The Rudolf Steiner Archive

10. Experiencing the Volitional Aspect of the Soul

[ 1 ] What the human soul experiences in ordinary consciousness during its earthly existence is expressed through thinking, feeling, and willing. However, we must seek the actual, real background for this thinking, feeling, and willing in what I have characterized here in recent days as the human astral organism and the I-being. I have now shown how the thinking part of the soul stands in a certain relationship to the head organization, and how the feeling part of the soul stands in a somewhat different relationship to the rhythmic organization of the human being—to the respiratory rhythm, the circulatory rhythm, and other rhythmic processes within the human being. The volitional aspect of the human soul is connected in a much looser way to the physical and etheric human organisms.

[ 2 ] When we study how the thinking part of the soul is connected to the head structure, we come to the conclusion that it is, in a sense, entirely devoted to the head structure; it is, in a sense, transformed into the head structure. The brain’s structure forms a physical and etheric reflection of the thinking part of the soul, so that when a person is truly thinking in waking daily life, one cannot actually observe the process of thinking itself, but must seek it in its reflection in the physical and etheric processes of the brain and the rest of the nervous system. That is why, for this physical aspect of the understanding of the soul, brain anatomy and physiology are the true domain, because one can clearly see, in the very structure of the brain and thereby also in its processes, the reflections of what takes place in thinking. The feeling aspect of the human soul is not devoted to the physical and etheric organism in the same way, nor has it merged into it. Of this aspect we can say: It is at times entirely devoted to respiration and blood circulation, flowing into them, so that it becomes, as it were, invisible to imaginative perception and inspiration. — One observes: the feeling part of the soul slips into the processes of respiration and blood circulation, then again withdraws from them, becomes independent, and possesses its own form-creating activity within itself. Thus, in a sense, the feeling part of the soul slips into the circulatory system, withdraws from it again, slips back in, and so on.

[ 3 ] The volitional aspect of the soul behaves quite differently. It is neither constantly devoted to the physical and etheric organism, nor does it alternate between pouring out and withdrawing; rather, it actually withholds itself from the physical and etheric parts of the human organism through its own powers. It has its own independent existence through its own powers. Through these powers, it actually remains within the soul and spirit and would remain there were it not for the intervention of something else. We can therefore say: In this volitional aspect of the soul, the soul-spiritual remains always soul-spiritual even during earthly life. And when one gains insight through intuition into what lies behind this volitional aspect of the soul as the truly real, then one can study what constitutes the enduring spiritual-soul essence of the human being in this volitional aspect. However, there is also a kind of surrender of the will to the physical organism, a flowing into it; but this is not continuous, as with the thinking part of the soul, nor does it occur in rhythmic alternation, as with the feeling part; rather, it is as follows. For example, when our thinking part of the soul, through the head organization, grasps a thought that, by its very content, is in itself the impulse for a volition, what happens is not the same as what occurs during mere thinking. When reflecting on the things of the world without this leading to a will, only the head organization is engaged, and the organization of the human head is broken down by the activity of thinking—or at least driven toward breakdown, dissolution, and death—as I described yesterday. But when we grasp the thought: “I will this or that”—then the activity belonging to the thinking part of the soul spreads from the head organization into the human metabolic system and into the system of the limbs. When a person has a thought that represents an act of will, one can intuitively see how an astral activity pulses into some part of the human metabolic system or even into the limb system; and there, as a result of such a will-directed thought, breakdown occurs not only in the head’s organization but also in the metabolic organs and the limb organs. Such thoughts give rise to destructive processes. These destructive processes cause that which, as a real entity, underlies the volitional part of the soul to pour into the metabolic organism or the limb system, thereby counterbalancing what the thought has broken down and rebuilding what has been broken down by the thought.

[ 4 ] To put it vividly, the following is the case. I have the thought of raising my arm. This thought shoots from the head organization into the arm organization, causing a breakdown there—a process of destruction. One could call it a burning. In the course of this process, something within my arm organization is destroyed. The part of the astral organism that corresponds to the volitional aspect of the soul flows in, restores what has been broken down, and rebuilds it. And it is in this rebuilding that the raising of my arm takes place. Thus, what has been “burned” is restored, and it is in this restoration that the actual act of will is accomplished.

[ 5 ] Now, the part of the astral organism that underlies the impulses of the human soul’s will also contains the actual “I”-essence, so that whenever an act of will takes place, an unfolding of the “I”-essence also occurs. By observing how a person exercises their will, one thus gains insight into how, in response to a certain stimulus, the human astral organism and the “I”-essence flow into and pour themselves into the physical and etheric organisms. This also happens when an act of will takes place that does not actually require me to move my limbs, but which may be a complementary part of such movement, or which may itself be nothing more than a somewhat vivid desire. Something similar occurs in such cases as well, only here much more inner parts of the human organism are flooded by the real volitional aspect of the soul.

[ 6 ] As you can see, it is possible to study the unfolding of the will in great detail, but to do so requires an understanding of the true psychological and spiritual nature of the human being. Without this understanding, one cannot study the volitional aspect of the soul, nor can one truly arrive at the “I”-essence, because in thinking it appears only as a faint reflection, in feeling it manifests only as an impulse, and in the will it attains its true reality only in earthly existence. Apart from this unfolding of the will in response to a specific stimulus, what corresponds to the human will as something real is, within the human organism, a constant yearning of the physical constitution. One desires, so to speak, in the volitional aspect of the soul—subconsciously—to be clothed in the human organism of metabolism and limbs. If one then examines more closely precisely this aspect of the human soul that I have just described, one looks down through this volitional aspect into the depths, into the underlying layers of human soul life, into processes of the soul that are largely hidden from ordinary consciousness.

[ 7 ] I have already explained how the processes of breakdown and rebuilding that take place within the organism remain completely unconscious to ordinary consciousness. But in addition to these activities of the human soul that are relevant to ordinary volitional impulses, there are also processes—subconscious processes within the human being—that are very real but do not at all send their ripples up into ordinary consciousness during earthly existence. These are as follows.

[ 8 ] Yesterday we saw how, in the emotional part of the soul, a continuous evaluation of the moral and morally-spiritual human being takes place unconsciously. What emerges into consciousness only as a faint reflection—in the form of pangs of conscience or judgments of one’s own actions—is, in the subconscious, a very significant and profound activity. Everything a person does is also evaluated within the subconscious organism of the soul. In this realm, only evaluation takes place. But in that which corresponds to the volitional part of the soul, something entirely different takes place. There we see, in the course of earthly life, how the astral body and the “I”—which correspond to this volitional part—truly build up, together with the astral and “I” forces of the cosmos, an inner being within the human being that leads a dormant existence. Yes, it is this: By inwardly evaluating our own abilities, we give birth to an astral being that dwells within us and grows more and more. This being now contains those evaluations as facts, and the emotional part of the soul merely ensures that the evaluation is present, so to speak, like an ideal process or—after the time when it occurred—like a subconscious, ideal memory. After the event, something more arises in the volitional aspect. The judgment—“I have committed an evil deed”—becomes a being within us. In this being, we have within us something that is, in fact, the realized evaluation of the active human being.

[ 9 ] Now, as you have just seen from the description, there is something in this volitional aspect of the soul that remains, something that was already present before the human being descended from the spiritual-soul world into a physical-etheric organism. In this spiritual part of the soul, the echo of the impulse to build up a human organism once again is at work, for that was its activity in pre-earthly existence. It is now only hindered because the physical organism is present; the activity cannot unfold, for it encounters, as it were, the corners and walls of the physical organism at every turn, yet it remains present as a tendency. And now the reality I have just described becomes integrated into this tendency: the being that represents the realized evaluation of the moral and morally-spiritual human being; so that we carry within us a being in which the impulse to form a new organism and the realized moral evaluation converge. We carry this being through the gate of death when our physical earthly existence comes to an end.

[ 10 ] From my explanation, you have seen that forces that break down and build up, that cause death and give life, that dampen and awaken, are constantly at work within the human organism. In the thinking part of the soul, we see forces that lull; in the willing part, forces that awaken. This struggle between death and life accompanies us throughout our entire earthly existence. When we conclude this earthly existence, we carry the unconsciously formed result of our moral qualities into a spiritual world.

[ 11 ] You have seen from the descriptions I have given in recent days that at the moment a person passes through the gate of death, their consciousness—which was otherwise merely an earthly consciousness—expands into a cosmic one. Just as a human being here on Earth becomes attuned to a physical organism—and feels confined within the skin of that physical organism—so too does he become attuned to the vastness of the cosmos when he passes through the gate of death. What previously surrounded him now becomes his own inner content. His consciousness becomes cosmic. And the question arises: How is the moral human being assessed when, after passing through the gate of death, he has taken on this cosmic consciousness and strives to form a new physical and etheric organism? — The answer to this will be given in the second part of today’s reflection.

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[ 12 ] Before I can move on to answering the question just posed, I still need to elaborate on certain aspects of a person’s earthly life in light of the circumstances described.

[ 13 ] You have seen that a continuous process of breakdown and rebuilding takes place within the human organism. This breakdown and rebuilding, this destruction and revitalization, occurs throughout the entire course of life, from birth to death. Because we are thinking soul beings, we must break down; because we are willing beings, we must build up; and because we are feeling beings, we bring about an interplay between breaking down and building up, so that what manifests inwardly, in the soul, as thinking, feeling, and willing is a process of destruction and rebirth and an interplay between destruction and rebirth. These processes in the human organism, which are extraordinarily complex, differ for every stage of life. They are different in children and different in adults. In particular, it is important for educators and teachers to be able to understand, based on a spiritual understanding of human nature, this interplay between breakdown and rebuilding—this flow of constructive processes into destructive ones and of destructive processes into constructive ones, as they constantly intertwine within certain human systems—and to grasp their effects on the organism. For it is only by understanding how the constructive and destructive forces act within the child’s organism—and what effect education and instruction can have on them—that one can educate and teach correctly.

[ 14 ] Here is just one example. It makes a world of difference whether a child is taught just enough to benefit them, or whether they are made to memorize too much, to the point that their memory becomes overloaded. Given the way the interplay between constructive and destructive processes is viewed today, one might easily believe that this has an influence only on the young person’s psychological organization. That is not the case. If we make a child memorize too much, it forms memory thoughts in an unregulated way that become ingrained in the organization of the mind, but which then cause irregularities by continuing as volitional thoughts, even into the metabolic and limb systems. And we may find that we have perhaps taught and raised the child in a way that is wrong with regard to their memory, and that this mistake may not become apparent until the child is thirty, forty, or forty-five years old, manifesting as poor internal digestion and metabolic disorders.

[ 15 ] I am citing this merely as an obvious example. Things are very complicated, and the fact is that it is only through a spiritual understanding of the human being that the true educator can gauge and comprehend the full scope of what he or she is doing with the child, both physically and emotionally. Therefore, a genuine, true pedagogy can only be built upon an understanding of the human being that takes into account the physical body, the soul, and the spirit, and that also comprehends the interplay of these three aspects of the human organism as a whole. Such a pedagogy has been developed within our anthroposophical movement. It becomes a reality in the Waldorf school; here as well, in certain experiments—albeit only on the scale of a teacher-training school. But it must be said that mere sensory science, which is generally accepted today, can never establish a true pedagogy, and that therefore a true pedagogy becomes possible only through an anthroposophical deepening of scientific life. I will then elaborate further on the topic raised here in some detail in the lectures tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

[ 16 ] Furthermore, the observer perceives a certain interplay of breakdown and rebuilding, of destruction and restoration, of the intertwining of destructive and restorative activity throughout the entire human organism, in the individual organs, in one way or another, depending on whether the person is more or less healthy or ill. One learns to recognize illness in its various manifestations only by observing how, throughout the entire human organism or in any organ or group of organs, processes of breakdown gain the upper hand, thereby causing the organism to become brittle and hardened, or how processes of rebuilding gain the upper hand, thereby giving rise to uncontrolled growth. Or one also learns to recognize how processes of breakdown intrude in an improper manner into processes of growth and disrupt them with unmetabolized metabolic products and the like. In short, just as it is important for the educator to be able to assess the normal course of these constructive and destructive processes in the child, so it is important for those who deal with sick people to look into the abnormal constructive and destructive processes.

[ 17 ] The fact is this: When we examine the surrounding physical world in its various kingdoms—the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and to some extent the animal kingdom as well—we find everything permeated by hidden spiritual and soul elements. For example, we find in certain plants restorative forces which, when prepared in a certain way and introduced into the human organism, counteract destructive processes that are pathologically abnormal. In short, remedies for abnormal processes of breakdown or abnormal processes of building up can be found in nature, and the connection between the remedy and the disease can only be understood by looking into the human organism in the manner just described. Through everything that can be done with an organism that is diseased in a certain way—whether by administering external remedies, by treating it in a way that one would not otherwise treat a healthy organism or in a way that the organism does not treat itself, or by taking measures correctly applied in this manner, or by doing what we have described as therapeutic eurythmy — such interventions always aim to restore balance within the organism by counteracting excessive regenerative processes or destructive processes that go beyond the normal range.

[ 18 ] You can see that medicine, which is based solely on the science of the senses, must be supplemented and expanded by what can be derived from spiritual insight and from an understanding of the human organism as a whole. Just as sensory science, in its physiological and anatomical aspects, is capable of assessing only the external aspects of the human organism, so too can it determine the relationship between a remedy and a disease only through external experimentation. Inspiration, imagination, and intuition enable us to perceive the inner connection between a remedy or healing process and the nature of the disease process, and to replace merely trial-and-error empirical therapy with a rational therapy that penetrates to the essence of the human being and the healing processes. I can only sketch this out very briefly here, but you can see from it how what is to be established as anthroposophical knowledge also provides the starting point for further developing both pathology and therapy according to the characterized principles—and these things have, in fact, already taken on a practical form within our movement. In our therapeutic institutes in Stuttgart and here in Arlesheim, we are by no means engaging in medical dilettantism. Modern medicine is fully recognized and applied; but these practices are permeated by what spiritual insight and a spiritual perspective can bring to them. Critics who wish to rely solely on sensory science still say today that what this spiritual science—which works out of anthroposophy—has to say about illness and healing processes is childish. — Well, this is quite understandable among people who wish to think and work solely on the basis of sensory science. But it must be said that precisely such people have no idea of the true state of affairs when they call these things “childish,” and that what sensory science produces in terms of anatomy, pathology, and therapeutics is merely a foundation for what arises from spiritual insight specifically for medicine. And I do not mean to say this in a derogatory sense, but only with regard to certain critics: If anything is childish in some respects, it is medicine that seeks to base itself solely on sensory phenomena—not that I wish to deny the value of the childlike, but only to point out how it is complemented by what arises from spiritual insight regarding the whole human being. — If you consider this, you will realize how one must go into detail if one wishes to understand the activities of the etheric and astral organisms and the human ego in physical life.

[ 19 ] At death, the human being sheds the physical organism, which is then left behind. A state then sets in in which the human being no longer bears the physical organism, but in which the I-being and the astral organism still bear the etheric organism. I have already explained how that which constitutes the human etheric body is not strictly separated by fixed boundaries from the general organization of the etheric-cosmic realm. There is a constant flow from the cosmic-etheric realm into the human etheric body and back out again. This is why, at the very moment when a human being passes through the gate of death—while still possessing his or her etheric organism—his or her consciousness expands out into the etheric expanses, yet he or she still perceives as his or her own that which has just withdrawn from the physical organism: namely, the etheric organism. During this state, the human being is entirely absorbed in the etheric experiences of the cosmos, which at times contract within their consciousness into the mere etheric experience of their own organism. After passing through the gate of death, the human being is, so to speak, overwhelmed by what cosmic consciousness is to him. At this stage, there is still no conscious observation of what I have described as a being that develops within us and which represents the realized values of the moral human being. We carry this moral-spiritual entity, which has become integrated into the astral organism, through the gate of death; yet in the very first moments after death we do not perceive much of it, but are now devoted—from the cosmic realm and into it—to the course of life we have just lived on Earth, for that is, after all, the content of the etheric body. For a while we look back on the earthly life we have just completed. Within it—as I have already described in recent days, as it appears to the imaginative consciousness—this life course now appears immediately after death. Yet this state lasts only a few days. It lasts approximately as long as the experiences of the day serve as stimuli for dream formation for the individual person—though this varies from person to person.

[ 20 ] The thing about dream formation is that dreams are actually always directly linked to the experiences of the day just past, or those of the day before that, or the day before that. And just as we dream about something from the previous day—but in a way that is associated with other, earlier experiences of ours—so, too, do these other experiences resurface in our dreams. For example, we dream that yesterday we spoke with someone about this or that. Yesterday’s experience still enters directly into our dream life. But we spoke vividly with this person about someone we may have seen ten years ago and haven’t seen since. Because this experience has woven itself into the conversation, all sorts of things about that person surface in our dreams. Dreams are simply not studied properly; otherwise, we would be aware of these experiences of the dream life. This varies from person to person. One person dreams only of what happened the previous day; another dreams of what they experienced the day before that; yet another dreams of what happened three or four days earlier. And as long as this possibility exists for the individual person, so long does the state after death last, during which one is still in the etheric body. I could also characterize it differently and say: The length of this time coincides with the time during which a person is not compelled to sleep—that is, when they can endure staying awake through days and nights without sleeping. — One person falls asleep after just one sleepless night. Another can manage to stay awake for two, three, or four nights in a row. The experience during which a person remains in their etheric body after death lasts just as long.

[ 21] But then it happens that we are increasingly absorbed by our consciousness, which has become attuned to the cosmic-etheric world. And because our etheric organism is no longer strictly separated from the cosmic-etheric world, it flows out into it, so to speak. And it is true that when we feel ourselves in the cosmic-etheric realm and look back at our etheric body, it already seems larger to us. And so it continues. Eventually, we no longer have the etheric organism, and we now live our way into the cosmos and into our cosmic consciousness with the astral organism. Then what emerges in the human being is what I have characterized as a being that represents the realized assessment of the human being’s moral-spiritual quality. One feels imbued with this being. One is thus a convergence of that which flows from oneself into the cosmos, and that to which one must return again and again in the experiences following death—the being that actually represents our moral sum total.

[ 22 ] And now, because the balancing forces are constantly and truly at work—as it were, emerging from cosmic consciousness—an extraordinarily strong tendency arises: You must counteract what you have done wrongly or foolishly with the right action! Therefore, in the further course of that life which I characterized yesterday as the soul world, a process of living into the rhythm between the moral-spiritual qualities of the human being and the cosmic qualities takes shape. Within this rhythm, a sum of tendencies emerges—once again, the possibility of experiencing and creating balances for what one considers morally inferior or the like. A tendency develops such that, for example, if one has inflicted something upon a person that has affected them in one way or another, one will then create a balancing action for it in another earthly life. In short, the seed of destiny, which runs through the various earthly lives, develops in this way. But at the same time, purely cosmic consciousness becomes greatly obscured and dimmed by the fact that we carry this element within us, and throughout the entire passage through the soul world, the human soul must remain in a dull—or at least a duller—state of consciousness, until the necessity arises for it to enter the spirit realm, to shed what has emerged as the entity described, and to live for a time purely within the cosmos—which is amoral—into which we cannot bring what we have experienced in the soul world as the culmination of our moral or immoral spiritual being.

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[ 23 ] If one wishes to describe this transition from soul experience to spiritual experience after death, one can portray it from the perspective of human life on Earth by saying: As long as a person passes through the soul world—that is, experiences this state shaped by the rhythm of the cosmic and the moral-spiritual, which existed within them during their past earthly existence, and by the interplay of these two essences—for as long as this continues, the person remains, as it were, spellbound by their last earthly life through a kind of inclination. That which he has brought with him as an entity representing his moral-spiritual qualities—this entity has, after all, flowed forth from his last earthly life. He clings to it with the tendencies of his soul, and only when he has inwardly freed himself from this clinging, from these tendencies, can he pass into the pure experience of the cosmos, in which those spiritual essences can coexist with him in such a way that, from their powers, he gains for himself the forces capable of developing the universal, the cosmic spiritual component for a future human physical organism.

[ 24 ] This is spoken from the standpoint of human experience on Earth. However, one can characterize the same conditions from the standpoint of cosmic consciousness and cosmic experience, and must then say: After a human being has shed their etheric body, and while the inclinations toward earthly life continue to live on in their I-being and in their astral organism in the manner I have described, they are inwardly permeated by the spiritual lunar forces that flood the cosmos. — I had to speak of these lunar forces already when I described the state of sleep. Now they encounter us again in the human being’s post-earthly existence. These lunar forces are always what bring—or seek to bring—the human being into a certain connection with earthly existence. Here, after death, they manifest in such a way that they, so to speak, do not want to let the human being leave earthly existence. He has shed his physical body, but he wants to return to earthly existence. This is because the lunar forces of the cosmos permeate him. Ordinary earthly thinking has, of course, ceased after death; it is bound to the head organization of the physical body. The pre-earthly human being has flowed into this head organization. As we have shed the human physical organism, that which was actually brought about only in a material way ceases to function. As a result, the human being is no longer, in a direct and immediate sense, an earth-bound being; yet indirectly, he remains so because the lunar forces continue to work within him. In a sense, these forces continue to produce within him—long after death—a tendency to return to earthly existence, in which he has prepared for himself the kind of being that he now contains within himself.

[ 25 ] After death, however, human beings must free themselves from the lunar forces, rise above them, and liberate themselves inwardly from the lunar forces that flood in and exert their influence. These lunar forces always maintain within the human being a kind of cosmic memory of the rhythmic forces; that is to say, they present to him, again and again through inspirations and imaginations, what takes place in the movements of the planets and in the relationship of the planets to the fixed stars. But the lunar forces hold human beings back from experiencing those spiritual beings whose physical image is found in the constellations of the fixed stars. And human beings now face the necessity of entering a purely spiritual world. As long as the forces of the Moon are acting upon him, they do not allow him to enter this world. However, he is meant, so to speak, not only to view the cosmos he experiences from the side that faces him in physical existence, but also to view it from the other side. Human beings actually enter this state when they develop a purely spiritual, cosmic consciousness. There he finds himself in a position where he is, so to speak, at the periphery of the cosmos. And just as we are here at the center and look out into the cosmos in all directions, so in this spiritual vision we look into the cosmos from the periphery. But now we do not see the physical images of the spiritual beings in question; rather, we behold these spiritual beings themselves. We do not look into the cosmos from the periphery in a spatial sense. Just as we look out into the cosmos from a single point of vision here, so there we look into it from the entire surface of a sphere. Yet the matter is, once again, spatial. We perceive it qualitatively. We look out into the realm of the fixed-star sky and observe this fixed-star sky from the outside.

[ 26 ] We must enter into this independence from the physical world—where we live out our earthly existence—between death and a new birth. Human beings entered this world in a completely different way during the period of human development preceding the Mystery of Golgotha, and in a different way during the period following that event. Indeed, in the course of human development on Earth, a tremendous metamorphosis has taken place within the inner life of the human being. The Christ event marks a turning point in the development of humanity on Earth. Therefore, today, in the final quarter of my lectures, I would like to describe this entry of the human soul-spirit into the spirit realm through Christian development, as the conclusion of this evening.

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[ 27 ] Before a human being enters the actual spiritual world—that is, before he begins to live in community with other human souls who are not incarnated and who are also in a similar state (incidentally, he already lives together with such souls earlier)— but specifically before they can enter into communion with those spiritual beings of the highest order whose physical likeness is found in the constellations, they must leave behind in the lunar sphere the essence that constitutes their moral character. Without it, he must enter the region that is not the lunar region but the stellar region, where, through his association with other spiritual beings of the highest order, the forces arise within his soul that enable him to truly prepare and develop the spiritual component of the future human physical organism.

[ 28 ] When, in the time before the Mystery of Golgotha, the ancient initiates sought to describe the manner in which this transition to the spirit realm took place for humanity at that time, they had to say to those who were willing to listen: When, after death, you are to pass from the world of souls into the spirit realm, you must leave behind in the lunar sphere that which, arising from your good and evil deeds, shapes your destiny. But through the powers of your human constitution alone, you do not have the power to effect the passage from the lunar sphere into the stellar sphere. Therefore, the Solar Being—which has its physical reflection in the physical sun—intervenes on your behalf. And just as your outer life unfolds under the influence of physical sunlight and physical solar heat, so too, after death, the high Solar Being takes your being under its care, frees you from your core of destiny, and receives you into the stellar sphere, so that there, with the help of your Solar Guide, you may develop the spiritual part of your future physical organism. Then, after you have worked sufficiently in the spiritual realm under the guidance of your Solar Guide to shape your physical organism, you may return to earthly life. Upon this return to earthly life, the lunar sphere receives you once more. There you find the destiny being that you carried through the gate of death from your previous earthly life. You unite with it and can now master it in an entirely different way, having prepared the spiritual aspect of your future physical organism together with the High Solar Being. You can fuse this core of destiny with the forces within you that are directed toward the physical earthly organism. You pass through the lunar sphere once more. — And then the entry into earthly life takes place just as I have described in the preceding accounts.

[ 29 ] The Initiates who were contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha, or who lived in the centuries that followed up to the 3rd and 4th centuries, were able to say to their followers: The form that the human physical organism takes on during earthly life increasingly shapes the “I.” But human beings lose the power to enter that region where the high solar being above could be their guide in the spiritual regions of the stars. That is why Christ descended to Earth and accomplished the Mystery of Golgotha. And the power that the human soul gains through its emotional connection to the Mystery of Golgotha—this power continues to work after death, snatching the soul away from the core of its destiny and the lunar sphere, and under the aftereffect of Christ, the soul forms its future physical organism together with the other beings of the starry world and then finds once more the core of destiny, into which the tendency is laid for the shaping of destiny in future earthly lives. What the human soul has absorbed as a force from the Christ impulse enables it, in turn, to pass through the spirit realm in the proper manner and to receive the core of destiny in the proper way.

[ 30 ] Anyone speaking today from the perspective of the science of initiation must also say the following: Yes, it is the Christ impulse, which continues to work beyond death, under whose influence the human being breaks free from the lunar sphere, enters the stellar-solar sphere, and there—drawing on the impulses given to him by the beings of the stellar world—can work on shaping the physical organism of his next earthly life. But the human being breaks free from the lunar sphere through the forces he has stored within his “I” through his inclination toward the Christ Being and the Mystery of Golgotha. He breaks free from the lunar sphere in such a way that he can now also work within the stellar sphere so that, when he returns to the lunar sphere and encounters his core of destiny, he integrates himself into this core of destiny in a free manner as a free spiritual being, because he must say to himself: World evolution can only unfold in the right way if the human being integrates this core of his destiny and, in future, balancing earthly lives, also sets right what he has prepared as his destiny.

[ 31 ] The essence of the renewed experience of the postmortem lunar sphere lies in the fact that there is a moment in cosmic existence when a person independently connects his or her destiny—his or her karma—with his or her evolving being. And the earthly reflection of this act, accomplished in the supernatural realm, in the subsequent earthly life is human freedom—the sense of freedom during earthly existence. A correct understanding of the concept of destiny and its pursuit all the way up into the spiritual worlds does not establish a philosophy of determinism, but rather a true philosophy of freedom, as I set forth in my book Philosophy of Freedom in the 1890s.

[ 32 ] Thus, when a person immerses themselves in the spiritual realms after death—integrated into their organism and connected to their cosmic destiny—they carry with them the aftereffects of the spiritual experiences they had in the spirit world. And modern human beings, by experiencing the Christ within themselves, can experience freedom—and, in connection with that freedom, also the feeling of being permeated by God—that very permeation by God which, on Earth, can be a reflection of what is experienced during the passage through the world of the stars to the lunar sphere and within the lunar sphere.

[ 33 ] Spiritual science strives to attain an understanding of all these relationships by cultivating intuition through exercises of the will. In earlier times, according to the instructions of the initiates of that era, this intuition was cultivated in such a way that the individual, primarily through asceticism, stunted the development of his outer physical organism. By mortifying and numbing his outer physical organism, the will—which is, after all, independent and which otherwise merely lives out a desire for the physical organism—manifests itself with all the greater energy. Through asceticism, the physical organism is so mortified that it becomes difficult for the will to enter into this physical organism when it unfolds. The will is, as it were, driven back, and the more difficult it becomes for it to immerse itself in the physical organism, the more it lives itself into the spiritual world and develops intuitions. This is what asceticism has brought about. But this ancient form of asceticism is wrongly carried over into modern times. Following the Mystery of Golgotha, the human physical body has taken on a form through which it could no longer tolerate asceticism that would be successful. Through such asceticism, modern human beings would simultaneously weaken their physical organism to such an extent that the “I”-consciousness—which must, after all, develop—could not develop in the proper way. Human beings would then never attain a consciousness of freedom. Nor would they be able to connect with the Christ impulse in a proper, free way.

[ 34 ] Therefore, these exercises of the will must be performed in such a way that the physical body is not brought down, as happened in ancient times, but rather that the purely spiritual and soul-related faculties of the human being are strengthened through these exercises, so that the body does not withdraw from the soul, but rather the soul immerses itself in the spiritual worlds. Not only what the ancient initiates had to say to their followers regarding the experiences between death and rebirth, but also what they had to say about the exercises a person must undertake to attain the kind of insight that leads into these supersensible worlds—these exercises, too, have changed in keeping with the progressive development of humanity. The ancient ascetic could not attain the regal consciousness of freedom that modern human beings must attain through their social organization. Nor, however, could the ancient ascetic encounter, between death and birth, the solar being who performed certain acts with him—acts that he can now perform himself, after Christ has accomplished the Mystery of Golgotha, thereby gaining the strength to carry out the corresponding actions after death.

[ 35 ] Thus, with the advent of Christianity in the course of human development, religious consciousness has changed, because this religious consciousness is the earthly echo of what a human being experiences in the spiritual world—in a state of being permeated by God—between death and rebirth. Everywhere, modern initiatory science is leading us toward a deeper understanding of Christology. One can therefore speak of a renewal of religious consciousness through anthroposophical deepening, just as we have spoken here in recent days of a renewal of philosophy into a living philosophical knowledge, and of a deepening of cosmology through the incorporation of that which can be grasped only through intuition and inspiration from the higher worlds. For all of humanity, this anthroposophical deepening can also bring about a gain in the renewal of religious consciousness, which thereby becomes, for the first time, a fully conscious Christian consciousness. Anthroposophy wishes to contribute to the proper further development of Christianity in the sense that it does not seek to become a new religion, but rather to stand ready to assist in the shaping of the Christian religion that came into the world through the Mystery of Golgotha. This religion possesses within itself the power to develop further, and Anthroposophy wishes to understand this correctly and to be a true helper in this further development.

[ 36 ] Thus, in these lectures, I have attempted to describe to you how philosophy, cosmology, and religious insight should be enriched through anthroposophy. Of course, religious insight is not the same as religion. Religion can also be experienced simply by surrendering oneself with an open mind to what intuitive insight provides, but it can be understood in the mind. And so the renewal of religious insight can lead to a new deepening of religious life.

[ 37 ] I’ve only been able to sketch out these things in broad strokes over the past few days. Of course, one can only fully grasp these matters once one becomes familiar with the details. Then, many things that had to remain sketchy these past few days would reveal themselves in their full colors, with all their possible shades. Only then would a complete picture emerge.

[ 38 ] Ladies and gentlemen! As I now conclude these lectures, I am filled with deep satisfaction when I think that you, having truly come from afar, have followed these lectures. This sense of satisfaction prompts me to express my heartfelt thanks to you all for your attention, and in particular to extend my warmest thanks to Dr. Sauerwein for his efforts in providing a faithful translation, and to ask him to grant me one final request: to translate this expression of gratitude to him as well, just as he has translated the rest. I will consider myself fortunate if you take home with you the feeling that the time you have spent here has not been wasted. With this in mind, I would like to bid you farewell.