The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixteenth Lecture

[ 1 ] Let us compare what our direct experiences reveal to us about our relationship to life between birth and death with what a person must inwardly feel regarding the connection between their spiritual and moral behavior, thoughts, and actions and the outcome of that spiritual and moral behavior. After all, it is precisely such reflections that have served as our starting point on these evenings, and we will once again bring our discussions back to such reflections in conclusion. We see that when we look, on the one hand, at the way in which our moral and spiritual actions arise from our intentions and from the entire mood of our soul, we must—if we look at ourselves impartially—describe one part of our actions as morally good, namely those that can fit into the world process; the other actions as morally evil, morally imperfect—those that cannot, in a spiritual sense, fit into the world process. But everything that happens to human beings cannot merely have a momentary significance—as everyone actually tells themselves—just as everything in nature does not merely have its momentary significance; rather, everything has its effects, its consequences; everything becomes the cause of something else or is the effect of something else. Human life would not fit into the course of world events at all if what it carries within itself were not also cause and effect. But while we can be completely satisfied when we observe in nature how something arises from its cause, we cannot at all be satisfied with the connection between our moral and spiritual experience and the course of the world. We see how, in physical events, no direct connection emerges between what is to become of our moral and spiritual constitution and what actually happens in the course of physical life. And likewise, when we allow events in the wider human sphere to take effect upon us, we see that the person who, when one considers his soul, appears to be morally and spiritually good may be afflicted by misfortune and evil in the world, while the one who is spiritually weak, bad, or wicked, can certainly be struck by external events that are by no means a form of retribution or the like for what lives within the constitution of his soul. In short, when we survey nature, we find no connection between what a person experiences—what they experience as fate—and the essence of their will, and it would be, one might say, a completely irresponsible illusion if a person were to delude themselves, in this one earthly life, into believing that the course of their fateful life somehow results as an effect of their moral will. The wicked can be happy, and the good can be unhappy. Yet these two statements summarize what, in earthly life, initially makes this earthly existence incomprehensible to higher humanity. And from this we shall see how human beings, as they are placed in the world, are not in a position to bring about the corresponding consequences of their actions: in the individual earthly life, the moral remains an inner state of soul, an inner mood of the soul, and cannot manifest itself directly in external physical reality. However, it is true that the state of the soul can manifest as a real effect of the moral mood of the soul. We may feel inner, soulful satisfaction because of our good behavior, even though misfortune befalls us that stands in stark contrast to what we have actually brought about; but what is brought about in this way remains, nonetheless, an inner, soulful experience. Human beings must admit to themselves: Within physical life, they are incapable of externally realizing in the physical world what they carry within themselves morally and spiritually.

[ 2 ] When we consider karma—as we have done in recent days—and how earlier earthly lives influence later ones, we arrive at such an inner, corresponding connection between the later and the earlier in the spiritual-moral realm. But to put it briefly: Here in physical earthly life, human beings have an organization that reflects the soul-level consequences of their moral behavior back into their soul, preventing them from emerging into an “earthly life.” In this earthly life, human beings are powerless to actualize what they carry within their souls in terms of morality. Human beings are powerless; their outer, physical corporeality and their etheric substance render them powerless. In the life between death and a new birth, the human being becomes just as powerful as he is powerless here in physical life. But if, here in physical life, the physical body and the etheric body hinder him—if they render him powerless—then there must be something in the life between death and a new birth that empowers him to realize it physically there and in subsequent earthly lives as well. Here, with our physical body and our etheric body, we are within the realms of nature. That which we must draw from the realm of nature for our physical and etheric bodies during our physical earthly life is what renders us powerless. With that which we take with us through the gate of death—our own soul-spiritual being—we become powerful after death, because between death and a new birth, just as we are connected to the realms of nature on Earth, we are connected to the beings of the higher hierarchies. The beings of the higher hierarchies are indeed divided into three realms: the lowest realm, so to speak—Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi; the middle realm—Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes; and the highest realm—Throne, Cherubim, Seraphim. In the course of these lectures, we have described how human beings live in connection with the very essence of the stars and, through this, with these higher hierarchies between death and a new birth. However, in order for the moral-spiritual aspect of our earthly life to manifest itself, the following must take place.

[ 3 ] First, we must truly keep within our soul that which is the effect of our moral and spiritual states of mind, emotion, and will; we must wait until we receive help from the beings of the higher hierarchies during the life between death and rebirth. Only then will what we carry within our souls be carried through the spiritual world, reemerge in a new earthly life, and appear in the form in which it is meant to appear. What would we be, after all, if we could immediately bring to fruition in earthly life what we carry within us morally and spiritually? We would not be the human beings of earthly life! Imagine that you carried within yourself something of a moral and spiritual nature, something about which you could rightly perceive that it would create a happy world situation—and suppose that you could bring this about. What would you be then? You would be a magician, not a human being of earthly life! For when such a spiritual-soul aspect is brought about directly, it is essentially a magical effect. In the course of a single earthly life, between birth and death, in our present world cycle, a human being is not a magician; but he is a magician in conjunction with the beings of the higher hierarchies, in that he acts between death and a new birth and continues these effects when, from this life between death and a new birth, he descends once more into earthly life. It is the karmic development of the human being through these two very different modes of existence—the earthly one and that between death and a new birth—that is, in fact, the realm in which the human being acts magically. When we consider the physical human being as he appears to us in outer life, he is divided for us—as I mentioned at the end of my book On the Mysteries of the Soul—into the nervous-sensory human being, the rhythmic human being, and the metabolic-limb human being. Metabolism and the limbs are, of course, interconnected; when we use our limbs, metabolism is stimulated—it must take place, and forces within the human being must be expended. Metabolism must take place; in inner experience, too, metabolism must take place. But the two are related. When we first look at the human metabolic system as it manifests in the physical body, we are tempted to regard it as the lowest system of human existence on Earth. There are indeed people who call themselves idealists precisely because they have grown accustomed, with a certain contempt, to looking down upon the metabolic-limb system. It is the lowest system, the very system that the idealistic, respectable person would prefer not to have. Yet one cannot exist in earthly life without it; it is what represents the human being in all their imperfection in earthly life.

[ 4 ] What we have here is precisely this: Although the metabolic-limb system is the lowest aspect of the physical human form and therefore has little to do with what is truly human in earthly life, it is already connected in earthly life to the beings of the highest hierarchy—the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. When we walk around in the world or work with our hands, the activity of the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim is present within this mysterious activity that takes place. But they remain helpers when the human being continues his life after death and lives on between death and a new birth. There they remain helpers. It is entirely mistaken to believe that the moral-spiritual aspect originates in the head. The head is, in reality—viewed from a higher perspective—not at all such an immensely important organ of the human being. The head is actually more or less a mirror for the external world, and if we had only the head, we would know nothing except the external world. The external world is simply reflected in the head. The experiences of the head are merely reflections of the external world. That which lives within us in the form of moral and soul impulses does not come from the head; it comes from the same region where the metabolic-limb system is located—but not from the physical aspect of the metabolic-limb system, rather from the spiritual-soul aspect of the metabolic-limb system, within which the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim dwell.

[ 5 ] And so, in order to gain an appropriate understanding of the human being in this area, we must imagine the following (illustration follows): This third aspect of the human being—the metabolic-limb system—appears at first glance to be imperfect; indeed, one might say, unworthy of the human being in terms of his physical and etheric organization. But there is something else within it—or rather, this system is embedded in something else: within it dwell the Thrones—I am drawing only schematically, of course—within it the Cherubim weave, within it the Seraphim blaze. When the human being passes through the gate of death, everything that underlies the physical metabolic-limb system falls away from him, and he remains with his I-being in the realm of that in which he already existed during life: in the realm of the Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim; then he lives on in the bosom of the Cherubim and Seraphim. He then separates from them, but they continue to shape—as I have also pointed out in recent days—that which was predisposed in the soul-moral realm. As I have already said, here on Earth, the human being looks up toward heaven to sense what the Higher, the spiritual-super-sensible, is to him. This is what the human being does as long as he is on Earth. When a human being is in the life between death and a new birth, he looks down and observes what becomes of his soul-moral conduct through the actions of the Cherubim, Seraphim, and Thrones. There he sees, when he descends again to Earth, the consequences unfolding below; there the Cherubim, Seraphim, and Thrones contribute to the realization of the spiritual. Thus, once we have become aware of this, we see that human beings magically send the effects of their deeds from their present earthly life into their next earthly lives.

[ 6 ] Now that we have looked at the metabolic-limb system in order to consider this, let us turn our attention to the system that is polar opposites to it—the nervous-sensory system, which, although it is also present throughout the entire human being, is primarily located in the head. Let us look at the human head. Through his head, the human being in fact experiences only a reflection of the present external world. His thoughts and ideas—in which, as I told you, he is solely awake—are, in fact, merely reflections of the outside world through the head. But when one ascends to the science of initiation—first to imaginative knowledge—one then, as you know, returns through imaginative knowledge, its transformation into inspirational knowledge, and then through intuitive knowledge, to one’s earlier earthly lives. One then looks into these earlier earthly lives, but one sees them in their spiritual form. In the spiritual world, knowledge is also something entirely real. And the one who, with true initiatory knowledge, goes through the experience of looking into past earthly lives does not feel as though he were merely present here and now, on June 15, 1924, but rather becomes present within the course of those past earthly lives; he does not merely look into them, but looks back upon himself in his entire being. It is not an abstract, intellectual gaze; it is a transformation back, a oneness, a becoming one with what one was. The inner self becomes very alive, deeply moved and stirred, when one returns to those past earthly lives. But by going back, one gains the ability to change the perspective of one’s worldview.

[ 7 ] What, then, is the perspective of the external worldview that people usually hold? The perspective of the external worldview that people usually hold is the head. This head, which is based on the physical structure of the head—this head that you had in earlier earthly lives, even in your previous earthly life—you cannot make it the point of view for your worldview once you have gone back into earlier earthly lives; you cannot do that, for it is long gone, it is no longer there. Only the spiritual aspect that lived in the head can serve as the starting point for your worldview. Initiation, therefore, consists in a person becoming spiritualized by returning to their past earthly lives. And in fact, all clairvoyance—in the best sense of the word—means a return to past earthly lives. To be initiated means not to remain stuck in one’s “present earthly life,” but to view the things of the world through the eyes of the person one was in a previous earthly life. Whereas in the ordinary course of life one is such an imperfect being in earthly existence that one sees only the outer physical world, the person one was in previous earthly lives has, in the meantime, already become clairvoyant. And as a rule, when one returns to the immediately preceding earthly life, one makes the discovery: the person one was back then has, in fact, already become a much more perfect human being.

[ 8 ] Yes, why is it that what one could be after a previous earthly life is not, in fact, that? Why is that? You see, if a human being had only a head and passed from one earthly life to the next, then in the next earthly life one would be exactly the same as in the previous one, just as I have explained. But one does not have just the head; one has the other systems attached to it. And because the metabolic-limb system contains the magical principle of the human being—which in turn acts through karma—karma carries the human head over from one earthly life to the next. Karma is therefore directly at work in shaping your head. And when one begins to develop, in this field, an unbiased view of human nature, one will gradually learn to read much of a person’s karma from the physiognomy of their head. And again: looking at a person’s head as it is viewed today with ordinary consciousness is just like taking Goethe’s Faust and beginning: “H-a-b-e n-u-n a-c-h,” because one can only spell it out, not read it. One can no longer say “Habe nun, ach.” But once one has learned to read, one will penetrate these strange symbols that are written there and understand what they mean. I’ve already told you: this is brought about by the simple fact that, whereas one would otherwise perceive only about thirty different letter forms in all books, one has Goethe’s Faust in one book, Hegel’s Logic in another, the Bible in a third, and so on. The fact that one can have this stems solely from having learned to read. In the same way, one can learn to read in what surrounds one in life. And the progression from spelling out the shape of the human head to reading within it then leads one into the mysteries of the karma of the person in question. So that we can say, regarding what becomes visible in the shape of the head—truly visible on the outside—that every person has their own head; no two people have exactly the same head shape. — Although people often look similar, they are dissimilar in their karma. In the shape of the head, a person’s past karma becomes apparent to physical-sensory perception; in the metabolic-limb system, future karma; there it is spiritually hidden, invisible. Thus, when we speak of the human being in spiritual terms, we can say: The human being consists, on the one hand, in making his past karma visible, and on the other hand, in carrying his future karma invisibly within himself.

[ 9 ] In this way, we can ascend to an inner, spiritual contemplation of the human being. When we consider the human being as a system of metabolism and limbs, only the physical and the etheric are of a lower nature; the beings of the highest hierarchy dwell within the metabolic and limb system. If we turn to the head, the head is indeed, in a physical-sensory sense, the most perfect part of the human being, because it outwardly and visibly bears within itself that which spiritually influences us from previous earthly lives—and indeed, it is usually valued the most—but it is not the most perfect in a spiritual sense. For while Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim dwell in the metabolic-limb system, Archai, Archangeloi, and Angeloi dwell in the head system. It is they who essentially stand behind everything we experience with our head in the physical-sensory world. They live within us, in our head system; they act behind our consciousness, they encounter the effects of the purely physical-sensory world and reflect them back, and we become aware only of these reflections. What we become conscious of in the head system is merely the appearance of the actions of the Archai, Archangeloi, and Angeloi within us (this is illustrated). If I am to continue this outline, I must say: In the human head system, at the other pole, the Archai, Archangeloi, and Angeloi are at work. — For these spiritual beings, which could just as well be named with other terms, I always use the terms from the older Christian worldview, which still retained the spiritual and the mental.

[ 10 ] Between the nervous-sensory system, which is primarily anchored in the head, and the metabolic system, the human being possesses the rhythmic system. Within this rhythmic system lies what takes place between the lungs and the heart. Within all of this lives the hierarchy of Exusiai, Dynamis, and Kyriotetes.

[ 11 ] Thus, even at the conclusion of these reflections on karma, the insight once again emerges that human beings are, in a sense, open to the three realms of nature that exist here on Earth, and that they are open to the spiritual realms of the hierarchies that lie above them. And just as here on Earth his physical body receives him and prevents him from realizing his soul-ethical life in a magical way, so after death the world of the hierarchies receives him and allows him to live out in a magical way—for his next Earth lives—that which he did not realize magically in one Earth life. When a human being passes from one earthly life into the next, if he were to develop in a regular manner, he would under all circumstances evolve toward clairvoyance using the head system from his previous earthly life; the Archai, Archangeloi, and Angeloi would guide him into clairvoyance. Therefore, if a person truly comprehends the spiritual realm—and what can be called clairvoyance (without implying anything superstitious or charlatan-like)—then, even though they have advanced in the outer world to their present earthly life, they must, in a sense, place themselves within their previous earthly life with a cosmic mindset.

[ 12 ] So if anyone lives, say, in the twentieth century, he makes use of the body—and, in order to gain knowledge, he must then make use of his head—that the twentieth century can provide him. Thus, he cannot be clairvoyant. But let us suppose that he is transported back to a previous earthly life, for example, in the tenth or eleventh century, and that through his soul exercises—now, in this time of the twentieth century—he transports himself back to what he was then: then he is not the same person he was back then, but through his own power he has spiritually brought about the fact that, for the twentieth century, he is now the person he was back then—and there he is precisely the clairvoyant personality. This is precisely how clairvoyance can arise for initiatory knowledge within life in the physical world. But when one looks into human life, it actually becomes evident to clairvoyant insight that in the deeper impulses of human nature, in the deeper recesses of the soul, what was in a previous earthly life revives once more in a different form. In this regard, many things can be experienced, and the point is that if one wishes to seriously approach such matters as the workings of karma, one must shape one’s earthly experience in a more intimate spiritual and soulful way than is usually the case.

[ 13 ] I would like to illustrate what I have said with an example. You know from the way I have presented such examples that they are in fact drawn from responsible spiritual research. I would like to cite an example.

[ 14 ] A human individuality lived, shortly before the founding of Christianity, in the European-Asian Orient, where this human soul was tasked with a duty that was, at that time, of little satisfaction—it was the era when slavery still prevailed—namely, to exercise overall supervision over a number of slaves who belonged to a master, an owner. Supernatural insight leads one into such a situation, where a human soul of that time, embodied in the body of a slave overseer, had to carry out everything that the harsh master of these slaves commanded. The slaves had to deal with the overseer first and foremost. Moral relationships developed between the slaves and this overseer. But there is actually a great inner conflict in this overseer’s soul. He is reluctant to carry out the often harsh, cruel measures ordered by his master. Yet he does so because he has become accustomed to this relationship, because it was considered natural at that time to behave in this way. Just think about it: Are people today always the way they actually want to be? They simply do not reflect on whether they are the way they ought to be. In doing so, they deceive themselves about the disharmony between what they are and what they would like to be. So this soul was not what she should have been; but deep down, she felt profound compassion and deep love for all the unfortunate slaves upon whom she was forced to inflict cruelty. Yet, due to—I would say—social conventions, she inflicted much harm upon the slaves. As a result, she bore shared responsibility, although the primary responsibility, of course, lay with the master and owner of the slaves.

[ 15 ] Both individuals returned in the middle of the Middle Ages, this time as a married couple. The former owner of the slaves returned in a male incarnation, while the slave overseer returned in a female one. This man in the Middle Ages, who was the reincarnated former owner of the slaves, held a position in a sort of village community that was not exactly pleasant. In a sense, he was a kind of police henchman. Everything that happened in this community was dumped on his shoulders. He was actually in a very, very bad situation. And when one investigates why this was so, one comes to the conclusion: These villagers were, for the most part, the slaves he had once owned, and whom he had had his overseer treat in such a manner. Karmically, it turned out that the former owner, though once a high-ranking official, had now become the village constable upon whom everything was dumped—and thus the burden was also placed upon his wife. But at the same time, because this wife suffered along with her husband everything that the slaves—now transformed into the village community—unloaded onto him, karma was also fulfilled between this wife, who had formerly been the slave overseer, and the slave owner. The bond between the two was severed. The bonds between these two had been severed, but not yet between this slave overseer—who had now appeared in a female incarnation—and the village community. They were reunited in the nineteenth century. The former slave overseer, who had in a certain way settled his relationship with his former master, appeared as the great educator Pestalozzi, and those who had been his slaves appeared as the very people to whom he now bestowed his benevolence as an educator.

[ 16 ] Yes, that is indeed the case. One must view such things not only with dry reason; one must view them with the heart, feeling, and love—but in such a way that feeling, the heart, and love become as clear and bright as reason otherwise is, and true understanding can develop. The intellect can only develop images of external nature, and if one believes one is arriving at something other than the image of nature, one is mistaken. You can only attain this “something else” when the heart, feeling, and love become powers of insight. It is only by transporting oneself back in karmic development in the manner described that one can gradually work one’s way toward an understanding of how karma operates. But then the whole soul must be involved. That is why the essence of such discussions about karma must engage the whole person.

[ 17 ] You see, these things have to happen so that the soul can truly become immersed in the anthroposophical movement. I was actually deeply moved just the other day. I had to present the same material I just shared with you about Pestalozzi in Dornach as well, and was then given the opportunity to visit a Basel government office with another member of the Dornach Executive Committee. In the waiting room there was a painting—the well-known one that the other person who was with me had also seen many times before—depicting Pestalozzi interacting with the children. But this friend from the esoteric Dornach Executive Committee was deeply moved by this picture, and he said: “When one looks at this picture, which is drawn from Pestalozzi’s very being, the situation could not actually have unfolded any differently than how it is all depicted by anthroposophy.” — You see, these are precisely the kinds of things that should happen more often—things that could truly bring into immediate experience what arises from anthroposophical insights. That is why the discussions on karma, which I have now had the great pleasure of conducting with you, cannot merely claim to be understood intellectually; rather, everything that has been explored over these eight days appeals not only to your intellect but also to your heart and your entire being. And only when you bring together what I have said about the reincarnation of historical figures, about the consideration of individual karma, and about the interplay of sleep and wakefulness in the development of karma—and allow this to take effect in your hearts and minds—will these reflections be able to give rise to a comprehensive understanding of the effects of karma in individual human personalities.

[ 18 ] This integration of what people today are so fond of viewing solely in intellectual terms into the whole human being—that, and that alone, is what will restore our civilization, which is now in decline. What does the Eastern person say today about Western humanity? The Eastern person today does not possess a spirituality that we can simply adopt, but rather a spirituality that in ancient times truly gazed deeply into the spiritual world. He has only traces of it left, yet he still carries within his soul a sense of what once existed in the East: a coexistence with the Spirit that lives in all things. This is possessed by those who do not lose themselves in materialism. One of these Easterners, who had a particular sense for the very essence of the spirituality inherent in Eastern wisdom, said, as he observed Western civilization: “What is peculiar about this? It is peculiar in that it has only a facade and no foundation walls. The facade rises directly from the ground; the foundation walls are missing.” — And this Eastern man goes on to explain: “Yes, in everything that belongs to his civilization—in almost everything—the Westerner proceeds from the ‘I,’ from the ‘I’ confined to a single earthly life, from that which appears, as one perceives it, to have no reality. It is a reality only when it goes beyond itself and leads into successive earthly lives.”

[ 19 ] The Eastern thinker regards the progression through successive earthly lives as the foundation, and the dwelling within the “I”—as it is enclosed between birth and death—as the façade. Have we not seen today that when a person looks into the spiritual realm, they will once again look back into the past? When they look back at karmic development in the magical sense, they must have based their perspective on the concept of successive earthly lives. There, the “I” is expanded; there, the “I” will no longer be egoistic. The Eastern thinker says that Europeans can find the “I” only within the span of birth and death; he calls this the egoism of Europeans. That is why he says: The European—and Western civilization in general—has a facade but no foundation, and if things continue in such a way that Western civilization remains confined to the “I” that lives between birth and death, then a day may come when, because the facade has no foundation, the individual stones of the facade will fall out. — This image of stones crumbling from a facade that has no foundation actually exists in the souls of many Eastern people, because they live so much in their imaginations. It is precisely the insight into such things, as we have been considering here these past few days, that restores the foundation and leads beyond the mere facade. Looking at karma, which leads from one earthly life to the next, leads the human being out of their restricted, limited activity that extends only into this one earthly life.

[ 20 ] Today, as I am to give my final lecture to you, I would like to present this perspective on the cultural-historical mission of anthroposophy to your souls. If, as it continues to work within your souls, it opens up various insights, then these souls will indeed contribute to laying the foundation for a genuine, intrinsically authentic, and solid facade of Western civilization. The Eastern thinker always adds a postscript when he expounds on such matters as I have done here. I actually have nothing to add to this; these things have already been expressed many times by Easterners. When an Easterner utters such a statement, he means: The West has strayed too far from the spirit; it can no longer find the foundation walls; the East must contribute what it still possesses from ancient times, so that earthly civilization does not perish altogether. — It will depend on endeavors such as anthroposophy whether we can prevent this terrible fate—which is being prophesied today for Western civilization by all discerning Easterners—from befalling it. It requires good will to penetrate the spiritual world in order to reintroduce this spirituality into human hearts and minds. Therefore, a community of people who gather for such spiritual work—as you have done now—has grasped the matter in the right sense only if it gives rise to the task of working once again, with all the strength of the will available to the soul, to help humanity experience the spiritual. And it was this orientation toward the heartfelt experience of the spiritual, and subsequently toward the morally all-encompassing, that was my aim in these lectures. That is why I wanted to fill the hours in which we were able to be together once again exactly as I have done. But anthroposophy should take the spiritual seriously at all times, in every moment, not just in every hour. It should therefore also give truth to the statement: When we are physically together in a room, we are physically together; but because we perceive the spiritual, we know that we are also together even when we physically part ways. That is why I say today—because I know that some of you must return home today, even after this lecture—let us bid each other farewell as we part ways now by saying to one another: Let us be true anthroposophists by remaining united in spirit—the spirit that comes alive for us through our worldview—even when we are physically apart. — Let us who are now leaving bid farewell to our friends in the Breslau branch by saying to them: We, too, want to reflect on what we were able to work out together with them for our own souls and the souls of others. We want to feel united with them even after we have left these rooms, and we long for our friends in Breslau to think of those who, to their deepest satisfaction, were able to be among them during this time.