The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] We have spoken about life between death and a new birth, and in doing so have seen how, after death, a human being is received by an extraterrestrial world—that extraterrestrial world which appears to us on Earth only through its signs, for stars are signs of another world. And when we point to these signs, this pointing can at the same time be a pointing toward the spiritual worlds that we ourselves behold when we are in the existence between death and a new birth. And we have seen how the human being enters a lunar sphere, a Mercury sphere, a Venus sphere, and yesterday we arrived at the contemplation of the solar sphere. At the same time, I have explained how one can attain knowledge of the corresponding worlds through initiatory insight. Once one has acquired the ability to look into the spiritual world through the methods described in my books, one first receives a retrospective view of one’s entire earthly life. Suddenly, as if spread out in a vast tableau, it lies before us, and we survey it in periods that, in retrospect, each last approximately seven years. We behold our earliest childhood up to the time of the change of teeth. As we look through this period, the mystery of the lunar sphere shines forth upon us. If we then look through the period between the change of teeth, the seventh year, and sexual maturity, the mystery of the Mercury sphere shines forth toward us. From the fourteenth or fifteenth year until the beginning of one’s twenties, when sexual maturity has set in, comes the epoch from which, in retrospect, the mystery of the Venus sphere appears to us. And when one has grown somewhat older and looks back on the period between approximately the twenty-first and the forty-second years—this time when one stands in the maturity of human life and the descent has not yet begun—when one looks back on this period, the mysteries of the solar sphere come into view. These mysteries consist, as I already indicated yesterday, in the fact that there are no natural forces in this sphere. Everything we perceive here as causes and effects in the nature of the Earth does not exist in the solar sphere. In the period we enter—after we have completed the lunar, Mercury, and Venus spheres and enter the solar sphere—we are surrounded not by natural forces, but only by moral and spiritual forces. Everything that is good yields corresponding good results; everything that is evil has long since fallen away in the lunar sphere. The Solar Sphere is pure goodness—radiant, luminous goodness. There is no place for evil within it. And we must live through this Solar existence—often as human beings for centuries on end—for time is, so to speak, more extended in the life between death and a new birth than it is here on Earth. As we live through this solar sphere, we not only enter the company of those souls who have now also passed through the gate of death from their earthly lives, who entered the spiritual world at the same time as we did, and with whom we were connected through karma, but we also enter the realm of the Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes within the solar sphere. These are beings who live entirely within spiritual forces—beings of a purely spiritual nature. And what we perceive as the moral environment in the solar sphere belongs to these beings just as the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms belong to the being of the Earth.

[ 2 ] If one wants to understand the life of the human soul in the solar sphere, one must be clear that here on Earth we stand as human beings, spatially enclosed, as it were, within our skin. We call everything that is within our skin “ourselves.” We call everything that is outside our skin “the world.” And we look out into the world from what is inside our skin. Exactly the opposite is true in life within the solar sphere. There, we are within everything that we here call the world; there, the Moon is within us, not outside us; Mercury is within us; indeed, the solar sphere itself, with its entire expanse, is within us, not outside us. And just as we here in earthly life distinguish between our body and our head, and are clear that the head must separate itself as the organ of cognition from the rest of the body when it is to function—just as we know that the head must be of a different nature than the rest of the body—so we know during life in the solar sphere: We have the world organism that belongs to us—as lunar beings, as Mercury beings, as Venus beings, as solar beings—within us. But we also have something special within us, just as we have the head here in earthly life. What we have as this special aspect within us is Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; they are, so to speak, our head in solar existence. We can say: In solar existence, the Moon, Mercury, and Venus become our limbs, while the Sun itself becomes our entire rhythmic system; our heart and lungs correspond, in life within the Sun, to the solar sphere itself with all its beings. In contrast, what here is the organ of understanding, the organ of reason—the head—is, in the solar sphere, what we find as Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Just as we can speak here with the mouth, the lowest part of our head, so do we live through the world-word by carrying Mars within our world-body. This resounds through all the expanses of space. And just as we carry thoughts within our heads here—these small, earthbound, minute thoughts—so do we carry world wisdom within us through Jupiter. And just as we have recollections and memories here, so do we carry within us, in our solar existence, the Saturn existence, which gives us world memory. And just as we live here in our skin and look out into the world, so do we live in our solar existence, as I have described it, and look upon the outer world, upon human beings. The human being is within our world. Not, of course, the human being of whom earthly anatomy speaks, but something that is in itself as vast and mighty, as majestic as the universe with all its stars.

[ 3 ] When we view it from an earthly perspective, my dear friends, it is indeed true: We actually—and this is good for earthly human beings, so that they do not succumb to megalomania—have far too low an opinion of what is contained within the human being. Essentially, if we take all human beings on Earth together, they are the bearers of all hierarchies; these hierarchies unfold their nature within the human being. That which is within the human being—which is far more magnificent than the entire starry world, all celestial paths and phenomena—is our outer world in the solar existence. And together with the beings I have named—the Exusiai, the Dynamis, Kyriotetes, along with the other beings who dwell on the Moon, the beings from the hierarchy of the Angeloi, the beings who dwell on Venus, the beings from the hierarchy of the Archai, and all the other human souls with whom we are karmically connected—we work out our next earthly existence from the perspective of the human body. And this work in the solar existence toward the creation of the next earthly human being—the next human life on Earth—this work is far more magnificent than anything humanity can produce in terms of culture and civilization on Earth. What Earth civilization ultimately offers is the work of human hands. The human being is not merely the work of human hands; he is permitted to collaborate in the solar existence on his future earthly life. It would be a pitiful outcome if human beings, in connection with other human souls, were to work solely on this marvelous structure that they represent in earthly life. They must cooperate with all the higher hierarchies. For what is born through the mother of the human being did not originate on Earth; only the setting, so to speak, originated on Earth. In what is given through physical heredity, a wondrous cosmic structure is embodied, one that was formed in the supersensible worlds within the solar existence.

[ 4 ] When one grasps such things with the proper capacity for insight, one must look up at the sun and say to oneself: Beautiful indeed is its physical radiance; beautiful is that which streams down to us on Earth as the sun’s warmth. But when we imbue ourselves with the knowledge of what the sun actually is, we feel: Up there, where the sun travels through the universe, lies the stage where future generations of human beings are first shaped in their spiritual archetypes; there, the higher hierarchies work in connection with the human souls who were on Earth in their previous earthly lives to form the people of the future. This solar sphere is, in fact, the spiritual embryo of what we foresee as earthly life in the future. And, fundamentally speaking, it is the first half of our solar existence that we spend in such a way that, together with the gods, we shape our future existence as earthly human beings out of this solar existence.

[ 5 ] Once we have lived through half the time of existence between death and a new birth and have arrived at what I have called the “Midnight Height” in my Mysteries, a different work begins. We have heard, after all, that the solar existence is pure goodness. If only what I have described to you had been brought about through the higher wisdom of the worlds, then it would not be human beings who would come to Earth, but angelic, godlike, benevolent beings. But these godlike, benevolent beings would have no freedom; there would be nothing free within them. For it would be in accordance with their nature—the solar existence from which they sprang—to do only good. They would have no choice between good and evil.

[ 6 ] In the second half of the Sun stage, a part of what has become human reality through the work of the Sun stage is transformed, so that it is, in a sense, sublimated into an image. At first, the human being is formed in such a way that, in terms of his organism, he should become a purely benevolent being. But then, in the second half of the Sun stage, a part of what is formed in the human being is not developed into a reality, but only into an image, so that we embark on the further path of the Sun stage partly as spiritual reality and partly as an image. That which is spiritual reality becomes the foundation for our body in the future Earth stage. In that which is merely an image, the foundation for our head is created. Because it is merely an image, it can be filled with much denser matter—with bone material. But at the same time, integrated into this part—which is an image, not spiritual reality but an image—is what we still experience here on Earth as an echo of this image. What our stomach, our liver, and so on require, we experience as a natural necessity. What resides within us as a moral impulse, we experience spiritually here on Earth; what we experience spiritually there—what resounds from our conscience as the moral impulse—is formed, in its potential, within what becomes an image here, in the human being’s solar germ formation.

[ 7 ] Well, my dear friends, the Earth in its evolution, and the evolution of humanity on Earth—they have a history. Culture and civilization develop throughout the course of history. The solar life that we undergo during the long period between death and a new birth also has a history. And the most important event in Earth’s history is the Mystery of Golgotha; indeed, in Earth’s history we distinguish between the events and facts that occurred before the Mystery of Golgotha and those that occurred after it. In a similar way, one must also distinguish, in the solar life that a human being undergoes between death and a new birth, between what took place there before the event of Golgotha occurred on Earth and what took place afterward. However, the situation is this: When we consider earthly life up to the event of Golgotha, we find that the Christ Being is not present on Earth; Christ is awaited on Earth, but He is not yet there—He is still in His solar existence. The initiates in the Mysteries had the means and ways to participate in the solar life from their mystery sites. When the initiates were able to rise to a state of knowledge beyond their physical bodies, they reached Christ through initiation, beyond the earthly experience, for Christ was to be found in the Sun. Following what took place on Earth through the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ is no longer in the Sun; He has united Himself with earthly existence. At first, Christ was present in the life of the Sun; afterward, He is no longer there—exactly the opposite of earthly life, where Christ is not present at first and then becomes present. But just as radically as the Christ impulse intervenes in earthly life, so too does it intervene in the life of the Sun. Just as it takes a great deal of effort here on Earth to deepen our soul life within ourselves to such an extent that we can experience Christ, that we may be filled inwardly by Christ, that we may be permeated by Christ—so, too, during solar life, it is difficult to survey and perceive the whole human being in terms of his essence, as I mentioned earlier. And in particular, in the early stages of human evolution—when instinctive clairvoyance certainly prevailed on Earth—it was difficult to perceive the human being in the solar life after death. The very fact that human beings on Earth perceived something spiritual within themselves made it difficult for them, precisely in the solar life, to perceive the mystery of the human being as an external world. Before the Mystery of Golgotha, it was Christ who gave human beings in the solar existence the power to truly perceive the human being in its entirety. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, we as human beings on Earth must undergo that inner deepening which can come to us through contemplating the Mystery of Golgotha, through living into the Mystery of Golgotha, and through participating in the life of Christ. In this way, during our earthly existence and in full consciousness, we can gather within ourselves those forces that we can carry with us through death and that can give us the strength to perceive the human being in the solar existence. And just as Christ, before the Mystery of Golgotha, gave human beings the power to perceive the human being in the solar existence during the life between death and a new birth, so too, after the Mystery of Golgotha, does He prepare human beings during their earthly life so that they may perceive the whole, complete human being in the solar existence. Thus, we can only truly come to know the essence of Christianity when we look out from earthly existence toward solar existence. And in the solar existence, as we have seen, we come to know a first half in which the human being is initially formed in reality, where he is pure goodness. Then the imaginal realm is brought into being, which extends into later human life, liberates the human being, and contains the seed of moral experience.

[ 8 ] When we approach, through initiated science, the moral dispositions and health forces that arise within the human being, we cannot perceive anything clearly with our imagination, inspiration, and intuition unless we allow ourselves to be empowered by them—unless we allow our imagination, inspiration, and intuition be empowered by what can become of us through that sphere into which the human being now gradually slips, as it were, out of the solar existence—the sphere of the Martian existence, the Jovian existence, and the Saturnian existence. And if we wish to assess this second half of human life—between death and a new birth—in its proper context, we must again look back in retrospect at certain seven-year epochs. But to grasp this in its full context, we must, as I have already indicated, have passed the age of sixty-three. When we look back over the period from the forty-second to the forty-ninth year of life, what shines out to us from this phase of life are the mysteries of Mars. From the forty-ninth to the fifty-sixth year of life, the mysteries of Jupiter shine out to us; and from the fifty-sixth to the sixty-third year of life, the mysteries of Saturn shine out to us. Simply by looking back at what shines out to us from this period, we can understand what takes place in Mars, what takes place in Jupiter, and what takes place in Saturn in preparation for the human being’s new earthly existence. For here, where the human being enters after passing through the solar existence—first into the Mars existence, then into the Jupiter existence, and later into the Saturn existence—the beings of the higher hierarchies are evidently at work for the human being: the Thrones, the Cherubim, and the Seraphim—in such a way that the Thrones appear in the sphere of Mars, the Cherubim in the sphere of Jupiter, and the Seraphim in the sphere of Saturn.

[ 9 ] When we now go through this second half of life between death and a new birth, it is, in a certain sense, the reverse of what it is like in earthly life. Here in earthly life, we stand on Earth, gaze out into the vastness of the starry world, behold the wonder of the starry world, and allow its grandeur to work upon us. As we move on from the solar stage, preparing for our future earthly life, through the spheres of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, we find ourselves—wherever we look—in a state of religious life. But we look down toward the Earth. There, the Earth does not appear to us in the physical way we experience it here around us; rather, there appears to us—I would say, in the direction of the Earth—a mighty spiritual life, woven from the events of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, woven from the deeds of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. But now it is not quite as it was before, when we felt everything from the world within us. We felt the Exusiai, Kyriotetes, and Dynamis within us; and as we now experience, looking down, the deeds of the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones, we first see outside of ourselves; we see the supersensible heaven beneath us, for the purely spiritual world lies above us. We see the supersensible heaven; we look down into the spheres of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and see Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim living, striving, and working in their own way. But what a sight presents itself to us as we observe this work! — We are presented with the sight of experiencing, in a supersensible way, among the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones, that which will be the fulfillment of our karma in our next earthly life—what we will experience as human beings through other human beings, because in a certain sense we have woven a karmic bond with them; we experience this first through the deeds of the gods among the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones. They work it out among themselves—what we will experience in our next earthly life as the fulfillment of our karma. The gods are truly the creators of humankind; but they also create our karma. The fact that the gods first experience the fulfillment of karma in the heavenly realm makes an impression on us that remains etched in our minds as we continue our existence. We take upon ourselves our karma—as it will be fulfilled—because we first behold it in the divine deeds of the seraphim, cherubim, and thrones. Thus, in this vision, we experience what will come upon us in our next earthly life, carried out by the gods.

[ 10 ] You can see from this that through the science of initiation, knowledge of karma can be gained if one traces human life during the second half of the passage from death to a new birth and is able to decipher what takes place through the “Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim” in the spheres of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. And the one who has learned to look back in spirit on his life from the age of forty-two to forty-nine is also given the opportunity to penetrate the mysteries of Mars, the events on Mars, and, so to speak, to see what is happening there—mainly among the Thrones, but generally among the Thrones, Seraphim and Cherubim—as the human being passes through this sphere. Here in earthly life alone, one cannot judge a person’s karma as it unfolds. One must turn to the supersensible world for help. And if one wishes to study karma, one must look specifically at that part of the world which a person passes through between death and a new birth in the spheres of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Now it is the case that for certain people, what takes place in the sphere of Mars is precisely what determines their next earthly life.

[ 11 ] They gaze upon the sphere of Mars, caught between death and a new birth, and observe what is taking place. There, it is primarily what I would like to call the “Word of the Worlds.” Everything is Word. The beings of Mars are, if I may use the expression, merely beings of the Word. Imagine this: a human being consists of flesh and blood; he speaks, thereby setting the air in motion. As the sound waves strike our ears, we hear them; the sounds take form in sound waves. In the same way, the beings of Mars are formed from such waves; their entire being consists of words. By listening with the spirit, one experiences these beings. When one looks back in later life on the period from the age of forty-two to forty-nine—when this sphere exerts its strongest influence on a person between death and a new birth, and when one’s karma is primarily worked out—then what one will experience on Earth is very closely connected to one’s existence on Mars; for from the life beyond, during that decisive period, they look down through the sphere of Mars; they form a vision of an earthly life that is indeed very closely connected to their existence on Mars. Let us take an example. Let us take a person who lived at a time when the Arabs, under the impetus of Muhammad, streamed out from Asia in a warlike manner from North Africa to Europe, threatening the Spanish kingdoms and establishing Moorish and Arab rule. Let us take a person who, during this period before the spread of Arab rule in Africa, studied the science of knowledge according to the customs of the time. Such a person existed; within North Africa, he absorbed—not quite in the same way, but in a similar manner to what you know historically of St. Augustine—North African scholarship. I am not referring here to St. Augustine, but to another figure who later absorbed North African scholarship in a somewhat different way, one colored by Moorish-Arabic influences. This figure then traveled to Spain—to what is now Spain—where he underwent a sort of transformation in his beliefs, turning more toward a Christian worldview and intermingling the Arab concepts he had previously absorbed with the Christian concepts he had come to embrace. Something of what was already a form of Kabbalistic scholarship then entered this individual—not yet what is commonly called Kabbalah, but the first stirrings of Kabbalistic thought had already taken root within this individual. Thus, this individual harbored many doubts, internal doubts, and inner uncertainty, and died in this state of uncertainty. It was a male personality who, relatively soon afterward in the Middle Ages—before the middle of the Middle Ages—was reborn as a woman, where everything that life had accumulated in terms of doubts within this personality became more deeply ingrained in the very nature of that personality. And this personality then reappeared later, reappearing in such a way that—partly already beforehand, partly during the life between death and a new birth— transitioned from a woman’s life back to a man’s life in such a way that she primarily shaped her destiny for her next earthly life through the sphere of Mars and was thereby connected in her next life to all that lives and weaves on Earth as sharp intellectual judgment—intellectual judgment that often had a conceptual and warlike character. It is from the personality I have characterized here across two incarnations that Voltaire then emerged.

[ 12 ] You can see how, in the life between death and a new birth, earthly life takes shape through the connection between the human being and that which lives beyond the stars. We can only truly come to know earthly life in its historical course when we are able to look at the connection between one human life and the other earthly lives of the same person.

[ 13 ] How, then, do the things that existed as causes and effects in earlier epochs of historical development carry over into the new epoch? — Human beings themselves carry them over. All of you sitting here have carried over into the present epoch of civilization what you are experiencing, from your experiences in earlier epochs. Human beings themselves shape history. But we can only understand this shaping of history if we are able to look closely—not merely engage in abstract chatter, but look concretely at what happens to human beings between death and a new birth.

[ 14 ] Of particular importance for understanding human life on Earth is the karmic development that takes place when a person brings with them from their previous Earth lives the specific condition that they create the main impulses of their karma during their Saturn existence. People who create the main impulses of their karma during the Mars phase become like Voltaire. They are strongly connected in all their thoughts to earthly life, criticizing it, fighting against it, and so on, and they likely also find that they can—as Voltaire does so brilliantly—summarize it in aphorisms. The situation is different when karma is formed primarily through Saturn impulses. These Saturn impulses actually have a very special effect on human beings. Even the mere contemplation of the mysteries of Saturn—which one surveys when looking back on one’s earthly life between the ages of fifty-six and sixty-three—even the sight of these mysteries has, in many respects, something deeply oppressive and unsettling about it; in a certain sense, it is alien to earthly life. And whoever, through the science of initiation, gradually experiences over the course of the years between the ages of fifty-six and sixty-three how the mysteries of Saturn are revealed to them, experiences this as dramatically intensifying, becoming more and more shattering—though it is also something that becomes increasingly difficult to experience because it strikes at the very core of life. But one might say: The whole wondrous significance of the human being can be discovered in its context by looking into how karma is formed in this sphere. — Here, too, is an example; though I must, of course, foreshadow one thing.

[ 15 ] A question might arise among all of you, my dear friends, one that would be entirely justified—the question based on the assertion that I, too, often make in books and lectures: that in ancient times there were great initiates who lived among humanity. You may ask: Where are they in the present, in later times? — And probably, if you look around at the present: of the many people active today, you would not claim that they possess the character of initiates, and after all, this has long been the case. So one must ask the question: Where are the initiates in their later incarnations?

[ 16 ] Someone who, in a previous incarnation, appeared outwardly as a fully conscious initiate does not necessarily have to become one again in a subsequent incarnation. The initiation may remain in the subconscious. Human beings must simply use whatever body a given age can provide. Today’s bodies are not very well suited to spiritual science; they are a constant obstacle because they stem from a materialistically oriented era, and our upbringing from childhood onward is an even greater obstacle. If one grows up in this environment and was previously an initiate in ancient times, one cannot once again live out outwardly what remained of the initiation for this incarnation. One learns to write, but what was once the science of the initiates cannot be expressed in the current form of writing. And so it is in other aspects of life. And so it is that, in fact, initiates of earlier epochs do indeed make a great impact in life in other ways, but not as initiates. And many lives in the present and the immediate past point back to earlier initiation. You see, I would like to give you an example—an example of a personality who was truly initiated in earlier earthly lives. It was precisely a person who had been initiated into the Hibernian Mysteries—the mysteries of Ireland—during the first century of the Christian era, when the ancient great mysteries of Ireland were already in decline but still preserved the great knowledge. There lived a person who had been initiated to a higher degree. Now, the Irish Mysteries were of a very special depth—not an intellectual depth, but a depth that was universal to humanity. For example, one of the ritual impressions one received was this: After having been prepared at length regarding the deceptive nature of truth on Earth and the possibility of doubt, one was to experience through imagery that which can make a profound impression only through imagery. The student was then brought before two statues. One appeared to be completely elastic, yet hollow inside. It was of majestic size and made a powerful impression through its entire presence. The student was required to touch it. This act of touching sent a terrible shiver through him; the statue gave the impression of being alive—one would dig into it with a finger, pull back, and immediately the form would restore itself. One got the impression of a life that was there, one that immediately restores itself even if it is destroyed only slightly. This was meant to symbolize everything in the human being that is sun-like.

[ 17 ] The other statue was more three-dimensional. Once again, people felt their way around it. The impression this created lingered. Only when one was led back there the next day did one find that everything had been restored during the night. Such ritual practices brought about a transformation of inner life. And so a personality—who at that time also lived as a male—had received a deep impression from these Irish mysteries. You will understand, my dear friends, that when examples of incarnations are cited today, one easily encounters male incarnations, because in earlier epochs it was almost exclusively men who played a role. The female incarnations lie in between. Today, as women begin to play a major role in historical development, the time is approaching when we will speak more intensively about female incarnations.

[ 18 ] Now we encounter a personality upon whom the ritual initiation ceremonies of the Hybernian Mysteries made an immense impression, deeply moving her inner being; and one might say that she was so filled with the inner impressions of what she experienced that she actually forgot the Earth entirely with her whole soul. After having also lived a life as a woman—in which only a faint trace of earlier initiatory impulses was evident in her general state of soul—she returned to Earth in the nineteenth century as a significant figure of that century, but one who was working through the consequences of her karma in the Saturn sphere—that sphere where one lives among beings who, in essence, have no present existence. This is what is so profoundly unsettling when one views the Saturn sphere clairvoyantly, in the sense that I have explained: that in the Saturn sphere there live beings who actually have no present, but only look back on their past. What they do happens unconsciously, and an action they perform only comes to consciousness after it has taken place and been inscribed in world karma. Encountering these beings, who trail their past behind them like a spiritual comet’s tail, is deeply unsettling. To these beings—this personality, who had once been initiated and had transcended earthly existence—to these beings who take no part in the present moment, this personality carried its soul and shaped its karma. It is truly as if, in a magnificent, majestic way, everything that had been experienced as an initiated existence were to illuminate the entire past of human earthly lives from afar. What was experienced through the Hyberian initiation is absorbed into that past like a fertilizing influence. When this personality then appeared on Earth, the contrast in which the soul now had to develop on Earth gave rise to impulses for the future. When this soul—immediately upon descending to Earth from the sphere of Saturn, with its gaze fully fixed on the past in such a way that the past was illuminated by the light of initiation—then descended to Earth, it embodied the contrast: standing firmly on Earth, yet looking toward the future, living out weighty, far-reaching ideas, impulses, and feelings! From this Hyperian initiate emerges Victor Hugo. — We truly see a person only when we view them in context, within their development, including the period between death and a new birth. We see them with their moral, religious, and ethical qualities when we look at them in this way. A personality is not diminished by being illuminated with the light of the spirit, but rather enriched.

[ 19 ] How can one understand, through such examples—which have truly been extracted with the utmost precision by spiritual science from the evolution of humanity—how can one understand human life and the interaction between the world and human beings? For example, how does a third example help us understand certain things that might otherwise seem puzzling to someone looking at the matter with an open mind? How does a karmic connection in these cases help us understand something that seems quite strange—or otherwise incomprehensible?

[ 20 ] Here, too, we see a kind of mystery, but one that has fallen into complete decay. The mysteries that once played a major role in America, but which have fallen into decadence, so that the ideas that had formed about the cults, and the performance of the cults themselves, had become—I would say—quite childish compared to the grandeur that once existed. Even in the superstitious, enchanting, and magical aspects of these mysteries prior to the discovery of America—that is, not very long ago—there is still a trace of the power, of the suggestive power, of these ancient mysteries. There lived, however, a figure within this context—of whom I wish to speak—who, within these mysteries, received not only ideas but also impressions of such spiritual forces as are referred to there as Taotel, Quetzalcoatl, and Tetzcatlipoca—entities that certainly make a strong, though I would say impure, impression on people. It is often a characteristic of decayed mysteries that they make an impure impression with regard to ethics. I see this individual later reborn as a man, his subconscious deeply permeated by the suggestive power that can emanate from such mysteries. There we see this individual reborn as Eliphas Levi, and within him revives—simply through abstract, rationalistic, and purely external concepts—that which is in fact a decayed mystery entity. This immediately sheds light on an otherwise enigmatic figure whose writings possess a certain grandeur, but also contain elements that render the human soul entirely incoherent—and, in a certain sense, even foolish and dull.

[ 21 ] Wherever we look, life becomes clear to us through the connections that anthroposophy must point out—not in an abstract way, but in a concrete one. But can you imagine, my dear friends, receiving genuine descriptions of what lies beyond earthly life without these descriptions stirring your hearts, warming your souls, and illuminating your inner being? Doesn’t human life look different—and indeed feel different—after birth and death when one truly allows these descriptions of the supersensible life to take effect upon the soul with all one’s inner strength? — Then one looks and knows: One has descended from a world that can be described; we carry into the physical world that which has lived among the gods. — To grasp this merely theoretically is not the essential point. But to feel, as a human being, that we have descended from such a sphere—one that can be described in this way—means that we, as human beings in our sensory-physical bodies on Earth, feel responsible for becoming worthy of that which has descended with us. If this insight becomes an inner impulse of the will—to become worthy of our soul life prior to our descent through birth—then what is taught in anthroposophy becomes directly moral. This living out of moral impulses is an essential aspect of anthroposophy. I believe this may also have emerged from the nature of the description in these three lectures.

[ 22 ] Let us now turn to the other aspect—the aspect of death, which brings physical life on Earth to a close. It replaces the place where a person lived with nothingness. But when we describe what we have been able to describe from the supersensible world, then the spiritual world of the gods rises up behind that nothingness, and the human being gains the awareness that they will have the power to begin the work of creating a new physical body in the very place where the nothingness of their physical body has come to rest. This provides the powerful religious impulse—and this provides the genuine religious impulse. Thus, my dear friends, a picture of world life and human life springs from anthroposophy. Thus, moral and religious ideals arise from anthroposophy. I wanted to speak to you a little about this content of anthroposophy in the three short lectures I was able to give before you.

[ 23 ] I would like to conclude these lectures by drawing your attention to what must also be present among us as living anthroposophy, as essential anthroposophy—so that even when we part ways physically, we remain united in spirit. Our thoughts will find one another, and in reality we are not actually parting ways. Because we gain understanding through anthroposophy, through the contemplation of the supersensible, we know that those individuals whom anthroposophy has brought together can always remain united in spirit and soul. Therefore, let us conclude these branch lectures by saying to one another: We—you and I—were together physically for a while; let us remain very closely united in spirit! With that, I hereby conclude these reflections before you.