The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. The Human Soul Life in Sleep, Wakefulness, and Dreams

[ 1 ] As human beings, we can only truly understand the deeper mysteries of the soul if we consider the totality of human experience. This totality of human experience is, after all, divided—during the time a person spends on Earth—into life between waking and sleeping, that is, the ordinary waking state of the day and the life between falling asleep and waking up—that life a person spends in a dark state of consciousness, from which, at first, only the waves of the dream life rise to the surface of ordinary consciousness.

[ 2 ] The point now is to truly take a close look at this transitional state between sleeping and waking from the various perspectives from which it can be viewed. If we start from the ordinary view of life, we can say: It is precisely in the dream state that a transition from waking to sleeping becomes apparent. And if we examine the course of dream life, we must make a significant distinction between the content of the images—the content of the imagination in dreaming, so to speak—and the course of dreaming itself. I have, after all, often drawn attention to this as well.

[ 3 ] In terms of content, we can dream this or that. But we must also consider the inner progression of the dream—let’s say that it unfolds with a certain dramatic quality, that we initially experience a kind of state of tension in the dream, which grows ever greater or stronger and stronger, and that a certain resolution then occurs, or that such a resolution does not ultimately materialize, but instead we awaken out of that tension. We must distinguish this dramatic process from the actual content of the dream.

[ 4 ] Let's say, for example, we dream that we're making our way along a path. We come to a cave in the mountains. We enter the cave. It feels more and more eerie to us because it’s getting darker and darker. Finally, a real sense of fear overwhelms us, and then—even though we know we have to keep going—we come upon some kind of obstacle. The panic grows greater and greater. We feel the tension building. The content—the imaginative content—of the dream, however, is something entirely different. For example, we might also dream the following: We see something approaching in the distance that threatens us. It comes closer and closer; the individual details become clearer and clearer to us, and with that our anxiety grows, finally erupting into a powerful state of fear. In terms of the drama of the dream, the same thing is present in both cases: that which builds up internally as tension. The images in which the dream is clothed, imaginatively speaking, are something different from that.

[ 5 ] Now, as we proceed, we will often find—at least for the most part in the life of dreams—that this imaginative aspect of dreaming is, in some form, drawn from the experiences of our earthly existence. Certainly, some things may be transformed, and some may appear in a highly disguised form, but we will nevertheless be able to understand, in some way, how earthly circumstances we have lived through enter into the dream as images.

[ 6 ] What exactly is happening during such a dream—let’s say, when it is a dream while awake? Well, from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up, our soul-spiritual part—which we also call the astral body and the “I”—exists apart from our physical body and the etheric body. We remain in this world with our “I” and our astral body, a world we cannot initially perceive—just as our consciousness cannot perceive the earthly realm—because the astral body and the “I” in which we reside are, after all, somewhat indefinite and have not yet developed the organs necessary for perception. But that does not mean that nothing is happening in what exists outside the physical body during sleep. Throughout the entire period between falling asleep and waking up, a richer life actually unfolds in the astral body and the “I” than during waking hours. We are simply unable to become aware of it. And whatever manifests in dreams as states of tension, states of release, fear, or perhaps even anger, rage, and so on—all of which can play a role in the dream and take on the most varied forms—this is what happens to us from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up.

[ 7 ] It is precisely in these out-of-body states that we live in a world whose movements we participate in, just as we participate in the events of the physical external world through our senses while we are awake during the day. When we awaken and return to our physical body with our soul-spiritual being—that is, with the astral body and the “I”—we take hold of the organs of our physical body. We sink into these organs. At that moment, we once again become capable of perceiving an external world—the external world of the natural kingdoms: minerals, plants, animals, and the physical human being. We permeate these organs, which the physical body contains, with our soul. Through this, we stand in relation to this external world.

[ 8 ] But if we do not immediately immerse ourselves completely in our physical body, but instead, for a moment before taking on the entire physical body, permeate the etheric body, then the forces that shape the images of the “dream” come to us from this etheric body. The etheric body carries these images within itself through these forces. They are reminiscences of life, memories of life.

[ 9 ] When we dream as we fall asleep, it may happen that we leave our physical body but, due to some abnormality, do not immediately leave the etheric body. Then, before we slip into complete unconsciousness, we continue to exist within the images of the etheric body. But already that surging movement of the astral body and the “I” begins, which takes place during the state between falling asleep and waking up. We must therefore make a clear distinction between the images contained in the dream and the dynamic, the flow of energy within the dream—the drama of the dream. We must strictly separate the two. And when we are able, through spiritual exercises, to carry out this separation—as I have just described to you theoretically— —that is, when we become capable of carrying out this separation in practice, when we are able, through exercises, to strengthen our astral body and our “I” to such an extent that we do not passively slip down into the etheric body and then into the physical body, but rather learn to make use of the general world ether outside the body—then we arrive at perceptions that we otherwise simply cannot have.

[ 10 ] The ether that is separated off and forms our etheric body is, after all, only a part of the universal ether. Ether is everywhere. Some time before our birth, we separate from the universal ether that which becomes our etheric body; we then carry it within us between birth and death. The universal ether remains imperceptible. It becomes perceptible only when we are able to strengthen our astral body and our “I” to such an extent that we can maintain them outside the physical body—even when we are not asleep—so that we do not merely receive the kinds of dream impressions we experience when falling asleep or in ordinary consciousness, but can perceive the outer etheric realm. Then the following occurs:

[ 11 ] The physical world is spread out around us. At first, it is of no concern to us. It remains present to us when we perform the proper exercises, just as memories remain present. We survey it; we do not step outside of it like someone experiencing hallucinations, but at first, it is of no concern to us. We have strengthened our astral body and our “I.” Through this, we perceive what is taking place in the etheric world, not in the physical world. And what is now taking place in the etheric world—that is, what is now becoming perceptible to us—is in fact nothing other than what you will find, of course always only in part, at least in terms of its nature, described in my book Occult Science.

[ 12 ] This is seen in such a way that one observes it with the enhanced astral body and I; however, instead of using the eyes and ears to perceive physically outside the body, they now perceive etherically. This etheric aspect presents itself in images that can be described exactly as I have described them in my Occult Science.

[ 13 ] So I would like to say: If one is able to bring the astral body and the “I” into the bodiless state—as they are, after all, every night during sleep—but has strengthened them through exercises to the point where one perceives them in the world ether, then one initially has the world before oneself in imaginations, in images. What one otherwise sees only as a small part of the physical world is expanded there to such an extent that one can visualize, alongside earthly existence, the existence of Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, and so on. This is, to begin with, the first thing that is possible to perceive of the supersensible world.

[ 14 ] But this is where everything that can become the content of the imaginative world lies. We are already emerging from the etheric world when, through what I describe as empty consciousness, we no longer merely live within the imaginations that arise, but when we learn to dispel these imaginations as well—that is, when we become capable of both, so to speak, taking in an imagination into the soul and letting it go.

[ 15 ] This gives rise to a mental state that can be controlled entirely at will—a mental state that lives within the image, then suppresses the image, lives within the image again, and suppresses the image. This is the state of inspired experience of the world. Yet the world one experiences here is not entirely foreign to human beings. They live through it every night in dreamless sleep. They are simply unable to grasp with their consciousness what is taking place within it. In this world, one does not merely perceive images; rather, as the images surge forth, ebb, arise, and pass away—and as stillness settles into the surging image while a kind of inner sound emerges in the ebbing image—so that the world becomes manifold even in terms of perception—we already perceive in this inspired world, if I may put it that way, the actions, the deeds of real spiritual beings. In a description such as the one I have given in Occult Science, these deeds of spiritual beings are already allowed to play a part, even though the book essentially presents the images of the world’s becoming. However, reference is made to the beings of the higher hierarchies—Angels, Archangels, and so on—who appear to us in this cosmic surge of emerging and fading imaginations. I would like to say that, upon the waves one experiences in the inspired life, those beings—who are the beings of the higher hierarchies—are weaving at the same time.

[ 16 ] Now one realizes how one’s own existence—but that part of existence which actually becomes free only in the time between falling asleep and waking up during physical life on Earth—how this essential part of the human being is integrated into a world of supersensible essences. We are, in fact, very much part of this world between falling asleep and waking up. As souls, we move among beings.

[ 17 ] With imaginative consciousness, one actually has only a glimpse of what these beings do. I would say that the first stage of supersensible consciousness manifests itself in such a way that these beings, so to speak, project their images onto us. These are the imaginations. Then one reaches a point where images are not merely projected at one, but where images rise and ebb, and in this rising and ebbing the actions of the beings take place. But we ourselves are now within this world of unfolding spirituality. When consciousness breaks through, we are in a state in which we are as free from the body as we are for ordinary consciousness during dreamless sleep; we are in fact part of such a world in which spiritual acts take place. This world, in which spiritual deeds take place and into which we ourselves are woven, makes clear to us precisely that from which we emerge when we hasten toward birth on Earth to begin an earthly existence once again, after having lived for a time in the spiritual-soul world.

[ 18 ] Essentially, the beginning of earthly existence at birth marks the end of this world. After all, every time a person falls asleep, they return to this world, but the inner activity of the astral body and the “I” within him has become so weak in the course of life between death and a new birth that he is compelled to harbor the deepest desire, the deepest longing, for something to come to his aid; for he would have to perish in spiritual inactivity if birth were to approach again and nothing were to come to his aid.

[ 19 ] Let us assume, then, that human beings have evolved from death onward through spiritual events. At first, their consciousness is very vivid, even resembling earthly consciousness in the early stages. Then they ascend higher and higher as their consciousness participates in spiritual activities. But this consciousness later weakens. When the time for another earthly birth approaches, the human being enters a state as a soul being that—if we wish to characterize it using something that exists on Earth—can only be compared to someone who is beginning to suffer from memory loss, who, so to speak, reaches for their memories and cannot find them. Thus, as earthly life approaches once more, the human being reaches out for reality, for a sense of being filled with reality. For at this moment, their emotional and volitional life is strong, but their concepts are dull; they cannot access any inner content. They reach out, as it were, for concepts that grow ever duller and duller, while the will becomes ever more powerful. And this desire now drives him toward earthly incarnation, toward an earthly organism that is given to him through the currents of heredity. He can now use this as a tool; it gives him the opportunity to think once more—albeit now only about a physical external world—but nevertheless to unfold once more the life of imagination that has grown dull. It is through this desire, then, to be able to think again, that the human being enters into physical embodiment on Earth. And there he passes through the state of sleep, in which he slowly develops the ability to live once more as a spiritual-soul being when he passes through the gate of death, and thus to begin the cycle anew.

[ 20 ] What one now comes to know by rising, in a state of disembodiment, to this perception of the world that reveals itself to one through inspiration—that is the very secret of how a human being lives in a supersensible world between death and a new birth: what this supersensible world is really like.

[ 21 ] I have already described some of this—how a human being comes to incarnate on Earth once again—in the 1914 Vienna Cycle, “The Inner Being of the Human Being and Life Between Death and Rebirth.” If we now ascend even further, we encounter that which is actually unknown to people in their ordinary consciousness. In the waking state, we have three distinct states of the soul: thinking, feeling, and willing. We also have three such states during sleep. But usually, a distinction is made only between the two: the state where sleep becomes so light—I would say—that we can dream, the lightest sleep, and dreamless sleep. Yet very few people realize that if one compares the light sleep of dreaming to thinking in the waking state, and dreamless sleep to feeling in the waking state, there is still a deeper stage of sleep beyond that. This distinction between the intermediate state of sleep and that deep sleep—which can then be compared to the volition of the waking state—is simply overlooked. But this state of deep sleep does exist as well.

[ 22 ] Some people will certainly come to notice a certain difference, at least upon waking. It certainly happens that a person goes through nights in which they experience only the two stages of sleep—dream sleep and dreamless sleep—but not the deeper sleep that is clearly distinct from mere dreamless sleep. Upon waking, as I said, some people will already notice—when they sometimes emerge from sleep feeling completely renewed—that they are rising from deeper regions of their being than is usually the case. It is necessary to point out this difference, which, as I said, is not taken into account in ordinary consciousness. It is like this: When we are in dream sleep, we actually live in a world—since we are outside our physical and etheric bodies—that can certainly be compared to that world which otherwise unfolds invisibly in the earthly environment, where the blossoms of plants unfold and interact with the sunlight. This weaving and life of the flowering plants, of course, escapes ordinary consciousness. But it is into this world—which is, after all, the world closest to the ordinary waking world—that the human being first plunges. It is, in turn, everywhere, and as the human being plunges into this world, he lives in the state of dream sleep.

[ 23 ] The deeper, dreamless sleep is the one in which a person immerses themselves in a world that would exist all around us, inside the plants. We are indeed in such a world when we sleep without dreams, just as we would be if we could crawl into the interior of the plants as spirits.

[ 24 ] But when we are in that deeper sleep—which is a third state of sleep—we are completely immersed in the mineral kingdom. It is then that the mineral processes—which early alchemy called the “salting processes”—are most active in the human organism. In a sense, the human being is then devoted not only to plant life but also to mineral life.

[ 25 ] To those who can consciously enter this world—in which human beings are otherwise in this deepest state of sleep—it becomes truly clear what lives within the minerals. And when a person lives in a world such as that which exists within the minerals, it is as if, whereas they would otherwise always view a mineral from the outside, they now view it from the inside. You will sense that this was what I intended to convey in a certain description of the spirit realm in my Theosophy. In this description of the spirit realm, you will certainly find this reversal. And as a human being immerses themselves in this reversal, they immerse themselves in that world in which they can participate not only in the deeds of the higher hierarchies but also in the beings of the higher hierarchies—where they can come to know the beings of the higher hierarchies just as they perceive human beings here in the physical world according to their soul qualities. There we are no longer in the world of inspiration; there we are in the world of intuition. There we surrender ourselves not only to the actions—the spiritual actions—of the spiritual beings, but to the very essence of these beings themselves.

[ 26 ] But then we are also in that world in which karma becomes a reality for us. Every time a person enters this third state of sleep, if they were suddenly able to become conscious, they would perceive their karma. They would perceive how past earthly lives influence their present earthly life. A person experiences their karma during deep sleep, and they also carry the results of this experience into the physical body. But the physical body is not suited to perceiving anything of this kind. It lacks the necessary organs for this. Just as a person develops eyes to see outwardly and ears to hear outwardly, so too would they have to develop organs of perception directed inward.

[ 27 ] However, these inward-directed organs of perception would kill him if he were to develop them—that is, if he were forced to look inward physically—because the human organism cannot survive if it directs the forces that lead to the formation of the sense organs inward. If he were to direct them inward, he would, so to speak, be able to see his karma with physical organs. One can see it only with spiritual organs, namely through intuitive cognition.

[ 28 ] But we can see from this that during their earthly life, human beings live both within the forces that constitute their environment—forces that are at work within them in the time between death and a new birth, preparing them to be incorporated into a physical earthly body—and within the world in which their destiny unfolds from one earthly life to the next. This destiny is veiled from our ordinary consciousness, because if a person were to perceive this destiny of theirs unprepared, they would enter a very special state.

[ 29 ] If a person could perceive his destiny without having to practice—which, of course, cannot happen, but let me assume it hypothetically—then this ability to perceive would immediately give rise within him to the desire to develop, so to speak, organs of perception directed inward. He would, so to speak, want to develop eyes and ears that see and hear inwardly. But that would require energy from his organism. He would not merely wake up as he does now, but would bring with him from sleep the energy needed to transform his organism inwardly. In other words, he would kill his organism.

[ 30 ] The human organism is structured in such a way that the spiritual-soul aspects—the astral body and the “I”—can only submerge into the etheric body for a moment; then they must immediately submerge into the physical body, after dream images have risen as a result of the immersion into the etheric body. But even then, the etheric body must immediately relinquish what constitutes the content of the images. There, the human being cannot take in what he otherwise experiences outside. Then he must submerge into his physical body, which he must accept as it is—the physical body to which he must surrender himself, having resolved to use it when he descended from the spiritual-soul world, precisely in order to make use of a physical body and its organs. That which lies beyond the threshold—which is imperceptible but is nevertheless experienced—is, in a certain sense, very much a reflection of what we go through between death and a new birth.

[ 31 ] Only through such a perspective does the image of the complete human being emerge. And it becomes clear at the same time that human beings, as they are awake in their physical earthly life, are spiritually such weak beings that they would drift through the world in a dull sleep—if I may put it that way—without perceiving anything at all, were it not for the fact that they make use of their physical body to perceive. Between birth and death, a human being can really only be viewed as having a soul that lives in a dull state and only illuminates itself inwardly when it makes use of the body. This is the relative justification for materialism, which is indeed relatively justified for earthly life, for that which is actually spiritual and soul-related remains dull in earthly life.

[ 32 ] Now we might ask: Is there perhaps a way to look even more closely at that which lives as a spiritual-soul element and participates in the world as I have described it to you—participates in a world of flowing images, images that fade, dim, and brighten, fade again and shine anew—into which, however, — as you know from my description in Occult Science — what can be compared to perceptions of taste and so on in the physical world. In this world, the human being lives from the moment of falling asleep until waking up. From this world, too, the human being can receive knowledge—when consciousness within him is strengthened—of the nature of his karma, the nature of his destiny, and how it unfolds from one earthly life to the next.

[ 33 ] But one can gain a clearer insight into this world by first observing those beings who, in their earthly existence, essentially possess an astral body but not a distinct “I.” These are the animals. These animals, too, experience sleep and wakefulness. If we now consider sleep in animals, the following becomes apparent. Let us take, for example, an animal falling asleep. The astral body moves out. As this astral body moves out of the animal, it is immediately absorbed by a world that then presents itself to the animal’s perceptions as a flowing world of images that appear and disappear, of tonal hues. Then again, upon waking, it withdraws back into the animal. But if we look more closely, we see that while the animal sleeps, this flowing life of imagination, with its hues, moves through the earthly air. From the moment the animal wakes up, the soul moves back into the animal’s body on the waves of the respiratory process, through the respiratory organs in the broadest sense. It then stimulates the senses, causing them to participate in this life. But upon waking, it is essentially a flowing in of the soul, whereby skin respiration must of course be taken into account; yet there is the outflow through the respiratory processes, and then the inflow again through the respiratory organs. Once one has observed this, one also begins to understand how the astral body, when the animal first comes into being, unites with the animal during embryonic life. It unites in such a way that one might say: It is the reversal of the process in which the astral body moves outward on the waves of the breath. It moves inward and first builds up the body plastically from within.

[ 34 ] If you bear in mind that an animal actually derives its form from its respiratory organ, you will come to understand much about the animal’s form. Observe animals as they are shaped by their respiratory organs in the broader sense. But this is merely the way in which the animals’ spiritual nature takes root within them. Compare, for example, a proboscidean with any animal whose head organs are shaped more like a mouth than a proboscis. The rest of the animal’s form is shaped accordingly, and the way the animal breathes determines its form. The soul lives on the waves of the airy element taken in by the animal.

[ 35 ] When we look at human beings, something else comes into play. Even though a child cannot yet speak, the human being has the capacity to speak. His respiratory organs are already prepared for this. They differ from the respiratory organs of animals. The structure of these respiratory organs allows air to enter in such a way that not only an astral body but also an “I” can inhabit the human being, can take possession of him.

[ 36 ] Whoever sees through this, however, comes to know the truth: The animal is shaped into its form by its respiratory organs in the broadest sense, whereas the human being is shaped into his form by respiration modified into speech and the word. In the human being, the word literally becomes flesh; his form is a result of the word. I described earlier how human souls move among the beings of the supersensible worlds. Between death and a new birth, between falling asleep and waking up, human souls belong to these same worlds as the higher spiritual beings. When we observe these human souls, it is indeed the case that they move in a way that can then transition into the waves of the air; and the very same thing that a human being manifests when speaking—this kind of air movement that he manifests when speaking—also unfolds in his inhalation, shaping him as it enters him. One can indeed perceive human souls in this way, as if they were floating, so to speak, on the waves of the air. This stems from the fact that the “I” does not merely perceive the air. In animals, the astral body is present; it perceives the air and perceives the air with its states of warmth. The human astral body perceives the air and is able to move on the waves of the air, but it also specifically perceives warmth—the warmth ether. Thus, as the “I” flows through the world on the waves of the warmth ether, it colors the breath, becoming speech from the inside out and the human form from the outside in. If one grasps the concrete reality of speech life, then one learns to recognize in speech life—in the cosmic formation of words—what enters into human beings as formative, what acts plastically, particularly in the embryo and then in the child, as the human being gives itself form through inner forces that act plastically. And this connection between the word and the human form is something that can be spoken of as thoroughly real, because one can perceive it in the way I have just described to you.

[ 37 ] One can also note the following. When a person falls asleep, their astral body moves upon the waves of the air and remains within the airspace; their “I” drifts off into the indefinite, disappearing, as it were, into the thermal states of the external world. The soul is already able to live in the warmth ether and the air during the time when the person is between falling asleep and waking up, And so we have the human physical body, which actually belongs entirely to the Earth; the human etheric body, which belongs to the watery, liquid element of the Earth and has a special relationship to it; the astral body, which belongs to the airy element; and the “I,” which belongs to the element of warmth, the element of fire. And this is what one can perceive, in turn, when, so to speak, the world word enters into the human being and gathers together the forces of air and warmth, connecting them with the forces of water and earth. All of this is an interplay of forces that is then unfolded by the inner soul when the human being descends from the spiritual-soul world into an earthly existence.

[ 38 ] These things can, of course, only be contemplated inwardly, but they can truly be contemplated inwardly. And one might say: It is difficult, because today’s language is actually shaped entirely by materialism and a materialistic worldview, to express oneself in the words of contemporary languages, but as we increasingly succeed in truly putting into words what is perceived there—so that comprehensible thoughts can take root in the human soul—it will become clear to everyone what the science of initiation has to say about the higher worlds. It is indeed true that these things can only be discovered through supersensible research, but supersensible research is not necessary in order to understand them.

[ 39 ] I have often compared this by saying that one can appreciate a painting aesthetically without being a painter oneself. In the same way, one can also evaluate spiritual science—anthroposophy—without being a researcher oneself, although today, to a certain extent, anyone can become one through the instructions in How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and so on, so that they can even go so far as to verify the results of spiritual scientific research. But the content of spiritual truths does not derive its true value for life from the fact that one investigates these things, but rather from the fact that one understands them, that one takes them into oneself.

[ 40 ] Of anyone who truly takes in the ideas embodied in genuine spiritual research, one can say: Even if they possess only ordinary common sense, they already have the capacity to take these things in, just as someone who has not learned the chemical composition of sugar can still taste it. What one is meant to gain from sugar is obtained regardless of whether one knows its chemical composition or not. The same is true of the supersensible truths. What one is meant to gain from them is obtained through their embodiment in the world of ideas; that is how one takes them in. The other aspect is something that must indeed happen in order to attain them, but it is of no more help than if I were to say to a child: “I will not give you any sugar, but I will give you instructions so that you can understand the chemical composition of sugar.” The child would not be satisfied. Nor can people be satisfied with mere exploration of the spiritual worlds; rather, the transformation of spiritual findings into formulable ideas must be experienced. For it is these ideas alone that can then enliven our soul in such a way that a true purpose in life arises from the findings of anthroposophy.

[ 41 ] When a person then takes in what is offered by anthroposophy—and at first, let’s say, they can take in what is described in imagination—they are already doing their common sense a great deal of good, for their personality becomes freer and more independent within. In this way, the personality gains something that will be very much needed in the present and the near future. People today are truly very, very dependent on the uncontrollable ideas and so on that they take in.

[ 42 ] I just want to remind you that the people who attend political or other kinds of gatherings today are really nothing more than a flock of sheep that fall for the catchphrases hurled at them by the speakers and then follow them blindly. In this regard, humanity today is terribly lacking in independence. It is also lacking in independence in that it simply accepts whatever has been established. As a result, people gradually reach a point where they can no longer think at all in reality, but only appear to think, because their thinking can no longer, I would say, be seen in the light of the spirit. One experiences strange things there.

[ 43 ] Following a eurythmy performance in Berlin, for example, a witty critic recently made the following remark: “First they performed serious pieces, and then humorous ones.” The impossibility of eurythmy is evident from the very fact that the humorous pieces are performed using the same movement forms as the serious pieces.

[ 44 ] It had first been discussed that eurythmy is a visible language, and that it is therefore truly essential to understand the content conveyed by eurythmy simply as language. What, then, would be the logical consequence of what such a witty critic is saying? The consequence would be that he would have to say: If, for example, a reciter uses ordinary spoken language—say, the German language—he must not recite serious poems with the same sounds he uses to recite comic poems. He would have to see this as just as much of a contradiction as if, in the case of visible language, the same movements were used for both comic and serious—or solemn—poems. It is, therefore, utter nonsense. People read this, but do not even realize that these are no longer thoughts at all, but merely a sequence of mental processes that, while they may appear as thoughts, are no longer thoughts—it is the most utter folly. This kind of thing shows how people have lost their inner activity. Real life in thought must come precisely from people immersing themselves in the imaginative life and following what arises from it with common sense. Through this, a person becomes more active; they once again become a personality in the fullest sense of the word.

[ 45 ] It is, however, of particular importance to open oneself to what is revealed through inspired consciousness. If one applies common sense to live out what is described as inspiration, then—as I have already hinted at on various occasions in other contexts—true and false gradually transform into sound and flawed judgment. One has the feeling that something untrue is something unhealthy. With what is true, one has the feeling that it is something healthy. The logic of true and false is actually significant only for the physical world. As soon as we immerse ourselves in the spiritual world, we perceive the true as something healthy and the false—error—as something unhealthy.

[ 46 ] But by studying the truths of inspiration and thereby developing a sense of sound and flawed judgment, we pave the way for ourselves to understand the Christ Event. For the Christ event entered the world precisely because the development of humanity was in danger of becoming diseased. From the Christ event, from the Mystery of Golgotha, emanates the power that enables human beings to turn once again toward truth and toward healing. Through the inspired truths, we truly regain the ability to develop a sense of religious truths—especially the truths of Christianity—and we learn once again to understand why the being of Christ was celebrated as a Savior, as one who truly heals, has healed, and continues to heal humanity. The Word truly came into being in this context. Because at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, the ancient clairvoyant faculties were still present—faculties that then faded away in the fourth century after the Mystery of Golgotha, existing thereafter only as concepts—people at that time were still able to grasp the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 47 ] Today we must once again bring ourselves to accept this insight. Until the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ lived in the world that we perceive in dream sleep, so that before the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ was perceptible to every human being in dream sleep. But no one was allowed to think—this was something that was made perfectly clear to people in the mystery schools—that the being who lives in Christ could be reached by earthly thoughts, or that one could have found him even in the waking state. This only became possible through the Mystery of Golgotha, through Christ’s passage through death. Since that time, it has been permissible to think of him as a being who belongs to earthly life itself. Thus, a real conception of the earthly life of the God who had emerged from the realm of dreams into the physical world was born.

[ 48 ] This is a real process: The God who has come to know what the gods otherwise do not know, who has learned to die, who has incorporated the reality of death into himself—that is the Christ, the God who enters the world where there is birth and death, the descent of God into human nature. God becomes human. This is precisely the formula that can express what Christ has become: for the earth, the archetype of humanity; for the earth, that through which humanity gains meaning. And if the opposite had come to pass—if, at the very moment God became human, a human being had also felt the urge to become God, that is, to no longer die, to no longer be subject to the laws of earthly life—then, naturally, while God became the most perfect human by descending, that human would have become the most wretched God. This is the polar opposition you have! It is no coincidence that standing beside Christ, who ascends to Golgotha, is Ahasver—the human who becomes a god, but a bungling god who loses the ability to die, who now wanders through the world unable to die, the god who remains on the physical plane, but on the physical plane develops the very same peculiarities that were actually only meant to be developed in the realm of dreams.

[ 49 ] It is a tremendous, profound concept that is presented to our soul: that God is accompanied by the human being who has become God—though, of course, in a way that brings him misery. The human being who has become God also upholds, within the course of Earth’s evolution, the principle that the divinity must not descend to the physical plane: Judaism, the Old Testament worldview.

[ 50 ] There is already a mystery here. Anyone who knows these things understands: Ahasver is a real being, and the Ahasver legends are based on actual impressions of Ahasver’s presence here and there, for Ahasver exists, and Ahasver is the guardian of Judaism following the Mystery of Golgotha. He is the human being who has become God. We must be absolutely clear that we can only attain a complete understanding of history by incorporating the spiritual into our view.

[ 51 ] On the one hand, we look to the Incarnation of God in the event at Golgotha; on the other, we look to the deification of the human being in Ahasver. And the initiate can know that Ahasver truly walks among us. Of course, one cannot see him as a human being. After all, he has become a god. But he walks among us. He is present in earthly existence. And true historical accounts that grasp the full reality require that we look at what also passes through the historical unfolding of human development as a spiritual reality.

[ 52 ] Certainly, many things exist only in images. What matters, after all, is that one knows these images correspond to reality. It is foolish to say that one should not express oneself through such images. After all, when we speak, we always express ourselves through images. Take the Sanskrit word “Manas.” Whoever understands “Manas” sees before them, in the sound itself, a vivid image of the shell bearing the moon and the sun; for when one pronounced “Manas” in Proto-Sanskrit, one sensed human beings, in terms of their volitional nature, as the shell that then bore the thinking being. All words also trace back to images; they are simply more elementary, simpler images. What is expressed through words does not, after all, lie within the words themselves. If, then, there are more complex essences that cannot be expressed in this way with words, one must simply form images. So when one speaks of Ahasver and the legends of Ahasver—as one otherwise speaks of images—these are merely more complex forms of expression that point to the spiritual realm.

[ 53 ] Anyone who rails against mythology in this sense should also rail against the fact that humans have developed a language through which they seek to express meaning. They should demand that people become mute, for the next step after forbidding them to develop mythology would be to forbid people to speak. For the process of visualization in ordinary language is exactly the same as in higher forms of visualization, such as in the figure of Ahasver, who, as a being, but specifically as a spiritual being, and who continually prevents human beings—in the manner inherent to their development—from returning through Christ to the spiritual world from which they departed when they lost their atavistic clairvoyance,

[ 54 ] That is what I wanted to say today: on the one hand, to point out that human beings are truly immersed in the spiritual world—through an accurate description of the states of sleep and dreaming—and, on the other hand, to emphasize that spiritual beings live within history, and it is only through them that the full course of history becomes comprehensible.