The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eleventh Lecture

[ 1 ] Since, when one is able to be together so rarely, one wants to summarize as much as possible in a single reflection, it would be easy to end up summarizing too much. Nevertheless, I would like to attempt today to characterize for you, from a certain perspective, what might be called the other side of human existence on Earth. And I would then like to relate this to the significance of deeper insights—spiritual insights—for our time.

[ 2 ] After all, how much does a person truly know about the reality of his existence if he relies solely on his senses and on the intellect, which is bound to those senses? Through ordinary sensory consciousness, we consciously experience only the waking part of human existence. Yet the spiritual guiding forces of the world have certainly not introduced the state of sleep into human existence for no reason.

[ 3 ] From the moment a person falls asleep until they wake up, an extraordinary amount happens within them. In fact, of all that the spirit has to accomplish through a person during their earthly existence, the vast majority takes place during sleep.

[ 4 ] During the waking state, the only things that happen on Earth are those that human beings can bring about for themselves and in relation to the world around them. During the sleeping state, everything that occurs in human development is brought about by higher spiritual beings working with the human soul to guide the individual toward their overall development within earthly existence. And one must certainly not lose sight of the fact that, although modern initiatory knowledge makes it possible to look more closely into the significant events that take place within a person between falling asleep and waking up, these events do not occur only for the initiate, but for all human beings; that the development of all human beings depends on these events. The initiate can only draw attention to these facts. However, all human beings in earthly existence who reflect at all on the meaning of this earthly existence should increasingly feel and sense their significance.

[ 5 ] Today I would simply like to describe to you all the factors that come into play during a person’s sleep. When a person falls asleep—as you know, this is characterized externally by the fact that: “His astral body and his ‘I’ detach themselves from the physical body and the etheric body”—then this ‘I’ and this astral body are in the spiritual world and do not permeate the physical body and the etheric body, as they do in the state from waking until falling asleep.

[ 6 ] But if we now look at what actually happens to a person during sleep, we see how he is connected to this Earth while awake. He is connected to this Earth first and foremost through his senses, by perceiving and recognizing the phenomena of the various kingdoms of nature through his senses. But they are also connected to it through the subconscious processes that take place while they are awake. For example, they breathe, and—if one may put it that way—the entire Earth plays a part in the air they breathe. The air we breathe contains an immense number of substances in a very, very finely dispersed state. Yet it is precisely in this finely dispersed state that they exert an extraordinarily significant effect when they are taken up by the human organism through the air we breathe. And just as what a person perceives through their senses enters them consciously, so too does a great deal enter a person subconsciously even while they are awake—I would say, more substantially than through the abstract, ideal state of perception and thought; the environment enters a person more substantially through breathing.

[ 7 ] And if you were to consider just how greatly the human organism depends on everything it takes in through the various substances in earthly foods, you would be able to say to yourself: Many things affect a person while they are awake. — But that is of less interest to us today. We should be more interested in what affects the human being during sleep. And here we must say: Just as we see the human being connected to external substances—the earthly realm—while awake, so too, when he enters the state of sleep, he enters into a certain connection with the entire cosmos.

[ 8 ] It is not as if human beings were to be understood as taking on the vastness of the cosmos with their astral bodies every night—that would be an exaggeration if one were to claim it—but human beings do grow into the cosmos every night. Just as we are connected here to the plants, the minerals, and the air, so too are we connected during the night to the movements of the planets and the constellations of the fixed stars. From the moment we fall asleep until we wake up, the starry sky becomes our world just as the Earth is our world while we are awake.

[ 9 ] Well, to begin with, we can distinguish various spheres through which we pass between falling asleep and waking up. The first sphere through which we pass between falling asleep and waking up is the sphere in which the human “I” and the human astral body—that is, the human soul in sleep—feel connected to the movements of the planetary world. Just as, when we wake up again in the morning and slip back into our physical body, we can then say: “We have within us our lungs, our heart, our liver, our brain”—so too, during the state of sleep, we must say: “We have within us, in the first sphere with which we come into contact immediately after falling asleep and with which we are in contact again immediately before waking up, the forces of the planets’ movements.”

[ 10 ] It is not as if we take in the entire movement of the planets every night, but what we carry within us as an image is a small picture that actually reflects the movements of the planets. And this is different for every person. So we can say: Every person first experiences the planetary movements after falling asleep in such a way that they relive internally, within a kind of planetary globe in their astral body, everything that takes place out there in outer space between the planets as they move. This is the first experience a person goes through after falling asleep.

[ 11 ] And do not say, my dear friends: “What does all this have to do with me? I don’t even notice it!” — You do not see it with your eyes, nor do you hear it with your ears. But the moment you slip into sleep, at that very moment, the part of your astral body that is integrated into the heart while you are awake actually becomes a heart’s eye; it becomes capable of perceiving what is taking place in this way. And this eye of the heart truly perceives—even if this perception is very dull in present-day humanity—it perceives what the human being is experiencing there.

[ 12 ] And what he experiences there is perceived by this eye of the heart in such a way that, in the moments immediately following falling asleep, this eye of the heart looks back at the human being lying in bed as a physical body and an etheric body. The I and the astral body look back at him through the eye of the heart. And what you experience inwardly as the image of the planetary movements within your body is reflected back to you from your own etheric body, so that you see its reflection from your own etheric body.

[ 13 ] It is simply the case, given the current state of human beings, that as soon as they wake up, they forget the dim awareness they had during the night through the eye of their heart. It is a vague consciousness that, at most, resonates in such dreams, which, while still retaining something of the inner dynamism of planetary motion, are also imbued with images from life—images that, in essence, merely enter into these dreams, which are actually dependent on planetary motion. The images enter because the astral body submerges into the etheric body, and the etheric body preserves the memory of life.

[ 14 ] So it may well be that you wake up in the morning, having once again passed through the sphere of planetary movements; let’s say you experienced within it—because this is particularly connected to your destiny, to your karma—a special relationship between Jupiter and Venus. So it may be that you have experienced a special relationship between Jupiter and Venus. If you were to bring into your daily life what is experienced there between Jupiter and Venus, then much would become clear to you regarding your human abilities; for these do not originate from the Earth, but from the cosmos. Just as you are connected to the cosmos, so are you gifted, so are you good—or at least inclined toward good and evil. And you would see what Jupiter and Venus have communicated to one another, and what you have perceived with the eye of your heart—or I might also say the ear of your heart, for the two cannot be distinguished so precisely. Yet this is forgotten, precisely because it is perceived only very dimly to begin with. But as this interplay between Jupiter and Venus continues to take place within you—as they perform a reciprocal movement in your astral body—what you once experienced, say, when you were seventeen or twenty-five years old, perhaps in Oxford or Manchester or somewhere else around noon, now intermingles with it. These images blend into cosmic experiences. The images are therefore certainly of some significance in dreams; but they are not what is primarily important. They are, so to speak, the garment that is woven over the cosmic experiences.

[ 15 ] The experience that arises in this way is, for this perception of the heart that I have spoken of, something of which one can say: It is associated with a considerable degree of anxiety. In almost all people, certain spiritual feelings of anxiety mingle with this experience, especially when what is experienced cosmically is reflected back and resounds from the human etheric body. So, for example, when that which is brought about by Jupiter and Venus through their special relationship—to which I have just referred—radiates back, so that a ray—which is, however, very significant for your perception of the heart—returns to you from the human forehead, and another ray—coming from the region below the heart—mixes its tone and light with it, then this sense of anxiety arises for the heart’s perception, which must be addressed first, and in which every soul that is not entirely hardened actually says to itself in sleep: “The cosmic mist has enveloped me.” — It is truly something like becoming as thin as the cosmic mist itself, and floating like a cloud of cosmic mist within the cosmic mist. Such is the immediate experience upon waking.

[ 16 ] And then—out of this anxiety and out of this experience of oneself as a fragment of the cosmic mist within the cosmic mist—there enters into the human soul what one might call a surrender to the Divine that floats through the world. These are the two fundamental feelings that come upon a person in the first sphere after falling asleep: I am in the cosmic mist, and I wish to rest in the bosom of the Divine, so as to be protected from being dissolved into the cosmic mist.

[ 17 ] And this is something that the perception of the heart must convey in the morning, when the human being once again immerses his soul into his physical and etheric bodies. For if this experience were not carried over into life, all the substances that a person takes in the next day as food—or that are otherwise processed within him through metabolism (even when he is hungry, substances are constantly drawn from his own body)—would take on a wholly earthly character, and they would throw the entire human organism into disorder.

[ 18 ] Sleep is, in fact, of immense and profound importance to the human waking state. And we can only say: In this epoch of Earth’s evolution, humanity has still been relieved of the responsibility to ensure that the Divine is brought over. For, given the nature of human beings in the present age, they would scarcely be able to muster the strength to bring these things from the other side of existence over to this side of existence with full consciousness.

[ 19 ] Once a person has experienced this, they enter the next sphere. In doing so, they do not leave the first sphere; it remains with them for their heart-perception. But the next sphere is a much more complex one, and it is perceived by that part of the astral body which, during the day while awake, is integrated into the human solar plexus—and, in particular, into the entire limb system of the human being. The solar plexus and the human limb system—that part of the astral body which permeates the solar plexus and the arms and legs—perceives during the night what is in the next sphere.

[ 20 ] And in the next sphere, a person now feels the forces in their astral body that come from the signs of the zodiac: one form of these forces comes directly from the signs of the zodiac, while the other arises as the zodiacal forces pass through the Earth, depending on whether the signs of the zodiac are above or below the Earth. That makes all the difference.

[ 21 ] Human beings thus perceive through what I would now like to call their “solar perception,” because it involves that part of the astral body that is responsible for perception and is connected to the solar plexus and the limbs: I would like to call it the “solar eye.” Through this, however, they become aware of their entire relationship to the zodiac and to the movements of the planets. The picture thus expands; human beings grow more deeply into the image of the cosmos.

[ 22 ] And once again, it is the case that a person now sees this reflected by his own physical and etheric bodies, upon which he turns his gaze. Thus, every night, a person experiences what emanates from his body as being connected to the entire cosmos, to the movements of the planets and the constellations of fixed stars.

[ 23 ] However, the experience with the fixed stars—which may occur for one person half an hour after falling asleep, for another after a longer period of time, and for some very shortly after falling asleep—is such that the person experiences themselves within all twelve fixed stars. Now, these experiences with the fixed stars are extraordinarily complex.

[ 24 ] My dear friends, I believe that even if you had traveled the world and visited all its most important regions, you would not have accumulated as many experiences as you gain each night from a single constellation of the zodiac through the eye of your soul! And to begin with, for people of earlier times—who still possessed strong, dreamlike clairvoyant powers and were dreamlike in their conscious perception of much of what I am now describing—this was relatively less confusing. Today, a person can scarcely attain any clarity for their solar eye—and they must attain it, even if they have forgotten it during the day—scarcely attain any clarity regarding what they now experience in a twelvefold more complex way during the night, unless they have taken into their soul what Christ intended to become for the Earth through the Mystery of Golgotha. Simply having felt what it means for earthly life that Christ went through the Mystery of Golgotha, having reflected on Christ in ordinary earthly life: this brings, indirectly through the physical and etheric bodies into the astral body, such an imprint, such an infusion, that Christ becomes the guide through the cycle from falling asleep to waking up.

[ 25 ] It is indeed the case that the human being once again feels: Am I to be lost among the stars and their events? — And when he can then look back on the thoughts, sensations, feelings, and impulses of the will that he directed toward Christ during his waking hours, a kind of guide emerges for him in Christ to help him make sense of the confusing events of this sphere.

[ 26 ] So we must indeed say: When we look at the other side of life, only then does the full significance of the Christ for humanity’s earthly life since the Mystery of Golgotha become clear to us. And no one else really understands what the Christ still has to become for earthly life within today’s ordinary civilization.

[ 27 ] Now, people tend to misinterpret all these things—which, after all, not many people experience today—in the wrong way. The way in which people who have not yet been touched by the Christ event bring their nocturnal experiences into their waking daytime consciousness in a disordered manner—this can only be understood once one knows what I have just explained. Indeed, once we have first passed through that misty state of existence in sleep, we find ourselves, as it were, facing a world that confuses us, into which Christ emerges as a spiritual sun and becomes our guide, so that the confusion dissolves into a kind of harmonious understanding.

[ 28 ] This is important because the moment we enter this sphere—where we find a swirling chaos of fixed-star constellations of the zodiac and planetary motion—our karma actually comes before our inner eye. All people perceive their karma, but only in the state of sleep. In the waking state, only an emotional replica of this perception creeps in.

[ 29 ] Some of the feelings that a person who is to some extent seeking self-knowledge may encounter within themselves are the very faint echoes of this experience, in which Christ appears as a guide and leads them from Aries through Taurus, Gemini, and so on, explaining the world to them in the night so that they may regain the strength for their daily lives. For what we experience in this sphere is nothing less than Christ becoming our guide through the bewildering events of the zodiac—as the guiding being stands there and leads the person from constellation to constellation, so that they may take in, in an orderly manner, the forces they need, in an orderly way, for waking life.

[ 30 ] This is essentially what a person experiences every night between falling asleep and waking up; they experience this through their kinship with the cosmos as soul and spirit. Just as they are connected to the Earth through their physical and etheric bodies, so too are they connected to the cosmos through their soul, spirit, and astral body. Once a person has separated from their physical and etheric bodies and has thus grown out into the cosmic world, they would feel, as it were, a strong connection to it within their inner experience of images—which radiates back to them from what has been left behind in bed; they would feel a strong tendency to continue living beyond the zodiac.

[ 31 ] He cannot do this, at least not between birth and death, because during a person’s sleep, another element intermingles with all these experiences I have described to you so far—an element that is of a completely different nature than anything that comes from the planets and the fixed stars. And that is the lunar element.

[ 32 ] The lunar element, so to speak, imbues the entire cosmos during the night—even during the new moon—with a special, substantial quality that human beings also experience. But humans experience it in such a way that these lunar forces, I might say, hold them back within the world of the zodiac and lead them back to waking life. Humans experience this lunar element, already with a faint sense of it, during the first sphere. But it is during the second sphere—which I have described—that humans experience the mysteries of birth and death with particular intensity. There they experience — through an organ even deeper than the eye of the heart and the eye of the sun — through an organ that is, so to speak, shared by the whole human being; indeed, every night, as the spiritual-soul aspect descends—or rather, has descended—from the spiritual-soul world and, through birth, has entered into a physical existence, and as the body gradually passes into death. One is, in fact, always dying, at every moment; one merely overcomes death until death then truly occurs as a single event. But in the very moment in which one experiences how the soul, so to speak, passes through the earthly-physical, in that moment one experiences, through the same forces, one’s connections with the rest of humanity.

[ 33 ] You need only consider this: Not even the most insignificant encounter or relationship—nor, for that matter, the most profound one—is without connection to a person’s entire destiny, to their entire karma. And whether the souls with whom we have ever had a relationship in past earthly lives, or with whom we are now in relationship in this earthly life, are in the spiritual world or here on earth—everything a person has to do with other people, all human relationships, which are, after all, intimately connected to the mystery of birth and death—all of this comes into view, I would say, before the spiritual eye of the human being. The human being feels himself to be within this in the entirety of his life’s destiny.

[ 34 ] This is related to the fact that, in a sense, all other forces—those of the planets and those of the fixed stars—seek to pull us out into the cosmos. The Moon, on the other hand, seeks to bring us back into the human world; it essentially pulls us out of the cosmos. It possesses forces that are opposed to both the forces of the Sun and those of the stars; it constitutes our connection to the Earth. Therefore, in a certain sense, every night it brings us back from the experiences of the zodiac to the planetary experiences and, in turn, to the earthly experiences, as we are returned to the physical human body.

[ 35 ] From a certain point of view, the difference between sleeping and dying is that when a person falls asleep, they remain in a strong connection with these lunar forces. It is these lunar forces that, in a sense, remind them anew every night of the significance of their earthly life. But this can only be the case because, as I have described, a person receives everything reflected back from their etheric body. At death, they draw the etheric body out of their physical body: the recollection of their last earthly life arises, and it is now this etheric body that, for a brief period of a few days, permeates the cloud of which I have spoken. I said: Every night we ourselves live as a cloud, as a misty cloud, within a world of mist. But this misty cloud, which is ourselves, is without our etheric body at night. When we die, it is initially with our etheric body during the first few days after death. Then the etheric body gradually dissolves into the cosmic, and the memory fades. And now, unlike in the past—when all our experiences of the stars were merely reflected back to us by the person who had remained in bed—we now, after death, have a direct inner experience of planetary motion and the constellations of fixed stars.

[ 36 ] If you read my *Theosophy*, you will find a description—from a certain perspective—of what these experiences are like. It describes precisely what a person experiences between death and rebirth, as if it were happening all around them. But just as you would have no colors or sounds if you did not have an eye or an ear within your body, just as you could not breathe if you did not have lungs and a heart within your body, so too, after death, you would not be able to perceive what I have described there—the world of the soul and the realm of the spirits, your surroundings in the spiritual realm—if you did not have within yourself Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and so on. That is your organism: you experience this through your cosmic organism. The Moon can no longer bring you back, because it can only bring you back to the etheric body; but that has dissolved into the cosmos.

[ 37 ] But there is still so much of that power within the human being—the power the Moon has bequeathed to him—that he remains in the soul world for a time, just as I have described in *Theosophy*. He still keeps his gaze fixed on the Earth, then he passes into what I have described as the spirit realm. There he experiences a state that he himself perceives as lying beyond the zodiac and beyond the sky of fixed stars. And so he lives through the time between death and a new birth.

[ 38 ] The details of this immersion into the spiritual world are such that if I were to describe it to you tonight, I could do so in roughly the following way—but of course, you mustn’t try to force these concepts, because it is almost impossible to express these things using earthly terms. But I can describe it to you this way.

[ 39 ] Imagine a meadow, with plants growing in it; from every plant flower—including those on trees—a kind of spiral line radiates outward, extending into outer space. These spiral lines contain the forces through which the cosmos regulates and brings about plant growth on Earth. For plants do not grow merely from their seeds; they grow from the cosmic forces that spiral around the Earth. But these forces are present even in winter, even in the desert, even when there are no plants. To enter into the movements of the planets, a person must use these spiral forces of the plants every night as a ladder. Thus, through the ladder-like nature of the spiral forces of the plants, a person ascends into the movements of the planetary world. And with that force which causes the plant to grow upward from its root—for it must exert a force in order to grow upward—with this force, the human being is carried into the second sphere I have described. And indeed, when we consider the experiences I have described to you, in which the human being falls into a certain anxiety and says: “I am a misty form within the general cosmic mist; I must rest in the bosom of the Divine”—when we consider this in relation to earthly conditions, the soul says to itself once more: “I rest in all that lies as the cosmic blessing over a seedbed when it blooms, over the meadow when it blooms.” All that which descends there to the plants and unfolds in spiraling lines of force—all of that is, in essence, the bosom of the Divine, the living, active bosom of the Divine, into which a person first feels enfolded every time they sleep.

[ 40 ] And it is the moon that brings him back to his animal nature. For the forces of the plant kingdom always strive to carry human beings ever further out into the universal realm. But since human beings share their animal nature with the animal kingdom, the moon brings them back to their animal nature every morning.

[ 41 ] This is how the human being is connected to the cosmos. This is how the cosmos works, particularly between falling asleep and waking up. And the eye of the heart, the eye of the sun, and the human eye—they experience this during the night in such a way that they feel something similar to what a person might feel or experience when, say, they have some kind of relationship with another person. But this is not told to him in so many words, nor is it something he conceives on his own; rather, it is conveyed to him through the utterances of the plants, through which he first ascends via a ladder into the planetary world, and is then propelled outward into the zodiacal world.

[ 42 ] And so, for example, an experience might be like this: I have a connection to this person; the lilies tell me so, the roses tell me so, because the power of the roses, the power of the lilies, and the power of the tulips have just drawn me there. — The entire Earth becomes, so to speak, a book of life that sheds light on the human world—the world of souls—into which one immerses oneself.

[ 43 ] And you see, people of different ages and different eras have had these experiences in various ways. If you look back at ancient India: Those who wanted to gain knowledge through the state of sleep, through their connection to the world of the stars, wanted to learn only about those fixed stars and those constellations that were directly above the Earth at any given time—not always, but at that particular moment; after all, that changes. But they never sought a connection to the constellations below, whose forces then pass through the Earth.

[ 44 ] Take a look, then, at the Buddha’s posture—or indeed the posture of any Eastern sage who seeks spiritual wisdom through spiritual exercises! Observe how he has crossed his legs and is sitting with them crossed: because he wants only that which constitutes the upper body—and which is related to the upper constellations—to be active within him, and not that which works through him via the solar eye, nor that which works through the limbs. He wants, so to speak, to have the forces of the limbs switched off. Therefore, in the posture of every Eastern seeker of wisdom, you can see how he wishes to develop a relationship only with that which is above the earth. He wants to develop relationships of understanding only toward the soul.

[ 45 ] The world would have remained imperfect if only this kind of quest for knowledge had existed, if only the Buddha’s teachings had always been followed in order to attain knowledge. Even during the Greek era, human beings had to enter into a relationship with those forces that one encounters when developing in accordance with the constellations that correspond to the regions beneath the earth.

[ 46 ] This is wonderfully and intimately hinted at in Greek mythology. For in Greek mythology, you are always told of a certain kind of initiation: the person in question descended into the underworld. — With certain Greek heroes, you can always tell that they have undergone this initiation when the story mentions that they have descended into the underworld. This means they have come to know those cosmic forces that work through the earth; they have come to know the chthonic forces.

[ 47 ] Thus, every age has its own special task. And so, in order to be able to share this with others, the Eastern initiate came to know, above all, that which lies before birth or conception—that is, in the soul-spiritual realm—which a human being experiences before descending into the earthly world. And what approaches people in such a magnificent way in the Eastern worldview and in Eastern poetry does so essentially because, in those days, people were able to look into the life that human beings go through before they descend to Earth.

[ 48 ] In Greece, people began to come to understand that which depends on the Earth itself: Uranus and Gaia. Gaia, the Earth, stands at the starting point of Greek cosmology. And the Greeks always sought to understand the mysteries of the Earth itself—which are, of course, also the cosmic mysteries that work through the Earth. But the Greeks also wanted to understand the mysteries of the underworld proper. And so a true cosmology developed in Greece.

[ 49 ] Just look at how little the Greek actually has left—the Oriental had none at all—of what we call historical insight. He is far more interested in what happened back when the Earth was, so to speak, forming within the cosmos—back when the inner forces of the Earth, the titanic forces, were at war with other forces—which the Greeks pointed to as great, mighty spiritual forces underlying earthly conditions, into which human beings are woven. We in more recent times are dependent on understanding history, on being able to point out that humanity emerged from an ancient, dreamlike state of clairvoyance, that it has now arrived at a consciousness colored by intellectualism and tinged only by the mythical, from which it must work its way out again in order to look into the mental and spiritual worlds.

[ 50 ] This present epoch is, after all, the transition to a conscious attainment of experience in the spiritual world. To this end, we must above all turn our gaze to history. That is why, in our anthroposophical movement, it has happened time and again that the various historical epochs have been examined all the way back to the time when human beings still received knowledge from higher, superterrestrial beings, and that this historical development of humanity has then been traced forward to our own time.

[ 51 ] And this historical development of humankind is, in fact, viewed in an even more abstract way by today’s external understanding. What abstract lines are drawn when we develop our understanding of history today! The ancient people still traced that history, which they clothed in myth, where they connected history with all of nature and its events. We can no longer do that. But people have not yet acquired the sense to ask: What was it like when the first human beings received wisdom from higher beings, and then that wisdom gradually faded away? What was it like when a God Himself descended to incarnate in a human body through the Mystery of Golgotha and to fulfill a cosmically grand mission on Earth, so that through this the Earth first attained its meaning?

[ 52 ] The entire theology of the 19th and 20th centuries suffers from the fact that it cannot understand Christ in his spiritual significance. That, you see, is what modern initiatory science must provide. There must indeed be a modern science of initiation that can once again penetrate the spiritual world, that can once again speak in this way about birth and death, about life between birth and death and between death and a new birth, and about the life of the human soul in sleep, just as we have spoken to one another here today. It must be possible for human beings to once again come to know this spiritual, other side of existence. All of humanity’s progress into the future will only be possible if human beings also come to know this other side of existence.

[ 53 ] Just as people once directed their knowledge solely toward the higher worlds—which you can clearly observe in the figure of the Buddha—and just as people later, in order to arrive at a cosmology, derived it from the evolution of the Earth and were initiated into the Greek, chthonic mysteries—a fact repeatedly recounted in Greek mythology in a prominent and distinguished context— so now that people have studied the mysteries of heaven and the mysteries of earth in the ancient science of initiation, we need a modern science of initiation that can, so to speak, move back and forth in rhythm between heaven and earth—one that asks heaven when it seeks insight into the earth, and asks the earth when it seeks insight into heaven.

[ 54 ] And this is roughly how—if I may say so in all modesty—the questions are posed and led to a preliminary answer in the book *Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß*, which has been translated into English under the title *An Outline of Occult Science*. It attempts to describe what modern human beings need today, just as the ancient Orientals needed the mysteries of the heavens and the Greeks needed the mysteries of the earth. And as for how this modern initiation and its relationship to human beings actually stand, that is something that should also be observed in the present.

[ 55 ] To outline in a few strokes the tasks that underlie modern initiation, I will have something to say here as well—something I was already able to share with a few of you over in Oxford a few days ago. I would like to point out first of all that while the earliest initiates focused primarily on looking up into the spiritual worlds—from which human beings descend when they clothe themselves in an earthly body—the later initiates focused on what I sought to characterize by referring you to the Greek depiction of the descent into the underworld — it is the task of modern initiates, as I have just said, to seek insight into the rhythmic relationship between heaven and earth.

[ 56 ] But this can only be achieved if one takes the following into account. Certainly, one must know the heavens, must know the earth; but then one must take into account that which, among the beings around us, is where heaven and earth interact to form a whole—one must take this into account, that is, with the eye of the heart, the eye of the sun, and the eye of the whole human being: the human being itself. Humanity itself! For humanity contains infinitely more mysteries than those worlds we can perceive with our external senses, those we can explain to ourselves with the intellect bound to the senses. To come to know the human being spiritually—that is the task of present-day initiatory knowledge. One might say: This initiatory knowledge seeks to understand everything for the very purpose of understanding the human being out of the whole world, out of the entire cosmos.

[ 57 ] Now compare the situation of the modern initiate with that of the ancient initiate. Through the full range of spiritual faculties possessed by the ancients, memories could be awakened of the time before we descended into an earthly body. Therefore, for the ancient initiates in particular, it was a reawakening of cosmic memories. For the Greeks, this involved looking into nature. For the modern initiate, it is a matter of coming to know the human being directly as a spiritual being. To do this, the initiate must acquire the ability to detach himself from his earthly perception of what connects the human being to the world. I would like to cite once again the one example of this that I mentioned recently.

[ 58 ] One of the most difficult tasks of initiatory knowledge is to establish a connection with the souls who have left the Earth—whether recently or long ago—and who have passed through the gate of death. It is, however, possible to establish such connections by awakening deeper soul forces. First, however, one must be clear that one must actually accustom oneself, through spiritual exercises, to the language one must use to speak with the dead. This language is, I would say, in a certain sense a child of human language. But one would be entirely mistaken to believe that this human language would be of any help here in communicating with the dead. For the first thing one becomes aware of is that the dead can understand—only for a very short time—what exists here in earthly language as nouns. That which expresses a thing—a self-contained thing designated by a noun—no longer exists in the language of the dead. In the language of the dead, everything relates to activity, to inner dynamism. That is why we find that, after some time has passed since people have passed through the gate of death, they retain a genuine sense only for verbs—for what we call words of action. After all, in order to communicate with the dead, we must sometimes ask them questions, phrasing them in such a way that they are understandable to the dead. Then, after some time—if we know how to pay attention—the answer comes. Usually several nights must pass before the deceased can answer the questions we ask of them. But, as I said, we must familiarize ourselves with the language of the dead, and only eventually do we come to understand the language that the deceased actually possesses—the one they must live within, since they must, after all, detach themselves from the earth with their entire soul life. There we find ourselves entering a language that is no longer shaped by earthly conditions at all—a language that springs from feeling, from the heart—a kind of language of the heart. There we shape language in the same way that, in human speech, we form only the sounds of feeling—where we utter an “Ah” when we are amazed, where we utter an “I” when we wish to turn our attention inward. It is there that the sounds and combinations of sounds first acquire their great, their true meaning. And from that moment on, language also transforms into something where it no longer sounds mechanical; where language transforms into precisely what I described earlier—where language is such that what rises from the flowers provides us with insights about humanity, and we ourselves begin to speak with what comes from the flowers. We ourselves become the flower, and we bloom, so to speak, with the flowers. And as we enter into the tulip blossom with the powers of our soul, we express in the imagination of the tulip that which is expressed here on earth in the form of the word. We grow back into that which is the spiritual essence of all things.

[ 59 ] But you can see from this—as I am now describing the example of language—that human beings grow into entirely different circumstances once they have passed through the gate of death; that we really know very little about human beings if we are familiar only with their outer appearance here; and that modern initiatory science must come to know this other side of the human being. This begins with language itself. And the human body itself, as it is described—read the literature on the subject—becomes something entirely different to us, becomes a world in and of itself, as we grow into the science of initiation. While the ancient initiate had to reawaken in people a lost ability—to bring back to memory what people had lived before they descended to Earth—the initiate of the present must create that which is entirely new, that which constitutes progress in humanity, that which will still have significance for humanity even after humanity itself has left Earth—indeed, the Earth will no longer even exist in the cosmos. That is the task of modern initiatory science. It is from this power that modern initiatory science must speak.

[ 60 ] As you know, the science of initiation has entered into the spiritual development of the Earth from time to time. It has occurred time and again. The science of initiation that we need—which, in fact, can see in what modern science assumes only a starting point for human knowledge—will also be met with ever-increasing opposition. You will need strength to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of modern initiation. For even before modern initiation—which is, after all, a dialogue with the supersensible powers—truly gained momentum in the last third of the 19th century, opposing forces were already at work, bringing about a state of human culture and civilization—often unconsciously—that ultimately amounts to the complete eradication of modern initiation.

[ 61 ] Just think for a moment how common it has become today to counter every insight that emerges in the world with: “This is my point of view.” — And: “This is my point of view,” people say, without having undergone any kind of development. Everyone should assert their point of view from the very position they occupy in the world at the very moment they speak. And today, the most offensive and provocative thing for people is when there is any mention at all of higher insight—of an insight toward which one must first develop.

[ 62 ] While the opportunity to attain modern initiation emerged primarily in the last third of the 19th century, opposing forces had already been at work prior to that, seeking above all to bring about a great leveling, a great homogenization among human beings, even in the spiritual realm. One could cite many people in whom this opposition to modern initiation has taken effect.

[ 63 ] My dear friends, do you believe that when the spirit of this science of initiation must speak to you, the words must sound exactly as they do here on Earth under ordinary earthly conditions? If I try to help you understand how human spoken language changes when it is to be expressed to the beings of the spiritual world, then you will not misunderstand me when I say: I myself will never fail to recognize the great significance that—speaking from a purely earthly standpoint—Rousseau, for example, has, and when I speak from that purely earthly standpoint, I will set out to speak of Rousseau with all that enthusiasm, all those exaltations, and all that sound criticism, just as others do. But if I were to attempt to clothe in earthly words what the knowledge of initiation reveals about Rousseau, I must tell you: With his egalitarianism and his intellectual leveling, Rousseau presents himself to the science of initiation as the chief windbag of modern civilization, along with many other comrades!

[ 64 ] This is something that humanity, of course, does not readily accept—that from an earthly perspective one can call someone a “great spirit.” But if one truly wishes to get to know human beings, and in light of what I have said—that modern initiatory science must know both heaven and earth and describe the mutual rhythm between the two— then it must also be stated that what might be described on Earth as a great personality—such as Rousseau—must, from the initiatory standpoint, be called the “general chatterer” of modern spiritual life. — Only in the harmony of what resounds from one side and from the other does that which leads to true knowledge of humanity emerge. For this true knowledge of humanity must be built upon what the ancient initiates built upon: *Ex deo nascimur*. All remembrance must be built upon that which can meet us when we look out into the world, where Christ becomes our guide unconsciously, as I have described today.

[ 65 ] But we must bring it more and more into our consciousness, so that we may recognize that which exists in the world—which is subject to death—as being under the guidance of Christ; recognize that we live into the dead world with Christ: In Christo morimur.

[ 66 ] But because we are buried with Christ in the tomb of earthly life, we are raised with him and receive the gift of the Spirit: Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus.

[ 67 ] This “Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus” is what the modern initiate, above all, must strive for. If you reflect on this and compare it with the prevailing mindset today—particularly as it emerges from the realm of science—you will say to yourself: There will still be immense opposition—perhaps of a kind you cannot even imagine today—which will also manifest itself in actions, and which will manifest itself above all in the tendency to make the science of initiation completely impossible. And what I would like to instill in the hearts and souls of those in such a close circle when I speak to them is this: to awaken strength through descriptions arising from modern initiatory science, so that there may truly be some people who find the right balance between what seeks to enter the world from the spiritual realms and what, from the world itself, seeks to prevent this penetration of spirituality into earthly life. This is what I now wish to point out in such a smaller circle, since the opportunity has arisen for more public lectures, such as those we have just held in Oxford to my great satisfaction. Since this has made it possible to address the outer aspects, it is all the more necessary to point out the esoteric aspects within this smaller circle; these, too, must be addressed.

[ 68 ] And so I believe it would be right for you to come to terms with the fact that some things may still sound paradoxical today when speaking from the perspective of the spiritual worlds. But it has to sound paradoxical, because the language of the spiritual worlds is simply different—it is so distinct from earthly language—and one must, with all one’s effort and all one’s might, translate into earthly language that which should actually be expressed differently. So it must simply be understood that some things might be shocking because they appear so directly as a simple account of the spiritual worlds.

[ 69 ] In seeking to describe to you the spirit that also underlay today’s lecture, I would like to express my deep satisfaction at having been able to speak once again among you, my dear friends, here in London. It is always a source of satisfaction for me. As I have already said, we are very rarely together here. But may what we are able to establish in our hearts and souls during such a rare gathering also contribute to a sense of togetherness that should always be present among those who profess anthroposophy: togetherness in our hearts and souls across the entire world. It is in this spirit—that we use such a brief gathering to inspire the great communion that unites all our hearts and all our souls—that today’s lecture was delivered. And to document this spirit, I wanted to add these words; it is in this spirit that I wish to have spoken these words: Let us remain united in this way, my dear friends, even if we go our separate ways.