The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. The transition from the soul-spiritual stage of human development to the sensory-physical stage

[ 1 ] From the descriptions I have given of inspired and intuitive cognition, it will have become clear that there is a cosmic experience for the human inner being, for the spiritual and soul aspects of the human being. Yesterday I was able to point out that such a cosmic experience exists for the human being during sleep, only that it remains unconscious to ordinary consciousness. The human being experiences the cosmos, but in ordinary consciousness knows nothing of it. One might say that while, in sensory experience during physical life on Earth, a person experiences themselves in their physical and etheric bodies and regards what these physical and etheric bodies contain as organs as their inner being, during cosmic experience—as occurs, for example, during sleep—a reflection of cosmic beings is experienced as an inner life, so that one can indeed say, even in the ordinary state of sleep, a person’s ordinary inner world becomes an outer world. When a person sleeps, the physical and etheric bodies—which otherwise constitute their being—simply appear before them as an outer world, and what in sensory observation is the external environment, the cosmos, becomes, in a certain sense, an inner world.

[ 2 ] However, during sleep, the astral human—the “I”-human—has a constant desire to return to the physical body. This desire becomes particularly strong in that stage of sleep which I described yesterday as the deepest—the sleep, if I may call it that according to yesterday’s characterization, with fixed-star consciousness. This desire to return to the physical and etheric bodies is, of course, connected to the fact that these bodies—the physical and the etheric—remain fully present in the world during the state of sleep. And the fact that the human being wants to return, that a longing develops within them to return—this is kindled within them, as I explained yesterday, by the spiritual lunar forces at work in the cosmos.

[ 3 ] If one wishes to understand spiritual science—anthroposophy—correctly, one must be clear that the individual relationships must be presented from a wide variety of perspectives. For example, someone might once hear me say: The reason why the human being wants to return to the physical and etheric bodies in the morning lies in the fact that the soul longs for this, has the desire to return. — Then someone might say: This return depends on the lunar forces. — Both statements are correct, except that the connection is this: the desire to be reunited with the physical organism is kindled during the cosmic experience by the lunar forces, which also permeate the human astral and “I” organisms between falling asleep and waking up. These lunar forces—that is, their spiritual counterpart—cannot be active, however, when a person is in pre-earthly existence, that is, before they have descended from the spiritual-soul world and clothed themselves in a physical human body. When a human being is in a purely spiritual cosmos during their pre-earthly existence, there is initially no connection to a physical or etheric organism, for these do not yet exist. During sleep, however, the physical and etheric organisms, so to speak, await being infused once more with soul and spirit by the true inner human being.

[ 4 ] Such a physical and etheric organism does not exist in human pre-earthly existence. But something else does exist. At a certain stage of this pre-earthly existence, the human being experiences a kind of cosmos, which he also experiences as his inner world. In a sense, he feels himself to be a cosmos. But this cosmos in this pre-earthly existence is something different from the cosmos that surrounds us for sensory observation between birth and death. That cosmos, which is experienced at a certain stage of pre-earthly existence, is in fact a kind of cosmic seed of the later physical human organism—the very physical human organism into which a human being must clothe themselves when they descend to earthly existence. Imagine everything that a human being possesses as a physical organism in earthly life expanded—expanded to immeasurable proportions: let us say the lungs, the liver, all processes—naturally as forces, not as physical-material organs— that is, the processes of the lungs, likewise the processes of the heart, and so on, expanded into the cosmically immeasurable—this is what the human being experiences, except that he then embraces this cosmos with his soul, so that he simultaneously possesses this cosmos as his inner life.

[ 5 ] When I say that human beings experience their future physical organism as a seed, the distinction must of course be emphasized between the use of the word “seed” here in reference to spiritual existence and, in the other case, in reference to physical existence on Earth. When one speaks of a “germ” in physical earthly existence, one means something small that then unfolds and becomes a large organism. When I speak now, however, of the germ of the human physical body being experienced as a cosmos in pre-earthly existence, this cosmic germ is immeasurably large, contracts more and more, and ultimately becomes small. Of course, one must take into account that in this case—at least as far as the spiritual is concerned, and initially with regard to pre-earthly existence—the term “large” is used figuratively in relation to the later “small,” for in pre-earthly existence, things are not experienced spatially as they are here in sensory-physical existence. Everything is experienced qualitatively. Space, as we know it from our sensory world, actually exists only for that sensory world. But simply to clarify the concept—to draw upon human language to characterize these purely spiritual conditions of pre-earthly existence—this distinction can be quite useful for the purpose of illustration. Thus, we can simply say that the cosmic human germ is large and contracts more and more, eventually appearing small within the human physical organism.

[ 6 ] So we must imagine it this way: In pre-earthly existence, the human being does not have a view of the cosmos from among the stars, as we do here in physical existence, but rather has a cosmos surrounding him. This cosmos contains spiritual-soul entities. But human beings feel connected to these spiritual and soul beings; they feel them, as it were, within themselves. They feel their soul life extending comprehensively throughout this cosmos. This cosmos is nothing other than the later human physical body expanded into the universe. Human beings thus experience their future inner world as a cosmic outer world, which they, however, experience together with their inner being. Therefore, one can say: This entire cosmos—I would like to call it the human cosmos—this human cosmos, which human beings experience as their own, is their individual existence. But at the same time, the human being also experiences the lives of other beings, other human souls, and other spiritual beings who do not enter into a physical earthly existence. The human being extends into other beings, so that he simultaneously experiences a kind of universe for himself and a kind of togetherness with other beings. I would like to call this togetherness with other beings, in this stage of pre-earthly existence, an active intuition—a real, lived intuition. What is otherwise recreated in the supersensible knowledge of intuition is, for this pre-earthly existence, living existence.

[ 7 ] While in the state of sleep, the human being lives in a replica of the cosmos in the manner I described yesterday—that is, with both his physical organism and his etheric organism outside of himself—but as complete, perfected forms—in his pre-earthly existence, he has the physical organism in the process of becoming as his very being; I cannot even say “outside of himself” here, but rather “within himself.” But this “within oneself” is at the same time an “outside oneself,” and their life consists of active work—a soul-spiritual work—on the development of this organism. While here in physical existence we organize our work in such a way that external sensory objects are purposefully altered and transformed—and while we ourselves are transformed here in physical existence through our interaction with these sensory objects—in our pre-earthly existence we shape our physical organism. We incorporate into it what must then be the wise interplay of the organs, as well as the interaction of the organs with the soul and of the soul with the spirit in earthly existence. We live in a universe whose development consists in its being purposefully shaped toward our future earthly organism.

[ 8 ] Because we are immersed in this universe not only through our perceptions but also through our soul and spiritual activity, we possess consciousness in this pre-earthly state. Because the physical and etheric organisms are complete and finished during the state of sleep, sleep is unconscious; for we cannot work on what is already complete during sleep, but rather we experience it as I described yesterday. In the pre-earthly state, everything that constitutes our connection with the emerging universe—which, however, is contracting more and more to later become our physical organism—is pure energy, is inner activity that manifests as a different form of consciousness than that of earthly life. But it is a fully conscious—indeed, a more lucidly conscious—state than that which arises in our earthly life during physical existence. We experience this as our own working toward our future earthly life. Indeed, when we here in earthly existence view our physical organism—for example, as its outward appearance or its physical anatomy and physiology present it to us—we cannot truly compare it to the splendor, the grandeur, and the majesty of the universe that surrounds us as the world of stars, the world of clouds, and so on. But that which is condensed within this physical human organism—when viewed by the human soul in pre-earthly existence as a universe—is greater, more powerful, and more majestic than the cosmos that surrounds us as the physical cosmos in our earthly existence. If one imagines everything that is materialized within the physical human organism—that is, everything that is hidden within the human being standing here on Earth because it is condensed and veiled by the material—and imagines all of this transformed into the spiritual, one would have to conceive of a universe to which the physical one here, despite all its stars, suns, and so on, cannot even remotely compare in size, power, and majesty.

[ 9 ] We enter into earthly existence from a spiritual, pre-earthly perspective that encompasses a vast and immense reality. And everything we can ever participate in here on Earth—even the highest cultural endeavors—is a mere trifle compared to what human beings participate in during their pre-earthly existence. I say “participates,” because countless spiritual beings from the most diverse hierarchies work together with human beings to create this marvelous structure that is the physical organism. And this work, when viewed as such, is a blissful endeavor. It is certainly not a small or insignificant matter when, in response to the question, “What does a human being do between death and a new birth during their pre-earthly existence?” the answer is given: “At a certain stage, they work with the spirits of the cosmos on the assembly and the inner, wisdom-filled formation of a physical human body, shaping it as a universal seed.” This is already a heavenly existence in contrast to earthly existence. Yet everything that takes place within this physical earthly organism, into which the human being is clothed, is hidden in immeasurable depths; and for ordinary consciousness, it is precisely the most hidden aspect of the human physical organization. This is the tragedy of materialism: that it believes it can understand matter, that it speaks ceaselessly of matter and its laws. But a spirit lives within all matter, and it does not merely exist in such a way that we can unravel it in an instant; rather, it lives within it in such a way that, if we wish to discover it, we must look back to entirely different times and modes of experience. What materialism knows least about is the material, physical human organism. Materialism had to arise first so that the complex material structures of physical earthly existence would remain as hidden as they are at present to the otherwise admirable natural science of our time. I will speak shortly about further aspects of humanity’s pre-earthly existence.

[ 10 ] The stage of pre-earthly experience that I have just described can also be characterized by saying: Human beings experience what constitutes their environment—which is at the same time their own being—as a communion between themselves and the spiritual universe. But the spiritual universe is precisely a community of real, inherently living spiritual beings, within whose circles the human being feels himself as a soul and as a spirit. This consciousness, which is supremely alive and luminous, now begins, at a certain point in time, to gradually darken and fade. Not that it is then experienced as a weak consciousness, but compared to the brightness, clarity, and intensity of a certain state of pre-earthly existence, it begins to fade. If I were to describe, through an act of imagination, what is a very significant and intense experience, I might express it this way. At a certain point in this pre-earthly existence, a person begins to say to themselves: I have seen, around me and at the same time as my own being, other divine-spiritual beings. Now it seems to me as if these divine-spiritual beings were beginning to no longer reveal their form completely. Now it seems to me as if they were taking on an outer, pictorial form, into which they are clothed. Now it seems to me as if the beings were becoming star-like, just as I came to know the stars through physical observation in my previous earthly life. They are not yet stars, but spiritual beings seem to me to be on the path to a stellar existence. — It is a sensation as if the actual spiritual world were withdrawing somewhat from human beings and were withdrawing more and more, and now an image of this spiritual world, as a cosmic revelation of it, stood before human beings. The intuitive, active participation in the spiritual world is thus replaced by something like being inspired by a cosmic image of this spiritual world.

[ 11 ] Parallel to this view is an inner spiritual experience that a person must, as it were, undergo—the experience of how the spiritual world withdraws in its very own vitality, leaving only its revelation to be bestowed upon the person. This awakens within the soul, during its pre-earthly existence, an experience that I would like to describe—using an expression borrowed from physical earthly life—as a sense of deprivation, which also manifests itself, again using a physical earthly expression, as a longing for that which one is in the process of losing. One has not yet lost it in the early stages, but one is in the process of losing what one previously had. To the extent that one is in this stage of losing, a sense of deprivation regarding what is about to be lost and a longing for it arise within. One wants it back.

[ 12 ] It is at this stage of pre-earthly existence that the human soul becomes receptive to the spiritual lunar forces. This deprivation and longing prepare the human soul to be receptive to the spiritual lunar forces in the cosmos. Before this, these spiritual lunar forces were virtually nonexistent for human beings. Now that the spiritual cosmos is beginning to dawn, a connection arises between what vibrates cosmically throughout the universe as lunar forces and the forces of desire that emerge in human beings as craving and deprivation. And to the same extent that the cosmos, which previously manifested itself in inner spiritual vitality, transforms into a mere revelation; to the same extent that the once-active, living intuition becomes an active, living inspiration; to the same extent do the lunar forces bring about the emergence of a human being’s own inner life, and the human being no longer feels merely at home in the universe—so that subject and object do not actually exist for him, but rather everything is subjective. He has “lived within” other beings, but whereas this was previously the case, subject and object now begin to have meaning for the human being once again. They feel an inner, spiritual, subjective existence that the lunar forces prepare for them, and what is a revelation of the cosmos, they now begin to perceive as an objective external world.

[ 13 ] If, on the other hand, I wish to describe in earthly terms what actually exists in this pre-earthly existence, I could say that in the human soul—which has been endowed with such inner life by the forces of the Moon—the living thought arises: I must have this physical body, toward which that which I myself helped to shape as a cosmic, spiritual seed has been tending. — And in this way, the human being matures to descend into earthly existence. Deprivation and desire, in conjunction with the lunar forces, ripen him to desire precisely this earthly existence, to long to descend into it—a desire that is the aftereffect of his earlier work on the universal, cosmic spiritual aspect of the physical body. As I said yesterday: The lunar forces always represent that which prepares the human being once again for earthly life. During the state of sleep, they represent that which drives the human being back into earthly life. In pre-earthly existence, the human being is initially, at a certain stage of their experience—as I have just described—without connection to these lunar forces, but they enter into the lunar forces. And to the same extent, a tendency arises within them to turn back toward earthly life. Even though the physical earthly body and the etheric earthly organism are not yet present, the echoes of what they themselves have worked out as the cosmic-spiritual preliminary stage of the physical earthly body are still present within them.

[ 14 ] I will discuss the events leading up to life on Earth shortly.

[ 15 ] If I am to continue in the vein in which I have characterized, in connection with inspired and intuitive insight, the conditions of the total human life in the preceding days, I must now say: What the human being experiences in clear, bright consciousness during the stage of their pre-earthly existence first characterized today is precisely what is then relived in earthly existence as a reflection—a reflection in feelings and emotions—within the religious disposition, in the sense of a connection between the human being and the divine foundation of the world. For if a human being, as a soul in pre-earthly existence, wishes to reflect on how this nature of the soul enters into earthly existence here, one could say: At the moment when a human being transitions from experiencing a living spiritual cosmos to experiencing merely its manifestation under the influence of the lunar forces, at that very moment of their pre-earthly existence, the human being must say to themselves: I am passing from a God-imbued existence to a cosmic existence. I am now beginning to draw together that bright cosmic consciousness, which I previously developed universally, into a more inner consciousness under the influence of the lunar forces. — I said that the luminous cosmic consciousness is dimming, but the more it dims, the more a subjective consciousness arises within the human soul, to which the revelation of the cosmos stands as an objective reality. And so we can say: Human beings are transitioning to a state of inspiration in which they know themselves to be a part of the cosmos. They experience cosmology in this second stage of pre-earthly existence.

[ 16 ] What human beings carry within themselves in earthly life as a striving for cosmological wisdom is just as much an aftereffect of these experiences of pre-earthly existence that have just been characterized as religious consciousness is an aftereffect of the stage described first—that of God-imbued consciousness. These things are lived through in pre-earthly existence. They have their aftereffects in earthly existence, where they manifest as religious or cosmological inclinations of the human soul, and they are—in the manner I described yesterday—refreshed anew every night. They are present from the moment a human being is born into earthly existence. A person brings them with them as predispositions; they become obscured in the succession of day and night, but every night both the human being’s cosmological inclinations are rekindled through the experience of the planetary world and the world of the stars, as I have described, and likewise the God-imbued existence is rekindled, as I described yesterday in relation to the final stage of sleep. Therefore, one could say: If a person wishes to arrive at a foundation of knowledge for religious life and wishes to arrive at a foundation of knowledge for cosmology, then he must be able to evoke, in his fully conscious earthly existence, images of what is experienced in the pre-earthly existence in the manner described.

[ 17 ] At the stage when the human being is seized by the forces of the Moon, when the outer universal world—which was formerly the universe of his own physical body—appears only in revelation, at that very moment what I would like to call “the loss of all connection with what was formerly his human universe” occurs. This universal seed of the physical body, at which the human being has worked for so long, is lost to him. He does not possess it at a certain stage of pre-earthly experience. The situation then presents itself in such a way that he has an inner life, stirred by the lunar forces, permeated and filled with the longing for earthly life, and surrounded by images of a spiritual-cosmic world. When the human being now reaches out spiritually and psychically toward these images, he pierces right through them. Reality is no longer there; reality has been lost to the human soul in its pre-earthly existence at a certain stage of its experience. The soul no longer has the reality of this human universe around it or within it. And shortly thereafter, after this universal reality has slipped away from the human being, shortly thereafter the conception—the conception of the physical body—takes place on Earth; this body is now taken over, taken over in condensed form from the spiritual universe, and further developed in the course of physical hereditary evolution. What the human being has universally developed over a long period of time in the spiritual world is lost to him, only to reemerge as the conception of the physical human body takes place down here on Earth. The processes that the human being has undergone spiritually above, in which he has been an active participant, find their physical continuation down here on Earth. For the time being, this remains unconscious to the human being, even in his pre-earthly spiritual existence. This is taking place down there on Earth. His spiritual-physical organism has, so to speak, flowed down there and is contracting into the small physical human body. There, the entire majestic universe is condensed and interwoven with, and permeated by, what physical heredity brings with it. And what the human being once experienced as reality, he now has only in images around him—in a sense, a cosmic memory of the cosmic reality of working on the physical organism.

[ 18 ] During this period of his pre-earthly experience, the human being matures to the point where he can draw the ethereal into everything around him—into all the images of his human universe that no longer contain any reality—from all sides of the cosmos. The cosmos also contains an ethereal aspect, an etheric cosmos. From the cosmic ether, the human being now draws the ethereal into this world of cosmic images. He draws it together; he fills what remains within him only as a cosmic memory with world ether, which he draws together, and in this way forms his ethereal organism. Human beings form their etheric organism during the period in which they have outgrown their physical organism—a period in which the physical organism finds its continuation below through conception within the physical evolutionary process of heredity—and human beings clothe themselves in their etheric organism.

[ 19 ] Now everything that lives in the soul—all the privations and longings, all the desire for earthly life—has now passed over into the etheric organization. This etheric organization is, after all, accustomed to being united with the physical body, since it permeates the physical organization of the cosmos. All of this gives rise to the forces that now draw the human being back down toward what was previously cosmically unconscious to him. The soul-spiritual human being, now clothed in the etheric body, strives through his desire downward toward what the physical organism has become down on Earth—an organism that he himself first prepared in his spiritual form. This then brings about the union of the spiritual-soul aspect with the physical body following the experiences described.

[ 20 ] I will add anything else there is to say on this subject in my final brief reflection.

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[ 21 ] I believe it has become clear where, in this final stage of pre-earthly experience that I have described—and which immediately precedes earthly experience—the boundary lies between what is conscious to the human soul before birth and what is unconscious to it. Conscious is that which the lunar forces have brought about in the human soul as something subjective; conscious is the universal tableau, which now exists only in images—like a cosmic recollection of the work on the human universe—and conscious is that which takes place as the gathering of forces from the world ether into the human etheric organism. Everything that—if I may use the expression—takes place down here on Earth with the physical human organism, which has only just now emerged through its physical metamorphosis and which is further developed through conception in the physical evolutionary process of heredity, remains unconscious. But, as I have indicated, a union of the last cosmically conscious with this unconscious takes place there—a immersion into this unconscious.

[ 22 ] With this, cosmic consciousness fades away, and something like an unconscious memory of what was experienced in pre-earthly existence emerges in the very young child. An unconscious but active memory is then present in the intense activity of the very young child—unconsciously, of course. This active memory, as a substance that is still undifferentiated or only very slightly differentiated, requires the human brain and the rest of the human organism. Already during the embryonic stage—during which the aforementioned unification gradually takes place—but also later, after birth, the human being works like a sculptor on the development of the brain and the other organs. The unconscious but active memory of pre-earthly existence works most intensively on the human organism during the first years of childhood. The most essential elements, however, have already been prepared earlier and are realized in the aftereffects, but much still needs to be worked into this cosmic-physical spiritual organism that has been condensed into the physical human body. This may seem like a contradiction, but it can be understood from the context I have outlined for you today. Much still needs to be incorporated into this organism. Thus, the unconscious yet active cosmic memory is shaping the inner human form within the infant.

[ 23 ] If what is consciously experienced in the final stage of pre-earthly existence could be brought into earthly existence, then the philosophy of ideas alone would have a supersensible content. For it is precisely what manifests as the interplay of the cosmic-etheric into the images of the human organism that provides a truly living philosophical perspective. However, if this is the case, this philosophical perspective, despite all its liveliness, is lacking something. It corresponds, after all, to a stage of pre-earthly experience in which the human being is precisely alienated from his physical organism, in which the physical organism is unconscious to him. This lends even the most vibrant philosophy—for example, that which arose from the dreamlike clairvoyance of ancient times—a certain otherworldliness. For precisely because philosophy, when it is vibrant, corresponds to an experience in which earthly life has been left behind, philosophy always harbors a strong longing to comprehend earthly activity, yet it also always feels as though it is hovering above earthly existence. Philosophy always has something idealistic about it—that is, it is not grounded in the earthly—especially when it is truly alive within. In fact, one is only a philosopher in the final stage of pre-earthly experience. Here in earthly life, one would have to remember what is naturally conscious in the final stage of pre-earthly life. There one is a truer philosopher, just as one is a truer cosmologist somewhat earlier on, when one has the cosmic revelations before one, but the cosmic beings have already withdrawn from one, and just as one is a truer religious knower in the first pre-earthly stage that I have described today. But because an unconscious yet active memory arises in the infant, I was also able to say here in recent days: If one could draw what arises unconsciously in the infant into the philosophy of ideas and bring it to full consciousness, philosophy would also arise. This is entirely natural, because what the infant experiences is the unconscious memory of what the soul experiences in the final pre-earthly stage before uniting with the physical human body.

[ 24 ] Thus, if religious insight, cosmology, and philosophy are to be true, they must nevertheless be gifts from the supersensible world. Only when they once again become such gifts and are recognized as such by human beings will they, as religious insight, cosmology, and philosophy, fully satisfy humanity’s spiritual needs.

[ 25 ] Today I have tried to describe to you those things that are connected with the mystery of birth. In the coming days, I will have to present the other side—that which is connected with the mystery of death—in order to increasingly complete the picture that is meant to show us how what is spiritually most valuable here in earthly existence must be a reflection, an image, an effect of what a human being can experience, recognize, and learn in the supersensible realm—because a human being is not merely a sensory earthly being, but a soul-spiritual, supersensible being, and therefore also belongs to the spiritual world, the world of the soul; and if he wishes to fully experience himself as a human being in every stage of the sensory realm, he must also incorporate the supersensible into his existence.