The Rudolf Steiner Archive

16. Man and the Supernatural Worlds: Hearing, Speaking, Singing, Walking, Thinking

[ 1 ] Last time, I had the opportunity to speak to you about certain spiritual realities that pertain to the relationship between human beings and the supersensible worlds. I might just as well say, concerning the relationship of human existence on Earth to the existence between death and a new birth. For from a human perspective, it is indeed the case that human life between birth and death, through its interweaving with the physical-sensory world, essentially constitutes this physical-sensory world; whereas human life between death and a new birth—because the human being is then completely interwoven with the spiritual, supersensible world—constitutes, from a human standpoint, the supersensible world as such.

[ 2 ] Today I would like to continue this discussion with you, focusing on a few other facts and some important human implications. Above all, through anthroposophical spiritual science, one can truly become aware of how the human being, standing before himself in the physical world, is a genuine reflection of the supersensible in this physical world. When we observe a mineral, we cannot say that it, as it is, is a direct reflection of the supersensible. You can learn what it is from my book *Theosophy*. In the case of human beings, however, we can say that in many respects they cannot be understood at all from what we see in the physical-sensory world around us. From what we see in the physical-sensory world, we can understand why a salt crystal takes on a cubic shape. Certainly, such things are not yet fully understood by science today, but based on what science has already understood, we can say that a salt crystal can be comprehended through what can be directly investigated within the realm of sensory perception. A human eye or a human ear cannot be understood from what is perceptible in the physical-sensory world through the physical senses. It cannot arise from that. The form—both the inner form and the outer configuration—of an eye or an ear is something the human being brings with them at birth, and they do not acquire it through the forces that, let us say, act during fertilization or within the mother’s womb. Of course, everything that is not understood in this regard is crammed into the word “heredity.” But in doing so, one is merely succumbing to an illusion. For the truth is that in the inner formation of an eye or an ear, there is something that is predisposed—constructed, as it were, in advance in the spirit during pre-earthly human existence—and this takes place in communion with higher spiritual beings, with the beings of the higher hierarchies. Between death and a new birth, the human being builds up his physical body in many respects as a spiritual form, as a spiritual germ, and then, after having reduced this spiritual germ to the necessary extent, so to speak, he embeds it into the physical line of heredity. And through this process, the spiritual is filled with physical-sensory substance and becomes a sensory-physical germ. But the entire form—the inner form of an eye, the inner form of an ear—is shaped by the work that the human being accomplishes between death and a new birth in collaboration with supersensible spiritual beings. And that is why we can say: When we look at a human eye, we must not claim that this human eye can be understood—like a salt crystal—from what can be sensed around us, or that the ear can be understood from what can be sensed around us—but rather we must say: If we wish to understand a human eye, if we wish to understand a human ear, then we must turn to the mysteries we can explore in the supersensible world; we must be clear that such a human ear, for example—let us stick with this example—is formed from the supersensible world, and only then, after it has been formed, does it take on its sensory task within the sphere of air—indeed, within the sphere of the Earth—to hear sounds or tones in a physical way. We can therefore say: in this respect, the human being is a reflection of processes and essential beings in the supersensible world.

[ 3 ] Let’s take a closer look at this in detail. If you examine the internal structure of the human ear, the first thing you encounter when looking through the external auditory canal is the so-called eardrum. Behind this eardrum are small, tiny little ossicles; conventional science refers to them as the malleus, incus, and stapes. Beyond these ossicles, one enters the inner ear. I do not wish to speak at length about the structure of the inner ear. But even the names given to these tiny ossicles—which one encounters immediately behind the eardrum—the names that conventional science assigns to them, show that this very same conventional science has absolutely no idea of what is actually present there. If one knows how to shed light on this matter through anthroposophical spiritual science—and I will now proceed from the inside out in my consideration—then what is situated primarily on the inner part of the inner ear, and what science calls the stirrup, appears to be a transformed, metamorphosed human thigh with its attachment to the hip. And what science calls the anvil—this little bone—looks like a transformed kneecap, and what extends from this anvil toward the eardrum looks like a transformed lower leg with the foot attached to it. And in this case, the foot does not rest on the ground near the ear, but on the eardrum. You actually have a human limb inside the ear—a transformed limb. You could also say: upper arm—only in the case of the arm, the kneecap is not formed, and the anvil is missing; You could say: forearm—another small ossicle that then rests on the eardrum. And just as you feel the ground with both your legs, so you feel the eardrum with the “foot” of the small ossicle. Only your earthly foot, with which you walk around, is coarsely formed. You feel the floor roughly with the sole of your foot, while you constantly sense the subtle vibrations of the eardrum with this hand or with this foot that you have inside your ear. If you go further back, you will find the so-called cochlea inside. This cochlea is filled with fluid. All of this is necessary for hearing. What the foot senses on the eardrum must continue on to this cochlea, which lies inside the ear cavity. Above our thighs lie the internal organs. This cochlea in the ear is, in fact, a very beautifully formed internal organ—a transformed internal organ—so that you can actually imagine that there is, in reality, a human being sitting inside the ear. The head is sunk into its own brain. We carry within us a whole number of more or less metamorphosed human beings. That is one who sits in there.

[ 4 ] Yes, what exactly are we dealing with here? You see, anyone who does not study human development using merely crude, sensory science, but who knows that this human embryo forming in the mother’s womb is precisely the reflection of what preceded it in pre-earthly life, also knows that in the earliest stages of the embryo’s development, the head is essentially already formed. The rest are small bud-like organs. These bud-like organs, which appear as little stubs and will later become the human legs and feet, could in fact—if it were solely a matter of inner potential—just as easily develop into a kind of ear from the embryo in the mother’s womb. They certainly have the potential to become an ear. This means that a human being could also develop in such a way that he would not have an ear only here and here, but would have an ear pointing downward. This may sound paradoxical, but this paradox is the absolute truth. A human being could also develop an ear pointing downward. Why, then, does he not develop an ear pointing downward? He does not develop an ear for this reason: because at a certain stage of his embryonic development, he enters the realm of Earth’s gravity. Gravity—which causes a stone to fall to the ground, which signifies weight—this gravity weighs down upon what is striving to become an ear, reshapes it, and the entire lower part of the human being emerges from it. Under the influence of Earth’s gravity, the ear that wants to grow downward becomes the lower part of the human being. Why, then, doesn’t the ear also develop in such a way that its ossicles form into pretty little legs on the left and right? Simply because, due to the entire position of the human embryo in the womb, the ear is protected from entering the realm of gravity in the same way as the leg stumps; it does not enter the realm of gravity. Therefore, the ear continues to preserve what it received as a predisposition in its pre-earthly existence in the spiritual world; it is a pure reflection of these spiritual worlds. But what, then, exists in these spiritual worlds? Well, I have often spoken of this: the music of the spheres is a reality, and as soon as we enter the spiritual world that lies beyond the world of the soul, we find ourselves in a world that lives entirely in sound and tone, in melody and harmony and the interplay of sounds. And it is from these interrelationships of sound and tone that the human ear takes shape. Therefore, we can say that in our ear we have a memory of our spiritual, pre-earthly existence; in our lower human constitution, we have forgotten that pre-earthly existence and adapted our organism to Earth’s gravity, to everything that arises from weight. So that, if one correctly understands the formation of the human being, the structure of the human being, one can always say that one organ system shows that it is adapted to the Earth, while another organ system shows that it remains adapted to pre-earthly existence. Just consider that, even after we are born, we actually continue what was already predisposed in the embryonic state. Walking upright, fully adapting to gravity, orienting ourselves in the three dimensions of space—we only learn these things after we are born. But the ear breaks free from these three dimensions of space and retains its integration and adaptation to the spiritual world. As human beings, we are always constituted in such a way that, in part, we are a living monument to what we have accomplished in union with higher beings between death and a new birth, and, on the other hand, a testimony to our integration into earthly existence, which is governed by gravity and weight.

[ 5 ] But such transformations do not merely proceed in the direction I just mentioned; they also proceed in the opposite direction. You walk around on Earth with your legs. And you walk—forgive me—toward good, better, and worse deeds. But ultimately, as far as leg movements are concerned, it remains neutral on Earth at first whether one is walking toward good or evil deeds. But just as it is true that the lower human being is transformed from an ear-like state into that which he stands as on Earth with his legs, so too is it true that everything moral that has been brought about by walking—whether you have walked toward good or evil deeds—is transformed after the human being has passed through the gate of death—not immediately, but after some time—into tones and sounds.

[ 6 ] So let us assume that a person has committed a bad deed. At most, all we can do here is observe how the legs move. But the bad deed clings to the leg movements as you pass through the gate of death. Then, after the human being has shed the physical body and has also shed the etheric body, everything that lay in the movements of the legs is transformed into a discordant note, into a dissonance in the spiritual world. And the entire lower human being is transformed back into a head organization. The way you move here on Earth—when we take into account the moral nuances—becomes a head-based organization after your death. And with these ears, you will hear how you behaved morally here in the earthly world. Your morality becomes beautiful music; your immorality becomes ugly music. And from these consonant or dissonant tones, you will hear the words spoken by the higher hierarchies—acting as judges—regarding your deeds.

[ 7 ] In this way, you can see in the human being himself how, through transformation and metamorphosis, the transition from the spiritual world to the sensory world—and from the sensory world back to the spiritual world—takes place. His head organization is exhausted in his present earthly incarnation. There, the head organization has developed to the point of perceiving the spiritual within the physical world. But the head decays after death. The other part of the human being, apart from the head, transforms back spiritually after death into a head, into a head organization, and this other part of the human being becomes a head again in the next earthly life. Thus, the fact of repeated earthly lives is already expressed in the human form. No one understands the human head unless they regard it as a transformation of a body from the previous earthly life. No one understands the present body unless they see in it the seed of a head for the next earthly life. And a complete understanding of the human being requires precisely the interpenetration of what we perceive through our senses with insights into the supersensible.

[ 8 ] We can cite many other specific examples along these lines. As I told you the last time I had the opportunity to speak to you here, between death and a new birth, a human being experiences a state in which he becomes completely one within himself with the beings of the higher hierarchies. In that state, they actually forget themselves. They are the higher hierarchies themselves. They would never come to themselves if they could not once again extinguish this feeling of the higher hierarchies within themselves. Then, in a sense, they step outside of themselves; but it is precisely through this that they come to themselves. Here on Earth, we come to ourselves when we turn away from the external world and concentrate on our inner being. Between death and a new birth, we come to ourselves when we turn away from what is within us—namely, the higher hierarchies—and in doing so, we come to ourselves. And the forces that remain with us from this coming to ourselves are the forces of recollection and memory. The forces that remain with us from our connection with the other beings of the higher hierarchies are the moral forces, the forces of love, through which we lovingly extend our own being on Earth to encompass other beings. Thus, in our capacity to love here on Earth, we find an echo of life in unity with the higher hierarchies; and in remembering—in our memories—we find an echo of that other state in which we also exist between death and a new birth: our liberation from the higher hierarchies and our return to ourselves.

[ 9 ] Now, you see, I have already alluded to this recently; it is something similar to the process of breathing. We must inhale to revitalize ourselves; we exhale, so to speak, the air of death, for life cannot exist in what is exhaled. In a sense, we breathe spiritually in the world between death and a new birth. We unite with the beings of the higher hierarchies, then emerge from them again. Here on this Earth, we experience an echo—I would say—of this heavenly breathing. In that we are able to walk here on this Earth, we adapt to the Earth’s gravity. It is the weight. A transformed ear, I said. In a similar way, if we can view the matter correctly, we also sense how, in our speech and singing apparatus, there is a transformation of what is predisposed in the spiritual world that we pass through in our pre-earthly existence. Here on this earth, we first adapt our speech organs to human language. In the interval between death and a new birth, we take in the Logos, the World Word, the World Language, and it is from this World Language that our entire speech and vocal apparatus is initially formed. Just as we transform this ear, which extends downward, into the organs of orientation and locomotion—though not to the same extent—we also transform the speech and vocal apparatus. In the case of the ear, I would say that only a faithful image remains of what was formed in the spiritual world during our pre-earthly existence; in the case of the speech organ, the matter lies right at the heart of it. After all, we only begin to learn to speak here on Earth. But that is actually just an illusion. In truth, the world language shapes our larynx and all our organs of speech and song. We simply forget the World Logos as we turn toward the Earth and pass through embryonic life. And what has been pushed into the unconscious, we revive here by acquiring human language.

[ 10 ] But in this human language, what is truly and fundamentally clearly perceptible is both the earthly and that which is formed by the spiritual. We could not pronounce consonants if we were not able to adapt to the things of the external world. In the consonants, we always find reflections of what the external world presents to us. Those who are attuned to this will sense how one consonant reminds them of something angular, while another reminds them of something velvety. In the consonants, we have something through which we adapt to the forms and shapes of the external world. In the vowels, we express our own inner being. Anyone who says “A” knows that they are expressing in the “A” something that lives within their soul’s state—such as wonder or amazement. The “O” likewise contains an inner quality, and every vowel expresses an inner quality.

[ 11 ] You see, there will one day be an interesting science, imbued with spiritual science, that will establish that in languages where consonants predominate, people can be held morally accountable far less often, because they are far less responsible for their actions than in languages where vowels predominate. For the vowels are the echo of our coexistence with the spiritual hierarchies. We bring that with us; we carry it here onto Earth. And it remains within us. It is our own revelation. Through the consonants, we adapt to the outer world. That world—the world of consonants—is earthly. And if we could conceive of a language consisting solely of consonants, such a language would be one of which an initiate might say: “It is for the earthly; if you want the heavenly, then you must add the vowels.” But take heed, for then you become accountable to the Divine—you must not treat it as profanely as you do the consonants.

[ 12 ] That is exactly what the ancient Hebrews did. They merely indicated the vowels and simply wrote out the consonants. In short, in our language, the heavenly and the earthly resonate together, and once again we see that we have something that belongs to the middle human being, something that is, as it were, oriented toward two sides: toward the heavenly and toward the earthly. The head is entirely oriented toward the heavenly, while the other part of the human being is oriented toward the earthly, yet strives toward the heavenly—strives toward it in such a way that it becomes so once it has passed through the gate of death. The middle part of the human being, to which breathing belongs—and to which singing and speech are integrated—connects the heavenly with the earthly. Therefore, this middle human being is, in every respect, preeminently the artistic disposition of the human being, which always connects the heavenly with the earthly. Thus we can also say: Well, when we consider the developing human being, he is born without any orientation in the world; he cannot yet walk or stand. He does, however, already possess the capacity to adapt to gravity; he acquired this even before birth, as gravity took hold of him outside the head. Structures such as the ear and the eye have been spared from gravity’s influence. Our orientation in space is expressed through learning to walk and stand upright. We do not fully master this until after we are born. We are not yet formed in the spiritual world in such a way that we possess complete spatial orientation. If we were oriented in that way, we might be able to sleep on Earth, for after all, the malleus—which represents the foot—is oriented horizontally. We might be able to sleep, but we could not walk. We must say something similar about the eye. So, the first thing we fully learn here on Earth is the adaptation of what we acquired in our pre-earthly existence to Earth’s gravity. The second, through learning language and song, is the adaptation to the environment on Earth. And then we also learn to think. For we are indeed born disoriented in terms of walking and standing, speechless, and finally, without the capacity to think. For one cannot say that small children are already capable of thinking. We fully master these three things on Earth. But all three of these things are metamorphosed versions of other abilities we possessed in our pre-earthly existence. All three demonstrate how they are living monuments to what was spiritually predisposed in our pre-earthly existence.

[ 13 ] But now, last time I showed you: memory here on Earth is the echo of our being at one with ourselves in the spiritual world. Love in all its forms is the echo of our pouring out into the world of the higher hierarchies. And now we actually already possess our physical abilities—walking, speaking, singing, and thinking. It is merely a prejudice to believe that thinking on Earth is a spiritual ability; earthly thinking is thoroughly bound to the physical body, just as walking is—so that our most outstanding physical qualities are a transformation, a metamorphosis from the spiritual. On the soul level, the most outstanding soul abilities—memory, love—are transformations from the spiritual. And what do we have on Earth that is spiritual? It is precisely sensory perception. That we see, that we hear, that we smell, taste, and so on—this is precisely sensory perception; and the organs of this sensory perception, which lie at the outer periphery of our organism, are formed precisely out of the highest spiritual regions. The ear arises from the harmony of the spheres. The ear is so strongly formed out of the harmony of the spheres that it remains protected from gravity. And the entire embedding of the ear in this fluid serves to protect the ear from gravity. The ear is also embedded in the fluid in such a way that gravity cannot reach it; this ear is truly not a citizen of the earth—this ear, in its entire organization, is a citizen of the highest spiritual world. The same is true of the eye, and of the other sense organs as well. When we look at the body as it walks, speaks, sings, and thinks, we see the transformation of the spiritual in pre-earthly existence. When we look at the soul—memory and love—we see the transformation of the spiritual in pre-earthly existence. When we look at the senses, we see that they are precisely the transformation of the highest spiritual in pre-earthly existence.

[ 14 ] This is where, through anthroposophical spiritual science, we connect on the one hand to Goetheanism—to what Goethe already knew—but where we go further, naturally in the Goethean style. I have often quoted this sentence from Goethe: “The eye is formed ‘in the light, for the light.’” — Yes, but not by the light and for the light that we see. The light that we see could never form an eye in its inner formative forces. But take a human being, a human face. Take this human face—the noble brow, the prominent nose, the eyes, the physiognomy. Let us add the gesture. If we were to record this merely spatially using a recording device, we would indeed capture the forms. But when we look at a human being, we are not satisfied with merely capturing the forms spatially with a recording device; rather, through the spatial movements of the gestures, we look toward the soul that lies behind them. Sunlight reaches us. Outside is the sun; sunlight comes to us. That is the front side. The back side of the sunlight—the spirit of the sunlight—lies behind it. And within this soul and this spirit, we find ourselves between death and a new birth. There, the light is something else. When you speak of the gaze and mean the soul that meets us through the eye, you are actually referring to what lies behind the eye in the soul. When I now speak of the spiritual in the light, I also mean that which lies behind the sun. That is the spirit of light; that is the soul of light. The eye, which is already fully formed, sees the front side of the light—the physical. But the eye is formed by the spiritual, by the soul of light, by what lies behind it. This is what one must say if one has understood Goethe’s statement: The eye sees the light, but is formed by the soul, by the spirit of light, before it takes on physical form here on Earth.

[ 15 ] In the whole human being, we see a transformed spiritual being that is, in turn, being transformed back. Upon death, they surrender their physical sense organs to the Earth. But that which lives within the physical sense organs shines forth between death and a new birth and becomes precisely your inner communion with the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies. And now you can understand to what extent the earthly world of sound is the physical reflection of the harmonies of the celestial spheres, and how the human being is not a product of these earthly forces, but rather a product of the celestial forces, and how he places himself within these earthly forces. And we see how he places himself within them. He would have his ear pointing downward, and if he were to remain in this position, he certainly could not walk; rather, he would have to adopt a different kind of movement—he would have to move upon the waves of the world’s harmonies, just as, in a small-scale replica, the ossicles of the ear move upon the waves of the eardrum. With the ear we learn to hear; with the larynx and the organs extending from the throat toward the mouth, we learn to speak and sing.

[ 16 ] Let’s say you hear a word: “tree.” You can say the word “tree” yourself and associate a meaning with it. What does it mean to hear the word “tree”? It means that what you express in the simple word “tree” comes to life in your ear in the way I have just described—in organs that are modeled after celestial activities. You can say the word “tree.” What does it mean that you can say the word “tree”? It means that the earthly air is shaped through the larynx and the organs of your mouth and so on into such a formation that the word “tree” comes into being. But that is the second ear in relation to hearing. The third, however, is something else entirely—it’s just not perceived sufficiently. When you hear the word “tree,” you speak “tree” softly with your etheric body—not with your physical body, but with your etheric body—and softly as well. And through the so-called Eustachian tube, which runs from the mouth to the ear, the word “tree” resounds etherically in response to the word “tree” coming from outside. The two meet, and through this you understand the word “tree.” Otherwise, you would hear it, and it would be just something. You understand it by repeating back through the Eustachian tube what comes from the outside. And as the vibrations from the outside meet the vibrations from the inside and intertwine, the inner self understands what comes from the outside.

[ 17 ] You can see how wonderfully everything in the human organism is interconnected. But there is something else connected to this, and it is as follows. Imagine that you intend to get to know the human being in terms of the structure of their ears, eyes, nose, and so on. All right. You tell yourself that science has made tremendous progress, and while these scientific advances are somewhat expensive to access today, you can still obtain them if you come up with the necessary funds; you buy a textbook on physiology or anatomy, depending on whether you want to learn about the structure or the functions, or you enroll at a university and listen to what is said there about the eye or the ear, or you read about it. You can certainly learn a great deal this way, but I believe that, in a certain sense, your spirit remains unmoved by it. It is indeed true—your spirit remains unmoved. Have someone describe the external physiology of the ear to you: your mind remains detached; it isn’t engaged at all. In this sense, the matter is quite objective. But if I describe it to you as I have just done—how the understanding of the word “tree” comes about, how the ear is an afterimage of heavenly activity—I would like to meet the soul that does not enter into an emotional life in response, that does not sense the wonder of the matter, that does not feel something at all upon hearing such a description. One would truly have to be inwardly withered not to be moved by such a description—admittedly, it has been presented imperfectly today; it could be presented even more perfectly, in which case this would stand out even more strongly—to admiration for the world and for the way human beings are placed from the spiritual world into the physical world.

[ 18 ] This is what anthroposophical spiritual science offers. It presents its findings just as objectively as other sciences. For there is absolutely nothing subjective mixed in when I describe how the ear is shaped by the celestial spheres. But immediately, the feeling, the soul, is engaged. The second aspect of human soul life—which is intimately connected with who we are as whole human beings—is engaged in this process. In other words: what the head acquires through such science simultaneously engages the heart. In this way, anthroposophical science speaks to the human heart; it is not merely a science of the head, but a science that simultaneously speaks to the heart; it fills not only the head, but the whole human being—who has a circulatory system and a heart. And again, if you take what I have said seriously, when we move our legs—well, one can study the mechanism of leg movement today. But pick up a physiology textbook, let it explain the mechanism of leg movement to you, and one thing it will certainly not stir within you: a sense of responsibility. The moment you learn that whatever purpose—whether for good or for evil—your legs move toward, will resound to you after death from the worlds of the gods as consonance or dissonance, and the judgmental words regarding your actions will resound to you—in that very moment, human knowledge is accompanied by a sense of responsibility that then accompanies acts of the will. And not only our emotional life, but also our volitional life is engaged by that which we learn just as objectively—initially for the intellect as we do in external science. But it penetrates into the emotional person and the volitional person. Therefore, anthroposophical science speaks to the whole human being, whereas we have increasingly come to regard as knowledge only that which speaks to the intellect. But what speaks only to the head leaves the soul cold and does not engage the will at all.

[ 19 ] We find ourselves in the midst of this crisis. For this reason, however, knowledge of the supersensible worlds must be acquired through the whole human being. Even when one ascends to imaginative knowledge, one must acquire this imaginative knowledge through active engagement. Ordinary knowledge is acquired in certain spheres that are particularly suited to acquiring it; one absorbs it. Thus, one acquires it and incorporates it into one’s memory. If, through exercises such as those I have described in *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?* to acquire imaginative insights, or if one is predisposed to have the spiritual-conceptual world as an innate disposition—as I have described in my book on “Goethe’s Worldview”—then one is already immersed in etheric cognition, which is at the same time an experience; in that case, one need not surrender oneself to the world so passively. One cannot “plow” spiritual science—perhaps a bad joke—which is why those who are accustomed only to plowing despise spiritual science. But, isn’t it true that spiritual science must be actively acquired? One must do something inwardly in the process, be active, and yet it is still the case that what one initially acquires through imagination is soon lost. It is fleeting; it disappears quickly. It does not easily become part of one’s memory. After three days, everything one has achieved “up there”—that is, merely through the ordinary effort of bringing it to the level of imagination—will certainly have vanished. That is why, after death, the memory in the etheric body also fades after three days. It is the same process. After death, one remembers through one’s etheric body for about three days. It varies. You can read about this in my *Outline of Esoteric Science*. But one remembers for about three days, as long as one has the etheric body. And likewise, anyone who has acquired etheric knowledge knows that it has vanished after three days unless they make every effort to translate it into ordinary concepts.

[ 20 ] I used to help myself by immediately writing down or sketching everything I had achieved in this way; it’s just the mind at work. This is not mediumistic writing; nor is it written down so that it can be read later. That would also be incredibly difficult given my current lifestyle. Now, while I was in Berlin, I saw once again the piles of notebooks stacked up there. If I wanted to read any of them, I simply wouldn’t have them with me when I’m in Dornach or Stuttgart. It’s not about reading them later; rather, it’s about being engaged in the activity of thinking. Then one combines imaginative thinking with ordinary thinking. Then one can recall it. Then one can give lectures on it. If one did not make such efforts, one could at most talk about it the next day; then it would be gone, just as the retrospective vision after death disappears after three days.

[ 21 ] So you can see from this that even imaginative thinking is directed toward the whole human being, and that the whole human being must live within such imaginative knowledge. This is even more true of higher forms of knowledge. Now, you need not be surprised that such knowledge also speaks to the whole human being. But one also realizes that there is much more in the world than what is perceptible to the external senses. And above all, one realizes how it is possible to live in a world in which space no longer has any significance. Music is, I would say, a foretaste of the non-spatial. For the spatial is, after all, present outside—let’s say, externally. But within, in what is actually realized through music, the spatial plays a role, if at all, only in the afterglow. But in imaginative insight, the spatial gradually ceases entirely. Everything becomes temporal. The temporal in the imaginative realm has the same significance there as the spatial does in the physical. And this now leads to something else. It leads to the realization that the temporal is, in fact, something enduring. The temporal is truly enduring. And the one who ascends to imaginative insight gradually learns, first of all, to perceive every aspect of his past earthly existence. You become eighteen again, even if you’re already a very old man. You perceive your youth with the same vividness as you did when you were eighteen. Let me explain it this way: suppose you lost someone very close to you when you were eighteen. Think of how vivid your experience was at the time. Think how faint that memory is after thirty years—it doesn’t have to be thirty years; it fades, even for the most sensitive person it fades. It must be the same in outward earthly life as well. But even though it fades in the later present, it nevertheless remains as a real part of the human being. And one can indeed transport oneself back to that time, and one is also transported back after death. There, one experiences the same thing again with the same intensity. This is part of being human: what one has gone through remains; it is only in our perception that it belongs to the past. That is why it also has its significance.

[ 22 ] If you were to be born at the age of seven—that is, to remain in some other form of existence, say, in an embryonic state, until the age of seven—and only then be born, but born in such a way that you would immediately receive your second set of teeth—meaning that you would have already received your first set of teeth during the embryonic stage—then you would never be able to become religious people. For the predisposition toward religiosity would no longer be able to continue to take effect in such an earthly life. Everything you carry within you in terms of religiosity, you carry because the first seven years of life are embedded within you. You do not perceive them as a present reality, but they are nevertheless present within you. We are completely devoted to the external world during the first seven years. There is a religious mood within this. We simply transfer this mood to other things. In the first seven years, we have the impulse to imitate everything around us. Later, this same mood is directed toward devotion to the soul and spirit. — And if we were born at the age of fourteen, already sexually mature, then we would never become moral human beings. For we must acquire morality through the inner development of the rhythm between the ages of seven and fourteen. That is why we also have such a great influence on a person’s moral education in elementary school. We carry this within us later on. After all, we always carry everything within us. If you cut your big toe, that is very far from your head, yet you still experience the pain you feel there through your head. If you feel religious today, what is actually at work within you is what you experienced emotionally—in relation to the external world—only up to the age of seven, until your teeth began to fall out. Just as you feel the pain in your big toe through your mental activity, so too is what you experienced up to the age of seven still at work when you are forty. It is there.

[ 23 ] This has an important implication. There are many people who say: Well, anthroposophical spiritual science is all well and good—it teaches us about the supersensible worlds—but why do we need to know about the experiences between death and a new birth? When we die, we’ll enter those worlds anyway, so we’ll find out soon enough. Why bother making an effort between birth and death? You’ll end up there anyway. — Yes, my dear friends, but that’s not how it is. For time is reality. Just as space is reality here in the physical world, so too is time—and even the timeless—reality in the supersensible world. Here, in your later life, the childlike human being is still within you. When you pass through the gate of death, the entirety of time is contained within a single moment within you; it belongs to you, to your being. While you are a human being here in space, you might say: Why do I need an eye? The light is all around me anyway. The eye has no other purpose than to see the light; but the light is all around me anyway. — Yes, that is how someone in another field speaks, saying: “Why do we need spiritual science on Earth? When we enter the spiritual realm, the spiritual light is all around us anyway.” — That is just as sensible as if someone were to say: “The light is there anyway; why do I need an eye?” — What a person experiences through anthroposophical spiritual science is not lost; it becomes the eye through which he perceives the spiritual light. And if he does not develop spiritual science here on Earth at our present stage of human development, then he has no eye through which to perceive the spiritual world, and he is, as it were, blinded by what he experiences.

[ 24 ] In ancient times, people still possessed an instinctive clairvoyance as a lingering remnant of their pre-earthly life. This has passed and faded away. That instinctive clairvoyance is no longer present. Human beings had to acquire a sense of freedom during an intermediate stage. But they have now re-entered the stage where they need an eye for the spiritual world they will enter after death. And they will not have this eye unless they acquire it here on Earth. Just as the physical eye must be acquired in pre-earthly existence, so too must the eye for perceiving the supersensible after death be acquired here through spiritual science, through spiritual knowledge. Not through clairvoyance—that is a matter for each individual—but through understanding, with sound common sense, what is explored through clairvoyant research. It is simply not true when people say that one must look into the spiritual world oneself if one wants to believe the things that clairvoyants say. Oh no, that is not the case. Use your common sense, and you will realize that the ear is actually a heavenly organ; you will realize this through your common sense. Such a fact can only be discovered through clairvoyant research, but once it is discovered, it can be understood. One need only be open to thinking the matter through and feeling it deeply. And this recognition—through one’s common sense—of what is revealed from the spiritual world—not clairvoyance itself, but this recognition—is what the spiritual eye provides after death. The clairvoyant must acquire this spiritual eye just as any other person must acquire it. What one has gained through imaginative insight—what one has beheld—fades after a few days. It does not fade unless one has brought it down to the level of ordinary understanding. One is then compelled to grasp this matter in the same way as the person to whom it is communicated. For what constitutes the human being’s task on earth is not clairvoyance itself. Clairvoyance must simply be present so that one can discover the supersensible truths. But what constitutes the human being’s task on earth is the comprehension of these supersensible truths through ordinary, sound human reason.

[ 25 ] This is extremely important. It is precisely this that even the more refined minds of our time refuse to admit. When I discussed this some time ago during a public lecture in Berlin, someone claimed that it was a particular sin for me to say that spiritual science can be understood through common sense, because —he presented this as a dogma—a sound mind cannot comprehend anything spiritual, and anyone who does comprehend the spiritual can be said not to have a sound mind. This was actually raised as a criticism. These things are very characteristic, for they rest on nothing other than people saying: Anyone who asserts something spiritual has an unsound mind to begin with. — One need not aspire to any greater wisdom than this. But this wisdom is, unfortunately, very widespread today. You will see from this how true it is, as I have always said, that the time has come again when humanity is dependent on taking in the spiritual, incorporating the spiritual, and living with the spiritual. That is why we should not only acquire anthroposophical spiritual science theoretically, but we should also be aware that those who acquire this spiritual science must carry within them the consciousness of forming the core of a humanity that is spreading more and more, and which, in turn, regards as a true human being only those who are conscious of their connection to the spiritual. For then a magnificent feeling will come over humanity—a feeling that, above all, must also be processed pedagogically and didactically. Ordinary intellectual knowledge is actually morally neutral. As soon as we ascend into the spiritual realm, we feel that the spiritual realm is permeated everywhere by morality. You need only recall what I have said: in our communion with the higher hierarchies, we develop love. Morality on earth is merely a reflection of an experience in the heavenly spheres. But how, then, do we experience what we call “good”? We experience it in such a way that we say: Human beings are, in truth, not merely physical beings; they are also spiritual beings. When they truly immerse themselves in the spiritual world, they learn to take in the good within themselves through the spirit.

[ 26 ] This is essentially also the central idea of the *Philosophy of Freedom*. Human beings learn to take in the good through the spirit. If they do not take in the good, they are not whole human beings. They are mutilated, crippled human beings. It is as if both their arms had been blown off. If both arms are taken from him, he is physically crippled. If he lacks the good, he is spiritually and mentally crippled. Translate this idea—along with its effect on feeling and will—into pedagogical and didactic terms, and structure education in such a way that a person has a living sense of it by the time they reach sexual maturity; by then, it must have been developed: “I am not a whole person; I have no right to call myself a human being if I am not good”—then you will have provided sound moral instruction, a moral education in humanity, whereas all this insistence on moral preaching and the like amounts to nothing. Now, if you educate people in such a way that they regard morality as an integral part of their humanity—of their individual humanity—and feel crippled when they lack it, indeed feel that they are not fully human when they lack it, in short, if they discover the moral within themselves in its entirety, then all sorts of philosophers will find this appalling and call it un-German, or whatever one wishes to call it, while it is, in any case, the purest German product; but it is something that brings the spiritual as close as possible to human beings—and indeed, as we must bring it today to the immediate, individual human being—because only the individual human being, the human individual, assumes full responsibility for himself in the present age.