The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. Experiences of the Human Soul During Sleep and After Death in the Spiritual World III

[ 1 ] Today I would like to bring the reflections we have been engaging in here recently to a certain conclusion. First, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that you already know what happens to a person after death. To begin with, the person has shed their physical body and finds themselves in a state that is otherwise inaccessible to ordinary consciousness during earthly life. They have their “I,” their astral body, and their etheric body around and within them. This etheric body normally remains united with the physical body throughout the entire period from birth to death, and during sleep, a person is outside the etheric body and the physical body only in their “I” and in their astral body. Now, if after death a person retains his etheric body—this body of formative forces—for a short time—a period measured only in days—he is thereby able to look back on the entire course of his earthly life. The course of one’s earthly life is, in fact, contained within this etheric body. And I have also said in my public lectures how, when a person, through initiation, liberates their etheric body, they can survey the course of their earthly life.

[ 2 ] But one cannot retain the etheric body for long after death, for this etheric body is, in fact, interconnected with the entire cosmos; it always seeks to expand into the cosmos. If we were to lose our physical body for a moment during our lifetime, the etheric body would immediately—as if by an elastic force—tend to dissolve into the entire cosmos. And it is only through the physical body, within which this etheric body always remains, that it is held together during life. Once the binding force of the physical body is no longer present, the etheric body begins to expand, and after a few days, due to its great expansion, it will no longer be there for us. As you know, if you take a small drop of water, it is there; if you heat it, it spreads out in all directions and is no longer there. You can no longer see it. In the same way, the etheric body expands after death, and after just a few days, it is simply no longer there.

[ 3 ] The wisdom of initiation shows that this lasts only a few days, because through the wisdom of initiation one is able, so to speak, to use the etheric body artificially during one’s earthly life. It then remains within the physical body, but one uses it by disregarding the physical body, and one is then able to look back on one’s earthly life. But at the same time, by looking back on one’s earthly life, one also sees the entire universe reflected in this etheric body. The entire starry sky is present within the etheric body at the same time. You cannot perceive the etheric body separately from this physical body without the etheric body revealing to you everywhere the world of the stars, the planets, and the fixed stars. And these planets and fixed stars ultimately absorb the etheric body. And it is the case that the science of initiation, the wisdom of initiation, can retain the images it has in this way within the etheric body for no more than three to four days; then they disappear, and one must return to one’s physical body beforehand—if one wishes to maintain any connection with them at all—so that the etheric body is held together. Thus, this etheric body, too, fades away a few days after death. But through this process, one becomes increasingly integrated into the world of the stars.

[ 4 ] At first, after shedding the etheric body, one feels alien within the world of the stars. The only thing that seems familiar, so to speak, from the world of the stars are the forces of the Moon. The Moon appears in such a way that, on the one hand, one sees a reflection of its physical form. But immediately one comes to know more precisely what spiritual forces are connected with the Moon. One actually comes to know that the Yahve force of the universe is connected with the Moon, as I characterized it last time. The Moon is transformed, so to speak, for the one who passes through the gate

[ 5 ] has passed into the ether of death, into a colony of spiritual beings led by Yahweh. And now, after death, one comes to know that which the science of initiation can speak of precisely because it is already able to bring images of these things into earthly life. One comes to recognize what it means for a human being to die on Earth. One comes to understand the meaning of death precisely through the lunar forces—through the forces of Yahweh.

[ 6 ] When we consider death on Earth, it appears as follows: a person’s physical body becomes lifeless, and everything from the spiritual-soul and etheric realms that had permeated the physical body has vanished from it. The physical body is taken over by the forces of the earth, by the elements of the earth—either by the forces of the earth and water when it is buried, or by the forces of fire and air when it is cremated. Thus, the human physical body is taken over by the forces of the earth. It has been cast off by the human being. What does this actually mean: that the physical body has been cast off by the human being and has passed into a state of destruction? — It is this: when a human being is born and possesses the infantile forces of growth within, and even when the human being is still in the embryonic state before birth—but when, physically speaking, it already belongs to the earth within the mother’s body— then these are the very same forces that confront us as destructive forces at death—the same forces that leave the human physical body at death, which thus appear at death because the physical body decays—the same forces that help build up this physical body. Through their etheric experiences and then through their astral experiences, human beings pass into a spiritual world; but here on Earth, something also detaches itself from the physical body, appearing as a spiritual entity—something that, so to speak, steps out of the human body. One might say: On the one hand, the real human being departs; on the other hand, another being emerges from the human being. — It is indeed the case that the human physical body lies there at death; the human being himself leaves it, but another being leaves it at the same time. This other being is precisely the lunar forces that also live on Earth. For although the lunar forces are, if I may say so, concentrated in the cosmic Moon, they extend their influence far and wide. This manifests on Earth in the forces of death. These forces of death are at the same time the forces of birth. They lead the human being into life, and they appear when the human being steps out of life. In this way, one gains an insight into the connection between birth and death. And if one considers all human beings who die in successive periods, it is the case that, in a sense, the manifestation of death emerges from each person and reunites with a spiritual atmosphere that surrounds the Earth like the atmospheric air, and which contains that which death yields and that which birth immediately receives in return. From the forces that, in a sense, rise from human corpses, human beings are born anew. Indeed, our powers of growth are spiritually intimately connected with what surrounds the Earth in the form of the forces of death—the forces that manifest through death.

[ 7 ] Now consider the following. These forces of death, which are also the forces of birth, are the lunar forces. Intermingled within these lunar forces is everything that a human being has accumulated in terms of moral values from birth to death. If one has been good in any respect, a distinct being of sorts is found within this sphere of the lunar forces of death, which contains within itself a force that has remained from our goodness. This being also contains within itself everything that has remained from our wickedness. And while we live on Earth, we shape this being. Ordinary consciousness knows nothing of this, but we carry it within us. We carry it within us in such a way that we leave it behind every night when we sleep; when we leave our physical body, this being remains inside the physical body. I have already told you that moral and religious feelings are left behind in the physical and etheric bodies. And what is also left behind is a real being that we develop as our bearer of karma during our earthly life. This being, however, remains connected to us as long as we are in the sphere of the lunar forces. And because this being sustains us within the lunar forces—that is, in the vicinity of the Earth—we remain connected in the period immediately following death both to these lunar forces and to our karma in such a way that we must truly relive all the actions we performed on Earth between birth and death; we must relive them in a spiritual manner, at three times the speed — as I said in the public lecture — than we experienced them on Earth. But we must relive them, relive them in reverse, and thus spend a period after “death” in which, although we are no longer connected to the lunar forces of death through the physical body we have shed, we must, as spiritual-soul beings, perform actions that are intimately connected to our earthly actions. So we relive our lives once more in reverse order, and through this, our karma becomes all the more conscious to us.

[ 8 ] And you must, of course, deal with matters of a spiritual nature in a spiritual way. If you have loved someone on earth, you might perhaps imagine: “Oh, after death this person must now go through everything bad or imperfect that he or she may have done!” — You then feel, from your earthly-physical perspective, a certain regret that this person has to go through that. But if you were to ask the one who has passed through the gate of death yourself whether they see it that way, they would tell you: No. — They would tell you: “I would not want to experience this afterlife in any other way than by reliving everything through the judgment I now possess as a spiritual-soul being, so that it may be properly imprinted upon the very essence of my true soul.” For if I have committed any act that makes me appear as an imperfect human being, and I were not to relive it within myself in this way, I would not feel the urge within me to make amends for it. I would not want to free myself from this imperfection. It is precisely by reliving the action in a spiritual-soulful way that I receive the impulse to overcome it through a perfect action. — The deceased would not want to miss out on this reliving at any price; for it gives him the strength to fully attain his humanity. You must simply be aware that, just as the Earth looks different when viewed from a valley than from a mountaintop, life looks different from here—from the physical world—than from the other side. And so one can often say: People generally do not judge the connections between earthly life and the superphysical life—life after death—quite correctly.

[ 9 ] Let’s consider another case. Let’s say you are a very devoted anthroposophist, you are passionate about anthroposophy, and you have a housemate—someone with whom you are very close—who hates anthroposophy as if it were his worst enemy. Now you might say that you deeply regret causing this person great pain simply because you yourself are a follower of anthroposophy and he hates it. From the standpoint of earthly life, this may be a correct assessment. But very often, from the other side’s perspective, it appears that it was part of this person’s karma simply not to be able to come to terms with anthroposophy because of the aversions he brought with him from a previous life—aversions that simply make his mind a hater of anthroposophy. His mind cannot come to terms with anthroposophy. He immediately becomes restless and agitated the moment he hears anything about it. Yet this does not necessarily mean his heart is averse to anthroposophy. When the person in question then dies, it may turn out that after death he has a very intense longing for anthroposophy; so that you are often doing the right thing when, after the death of someone who hated anthroposophy here in life, you turn to him with thoughts from anthroposophy in order to bring it to him.

[ 10 ] It can certainly be said—as strange and paradoxical as it sounds—that some family members who raged terribly because another family member had become an anthroposophist have, after their death, become the most devoted followers. So you must take very seriously what I also told you during my previous stay here—that life is viewed quite differently from the other side than it is from here—and you must take this very seriously in this regard as well.

[ 11 ] And so we can see how a person becomes someone entirely different. Imagine that, here in your physical life on Earth, you have your brain inside your skull, your lungs a little further down, then your other organs, and your senses on the outside. Through all of these, you perceive the outer world; through everything enclosed within your skin, you perceive the outer world. Now you step out into it. At first, the stars seem to shine only into your etheric body; but once you have shed that, you identify yourself with the stars. Before, you had a brain in there; now you have taken into yourself the spiritual essence of Venus, Mercury, the Sun, and so on. Now you can say: Just as I have lungs, a heart, kidneys, and so on within me on Earth, so now within me are the Moon, Mercury, the Sun, and so on. — You are one with the universe within you. Do you believe that the universe provides you with the same intellect as your brain? — That’s precisely how the world looks different; when you look at Earth from the Sun, Earth looks different than when you look at the Sun from Earth. This is indeed how one experiences this “reverse” perception by remaining in connection with the Moon, Mercury, and Venus. At this time, the connection with the outer planets—Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn—is weakly developed, and the connection with the fixed stars is even weaker.

[ 12 ] After having gone through one’s actions in this way—tracing them back to one’s birth—one then judges these actions from the perspective of the stars. One does not now receive a judgment looking back, but rather a judgment looking forward; one receives the judgment: “This is what you must do to make amends for this action; this is what you must do to make amends for another action.” One remains in this state for the next twenty or thirty years of one’s life after death—depending on how old one was—roughly one-third of one’s earthly time. Children go through this very briefly. It hardly comes into play at all with very young children, as you can imagine from my explanations. In this way, by still maintaining a spiritual-soul connection with one’s earthly existence, one actually relives one’s life in reverse. And when one arrives at the moment of birth, it turns out that one retains a memory of all of it. It is now just as if one were shedding a body once more. People say one sheds the astral body. But what actually happens is that the living activity one was previously engaged in is transformed into a mental image—only now it is a completely different consciousness, a stellar consciousness, that is thinking, whereas here it was an earthly consciousness that was thinking.

[ 13 ] And now you begin your further journey in the spiritual world, living among those beings whose physical reflections are the sun, the moon, and the stars. You must now continue to live with the spirits of the stars. There you carry with you the memory of the karmic being that you previously laid aside with your astral body. “Have laid aside,” however, means nothing other than that everything in which one was previously actively engaged is now a memory that we possess as cosmic human beings. We enter a purely spiritual world, burdened with the memory of what our earthly life has left us.

[ 14 ] As long as a person is going through this process of reliving their past earthly life in reverse, they are, in fact, in the planetary sphere. One could say: As a person progresses from the spiritual forces of the Moon to those of Venus, Mercury, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and finally Saturn—that is, as long as they are between the lunar and Saturnian spheres, or, in other words, as long as they feel the planetary cosmos within themselves—they remain in this process of reliving their past earthly life in reverse.

[ 15 ] I have already told you in recent days how the forces of the Moon and the forces of Saturn work against one another. The Moon contains those forces that draw human beings down to the earthly realm and seek to keep them bound to the Earth time and again. Saturn, on the other hand, seeks to lead the human being out into the stellar universe—but in such a way that when the human being enters this stellar universe between death and a new birth, he does not see the physical reflection of the stars, but lives with the beings who belong to the respective stars.

[ 16 ] So when we pass through the sphere of Saturn after death, we become ready to experience the purely spiritual world. I have described this transition in my book *Theosophy* as the transition from the world of the soul to the realm of the spirits. Because the memory of one’s past earthly life remains with the individual, as I have explained, a person cannot accomplish this transition through their own efforts. They need a helper in the spiritual world.

[ 17 ] Well, I have already drawn attention here to the nature of this helper. In the time preceding the Mystery of Golgotha, the initiates of the mysteries were able to tell their students: “If you have sent your sacrificial forces upward into the spiritual world in the proper way, you will be able to find the high solar being who will accompany you from the moment you leave the solar sphere, but who will accompany you in his spiritual essence to the other side, where the Sun, so to speak, shines spiritually out into the cosmos, just as it physically shines down upon the Earth.” This high solar being will accompany you, will take you as far as the sphere of Saturn, and then further on into the stellar sphere. In a sense, the spiritual sun will shine upon you, so that you may achieve the transition from the world of souls to the realm of spirits.

[ 18 ] Through the Mystery of Golgotha, this Solar Being descended to Earth, taking on a physical body in the person of Jesus of Nazareth; and by turning his mind and feelings on Earth toward Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha, receives the power even here on Earth to pass beyond the solar and Saturn spheres and enter the realm of the spirits—that is, the world of the stars. This then gives rise to the state that the human being subsequently experiences between death and new birth. To describe to you this state that a human being can now experience—in the time following the Mystery of Golgotha—through the power of Christ that he has received, I must tell you the following. First of all, I must draw your attention to what it actually means to be out there in the world of the stars—that is, in the spirit realm—and what it actually means to have memories of one’s earthly life! —This will become clear to you in the following way.

[ 19 ] When one goes beyond the sphere of Saturn, one enters what ancient worldviews called the zodiac. It is merely a representation of the fixed-star sky—that is, of the spirit realm as a whole; but precisely when one takes the individual stars that make up the zodiac as a whole, one obtains the path that the human being must then traverse. The human being traverses this path in order to be able to build up, together with the spiritual beings of the hierarchies, the spiritual seed of his next physical body from the entire cosmos.

[ 20 ] If, for example, you were to say: “Here on Earth we have interesting work to do; here we can promote culture, work for the benefit of humanity, and so on; but what we accomplish up there must be extremely monotonous if we are merely creating our physical body—” then you would be completely mistaken. For everything you can accomplish together on Earth pales in comparison to the grandeur and diversity of what you accomplish when, from the starry realms, you shape the human body, the “temple of the gods.” That is a far more diverse and magnificent work. And you do not simply form your own body; as you will soon see, you form it in such a way that this body actually belongs to all of humanity, in that—depending on how your karma has brought you together with this or that person—you in turn shape the new body so that it develops the tendency to reunite with these people in the proper way, in order to balance out karma with them. So you are working there for all of humanity to a much greater extent than you could do so on Earth now. And how do you work? — I will describe this to you in detail; I only ask you to bear in mind that, as I already mentioned last May, I must express myself symbolically when I speak of these sublime worlds, for human concepts today are not yet developed enough to allow for expression without imagery.

[ 21 ] You must, in fact, build up the spiritual seed of your entire physical body. It is built up from the details of the universe. For example, as you experience those spiritual beings whose physical reflection is the constellation of Aries, you work together with the Hierarchies of Aries on your head—on your future head, which is in fact a cosmos that only then contracts within the physical body; but within your head, you carry the entire cosmos, as seen from Aries, within yourself. Now, however, as you work there on the stage of Aries with the Hierarchy of Aries, the planets—just as they shine down upon the Earth—appear spiritually on the other side. Let us now assume, for example, that you continue working, proceeding from the constellation of Aries to the constellation of Taurus. As you work together with the hierarchies in the constellation of Taurus, you develop the connection between your larynx and your lungs. Now, as Mars shines upward from the planetary sphere into the sphere of Taurus, the movement of Mars expresses everything you have failed to do or done correctly on Earth through your speech organs. Every untruth a person has spoken is spiritually reflected by Mars into the sphere of Taurus as the person works their way through that sphere. So you can imagine what this “memory” is that we carry within our own actions. After death, we find that this memory is inscribed into the cosmos and even speaks from the cosmos as Logos to the other side. Thus, we must work on our future body with regard to this aspect of the speech organs in such a way that we are either hindered or aided, depending on whether we have spoken the truth or lied.

[ 22 ] And that is how it is, for example, when we pass through the constellation of Leo. There, all our imperfections are illuminated by the sun—all the imperfections we have committed through our superficial or deeper heart, our sympathies and antipathies, which are connected to our temperament and our blood circulation on Earth; so that we build up our future body in such a way that our entire past life resounds out into outer space as a planetary language.

[ 23 ] Yes, it is so—as strange as it may seem from an earthly perspective—that when we observe the movements of the planets from out there, when we observe, for example, how Mars moves toward Taurus, these movements form a script that resounds at the same time, and that is the stellar script inscribed into outer space by our own deeds. No wonder that, when we return, we prepare what will then belong to us in accordance with our karma. For we can prepare our future physical body only within this ceaseless language of the stars.

[ 24 ] And so we work our way through the spiritual realm—that spiritual realm through which we journey all the longer the greater the ratio is between the consciousness of our earthly life, the entire earthly life—as I have also said in public lectures—and the other consciousness we had as children, when we still lived in a dull state; for we are now in a state of consciousness that transcends our earthly consciousness. In earthly consciousness, as adults, we are in a state of consciousness that transcends the dream consciousness of childhood. There are three stages of consciousness. When a person has reached the age of thirty and has spent up to their fifth year in the dream consciousness, they have lived six times longer in the higher consciousness. Now they live, in turn, six times longer than their entire earthly life in that higher consciousness which they have out there in the world of the stars; so that one simply understands: When a child dies, it lives for an extraordinarily short time between death and a new birth; the older a person becomes, the more time they have to spend there; for the more their supermundane consciousness—which they experienced after their previous death—is obscured here on Earth, the longer they must work to restore its clarity, for we must enter fully into the Light.

[ 25 ] When we enter fully into the Light, that very period begins—the time between death and a new birth—which I have called, in one of the Mysteries, the midnight hour of human spiritual existence, the midnight hour between death and a new birth. During this time, which lies roughly halfway between death and a new birth, our consciousness—which allows us to live in the spiritual world among the beings of the spiritual hierarchies—is at its brightest. But at the same time, we also experience most intensely within ourselves: Down there in the planetary sphere lies everything you have done as a human being; you must not leave that behind—we tell ourselves—you cannot change that here; you can only change it when you descend to Earth again.

[ 26 ] This is where the urge, the impulse, to descend once more toward Earth begins—in a sense, to make a choice between Saturn and the Moon. One once again follows the dawning forces of the Moon to set out on the path back to Earth; for a human being who was an adult in a previous life, this occurs after centuries.

[ 27 ] And the closer we come to the planetary sphere—and especially as we enter the sphere of Mercury, Venus, and the Moon—the more the consciousness we share with the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies fades away. That is to say, we develop a consciousness that now contains only the revelations of these spiritual beings. Previously, we felt ourselves to be among these spiritual beings. When we have prepared the human head for the life to come, we feel that we are working together with the spiritual beings. Now the spiritual beings appear to us as if in images. In place of this, however, the effect of the lunar forces also arises within us. We feel, so to speak, once again like a being that should actually live within itself. We are not yet in a physical body, but we have a premonition of living within ourselves, of being estranged from the cosmos once again. We no longer see the spiritual beings as they are, but we see their images.

[ 28 ] And as we go through these images, what we have built up as the spiritual seed of our physical organism slips further and further away from us, and we must realize: this spiritual seed of the physical organism has slipped away from us and has now descended to a physical parental couple, where it is manifesting itself as the forces of the reproductive current on the physical Earth. It is indeed the case that what we prepare as the physical body shrinks and falls into the reproductive currents of a physical parental couple. And we are left behind as spiritual-soul beings who feel a connection to what has slipped away from us down there, but cannot immediately unite with it. We can only unite with it once, in this state, we draw the etheric forces present throughout the cosmos into our etheric body. And after the spiritual seed of our physical body has been released—which is now preparing our physical body down below in the mother’s womb—we gather the forces to form our etheric body. And we then unite with this etheric body after the human seed has already been in the mother’s womb for some time.

[ 29 ] This is the process of returning to earthly existence. And since we previously had only images of spiritual beings, we now incorporate into ourselves everything that we can only assimilate through the forces of the Moon—that which was a memory of our karmic nature. We now incorporate all of that once again as actual forces. We take these with us into the etheric body and incorporate them there as well. That is why we appear on this Earth in such a way that we bring about the fulfillment of our destiny, our karma; as we pass through the lunar forces, we develop the longing to live out our karma on Earth.

[ 30 ] Such is the cycle that a human being goes through from death to birth, experiencing an ascent to independent consciousness in the spiritual realm, and then having that consciousness fade away again as the spiritual realm becomes merely an image in their mind. While they retain only a mental image of it, they incorporate the will into their karma, return to Earth to continue their work in the physical body, and, through a series of earthly lives, eventually reach the point where they can embark on another metamorphosis of existence.

[ 31 ] In the present phase of Earth’s history, it is the case that when a human being descends from the stellar sphere, he retains the memory of his previous earthly existence and builds upon that memory. In the stellar sphere, a person prepares their own physical body and then, upon descending, unites with this physical body. But we are in a very important period of earthly existence. And we can only understand the importance of this period of earthly existence if we know that we work to prepare our physical body in the astral sphere and then clothe ourselves in it when we come down to Earth. But on this point, something essential is taking shape precisely in our own age.

[ 32 ] I have often pointed out how, in the last third of the 19th century, changes originating in the spiritual world came about in the entire course of human life on Earth. I have pointed out how, in a certain sense, the gateway to knowledge of the spiritual world has indeed been opened, and how—if one does what is necessary of one’s own accord—one can in fact enter the spiritual world with true understanding, something that was not possible for many centuries while material knowledge was developing. The change in the spiritual world has come about because the former leading beings have been replaced by a being who, due to the similarity of his qualities to what is traditionally referred to as the Michael Being, can likewise be called Michael. And one can say: The Michael Being has assumed spiritual leadership of humanity. — Here on Earth, the equivalent of Michael’s intervention in the soul and spiritual life of humanity is that more and more people are truly becoming imbued with the realization that human beings are not connected to the earthly realm solely through their physical bodies, but that through their soul and spirit they stand in a continuous connection with the spiritual world.

[ 33 ] Ah! So growing into spiritual knowledge—that is the one aspect connected with the reign of Michael. The other aspect, however, is what emerges for the human mind and the human soul from a genuine, sincere immersion in this spiritual science, and that is that, as the light of this spiritual science spreads, this light will not remain merely a theory but will flow into human feeling and manifest as a spreading love for humanity.

[ 34 ] What has been stored up over the past few centuries actually relates to the human being only insofar as it becomes intellectual knowledge—but a kind of intellectual knowledge that does not radiate out into the whole person. Yes, it is like a spiritual tumor; it is something that gradually hardens because it does not receive the proper forces from the rest of the organism. If we only ever become smarter in our heads and the necessary feeling from the rest of our organism does not flow through this intelligence, then we become beings who actually have something like a soul-spiritual cancer, like a soul-spiritual tumor. Nor can the mind flourish—spiritually flourish—unless the rest of the human being stands in the world with love and a willingness to embrace what is loved.

[ 35 ] People will only come to understand what it is within them that seeks the Michael Reign when they respond to this Michael Reign through their own qualities. They can only respond to it if they are spiritually enlightened and filled with a universal love for humanity that arises directly from that spiritual enlightenment. Then one will understand more and more what this Michael-rule means.

[ 36 ] The people of the Old Testament also spoke of a reign of Michael and believed that Michael was Yahweh’s servant at that time. This means that Michael was active back then within the forces that are the forces of Yahweh. He was the servant of Yahweh. He fought alongside the forces against all that must be fought as Ahrimanic powers, of which I have spoken in recent days. In our age, Michael is destined to become, more and more, the serving entity of Christ; so that the statement that Michael’s reign intervenes in human destiny to bring order also means that the word is to come true: The reign of Christ is to spread across the earth. — Michael, so to speak, carries the light of spiritual knowledge at the forefront, while Christ carries the demands of universal love for humanity at the rear. Through this, however, not only does something change for the earth, but much also changes for the life that a human being undergoes between death and a new birth.

[ 37 ] Ever since the early days of Earth’s evolution, human beings have prepared their physical bodies as spiritual seeds in precisely the way I have described, and then take them on when they enter earthly existence. But since the reign of Christ Michael, human beings have increasingly been placed in a position—at present there are few such people, but the number is to grow ever greater—to make a decision even before they descend to Earth. For the light of spiritual knowledge shines in such a way that it illuminates both this Earth and the superphysical realm at the same time, so that through the reign of Michael, human beings learn to make a decision when they have already taken on their karma in their etheric body but are now setting out on the path to their physical body. If spiritual knowledge is now spread more and more widely on Earth, and if human beings increasingly experience this universal love for humanity within themselves, then the following possibility will arise for future humanity before the descent into earthly life. Human beings will be able to say to themselves: I have prepared this body; but in sending this body down to Earth and taking my karma into my etheric body—which I have drawn together—I see that this karma is such that, through what I have done in previous earthly lives, I have seriously harmed this or that other person.

[ 38 ] We are, after all, always at risk of harming other people through our actions. The judgment regarding what we have done to another person will shine particularly brightly at that moment when we are still in the etheric body, when we have not yet taken on the physical body. But in the future, the light of Michael and the love of Christ will also be at work. And we will be enabled to bring about a change in our decision: to hand over the body we have prepared to another and to take on for ourselves the body that has been prepared by the one we have particularly harmed. This is the momentous transition taking place from our time into the future with regard to the spiritual life of human beings.

[ 39 ] We will be able to enter a body that must have been prepared by a person whom we have particularly harmed; and the other person will be able to enter the body we have prepared. And through this, what we are able to accomplish on Earth will be able to be karmically balanced in a completely different way than usual. We will, so to speak, be able to exchange our physical bodies as human beings.

[ 40 ] The Earth could never reach its goal unless this were to occur; otherwise, humanity on Earth would never be able to become a unified whole. And this must happen! There must come a time in Earth’s development to prepare for future planetary conditions on Earth, in which it is impossible for any individual to enjoy anything on Earth at the expense of another. Just as the individual leaf or petal of a plant feels itself to be a part of the whole plant and shares in the suffering and joy of the whole plant—figuratively speaking—so must a future dawn upon the Earth in which the individual does not seek happiness at the expense of the whole, but feels himself to be a part of all humanity. This, however, has its spiritual equivalent in our learning to prepare the physical body for others.

[ 41 ] We are thus emerging, as human beings, from an era in which, in a sense, everyone had a continuation with regard to the physical body; we are entering an era brought about by the reign of Michael, in which we will also work on the physical spiritual seeds of human bodies in such a way that we can work for one another. And in the course of earthly incarnations, this will develop in such a way that, through this mutual work in the spiritual realm, we will prepare for an even later, coming time—if one were to describe its nature, it would be a complete paradox, but it is indeed so—in which human beings will also be able, here on Earth, to enter with their souls into the very bodies they have particularly harmed, and to take over the soul within that body. This will come to pass when the Earth itself has transitioned into different states. But what I have told you today as a reality that is coming about through Michael’s reign in the spiritual world will serve as the preparation for this.

[ 42 ] It is precisely in this example that you can truly see the essence of spiritual magic. When you allow the enlightenment that comes from spiritual science to take effect within you here on Earth, you promote the reign of Michael. You are fostering those forces that enable people to live for one another to such an extent that they first make the decision regarding what physical body they wish to assume, based on what is best for all of humanity. This is how one makes that decision: by choosing one’s physical body. By preparing this on Earth through human wisdom and love for humanity, you are accomplishing something that is a reality in the spiritual world. This is true ideal magic. This is what was called true white magic in ancient times. It is that into which humanity must enter.

[ 43 ] And so I would like to draw your attention to this important moment, which has now entered the course of human development. We must not shy away in discouragement when it comes to revealing facts about the spiritual world that influence human life. For the future of humanity depends on people learning to live with the spiritual world just as they live here on Earth with the physical world. And only by becoming, so to speak, at home in the spiritual world once again as humanity—just as primeval humanity was—by truly understanding Christ’s words, “My kingdom is not of this world,” will we advance the future of humanity. Then you will understand the words of Christ in the proper sense: “My kingdom is not of this world.” But he did, after all, descend to Earth; he did, after all, unite himself with humanity. Wouldn’t he actually have wanted to say: “My kingdom is of this world”? — He did not say it for the reason that He wanted to gradually transform the earth into a kingdom that does not dissolve into the earthly, but that gradually evolves into a spiritual state. His kingdom is not as it was up to the Mystery of Golgotha, nor as it continued afterward, so to speak, through the power of persistence. His kingdom is such that the Spirit will reign here on earth. And this will come to pass when humanity understands the Michael reign in the right way. But this will only be understood correctly if spiritual enlightenment and Christian love for humanity are sought, as I have indicated.