The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. Experiences of the Human Soul During Sleep and After Death in the Spiritual World I

[ 1 ] You will recall that the last time I had the privilege of speaking to you here, I described the experiences of the human soul during sleep, and today I would like, in a sense, to continue the reflections I presented to you on that occasion.

[ 2 ] It is truly the case that anyone who knows human life only from the waking side knows only half of that human life, for the most important things take place during sleep. I need not explain to you how the insights I wish to discuss with you again today were gained through that precise clairvoyance which I have already described here in London. I will therefore assume that you accept that what I am about to say is based on this precise clairvoyant science.

[ 3 ] When a person transitions from waking consciousness to sleep consciousness—which, for people today, is essentially an unconscious state—they are neither in their physical body nor in their etheric body. While sleeping, they are a purely spiritual being. And what they experience as this spiritual-soul being between falling asleep and waking up—I described that to you from one perspective last time. Today I want to look at it from another perspective.

[ 4 ] You recall that, during sleep, a person first experiences the penetration of their being into the world ether, which causes them to be overcome by a certain fear of the unknown, the indeterminate, and the undifferentiated. You will also recall that at this moment something awakens in the soul that can be described—using an expression drawn from consciousness—as the longing for the Divine. — You will also recall that, in the second stage of sleep, a person experiences simulations of planetary movements, and that for those who have a connection to the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ appears as a guide through the otherwise chaotic experiences one has while living through these simulations of stellar and planetary life in sleep. Then comes the experience of the fixed stars. One has left the planetary sphere—only in the simulation—and experiences the constellations of the fixed stars. Thus, from the moment one falls asleep until waking, one actually experiences the entire cosmic, extraterrestrial existence. And I have also told you that the lunar forces—that which spiritually corresponds to the manifestation of lunar phenomena—always bring the human being back into his physical and etheric bodies in the morning or, in general, upon waking.

[ 5 ] Today, I would first like to describe to you from another perspective what this experience is like between falling asleep and waking up. When we are conscious during the day—provided we do not get caught up in the materialistic notions of modern humanity—we have a moral and religious foundation for our lives. In addition to having an understanding of nature, a person must feel that they have moral obligations and responsibilities, and furthermore, that their entire being rests within a spiritual world. We can call the latter “religious consciousness.” A person possesses this moral and religious consciousness while awake. But human beings possess religious consciousness while awake only because they are in their physical body. In this physical body, human beings are not alone; rather, spirits of higher world orders are with them, and they live in their physical body together with spirits of higher world orders. And in their etheric body, they live together with that which these spirits of higher world orders mean by the moral.

[ 6 ] So human religious consciousness depends on life in the physical body; moral life depends on life in the etheric body. And this leads us to realize that the world ether, from which our etheric body is formed, has two components. One component of this world ether is heat, light, chemical ether, and life ether. But underlying all this etheric substance—which exists in heat, light, chemical processes, and life—is a moral essence of the world ether. This moral essence of the world ether, however, exists only in the vicinity of the stars and planets. So when you live on Earth, even though you are not aware of it during the day, you are also present within the world ether as a moral essence. And when you journey through the world of the celestial bodies, you are also present in the world ether as a moral essence whenever you are in the vicinity of a celestial body. Between the celestial bodies, the moral essence is driven out of the ether by sunlight; sunlight—not the Sun itself, for the Sun is a celestial body that contains, for us humans, the very source of the moral ether—but as the Sun shines, its light drives out the moral essence of the ether. And so, when we look out into the world through our eyes, we see flowers, we see springs, we see all of this without imbuing it with the moral, without seeing through it, because the sunlight drives the moral out of it.

[ 7 ] And when we step out of our physical and etheric bodies as we fall asleep, we, as spiritual-soul human beings, have nothing other than what we have initially acquired during our earthly life through contemplating nature. As paradoxical as it may sound, we leave behind in our bed—along with our physical and etheric bodies—our religious and moral sensibilities, and we live as amoral beings between falling asleep and waking up. But during this time we live in a world that is otherwise permeated by sunlight. And because the moral world order emanates from the ether, the Ahrimanic entity gains access to this ether into which we enter when we fall asleep. This “Ahrimanic entity” speaks to human beings during sleep. And what this Ahrimanic entity says is, in essence, a fatal thing, for this Ahrimanic entity is rightly called the spirit of lies, because it presents things to the sleeping person as if good were evil and evil were good.

[ 8 ] A short article recently appeared in the newspapers about something that science has already been investigating: the question of why criminals sleep so well, while moral people with a clear conscience often have trouble sleeping. This can be explained by what I am about to tell you. For those who have developed a strong conscience—that is, those who are deeply sensitive, morally conscious individuals—their moral sensibility penetrates so deeply into their soul that it carries over into their sleep; and so they sleep poorly when they believe they have done much wrong. But those who are bad people—those who lack a highly developed moral conscience—carry no pangs of conscience into their sleep. And so they have a mind completely open to the whisperings of Ahriman, who presents evil to them as good. That is why the criminal is so content in his sleep.

[ 9 ] People say: “It’s only unfair that criminals sleep well while good people have trouble sleeping!” — which, as I’ve said, is now a scientific discovery. But the reason for this is the one I’ve explained to you. In fact, the temptation to do evil during sleep is immense, and in the morning, people easily carry the most demonic temptations with them as they wake up. When one then returns to one’s physical and etheric bodies, the pangs of conscience awaken once more in those who are not very good people. So it is indeed the case that, as an earthly human being, one is given every opportunity during sleep to fall prey to the tempting Ahriman.

[ 10 ] But this has only become as strong as it is now over the course of time. It is only in our age that people are, to the highest degree, at the mercy of demonic forces during sleep—forces that, while they sleep, make evil appear to them as good. This was not the case in earlier periods of human development. In earlier stages of human development, as I have often told you, people did not have as strong a sense of self as they do now. They had a weaker sense of self while awake; this meant that during sleep they did not plunge into evil as completely as they do now. We are now, in fact, in a decisive era for human development—a crisis. People must arm themselves against the forces of evil that approach them. People of earlier times were protected from this, for when they fell asleep, they entered more deeply into the group soul. Back then, people lived more within the group soul while they slept. This life within the group soul is something we still develop to a certain extent even while awake; we feel ourselves to be a people, we often even feel ourselves to be a tribe, and when we have somewhat aristocratic airs, we feel ourselves to be members of a family; but sleep today truly strips people of this sense of the group soul entirely. In sleep, people today can no longer be true aristocrats. Indeed, sleep educates far more than you might think—on the one hand toward evil, but on the other hand toward democracy. Sleep is truly a great teacher. In the past, when older people slept, they merged into the group soul. Upon waking—as they returned to their physical and etheric bodies—they brought with them a strong awareness of their belonging to their group. That is one aspect of the human being—what they are during sleep.

[ 11 ] But human beings possess within themselves the very same thing they have inside them during sleep—that which is so strongly exposed to evil, as I have just described—and they possess it within themselves even in the present time. They must simply allow it to be immersed in and flow into their moral and religious consciousness while they are awake. The religious aspect is given to them by the forces that live with the physical body, and the moral aspect by the forces that live with the etheric body.

[ 12 ] All of this—the mystery of Golgotha—has fundamentally changed the course of human evolution. Just as the ancient human lived deeply within the group consciousness while asleep, so too, when he re-immersed himself in his physical and etheric bodies upon waking, he lived more within himself. But there is, in turn, a difference between the ancient human being and the modern human being. The ancient human being, when he awoke and immersed himself in his physical and etheric bodies, had—before he was fully awake—a clear awareness of his life before he had descended to Earth, and likewise again before falling asleep. Thus, while this ancient human being developed a strong group consciousness on the one hand, he also had a strong awareness of his connection to life beyond the Earth. He knew how he had come down from the spiritual world, then passed through the world of the stars, and had actually chosen a physical body here on Earth. This awareness was later obscured. In exchange, people became intelligent—what we today call intelligent. They became imbued with the power of judgment, discernment, and such qualities. This came about only in the course of evolution, and that is why we are able to judge so well in the morning—because our physical body gives us the power of judgment. We penetrate more deeply into our physical and etheric bodies than the ancient human did. The ancient human therefore had an awareness of the previous existence; we have more of an awareness of earthly existence. We settle firmly into our physical and etheric bodies. The ancient human did not do this. The old human being carried the physical and etheric bodies more as part of himself; he felt them more as something external, just as we feel our clothes today. We no longer have that feeling. We no longer say, as the old human being did when he entered through the door: “I am carrying my human being through the door”—he meant the physical human being. That was certainly a natural way of speaking in ancient languages. We will most certainly say: “I”—as we push our ‘I’ firmly down into the physical body—“am walking through the door.” We find it perfectly natural to say this.

[ 13 ] Well, but this is also why people have lost awareness of their connection to the spiritual world and the world of the stars. People of earlier times knew that they were connected to the world of the stars, and beyond that, to the spiritual world, and that they had descended from these worlds into earthly existence. Modern people say: “I need meat, vegetables, and eggs to live.”—These are all products of the physical world, with which we are concerned from birth to death. Do not think that I wish to express contempt for these things; they are all very good and are part of life, and this should be fully acknowledged in all its significance. But I simply want to say that the ancient human knew that for this life, he needed not only the power of the earth—which lies in cattle, cabbage, and eggs—but also the power of Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn to sustain life. He knew: Just as I must eat eggs here on Earth, so too, when I descend from the spiritual world, I must have absorbed the power of Jupiter and Venus into myself; otherwise, I could not be an earthly human being at all. — Just as modern humans feel connected to the Earth and are deeply concerned: What on earth should I eat to have a healthy body? — so, too, did ancient humanity feel compelled to maintain a relationship with the stars. And they told themselves: If I am unable to do this or that here on Earth, then I simply did not behave properly when descending to the stars and must correct this during my next passage through the time between death and a new birth. — So in ancient times, human beings developed something for life that one might call a “spiritual diet.” In the ancient mysteries, there were guides and leaders who were something like what a modern doctor is. But the modern doctor gives instructions only regarding the body. That is, of course, quite natural and should not be criticized. But the ancient guides in the mysteries—who were also doctors in this regard—gave instructions on how, if one suffered from this or that ailment, one should improve one’s relationship to Venus or Saturn. This involved giving people certain spiritual instructions. Let’s say, for example, that such an ancient doctor in the mysteries observed: “The person seeking healing from him has an excessive attachment to his physical body; the body is not merely a garment to him, but he lives too intensely through his physical body.” — Much like a person today who always slept in his clothes, such a physician would view a person with a certain ailment as someone who was strongly bound to his physical body. Then such a doctor said to such a patient: “When the full moon rises in the evening, try to take a short walk in the moonlight, and while you walk, recite this or that mantra.”

[ 14 ] Why did the physician of the ancient mysteries do this? — He did it because he knew: When a person walks in the moonlight and recites mantras, this counteracts the power of Saturn; Saturn gains less power over that person. And this ancient physician of the Mysteries knew that this clinging to the physical body—this being completely trapped within the physical body—is the cause of a person having clung too strongly to Saturn when they entered earthly existence from the spiritual world through the world of the stars. It is from this excessive affinity with the life of Saturn that the person has acquired this infirmity. The Moon and Saturn are celestial bodies that counteract one another. Thus, an ancient physician used the powers of the Moon to heal the damage caused by the forces of Saturn. In other words, he prescribed a spiritual regimen. Such practices existed in ancient times.

[ 15 ] We have a physical diet, which is, of course, quite appropriate for us. But in ancient times, a spiritual diet was necessary. We must now learn to supplement our physical diet with this spiritual one. That is the task of the present: for us humans to once again acquire, alongside our physical diet, a sense of the spiritual diet. And then we will be able to fulfill our tasks, especially in light of the current times in our earthly lives. That is what I wanted to tell you in the first part.

[ 16 ] Since I am fortunate enough to be able to give two more lectures here before you, I do not need to rush today as I usually must, and will therefore be able to take my time in sharing with you some of the things I would like to tell you during my time here.

[ 17 ] The ancient people were able to look into pre-earthly life—the life that human beings spent in the spiritual world before uniting with their physical and etheric bodies here on Earth—through elemental clairvoyance; today, this can only be achieved through true spiritual science, as pursued in anthroposophy.

[ 18 ] But then, as the inspired consciousness looks back on the time we spent before we descended to Earth as human beings, then, through this contemplation, it becomes clear that we live for a time in a purely spiritual world—a world in which there are no kingdoms: no mineral kingdom, no plant kingdom, no animal kingdom; a world in which, at first, even the stars we see within the sphere of the earthly realm are absent; but a world in which the beings of the higher hierarchies surround us. So for a time, between death and a new birth, we live among spiritual beings. Only then do we descend through the starry heavens to Earth, passing through one star sphere or another with greater or lesser affinity. And it is in this way that we truly prepare ourselves for our earthly existence. Our earthly existence will be shaped by the way we relate to the stellar spheres through which we pass. And I would like to illustrate this to you first with an example.

[ 19 ] When we emerge from the purely spiritual world, we first pass through the sphere of the fixed stars, which I do not wish to discuss today; I will save that for next time. We then pass through the sphere of Saturn, the sphere of Jupiter, the sphere of Mars, the sphere of the Sun, the sphere of Mercury, the sphere of Venus, and the sphere of the Moon, and gradually descend to Earth. You can see from this that, as we enter the sphere of the stars from the purely spiritual world, we approach the stars, so to speak, from the other side. For example, here on Earth we see Jupiter from a certain angle when we are standing on Earth. When a human being descending from the spiritual world through the sphere of the stars approaches the Earth, they see Saturn from the other side, and all the stars in the same way. So the being approaches the star, as it were, from behind, always seeing the opposite of what people on Earth see physically. But the human being who approaches Earth from the spiritual world does not see as we do. After all, it does not yet have eyes; it only acquires them through the physical body. It therefore perceives the spiritual aspect of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, and the Sun, as well as the spiritual aspect of Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. You see, depending on whether it passes through one sphere or another with sympathy or antipathy, the being must, as it descends, absorb the forces of that sphere—that is, the forces of Saturn, Jupiter, and so on.

[ 20 ] Now, it may be the case that a human being who lived in a certain way in a previous earthly life receives the impression, upon descending into a new life, that it would be good for them to come down to Earth as a woman the next time—that is, to incarnate in a female body. — Whether to become a man or a woman is certainly a matter of consideration for the descending human soul. For, of course, one’s entire destiny on Earth essentially depends on this. It is not a matter of indifference whether one spends one’s existence on Earth as a man or a woman. But for the human soul, it is not enough simply to decide: “I will become a man or a woman!” — This must be prepared for. And it is prepared in such a way that, if the human soul wishes to become a woman, it approaches the Earth at the moment when we on Earth see the Moon as a full moon. When we see the Moon as a full moon from Earth, the human soul perceives the spiritual essence of the Moon; when it enters from the spiritual sphere, it sees the Moon as dark—that is, endowed with certain beings—for it perceives it spiritually. And these beings prepare the soul in such a way that it develops an attraction to the female body on Earth.

[ 21 ] But if the new moon can be seen from Earth, then the soul that descends sees, from the other side, the illuminated moon—that is, the light radiating out into the cosmos, or rather, its spiritual aspect. And then it can become a man.

[ 22 ] Thus, whether the soul absorbs forces associated with the masculine or the feminine depends on how it passes through the sphere of the stars. Similarly, just as the soul passes through the sphere of the Moon, it also passes through, for example, the spheres of Mercury and Venus. If the soul becomes a man or a woman through the lunar sphere, it is, on the other hand, shaped by sympathy—for it could, after all, become a man or a woman in this or that family—and for the family, it is shaped by the sphere of Venus.

[ 23 ] So the person who descends to Earth as a soul can either descend at a time when Venus is on the very opposite side of the Earth, in which case he does not need to pass through the Venus sphere at all. In that case, they will be a person who does not care much about their family. Or they will pass through the Venus sphere and, while doing so, choose the specific path that leads them to a particular family. This, then, is the opportunity for the soul to prepare itself for a specific family when the human being, so to speak, chooses the ray that extends from Venus to that family. He then approaches Earth from the other side—the dark side of Venus—and in this way enters a specific family. Similarly, he passes through the sphere of Mercury, through which he enters a specific people. So again: if the region of this people is illuminated by the rays of Mercury and the person comes from the other side—the dark side of Mercury—this is the path for him to reach this people.

[ 24 ] Thus, human souls are shaped by the Moon—always taking the spiritual into account—as to whether one becomes a man or a woman; by Venus, as to whether one belongs to this or that family; and by Mercury, as to whether one belongs to this or that people.

[ 25 ] These are things that show you how a person’s entire life on Earth depends entirely on how they shape their relationship as they descend. This is something we, in turn, must learn. We simply have to come to see ourselves as creatures of the starry world, just as we see ourselves on Earth as creatures composed of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, sulfur, and so on. We are not merely physical human beings composed of protein and a few other substances; rather, we are human beings composed of all the forces of the universe—only that these forces of the universe act upon us during our descent. Then we have them within us. And, in a sense, we have a memory of this in our sleep.

[ 26 ] But memory, as you know, is always weaker than the experience itself. Just think about it: when you experience the death of a loved one, how that feeling fades after some time. In the same way, this vivid sense of being present in the spiritual and stellar worlds fades during sleep. And that is why, during sleep, a person is exposed to everything I told you about at the beginning of today’s discussion. In sleep, we have only a faint afterimage—a cosmic memory, so to speak—of the spiritual and stellar experiences we have between death and this birth.