The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] The lectures I have been giving here for a number of weeks now have essentially been intended to show how human beings participate in what we might call the world of the stars through their spiritual life, just as they participate in earthly existence and events through their physical life on Earth. In accordance with the view we have adopted through anthroposophy, we must first divide the human being into those forces that lie in his physical body and in his etheric body—or body of formative forces—and into those that lie in his I-being and in his astral body. You know that he separates these two aspects of his being from one another during every state of sleep.

[ 2 ] Let us turn our attention for a few moments to this sleeping person. On the one hand, we have the physical human body, the etheric or form-body—all of which are unconscious—but also the unconscious “I”-essence and the astral body. We may now ask: Is there also a relationship between these two unconscious aspects of human nature during sleep?—We know that in the waking state, in which the ordinary consciousness of modern human beings arises, there is a relationship that comes to life through thinking, feeling, and willing. We must imagine it this way: when the I-being and the astral body, so to speak, submerge themselves into the etheric body and the physical body, then thinking, feeling, and willing flare up from this union.

[ 3 ] Thinking, feeling, and willing are not present in a sleeping human being. But if we look at the physical earthly body, we must say: All the forces that, according to our observation of human beings, belong to earthly existence are at work in this physical earthly body. — We can weigh this physical human body, and we will find that it has a weight. One could conduct investigations on this physical human body—or at least hypothetically imagine that one could—to determine how material processes take place within it. One would find within it material processes that are a continuation of those processes we find outside in earthly life, processes that continue within the human being through nutrition. We also find in the physical body that which takes place through the process of respiration. However, everything that emanates from the human head organization—that which belongs to the sensory-nervous system—is, so to speak, dimmed or plunged into complete darkness.

[ 4 ] When we then consider the etheric body, which permeates the physical body, it is certainly not so easy to gain insight into how this etheric body functions during sleep. But anyone who has already delved somewhat into what spiritual science has to say about human beings will easily recognize how, even while asleep, the human being lives through his etheric body in all that constitutes the etheric conditions and etheric forces surrounding earthly existence. Thus we can say: Within the physical body, we find everything that belongs to earthly existence at work during sleep; within the etheric body, we find everything that belongs to the etheric world that envelops and permeates the Earth at work.

[ 5 ] However, the matter becomes more difficult when we turn our attention—our spiritual attention, of course—to what lies outside the physical and etheric bodies, when we direct it toward the human ego-entity and the astral entity. We cannot possibly entertain the idea that this “I”-essence, this astral essence of the human being, has anything to do with the physical Earth or with what surrounds and permeates the Earth as ether.

[ 6 ] What actually takes place during sleep—I have, so to speak, described it to you in the lectures I gave here recently; today I want to outline it from a different perspective—what takes place in the human ego and in the astral body can only be recognized when, through spiritual science, we penetrate into what is happening on Earth and around the Earth, beyond the development of physical forces and the effects of etheric forces.

[ 7 ] Let us first turn our attention to the plant world. Every year—at least for the most part, insofar as it does not involve perennial trees and the like—we see the plant world sprouting from the earth in the spring. We then see it become increasingly colorful and lush, and we see it wither away again in the fall. In a certain sense, we see it disappear from the earth when the earth is covered with snow.

[ 8 ] But that is only one aspect of the development of the plant world. Physical observation tells us that this development of the plant world in the spring, and its withering toward the fall, are connected to the sun. Physical observation also shows us, for example, how the green pigment in the plant world can form solely under the influence of sunlight. Physical observation thus reveals to us what takes place within the realm of physical processes; but it does not show us that, while all this is happening—the sprouting, greening, blooming, and withering of plants—spiritual processes are also taking place. But just as, for example, blood circulation takes place within the physical human organism, just as the etheric processes in the physical organism manifest as vascular effects and so on, and just as this physical human organism is nevertheless permeated by the soul-spiritual, so too are the processes that unfold in the sprouting, greening, blooming, and withering of plants—and which we observe as physical processes—are everywhere permeated and interwoven with spiritual and soul-world influences. And just as, when we see a person’s face—when their gaze falls upon us, their facial expressions, perhaps the flush on their face reveals itself to us— then, based on our experience of living together with the rest of humanity, we cannot help but direct our soulful gaze, as it were, through the physical toward the soul and the spiritual; in the same way, we should accustom ourselves to seeing a spiritual-soul aspect even in what takes place—if I may put it this way—in the physiognomy and changing colors of the plant cover of our Earth.

[ 9 ] Insofar as we wish to perceive things merely physically, we say: The sun’s heat and sunlight act upon the plant, forming the plant sap within it, forming chlorophyll within it, and so on. - But when we observe all this with a spiritual gaze, when we approach the Earth’s plant physiognomy in the same way we habitually approach human physiognomy, then something is revealed to us that I would like to express with a very specific word, because this word truly reflects the reality that is unfolding there. The sun, which only outwardly sends its light to the Earth, is not merely a luminous ball of gas, but something essentially different. It sends its rays down to the Earth, but just as it sends its rays outward—and wherever one looks toward the sun, one sees, so to speak, the outer aspect of the ray—so too does the ray have an inner aspect.

[ 10 ] If someone could see through the sunlight—if they could regard the sunlight merely as an outer shell and look through it to the spiritual—they would see the spiritual power, the spiritual essence of the sun. With ordinary human consciousness, we actually see the sun just as we would see a person made of papier-mâché. If you had a cast made of yourself, containing nothing but the form—the lifeless form—and set it down, well: that is, of course, something different from the person you actually see before you. With a real human being, you see through this outer form toward the soul-spiritual. With the sun, it is the case for ordinary human consciousness that the sun actually makes itself into a papier-mâché cast for this ordinary human consciousness. One does not see right through its skin, which is woven of light. But if one does see through it, then one sees the entire spiritual-soul being of the sun.

[ 11 ] This spiritual-soul being can come to our awareness through its activity just as much as the physical papier-mâché of the sun. From the physical point of view, I say: The sun shines on the earth; it glistens on the stones and on the ground. There, the light is reflected back. This is how we see everything mineral. The sun’s rays penetrate the plants, making them green and causing them to sprout. All of this is external. — If we now look at the spiritual-soul nature of the sun, we cannot simply say: “The sunlight shines on the minerals, the sunlight is reflected back, and as a result we see the minerals; the sunlight or the sun’s warmth penetrates the plants, causing them to turn green”—but rather we must say: The sun—and here we mean the countless spiritual beings that inhabit the sun and constitute its soul-spiritual essence—the sun dreams, and its dreams envelop the earth and shape the plants.

[ 12 ] If you imagine the Earth’s surface, with physical plants sprouting from it and growing until they bloom, you can see the effect of the physical rays of the sun at work there. But above all this, the dream world of the sun lives and weaves. These are all imaginations. And one can say: When the snow cover melts in spring and the sun regains its power, then the imaginations of the sun gradually hover and weave around the Earth.

[ 13 ] And these imaginations of the sun are imagined forces, and they weave their way through the plant world. While we must also say that this imaginative world, this imaginative atmosphere surrounding the Earth, is particularly vibrant from spring through fall in any region where it is currently spring or fall on Earth, this dreamlike element of the sun’s influence is, of course, still present in a certain way even during the winter months. It is just that during the winter season—I would say—these are dull “dreams,” whereas during the summer season they are self-forming, dynamic dreams. It is within this element that the imaginations of the sun develop, and it is within this element, above all, that the “I”-essence and the astral body of the human being live and weave when they are outside the physical and etheric bodies.

[ 14 ] You will gather from what I have said that sleeping in the summer actually means something quite different from sleeping in the winter, even though, at first, human life and consciousness within the present state of consciousness are so dull and numb that these things are not perceived. In earlier times of human development, people distinguished very clearly, through their sensations, between winter sleep and summer sleep. And they also knew the significance that winter sleep and summer sleep held for them. In those earlier times, people knew that summer sleep was such that they could say: During the summer, the earth is interwoven with imaginal thoughts. — People of those earlier times expressed it this way: During the summer, the upper gods descend and hover around the earth; during the winter, the lower gods rise up from the earth and hover around the earth. — This imaginative world, which takes on a different form during winter and summer, was perceived as the weaving of the upper and lower gods. But even in these earlier times of human civilization, people knew that the human being, with his ego-essence and his astral body, is present in this weaving, imaginative world.

[ 15 ] But it is precisely this fact—which I have just explained to you—that, when observed from the perspective of the spiritual sciences, reveals the relationship between human beings and the extraterrestrial cosmos even during their earthly existence. In the summer, when it is summer in any part of the Earth, human beings are actually always enveloped by a sharply defined cosmic imagination while they sleep. As a result, during this summer season, their spiritual and soul nature is, so to speak, pressed close to the Earth. During the winter season, it is different. During the winter season, the contours of these imaginations become, so to speak, broader.

[ 16 ] During the summer, there are very distinct imaginations—in the most varied forms—within which we live with our “I”-being and our astral being while we sleep. During the winter, there are loosely woven forms surrounding the Earth, and as a result, every time autumn begins, that which lives within our “I” and in our astral body is carried far out into the world at night. During the hot summer months, what lives within our “I” and our astral body remains, so to speak, more within the spiritual-soul atmosphere of human beings. During the winter months, what lives within our “I”-being and our astral being is carried out into the vastness of the world. One can indeed say—not merely in a figurative sense, but by stating something entirely real—that: What a person develops within themselves on the soul level—and what they can carry out between falling asleep and waking up through their ego-being and their astral being, from their physical and etheric bodies—is stored up during the summer months and flows out into the vastness of the cosmos during the winter months.

[ 17 ] As human beings, we cannot think of ourselves as, so to speak, shutting ourselves off from the world while we are here on Earth, with the vastness of the world knowing nothing of us. That is not how it is. It is true that around St. John’s Day, in the summer, a person can initially hide from the world spirits, and might even succeed in harboring reprehensible feelings; the dense web of imaginations does not let those feelings escape. But that remains, of course. And at Christmas time, the gods look down upon the earth; then everything that lives within human beings and extends outward with their “I” and their astral being is revealed. And one might well present the image that depicts a reality: that with the winter season, the windows of the earth open, and the angels and archangels look to see how people on earth are faring.

[ 18 ] We here on Earth have gradually become accustomed, in modern civilization, to expressing what we are permitted to acknowledge in a philistine, sober, and unpoetic manner. Higher beings always remain poets, and therefore their nature can never be properly expressed by describing it with physically sober words; rather, one must resort to words such as those I have just used: at Christmas time, windows open onto the Earth, and the angels and archangels look through these windows to see what people are doing throughout the year. The beings of the higher hierarchies are, even when they think, poets and artists. Logic, as we usually seek to develop it, is merely a result of earthly gravity—which is not to say that it is not highly useful on Earth.

[ 19 ] Of all that lives within a human being, however, what I have just described—that which lives in the human mind—is actually what is essential to these higher beings. The angels who look in through the Christmas window are not interested in what the professors come up with; they look right past it. At first, they do not concern themselves so much with thoughts. What takes place in a person’s feelings, in the human soul, is connected to the annual cycle of the sun in terms of its cosmic significance. So during the winter season, what comes to the fore in the divine-spiritual worlds is not so much whether we are foolish or wise on Earth, but simply whether we are good or bad people, whether we are people of good character or egoists. This is what is communicated to the cosmic worlds through the regulation of the annual cycle.

[ 20 ] You might think that our thoughts remain on Earth, because I said earlier that the angels and archangels don’t concern themselves with them when they look in through the Christmas windows. But the reason they don’t concern themselves with it is that—if I may put it somewhat matter-of-factly—they are receiving the larger coins, the more valuable coins, which are minted from the spiritual and soul nature of human beings. And these more valuable coins are minted by the human soul, by human feeling, and by what a person is worth based on the content of their feelings and their soul. Thoughts are, for the cosmos, merely small change—the small coins—and these small coins are, in fact, eavesdropped on by lower spirits every night. So, whether we are foolish or wise—this is eavesdropped on every night by the, I would say, very nearest, and therefore also the most subordinate, more elemental beings that are in the vicinity of the Earth—though not across vast expanses of the cosmos, but only within the Earth’s vicinity. The daily cycle of the sun exists to communicate the value of our thoughts to the cosmos, as far as those thoughts extend; they belong only to the sphere of the earthly realm. The annual cycle of the sun exists to carry our spirit, our emotional nature, further out into the cosmic worlds.

[ 21 ] And our volitional nature cannot be carried out into the cosmos in this way. For the daily cycle is strictly regulated; it spans twenty-four hours. The annual cycle of the sun is strictly regulated. We perceive the strict regulation of the daily cycle in the strict logical order of our thoughts. We perceive the regulation of the annual cycle in its effect on our minds, in that there are certain feelings which, regarding some action a person takes, say: “It is good”—and regarding another: “It is evil.”

[ 22 ] But there is a third element within human beings: the will. The will is indeed connected to feeling, and feeling cannot help but say of certain actions, “They are morally good,” and of others, “They are not morally good.” - But the will can do what is morally good, and it can also do what is morally not good. Here we see that there is no strict regulation. The relationship between our will and our human nature is not strictly regulated in the same sense that thinking and feeling are regulated. We cannot call a bad action good or a good action bad; nor can we call a logical thought illogical or an illogical thought logical. This stems from the fact that thinking is under the influence of the sun’s daily cycle, while feeling is under the influence of the sun’s annual cycle. Will, however, is left to humanity here on Earth. And now a person might say: “Yes, at most, if I think illogically, my illogical thoughts are carried out into the cosmos every night and cause harm there—but what does that matter to me? I’m not here to put the cosmos in order.” Here on Earth, where he lives a life of illusion, he might say that under certain circumstances, but between death and a new birth he would never say such a thing, for between death and a new birth he himself is in the worlds where he may have caused harm through his foolish thoughts, and he must endure all that harm. Likewise, between death and a new birth, he is in those worlds into which his emotional and mental states have flowed. But even here, back on Earth, he might say: “Well, yes, into the cosmos, that which lives in my feelings does indeed dissipate, but I leave it to the gods to deal with whatever harm might have been caused through me.”

[ 23 ] But my will—it is only unregulated on Earth. The materialistic person, who measures human life solely by the time between birth and death, can never in any way conceive of the idea that his will has a cosmic significance. Nor, for that matter, does he conceive of the idea that his thoughts or his feelings have a cosmic significance. But even those who know full well that thoughts have a cosmic significance through the daily cycle of the sun and feelings through its annual cycle now see unfolding what is brought about on Earth by the good or evil will of human beings, and they must turn away from the cosmic and approach human nature itself to see how what is at work in the human will now radiates out into the cosmos. For what acts within the human will must be carried out into the cosmos by the human being himself, and he carries it out when he has passed through the gate of death. This is not accomplished through the cycles of the day or the year, but through the gate of death, through which the human being then carries what he has wrought—whether good or evil—through his will here on Earth.

[ 24 ] This is a peculiar relationship between human beings and the cosmos with regard to their inner life. We say of our thoughts: We have these thoughts. — But they are not subject to our arbitrary will. We must conform to the laws of the world when we think; otherwise, we will come into conflict with everything that happens in the world. If a small child stands before me and I think, “That is an old man”—then I may have indulged my own will in my thinking, but I am not then standing within the world with my thoughts. Thus, with regard to our thoughts, we are by no means independent, and we are so little independent that our thoughts are carried out into the cosmos along with the sun’s daily cycle.

[ 25 ] We are not independent of our feelings either; they are carried forward through the cycle of the year. Thus, even during our earthly existence, what is in our minds through our thoughts and in our hearts through our feelings does not live only within us, but also lives a cosmic existence alongside us. Only what lives in our will do we keep with us until our death. Then, when we have shed the body, when we no longer have anything to do with earthly forces, we carry them out through the gate of death.

[ 26 ] And now the human being passes through the “gate of death,” burdened with the results of his acts of will. Just as he is surrounded here by what lives in minerals, plants, animals, and the physical human being—what lives in clouds, rivers, mountains, stars—insofar as they are outwardly visible through light—and whatever he has around him here during his existence between birth and death, so too does he have a world around him once he has shed the physical and etheric bodies and passed through the ‘Gate of Death.’ He is surrounded precisely by the world into which his thoughts have entered every night, into which his feelings have entered with every annual cycle: That is what you thought; that is what you felt. — And it is now as if the beings of the higher hierarchies were presenting his thoughts and feelings to him. They have regarded them in the way I have described. Now his intellect shines upon him; now his soul shines upon him. Just as here on Earth the sun shines from morning to evening, just as it sets and night falls, so our acts of wisdom shine upon us as day once we have passed through the gate of death; just as the lights of the spirit around us dim and fade, and night falls because of the accumulated follies. What is day and night here on this earth is, after we have passed through the gate of death, all around us as the result of our wisdom and our follies. And what human beings experience here on this earth as spring and summer, autumn and winter in the cycle of the year—as changes in temperature and in other sensations—they also experience, after passing through the “gate of death,” as a kind of cycle, albeit one that lasts considerably longer. They experience the warming, life-sustaining aspect—that is, the aspect of their good feelings that nurtures their spiritual self, their sympathy for what is good; and, after passing through the Gate of Death, they shiver as they experience their sympathy for what is evil and immoral. Just as we live here on earth through the heat of summer and the cold of winter, so do we live after death, warmed by our good feelings and shivering from our bad feelings; and we carry the effects of our will through these spiritual seasons and through these spiritual times of day.

[ 27 ] Having passed through the gates of death, we are, first and foremost, the result of our moral existence on Earth. And we find ourselves in an environment permeated by our follies and wisdom, by our sympathies and antipathies toward the good.

[ 28 ] So that we can say: Just as we have the summer air around us on Earth—warm and life-sustaining—and just as we have the chilly winter air around us, so too, after death, we have an atmosphere around us—the spiritual-soul atmosphere—that is warm and life-sustaining to the extent that it is shaped by our good feelings, and we have a chilly atmosphere around us to the extent that it is shaped by our bad feelings. — Here on Earth, we share the warmth of summer and winter, at least in certain regions. In the time after death, each person has their own atmosphere, which they create for themselves. And these are precisely the most significant experiences after death: that one person walks beside another, shivering, while the other is bathed in life-sustaining warmth.

[ 29 ] These are the experiences that can be had after death. And among the experiences undergone in the spirit world, as I have described them in my book Theosophy, the main one is that those people who have developed evil feelings here on Earth must undergo their terrible experiences in the presence of those who have developed good feelings.

[ 30 ] One could certainly say that everything that initially remains hidden within a person is revealed once that person has passed through the gate of death. And sleep now takes on a cosmic significance, just as existence during the winter does. We sleep every night so that we may prepare the light in which we must live after death; we go through the experiences of winter so that we may prepare the spiritual and soul-related conditions of warmth into which we enter after death. And into what we prepare for ourselves, so to speak, as the atmosphere of the spiritual world—into that we carry the effects of our deeds.

[ 31 ] Here on Earth, we live through our physical body as beings bound by earthly gravity. Through our breathing, we live within the cycle of the air, and we see the stars outside. Once we have passed through the gate of death, out in the spiritual-soul world, we are removed from the Earth; we are, so to speak, outside the stars, looking at the stars from behind, looking back toward the world of the stars. We do not stand on the ground of the Earth; we dwell in the thoughts of the world and in the forces of the worlds. We live in the atmosphere that we ourselves have created spiritually and soulfully, as I have described. We look back at the stars; we do not see the stars shining, but rather we see the hierarchies, the spiritual beings, whose image is reflected only in the physical stars.

[ 32 ] In this way, people here on Earth can learn more and more about what their lives will be like when they pass through the gate of death. There are people who say: Why do I need to know all this? I’ll find out after death anyway!”—Yes, that is roughly the same as if a person were to doubt the value of their eyesight. For, in the course of Earth’s evolution, human beings are increasingly entering a phase of life in which they must acquire the experience of what I have described—for the time after death—by first grasping it in thought here on Earth. To exclude knowledge of the spiritual worlds while on Earth means to blind oneself spiritually and soulfully for one’s life after death. And one simply enters the spiritual world as a cripple when one passes through the gate of death, if one spurns here on this world the opportunity to know anything about the spiritual world, for humanity is evolving toward freedom.

[ 33 ] This is something that should become increasingly clear to humanity, and from which it should recognize the necessity of knowledge about the spiritual world.

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[ 34 ] “Secondly, I should mention that series of eurythmy figures are once again being produced here in Miss Maryon’s studio. The figures, which are currently half-finished, will be completed in about 10 days. A set of these will now be slightly less expensive. A set of 20 will be available for 250 francs; individual figures will be available for 13 francs. — I would like to note that the Christmas season is approaching, and these would make very nice Christmas gifts.”

[ 35 ] The following evening, Rudolf Steiner then made the following observation:

[ 36 ] “I just have one small thing to add to what I said yesterday—something I forgot to mention regarding these figures. I said: they would make a nice Christmas gift, and I meant that as a little allusion. I forgot to mention that the total proceeds from such Christmas gifts will go directly to the Goetheanum, which needs it right now!”