The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] The discussions about karma can only slowly and gradually lead to an understanding of this fundamental and complex law of the universe. Today I would like to begin by pointing out, as we have had to emphasize, that the shaping of a person’s karma in the life between death and a new birth is primarily the work of the people themselves—the people who are in this life between ‘death and a new birth,’ in the state I have described. There, human beings work together with other human beings—specifically with those with whom they are primarily karmically connected. Thus, in the shaping of karma during the life between death and a new birth, we see groups of people—karmically connected groups—and we can already say: In this purely spiritual life, the groups of people who are connected to one another are clearly distinguished from one another. This does not, of course, rule out the fact that even in the life between death and a new birth—and especially in this life—we share in the whole of humanity; that simply because we belong to a group of people, or let us say a soul group, we are not thereby excluded from participating in the whole of humanity.

[ 2 ] But the beings of the higher hierarchies are at work in all these groups, right down to the individual destiny of each human being. And these beings of the higher hierarchies, who thus shape karma together with human beings between death and a new birth, also influence the life we spend between birth and death, since karma plays itself out in a moral way, manifesting itself in human destiny. And today we must answer the question: How does the work, the activity of the hierarchies, actually influence human life?

[ 3 ] It must be said that when we speak today of the science of initiation, this question is truly heart-rending; for you can already surmise, my dear friends, from what I have said in the course of my recent lectures, that external, natural events are connected with the karmic processes of humanity.

[ 4 ] Those who do not merely turn their gaze toward natural phenomena, but rather toward the entirety of cosmic-human events, see the connection between what takes place—particularly within human groups and masses on Earth in any given age—and what unfolds as natural phenomena in another age. After all, we can sometimes observe natural events that influence life on Earth. We look at devastating volcanic eruptions; we look at the effects caused by natural elemental events in the form of floods and similar phenomena.

[ 5 ] At first, if we view these events purely in natural terms, we are nevertheless confronted with something that is incomprehensible in light of the overall impression we have of the world. For we are looking at events that burst into the order of the world, and in the face of which human beings usually respond by giving up on understanding, simply accepting misfortune and the vicissitudes of fate. Spiritual scientific investigation, however, takes us a step further on its own. For it provides us with remarkable insights precisely in relation to such elemental natural phenomena.

[ 6 ] Let’s let our gaze wander across the Earth’s surface. We find certain regions of the Earth’s surface virtually dotted with volcanoes. In other parts of the Earth’s surface, we find the potential for earthquake-like disasters or other catastrophes. And when we then trace the karmic connections specifically in relation to such phenomena—as we have done in a historical context for certain historical figures in previous lectures—we discover something very peculiar. We discover the remarkable fact that up there in the spiritual world, between death and a new birth, human souls live together in groups according to their karma, working out their future karmic connections based on their past karmic connections. And we see such groups of human souls, as they descend from their pre-earthly existence into earthly existence, literally making their way to places located near volcanoes, or to areas where earthquake-like catastrophes can occur, in order to receive the fate that arises from these elemental natural phenomena and is brought about by such places of residence. Indeed, we even find that in this life between death and a new birth—where human beings have entirely different perspectives and feelings—souls that belong together sometimes seek out such places precisely to experience the fate that can be encountered in this way. For what finds little resonance here on Earth in our souls—such as the statement: “I choose great misfortune for myself in order to become more perfect, because otherwise I would remain imperfect in relation to what lies in my past karma”—this judgment, which, as I said, finds little resonance within earthly life, is present; it stands as a fully valid judgment when we are in the life between death and a new birth. There, too, we seek a volcanic eruption; there, too, we seek an earthquake, in order to find the path to perfection through misfortune.

[ 7 ] We must indeed make these two different ways of assessing life—that from the spiritual world and that from the physical world—our own.

[ 8 ] But in this context, we must ask ourselves something like this: Out there, natural phenomena unfold—the everyday ones that follow a relatively regular course, insofar as the world of the stars is involved; for this celestial world unfolds with a certain regularity—particularly with regard to the sun and moon, and as for the other stars, with the exception of the enigmatic world of meteors and comets, which bursts in, in a remarkable way, upon the regular, rhythmic events of the cosmos.

[ 9 ] But it is really only what we call wind and weather—that which, in thunderstorms and hailstorms, and indeed in all climatic and meteorological phenomena, intrudes upon our natural existence—that disrupts this regular, rhythmic course of daily life. We see this. At first, we are at the mercy of this external course of natural events. Then, when we feel the urge toward the spiritual, we also listen when the message is conveyed through initiation: There is not only this outwardly visible world; there is also a world of the supersensible. In this world of the supersensible live the beings of the higher hierarchies. And we enter the realm of these higher hierarchies in the life between death and a new birth, just as we enter the realm of the three kingdoms of nature—the mineral, the plant, and the animal—in the life between birth and death.

[ 10 ] We listen to this. We try to imagine that this second world exists, so to speak, but then we often end up simply placing the two worlds side by side, without connecting them in our minds.

[ 11 ] But only then do we gain a true insight into these two worlds—when we can view them together, when we can grasp their interaction with the eye of the soul. For we must indeed penetrate this interplay if we are to understand the formation of karma. This karma is prepared during the life between death and a new birth. But through the influence of the higher hierarchies—which also extends to the life between birth and death—karma is shaped here on Earth.

[ 12 ] So we must ask ourselves: How do these higher hierarchies influence life on Earth?

[ 13 ] Well, you see, these higher hierarchies influence earthly life in such a way that they make use of earthly processes in order to work within those earthly processes.

[ 14 ] The easiest way to understand what is before us is to first turn our attention to what unfolds before our senses in the world of the stars and in the earthly world. During our daily waking life, we look up at the sun above us. During the night, we perceive the glow of the moon and the twinkling of the stars. Let us once reflect, my dear friends, on how we look out into the world, how we allow what is above us and what surrounds us on Earth in the realms of nature to act upon our senses. And let us realize that this sensory world, in and of itself, has just as little meaning as the form of a human corpse. When we look at the entire range of forces on Earth other than the human being, we do indeed find all the forces that are present in a corpse, but we do not find the forces of the living human being. The corpse lying before us is nonsense; it has meaning only as a remnant of the living human being. And no one can be considered rational who believes that the corpse could exist in and of itself as some self-contained set of facts. It can only exist as a remnant; it can only display a form that belongs to something no longer visible within it. Just as one must be led in a rational way from the corpse to the living human being, so too must one be led from everything one sees within the sphere of physical-sensory existence to the spiritual world. For this physical-sensory existence has just as little meaning in itself as the corpse does.

[ 15 ] Just as our thoughts are drawn from a corpse to a living human being—as we say, “That is the corpse of a human being”—so, when it comes to nature, we say, “That is the manifestation of divine-spiritual powers.” — No other way of thinking can be reasonable; indeed, it is not even healthy to think otherwise. To think otherwise is a sign of pathological thinking.

[ 16 ] But what kind of spiritual world should we assume lies beyond this physical, sensory world? The spiritual world, you see, that we must assume lies beyond this physical, sensory world is the one we have come to know as the second hierarchy: Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes.

[ 17 ] The second hierarchy lies behind everything that is bathed in sunlight. And what, after all, is not bathed in sunlight and sustained by the sun within the sphere of what we experience through our senses? Everything is bathed in sunlight and sustained by the sun.

[ 18 ] These beings of the second hierarchy have their dwelling place primarily in the Sun. From the Sun, they govern the visible world, which is their manifestation. Thus we can say: If we have the Earth here, and if, looking down upon the Earth, we have the Sun somewhere, then behind the Sun’s activity, within the Sun’s activity, and through the Sun’s activity, we have the activity of the second hierarchy—the Exusiai, Kyriotetes, and Dynamis.

[ 19 ] All sensory impressions that can be exerted upon human beings—all the impressions that reach our senses during the waking hours of the day—are carried on the rays that constitute the workings of the second hierarchy. $o So, in a certain sense, we are correct when we say: Within, through, and behind the workings of the Solar Principle in the sphere of our physical-sensory existence lies the supersensible world of the Second Hierarchy.

[ 20 ] Now we have another state of our earthly existence. We already spoke about this other state from a certain perspective last time. We have the state in which we sleep. This state in which we sleep—how does it appear cosmically, how is it represented in the cosmic counterpart? Let’s consider this for a moment.

[ 21 ] Here we have—if we call this the section of the Earth’s surface (see diagram on page 278, circular line at the top) on which we live in such a way that our physical body and our etheric body lie in bed (left), while our astral body and our “I” are outside (right)—, in the cosmos we are dealing with the fact that the Sun lies behind the earthly realm, that the Earth must first allow the Sun’s rays to pass through it before they reach us. Everything solar is thus veiled by the Earth.

[ 22 ] You see, in all the ancient mysteries there was a certain teaching which, when one becomes aware of its content, actually makes a profoundly moving impression. Anyone who has been initiated into an ancient mystery, who has become a disciple, and who has gradually entered into the science of initiation, reached a certain stage in his inner development where he characterized the impressions he received in this way—well, my dear friends, pay close attention as I now present to you, as it were, the monologue of such an ancient initiate—one he might have spoken after reaching a certain stage of initiation—; such an initiate would have said something like this: When I stand in an open field during the day, directing my intuitive gaze upward and surrendering myself to the impressions of the senses, I see the sun. I perceive it in its dazzling intensity at noon, and I sense and behold, behind the dazzling intensity of the noonday sun, the workings of spiritual beings of the second hierarchy within the solar realm. Before my initiation, the solar realm faded away with the evening setting of the sun. With the appearance of the evening glow, the sun’s radiance vanished. And before my initiation, I passed through the night, as darkness enveloped me, and in the morning I remembered this darkness when dawn broke and, emerging from the dawn, the sun once again appeared to make its way toward the blinding brightness of midday. But now, having attained initiation, it is thus: When I experience the dawn, and the sun sets out once more from the dawn on its daily course, the memory of the nocturnal life awakens within me. I know what I experienced during the nocturnal life. I remember very clearly that I watched as, little by little, a bluish, shimmering light continued from the evening twilight, moving from west to east, and how I watched—which I now remember precisely—around midnight the sun at the opposite point in the sky, opposite the point where it was at its brilliant midday strength, in its glow that is so morally impressive, behind the Earth. I saw the sun at midnight.

[ 23 ] Such initiates have indeed uttered a monologue like this—in accordance with the full truth—during their meditation. For speaking such a monologue was, after all, nothing other than bringing to consciousness what was already there. And when we read a book written by Jakob Böhme titled The Dawn at Daybreak, we gain the profound impression that the words contained in that book are the remnants of a wondrous ancient teaching.

[ 24 ] What is the “Dawn Rising” for the Initiated? The “Dawn Breaking” is the impetus for a cosmic recollection of seeing the sun at midnight behind the Earth, obscured by the Earth, yet glowing through it. When we behold the yellow-white disk of the sun shining brightly at noon in ordinary vision, in the initiated gaze we see the bluish-violet sun at the opposite point in the sky, as the Earth appears to us like a transparent body through which the whitish-yellow disk of the noonday sun—tinged bluish-reddish on the other side—glows. But this bluish-reddish, glowing appearance—I must use this paradoxical term—is not actually what it seems. It is really as if, when we first look at this sun at midnight, we were seeing something that is indistinct in the distance. And as one becomes accustomed, through initiation, to observing more and more closely with the initiated gaze that which at first appears indistinct in the distance, then that bluish-reddish glow will take on more and more shape and form, spreading across the entire sky that is turned away from us—the sky that is covered by the Earth—and it will become populated. And just as, when we step out of our house on a starry night, we are granted the majestic sight of the starry sky with its individual sparkling, luminous points, and the moon perhaps appears in the center—so, to the initiated gaze, on the side turned away from us, a whole world appears through the Earth, which has become transparent, rising up as if from clouds that form into life-like figures: all that which lives in the second hierarchy, in the world of the Exusiai, Kyriotetes, and Dynamis—there they appear, these beings!

[ 25 ] And when we observe more and more closely, when we can attain the inner calm to observe it—and the whole thing takes place, after all, following preparations, following meditative preparations, for it actually becomes conscious at dawn, in the after-memory, but then one has it right before one’s eyes, so that one knows, you have seen it during the night—then something else takes place there as well. It is as if from what appears there on the far side of the Earth—which I am indicating here in a cloud-like drawing (light lilac, red, and blue)—that is entirely the weaving, living world of the beings of the second hierarchy—as if from this weaving, living world of the second hierarchy, a world of other beings were, so to speak, radiating forth. I would like to schematically indicate what radiates out from there, first passing through the Earth (yellow). Oh, this is truly a world of beings that, in this constellation—this nocturnal constellation—interweaves through the Earth in such a way that, in a sense, it floats toward human beings in its existence, then floats away—and back again! We see the beings of the second hierarchy—who, in a sense, weave their way along this line—constantly being released, continuously released into another hierarchy, floating up and down, approaching the human being, and then back again. And little by little, we come to know what is actually there.

[ 26 ] We have lived consciously all day and are now asleep. This means that our physical and etheric bodies, interdependent and active like the mineral and plant worlds, are at rest in sleep. But we have been thinking all day long; thoughts have flowed through our human being all day, leaving their traces in the physical and etheric bodies. We would not remember in the morning what our experiences of earthly life were if the traces of the impressions—which we then bring up in our memories—had not remained. There they are, these traces, in what remains of the human being during the night hours while lying in bed, from which the person has departed. A remarkable process takes place, particularly in the etheric body: the lingering, the aftereffects, the after-vibrations, the after-waves of what the person has thought while awake from morning until evening.

[ 27 ] And if you take what lies asleep across the surface of the Earth—all that which, in these—let us take only the etheric bodies for now—weaves and flows as echoes of what all these sleeping people, who lie asleep across the surface of the Earth, have thought: these are images of what has taken place on Earth during the daytime hours.

[ 28 ] And those beings who float up and down there—during our hours of sleep, they concern themselves with what has been left behind as traces in our etheric body. That becomes their world. That becomes their world—the experience that is now theirs, the one that occupies them. And we come to realize the fact before which we stand with awestruck reverence: You have left your body behind in bed—there it is. It bears within it the traces of daily life. It is the field of the fruits of your imagination from the day. The beings of the third hierarchy—Angels, Archangels, and Archai—enter this field. There, while you are outside your physical and etheric bodies, they experience what has been experienced through human imagination during the waking hours of the day.

[ 29 ] And we gaze with timid reverence upon such a stretch of earth where human bodies lie asleep, and turn our attention to what is unfolding there as the echoes of daily life: angels, archangels, and archai. And we see a wondrous life unfolding before us, taking place between the beings of the third hierarchy and the traces of our thoughts that we have left behind.

[ 30 ] We look at this field and realize how we, as human beings, are placed within the spiritual cosmos: that we create work for the angels during our waking hours, while we are asleep. Yes, we create work for the angels during our sleeping hours, while we are awake.

[ 31 ] And now something is dawning on us regarding our world of thoughts. Now this is becoming clear to us regarding our world of thoughts: Yes, these thoughts that go through your mind—they contain the fruits that you sink into your own etheric and physical bodies, which angels gather during the night to carry them out into the cosmos and incorporate them into the workings of the worlds there.

[ 32 ] We see yet another aspect. As we observe that these beings of the third hierarchy—Angels, Archangels, and Archai—seem to emerge from the beings of the second hierarchy and their activities, we see how, behind the weaving (see illustration on page 278, light purple, below), beings of particular majesty and grandeur join in the work of the second hierarchy. We look upon the bluish-reddish taking shape of the beings of the second hierarchy, but we see another force playing into this weaving and life of the second hierarchy as if from behind, and soon become aware that this strikes into it, in part, like a flash of lightning (red) into the weaving and essence of the second hierarchy, but now also penetrates into the part of the Earth that has turned away, and is now concerned not with what has remained lying in bed, but with that which has stepped forth with our ego-organization and our astral body,

[ 33 ] And just as one can look upon what has been left behind in bed as upon a field where the fruits of human thought—the products of daily activity—are gathered by the angels, archangels, and primordial forces for the cosmic workings of the worlds, so too can we observe how the beings of the second hierarchy—the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, and those of the first hierarchy—Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones—working together, uniting their efforts with our astral body and our “I.”

[ 34 ] Then, in the morning recollection, the initiate says to himself: “There I lived, from the moment I fell asleep until I awoke, with my ‘I’ and with my astral body.” There I felt as if I were woven into, as if incorporated into, that which the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones, together with the Kyriotetes, Dynamis, and Exusiai, are bringing about. I am within that, and from there I look down upon my physical body and etheric body: there I see weaving above them the yellowish-whitish activity of the beings of the third hierarchy—Angels, Archangels, and Archai—who nurture the fruits of my thoughts. I know myself to be connected with the beings of the first and second hierarchies. Gazing into the mighty clouds of spirit above my body, which I have left behind, I perceive the weaving and essence of the third hierarchy.

[ 35 ] And so, my dear friends, you can gain a concrete idea of how, in the initiatory view, the beings of the three hierarchies appear imaginatively and visually within the image of the physical world—but only when this physical world is shrouded in night, on the far side of the Earth. And we can imagine that the knowledge and vision of these sublime realities took root more and more deeply in the hearts and souls of those who were once partakers of the ancient science of initiation.

[ 36 ] It can, in turn, take root in the hearts and souls of those who are introduced to the modern science of initiation.

[ 37 ] But let us imagine that this powerful imagination appears before the human soul—appears before the human soul in such a way that one must now describe its existence in the following manner. Imagine the human soul, free from the body, liberated from the physical and etheric bodies, weaving within the radiations of the Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Kyriotetes, Dynamis, and Exusiai. Let us imagine that, in a sculptural form endowed with color (see drawing), this would have been depicted in an ancient mystery for the uninitiated multitude; an attempt would have been made to sculpturally represent what the initiate saw in such majestic grandeur from the far side of the Earth. And to show that this is at the same time the world in which karma is worked out with the beings of the two highest hierarchies, the highest initiates were placed before this sculpture—those who, during their earthly existence, had already partaken of that vision which humans otherwise enter between death and a new birth. And so the highest initiates stand before it (upper circles).

[ 38 ] Then another sculpture was erected, surrounded by human figures. There were placed the somewhat lower-ranking Initiates (lower circles), those who still had to deal with the human physical and etheric bodies.

[ 39 ] And by incorporating people into this depiction, one had created a representation of what was beheld by the initiates in the Mysteries. That was the origin of the altar, which is framed at the front and at which the ritual is performed by the high and low priesthood, as a representation of what can be beheld through the science of initiation. And even today, when you enter a Catholic church, if you look out from the nave toward the altar, you see a faint reflection of what was once inaugurated there through the science of initiation, and you gain an impression of how a cult comes into being. A cult does not arise simply by being conceived in the mind, for then it is not a cult. A cult arises because it is the reflection of what takes place in the spiritual world.

[ 40 ] If I may cite just one example, I would like to say that, setting aside this rite—which, after all, represents the most comprehensive form of a consecration ceremony, which I do not wish to discuss now—if I were to take just a small aspect of the rite that has already been incorporated into the Community for Christian Renewal and which most of you are probably familiar with: if I present to you the memory of what you have witnessed as a funeral rite—whether at a cremation, where most of you were present, or at a burial service—this rite, as practiced within our Christian Community, what is it?

[ 41 ] You see the ritual taking place. You see the coffin standing there in front, containing the mortal remains of the deceased. You see a certain ritual unfolding in front of it. You hear prayer-like formulas spoken by the priest. It could be even more complicated, but in its simplicity, just as it is now, what is to be attained through it can already be attained for humanity. What is that?

[ 42 ] My dear friends, if there is a mirror here, or any object or being, then you see its reflection in it. You have two: the essence and the reflection. So you have two when a cult of the dead takes place. That which constitutes the rite performed by the priest before the coffin is merely a reflection. It is a true reflection and would not be a reality if it were not a reflection. What does it reflect? That which the priest does here—standing before the corpse and performing his rite—has its original image in the adjacent supersensible world, where, while we here perform the earthly ritual before the physical body and the etheric body—which is, in fact, still present—the heavenly ritual is performed from the other side, by the beings on the other side of existence, where the soul-spiritual is received through the ritual of reception, just as we stand here before the corpse performing the ritual of farewell. A ritual is a truth only when it has this real origin.

[ 43 ] And so you see how the supernatural life interplays with earthly life; the supernatural life is present everywhere. When we perform a true rite for the dead, this rite corresponds to supernatural activity. The two work together. And if there is devotion, truth, and dignity in the prayer for the dead, then the prayers of the beings of the higher hierarchies in the supersensible world resonate within that prayer. They vibrate in unison. This is where the spiritual world and the physical world interact.

[ 44 ] The spiritual world and the physical world interact everywhere. This interaction is most real when, in the earthly realm, the image appears of that which is woven in the super-earthly realm—between death and rebirth—with the beings of the higher hierarchies: karma.