoted. But what followed what Schiller said there? The French Revolution; the great wars at the beginning of the 19th century. And if the lesson of history were that the peoples of Europe, as members of one great family, could never again tear one another apart, then all the events of the present would be all the more impossible.

[ 22 ] As strange as it may sound, it is necessary to rethink these things. What has been called “history” is, in fact, not history at all. Supernatural forces are at work in the historical life of humankind. The dead influence historical life, and a judgment of history will only emerge when that judgment is based on spiritual science. As long as this does not happen, history will never teach us anything; history will never become a practical science; it will never be capable of providing guiding principles for what must happen. This is why people today stand so helpless in the face of events, because it is necessary in our time for spiritual scientific principles to be made into practical foundations for life. As long as this does not happen, catastrophic events cannot truly be overcome.

[ 23 ] I have said: Thoughts that have arisen from an emotional connection to the deceased, and that are recalled in such a way that one also remembers this emotional connection, are particularly conducive to reaching the deceased. It is particularly conducive to receiving a response from the deceased—and particularly conducive to the deceased influencing our lives—when we truly know the deceased, when we have the opportunity to delve deeply into their being. Spiritual science will also be able to provide the impetus for delving into the being of other people. For today, precisely because of the materialistic state of the soul, it is hardly possible for people to truly know one another in life. They believe they know one another, but they merely pass each other by, talking past one another. Today, one can be married to someone for thirty or more years—and know very little about them. It requires a certain refinement of the soul to know the essence of another. If one can know another’s essence as well as one’s own, then the prerequisite is met to summon that essence before one’s soul. If we summon the essence of a deceased person—to whom we wish to ask questions—before our soul by recalling something that connects us to them in a heartfelt way, and by vividly imagining their essence, then we will surely receive an answer; then it is solely up to us to develop the necessary attentiveness to the interplay between what we direct toward the deceased and what surely returns from the deceased when the aforementioned heartfelt connections are recalled. It is then possible that what we bring to the deceased will find its answer from the deceased if we can vividly bring before our soul what we have truly and comprehensively absorbed of their nature.

[ 24 ] The observing consciousness can shed light on some other specific relationships with the dead. Today, I would like to speak first about one more. You see, those who pass through the gate of death—whether they are our relatives, friends, or people connected to us karmically in some other way—do so either as children or young people, or as older people. When one observes with the clairvoyant consciousness the nature of the relationships with the various deceased, one can say the following regarding this passing at different stages of life. When children or younger people pass through the gate of death, the relationship they maintain with those left behind can be described as follows: children or younger people have not lost those who were their loved ones here; they actually remain right there in the immediate vicinity. And this is what gives what we experience as pain and grief its character. When a person endowed with a contemplative consciousness observes the soul-pain that a mother or father feels over a child who has passed away, this soul-pain is quite different from the pain one feels as a young person when an older person dies. Certainly, on a superficial, external level, these soul experiences are more or less the same, but when viewed more intimately, they are fundamentally different. Those who have died at a younger age do not leave; they actually remain here—that is how one might describe the relationship—and they continue to live with our souls, continue to live within our souls. And it is actually the pain we feel, the grief we feel, that is what the recently deceased themselves experience within us. This is transferred into our pain, into our grief. They remain with us. It is a transformation of their own pain, which need not be pain, but which then becomes pain for us when it is transformed within our souls.

[ 25 ] The grief one feels for an elderly person is actually pain felt on a personal level. I would say it is less a pain born of compassion and more a selfish pain—one’s own selfish pain. For if one wishes to describe, from the perspective of observing consciousness, the relationship between the younger person left behind here and the older person who has passed away, one can say: The older person who has passed away does not lose us. We do not lose the younger departed; the older departed does not lose us, those left behind; to a certain degree, he takes the soul with him, carrying it along on his further journey with its powers intact. He does not lose those left behind. And therefore, this relationship to such an older departed person is also quite different from that to a younger departed person. The older departed soul does not tend to live on in the soul of those left behind, because it takes with it the inner essence—the imprint of the inner essence.

[ 26 ] What I just said—to know this—is by no means insignificant in life, for it sheds a very specific light on what we call the remembrance of the dead. For younger people, it is good to revive this remembrance—I would say, the cult of the dead—and to shape it in such a way that we remain more in the general realm, that we arrange the thoughts, ritual acts, or other things intended to preserve the memory are arranged in such a way that we focus less on the individual, on the personal aspects of the deceased, and instead, in regard to the deceased, have broad, universal feelings and thoughts. Within that context, the one who has remained with us as a young person who has passed away feels at ease. In the case of someone who has passed away at an older age, it is particularly good to be able to focus on their individuality—when the thoughts directed toward them are shaped in such a way that they relate to their personality and are imbued with it. In the case of a younger person who has passed away, it is particularly good if the funeral service is organized in such a way that a kind of ritual—a generally established ritual with symbolic meaning—is developed. For those who have died young, the Catholic funeral service is particularly suitable; in most countries, it focuses less on individual circumstances—or not at all—but rather serves as a symbolic, universal funeral service for everyone. For the souls of those who have died young—who, after all, remain with us—it is best to develop, through rites that apply equally to all, universal symbols and universal sensibilities with regard to them. For those who have passed away at an older age, the Protestant funeral service—which focuses more on the individual life story and relates more to the personal aspects of the deceased—is the better option. And even in the individual remembrance dedicated to such a deceased person, what is preferable for those who have passed away at an older age is that which is personally connected to them—that which does not apply to every deceased person, but only to them.

[ 27 ] Once we know these things, our emotional life with regard to the departed dead also becomes more nuanced and differentiated. We learn to distinguish how the soul should relate to someone who passed away at a younger or older age. Life is enriched in its most intimate aspects when we take up from spiritual science the idea that not only the souls living in physical bodies belong to us, but also the disembodied souls. Only then does a person truly immerse themselves in full reality. It must be said again and again: Speaking of the spirit in general does not get us very far. To speak of spiritual life in general, as certain philosophers do, or as do those people who today believe they can overcome materialism simply by speaking generally of spirit, spirit, and spirit—that does not take us very far. One must summon the courage—and it does indeed require a certain amount of courage today—to penetrate into concrete spiritual life. We must summon the courage to acknowledge such circumstances—as we have discussed once again today—unreservedly before the world around us, no matter how great the scorn of materialistic thinkers may still be at present. It is impossible to see today just how infinitely fatal for humanity, how infinitely catastrophic, it is that people—precisely in the most important parts of the world—know nothing of these things and therefore do not think about them, and are thus so far removed from reality, which must then descend upon them with devastating force. People will attribute the current global catastrophe to all manner of causes—anything but those in which it truly has its origin in the deepest sense.

[ 28 ] This is indeed the place to reflect on the full significance that an anthroposophically oriented spiritual-scientific worldview—such as the one we have in mind here—must actually have in European intellectual life. The way people relate to the spirit and to spiritual content will be of great significance in a future that is truly not far off. For important, significant events are taking shape in the life of humanity on Earth. Indeed, one really cannot help but—if one emerges even slightly from the slumbering state in which, unfortunately, so many people find themselves—to reflect more deeply on certain matters than has been done in Europe for centuries. The times are urging people to learn to think anew. In fact, one can see that people are rethinking things; the question is simply whether they are doing so in a truly profound way, or not at all, or whether they are doing it in the manner that so many people are doing now. One can already see that people are rethinking things, but sometimes the results are quite peculiar. One could cite not hundreds, but thousands of examples.

[ 29 ] You see, one of the people who has undergone a dramatic change of heart over the past three and a half years is the former French socialist and journalist Gustave Hervé. He publishes a newspaper called *Gloire*, which was itself renamed from a less provocative title. This Hervé is actually one of those who currently write in the spirit of the most rabid French chauvinism. One could say that even compared to a tiger-like, bull-like chauvinist such as Clemenceau, Hervé is actually even more French-chauvinistic—and Clemenceau had already changed his views. Four years ago, he was still a complete cosmopolitan; back then, he used to laugh at anyone who was in any way—I don’t even want to say French chauvinist—but simply had any kind of French nationalist sentiment. He was a complete cosmopolitan, this Hervé. Now what he writes is so venomous that you can read between the lines of everything he writes: what he would really like most is for the French tricolor to become a weapon to crush everything that opposes France. Nevertheless, a significant statement originated with Hervé—one he made, admittedly, before this war. That statement is as follows: “The tricolor belongs on the dung heap!” — So little was this man—who is now one of the most chauvinistic Frenchmen—imbued with French nationalist sentiment that he went so far as to say: The tricolor—he means the French one—belongs on the dung heap. — That is how much he despised everything national. — He has already changed his views and rethought his position, though naturally in a way that is not exactly very profound. What is meant to happen in a given era will happen—it is important to bear this in mind—; the only question is how it plays out for one person or another, how one person or another truly fulfills their human mission. Above all, in this process of re-learning, it is essential that Europeans not miss the significant events that are currently unfolding for all of humanity on Earth. Over in Asia, and in the Orient in general, a body of judgments is taking shape regarding Europe—specifically Central Europe, which is of particular interest to us at the present time—judgments that will gradually coalesce into historical impulses. People in the East—the Japanese, the Indians, the Chinese—are gradually feeling challenged to develop certain impulses within themselves. And to a significant degree, such impulses have already emerged. To a certain extent, there are judgments—particularly among leading Orientals—regarding Central European and German character that should be taken seriously, for what lives within these impulses will become history in the not-too-distant future. It may seem very strange, but one should cultivate a keen sensitivity to such matters today; one should realize that it is necessary today to foresee to some extent what is bound to come in order to keep pace with reality. The Orientals who are preparing to enter into a relationship with Europe, who are forming their judgments—which will become world politics in the future—these Orientals have their age-old views on spiritual life. They see what has been happening in Europe for centuries, but they see it only in a one-sided way, because this Europe—namely, Central Europe—reveals its own nature to them in a one-sided way. Indeed, what do leading Easterners believe, for example, about this Central European nature? They believe what they must believe based on what they actually perceive most clearly. They believe that this Central Europe is particularly gifted at organizing governmental, commercial, and other affairs; that this Central Europe is particularly gifted at submitting to external science, as taught in European schools, and surrendering to the authority of that science. These Easterners cannot particularly appreciate this—neither what stems from this organization nor what stems from this science—for in contrast, they are aware that they possess an ancient spirituality, born of impulses entirely different from those we Europeans can have. A leading Eastern figure, in particular, will never be impressed by what European natural science has to offer, for example; he will never be impressed by what European industry produces, even if he accepts it outwardly, as the Japanese do; he will never be impressed by what European organization is capable of accomplishing. For he is aware that none of this bears any relation to the true nature of things. He feels this relationship established between his soul and the soul of the universe. He feels a spiritual kinship with the soul of the universe. Let us be perfectly clear about this. The Oriental would relate quite differently to that which corresponds to the kind of contemplation we have practiced here today or elsewhere than to European machinery, European organization, or European external intellectual science. And one may well, strange as it may seem, direct one’s attention to this: What would the East say if it could know that what European spiritual life has produced through Herder, Schiller, Goethe, and the Romantics could become a true, concrete spiritual contemplation of the world—one that adds something special to Eastern spiritual contemplation, something that Easterners, by their very nature, cannot find on their own, but which they could appreciate and with which they could harmonize? — Certainly, you might say: Goethe is, after all, well known throughout the world, and the leaders of Eastern intellectual life can also come to know Goethe, and Goethe is a source—an infinite source—for the intellectual life of Central Europe. — All of that is true, absolutely true. But has Central Europe already reached the point of truly recognizing Goethe as such a source? One could say a great deal on this point. The Oriental looks at what Central Europe has been able to make of Goethe. Now, much could be cited; I will mention just one example: Central Europe has known how to pass over Goethe’s most important impulses in silence, yet it has a Goethe Society. This Goethe Society was founded at a truly most opportune moment. The starting point was an excellent one. One could say that few circumstances were as favorable for such endeavors as those at the end of the 1880s. When Goethe’s last descendant handed over his estate to a princess, everything could have been set in motion properly—and indeed was—providing an initial impetus that led one to believe: now we will draw upon Goethe’s spiritual sources! Much has happened since then, and the Goethe Society was also founded at that time. But let us consider the Oriental scholar who asks: “In the East, we have a way of life that connects the soul directly to the soul of the world.” Over there they have organizations based on state and social structures; over there they have machines and industry; they have a science that is taught in schools and weighs upon souls with immense authority; but they have no connection between the human soul and the soul of the universe. — If he knew what latent connections lie there, if he knew what might be possible based on what could be experienced through Goethe, he would speak, think, and feel differently. But what does he see? Well, he might ask himself: Yes, this Central Europe has managed to establish a Goethe Society to honor one of its greatest minds. But it has also managed to have a former finance minister as the president of this Goethe Society today. — This is merely symbolic of many things. One might say: The impulse to make the world aware must live within our souls: From the wellspring of the German spirit can emerge that which constitutes the impulses of spiritual science. These will not go unnoticed over in the East. If they were to be overlooked, then the judgment would inevitably take shape in the East as a historical impulse: This Central European culture is actually harmful to humanity. — And this judgment has become firmly established to a great extent. It would most certainly be corrected if it were known that this Central European spiritual life is capable of transforming even the most mechanical aspects of mechanism into beauty and soul through the very impulses it possesses—impulses that enable it to develop a true understanding of and a true assimilation of the supersensible. This is how it could actually exert its influence in one direction.

[ 30 ] And let’s look at the other side: In the West, in America, people view not only Central European life but all of European life in a way that can only be known from the outside, because, of course, they see not only the Goethe Society—headed by the former finance minister—but also other things in a similar light; yet they do not perceive what lives in people’s souls—such as what has moved through our souls today. While in the East people say, “This Europe, this European way of life, is harmful,” over in America they find it superfluous. For building machines, managing industrial organizations, and founding Goethe Societies with people who understand as much about Goethe studies as is necessary for compiling financial budgets—the Americans can do that too. But what flows from Goethe as the deepest source of spiritual life—that the Americans cannot do; they can only have it if they take it from the Central Europeans.

[ 31 ] It is not merely some kind of mystical eccentricity, my dear friends; it is a question deeply connected to the practical needs of life today—how we respond to the impulses to do, as far as we are able, what lies within our power to let the world know and feel what spiritual life might be alive within European culture, and what paths it might currently have toward the supersensible. Today more than ever, it is necessary to reflect on the fact that spiritual science, as we understand it, is not merely something through which we seek to do our own souls good, but that spiritual science must become something through which we, as human beings in the true sense—as people of Central Europe—can fulfill our task in the development of humanity.