The Rudolf Steiner Archive

56. Life Between Death and a New Birth

My dear friends!

[ 1 ] Anyone who has come to recognize certain facts of the supersensory realm cannot help but regard theosophy as something absolutely necessary in our present spiritual life.

[ 2 ] When the soul makes the acquaintance of those human individualities who are currently passing through the period between death and a new birth, it may experience the following: He may encounter a person whom he perhaps knew quite well in life, about whom he knew how they were situated in their earthly life before they passed through the gate of death. Now he gets to know them after they have passed through the gate of death. There, the following can be experienced: That person, who here was not able—in the modern sense—to reflect on the spiritual, on the realm of the spirit—and whose friends and family members were equally unable to do so—this person then laments to Scher, for example, as follows: “I lived for many years in the most intimate bond with my wife; she was the comfort, the strength, and the joy of my life.” I feel that we belong together. Now it is terrible to me that I can no longer find her in the world where she resides. I know she is there; she is on Earth, but I cannot find her; she has vanished from me; she is dead to me.

[ 3 ] When the seer then sees why this is so, he can convince himself that there is indeed a great difference between life between death and a new birth, and the present life and that life in the human cycle before the Mystery of Golgotha. Back then, the soul’s entire life in incarnation was still different. For people, life in the physical body did not consist of waking during the day and sleeping at night; there was an intermediate state between waking and sleeping. In that state, people looked into the worlds of the stars, and they saw not only stars but also the spiritual beings associated with them. The fact that the spiritual lives in the world was still accessible to the human soul as a perception. When a deceased person looked down into the physical world where embodied souls lived, they saw the contents of those souls. They saw the mental images the souls had of the spiritual world. And one could, so to speak, see the embodied souls from above precisely because they knew something of the spiritual world. When people carry ideas and concepts of spiritual worlds in their souls, they are seen by the dead. When we carry ideas and concepts of spiritual worlds in our souls, the dead see us. If we do not do this—if we do not carry such ideas and concepts in our souls—then we exist for the dead only in their memory.

[ 4 ] In ancient Greece, the saying still held true: “Better to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of shadows.”—This very saying reveals so clearly how humanity is in the process of evolving. In ancient Greece, the connection to the spiritual world had indeed been lost. Now the human race is entering an era in which souls here on Earth, when incarnated, for the most part wish only to be filled with whatever stimulation the physical world provides. And these souls are empty when it comes to spiritual mental images. This is not meant as a reproach, but rather as a description of the true state of affairs. These need not be only wicked or uneducated souls who want to know nothing of spiritual worlds, for today souls are simply no longer able to look into spiritual worlds as they did in ancient times. But because souls here are for the most part devoid of spiritual mental images, they also remain imperceptible to the souls who have passed through the gate of death.

[ 5 ] As an example, I would like to cite a man who does a great deal for the love of humanity and even for the love of animals, but who, despite his kind soul, is entirely materialistic in his outlook and works everywhere to spread materialistic teachings. In a lecture, he quoted a statement that is characteristic of our times, as proof of how little people today carry within themselves any insight into the spiritual world. It was Forel who made the statement:

Ah! If the Lord were to grant me this,
Leaving me the freedom to choose,
I would not seek [for myself vain, lofty dignity—No!
My heart would rejoice at once:]
Allow me to remain on earth,
For this realm is good enough for me.
I am not drawn to the heavenly gesture,
Keep it for Your angelic brood.

[ 6 ] We do not want to practice theosophy, my dear friends, for the sake of knowledge; we want to practice theosophy for the sake of a higher love of humanity. For, looking back from the spiritual world after death, people are deprived of so much when they know here only of souls who have been erased from their lives. When one experiences something like what I have just described, one is overcome by the thought of the necessity of a common language for the living and the dead. This common language—which not only makes the expression audible, so to speak, but also reveals the essence—this language is theosophy. And what are we actually doing when we practice theosophy? We are not bringing anything absolutely new to human souls, for these souls have, after all, passed through previous earthly lives. Now they are empty, but what was once in the souls remains there nonetheless. What the souls have absorbed in the past is just like forgotten mental images. Spiritual insight sinks deep into the soul. When we practice theosophy, we merely remind the souls of what they have forgotten, thereby bringing to light what is deeply rooted in the depths of the soul. We bring back into the souls what once made the souls visible to the dead. In this way, the chasms that would otherwise open up between the living and the dead in a materialistic age are bridged. For this reason, the seer has a duty to proclaim the truths of the spiritual world to the wider world.

[ 7 ] Hearing this, one can get a sense of the seriousness and dignity of theosophy. Taken from the voices of the dead themselves, this is what inspires us toward theosophy. Related to this is the fact that we can also bridge the chasm between the living and the dead by maintaining a connection—through our immersion in theosophical life—via what I would like to call “reading aloud to the dead.” We have already seen positive results from this work with the dead.

[ 8 ] There were people who passed away who had lived alongside Theosophists. They were very averse to Theosophy, railed against it, and flew into a rage whenever anyone spoke of Theosophy. But deep within their souls lay feelings quite different from those revealed in their ordinary consciousness. Their souls hated theosophy because their friend loved it. While they raged against theosophy, an unconscious longing for theosophy was awakening within them. It is like this: A person may rail against and speak out against Theosophy, intending nothing more than to numb themselves—to numb the longing that lives within them and that they do not want to allow to surface. But death reveals all things. Then the longing that the person had numbed comes to the surface. Then they feel the strongest urge to learn something about Theosophy. And we can render them the greatest service by sitting down, with the image of the deceased before us, and quietly reading to them, teaching them. We can also convey to them our own thoughts—those we have taken into ourselves—always vividly creating a mental image of the deceased. We must not be stingy with this; in this way, we bridge the chasm that separates us from our deceased loved ones.

[ 9 ] We can do good for the deceased not only in the most extreme cases, but in every case. Three to five years after death, the deceased can usually still understand the language that was spoken while they were alive on Earth. Then comes the time when one can only send spiritual thoughts; at that point, the deceased understand only those thoughts. Then one can even read aloud to the dead in a foreign language, as long as one understands it oneself. This is a comforting feeling that can ease the pain of the passing of a loved one. There are souls known to have a genuine longing for what we teach here as Theosophy.

[ 10 ] Now the question naturally arises: Do the dead up there not also find teachers among the spiritual individualities? For a very long time after death, a person lives, so to speak, through the very nature of their being in connection with those with whom they lived here on Earth, and they are enveloped in this connection as if in a kind of atmosphere, so that for about ten years after death, they do not easily find their way to the purely spiritual individualities they encounter up there. And when they do encounter them, these beings speak of theosophy in a different way than is done here; their manner of expression cannot serve as a substitute for what takes place on Earth. After all, the Earth is not here for nothing. The things that must be experienced here can only be experienced here.

[ 11 ] I would like to give one more example: Anyone unfamiliar with the matters of the spiritual world is quick to believe that the higher hierarchies witness what happens on Earth. They do not! The beings of the higher hierarchies experience earthly events only by seeing through the people who live here on Earth. And there was one thing that could only be experienced on Earth by a God; it could never have been endured in any other world. That is why the God had to descend into the earthly sphere. The Mystery of Golgotha could never have been endured in any other sphere of the world. For the beings of the higher hierarchies cannot die in the manner of human beings. In order for him to die, the God had to descend to Earth. Gods in the higher hierarchies cannot experience death as human beings do. Thus, one cannot simply hear the message of Theosophy from the higher spirits.

[ 12 ] One can also make the acquaintance of other spirits, for the individualities of the world undergo various stages of development. The seer can come to know beings who have never been in a human body—beings who, as it were, merely come close to our sphere but are never born on Earth. The spirits can tell one many things in the language common to both humans and spirits. However, if one allows oneself to be told what they can convey, it always differs—even though it may contain the truth about the higher world—from the views that humans here form by assimilating theosophy. Indeed, something would be missing from the human being if it did not absorb theosophy on Earth or from Earth. Therefore, you can understand that it is one thing to have something read to you by a person who lives here, and quite another to receive teachings from a spirit who has never been on Earth.

[ 13 ] It is also not easy for two people who have passed through the gate of death to find one another in the spiritual world if one is filled with spiritual life and the other is not. However, if both are filled with it, they find one another easily.

[ 14 ] Thus we see how, from the earth, a bridge is built to the higher world through theosophical life. But the reverse is also true. In a certain sense, it can also become important for earthly human beings to see what is taking place in the higher world flowing into earthly life. The bridge from the higher world to the earthly realm can also be consciously built. I would like to give you an example of this as well.

[ 15 ] Many years ago, when I was teaching a group of children, I made an effort to study their abilities and aptitudes, to take into account the influence of their environment, and so on, since one can only teach effectively by considering all of these factors. And lo and behold: despite everything that was taken into account, something was still missing. There were factors at play in the children’s lives that were mysterious. And this only became clear to me when I turned to the higher world for guidance, when I investigated what kinds of forces from the deceased father were at work within the children’s souls. And only when this could be taken into account was I able to manage the children’s treatment. Then I was no longer disturbed by what the father wanted from the other side. There you see how important it is to include in earthly calculations what influences the earthly realm from higher worlds.

[ 16 ] If you consider what has been said today, you will realize that Theosophy must become an elixir of life—that it does not consist of theories. Do not believe that it is justified to always speak of how difficult it is to consciously connect with the spiritual world. In a few decades, it will no longer seem difficult, once Theosophy is presented in a way that can be understood by people on Earth. When Theosophy is no longer viewed as a fantasy, but is understood as something that can be grasped by ordinary human reason, then it will be only a small step before conscious knowledge of the spiritual world floods over countless people.

[ 17 ] Today, so to speak, people’s minds are simply too dense for clairvoyance to awaken easily through the study of theosophy, but it will awaken. Then people will know how the spiritual world influences life on Earth. Certain things are, after all, immensely significant when one takes them in, when one can perceive how they influence human existence on Earth from another world. For example, we have often considered the connection between the various incarnations of a single personality: Elijah, John the Baptist, Raphael, and Novalis. Regarding the Raphael incarnation, the following also presents itself to the clairvoyant gaze. One might ask the question: How did Raphael come to do this—after having been, in a previous incarnation, a forerunner of the Christ through his powerful words—how did he come to become a herald of the Christ through the medium of painting? Yes, my dear friends, the calling is indeed related. One gradually comes to realize—if one does not merely view human history from the outside—that Raphael was, for modern times, a kind of John the Baptist. After all, his depictions of Christ and Mary have had a far greater impact than all ecclesiastical dogmas. But that is not what we wish to emphasize today; rather, we wish to highlight another aspect—namely, why Raphael, in particular, came to express himself with such great ease through painting. Raphael’s father was no great painter, but he was not one simply because he lacked manual dexterity. He did, however, possess significant artistic abilities that could not come to fruition in that incarnation. It was his mission to work in a different way than as a painter. He did so by dying when Raphael was still very young. If one traces Raphael’s life and observes, so to speak, how the art of painting poured into him, one sees how his father’s art flowed into him. The father poured his abilities into his son to enhance the son’s own abilities. The transformation of John into Raphael was brought about by the soul of Giovanni Santi working within Raphael’s soul. - In many ways, a connection can be established when it is karmically necessary.

[ 18 ] Countless mysteries surrounding the relationship between the living and the dead are resolved in a practical way when people learn through Theosophy that they have not lost their dead, but that they still have them, that they live with them. The certainty that people can belong to one another, regardless of whether they are alive or not—this certainty will be given to them through theosophy, and that is what makes theosophy so great and significant. What theosophy will bring to people in a very special way is the awareness of belonging together with the whole world. Here on earth, people can otherwise only attain an awareness of this sense of belonging with a part of the world.

[ 19 ] Kant instinctively uttered the following: Two things filled him with deep reverence—the moral law within him and the starry sky above him. — He uttered this statement instinctively, for he did not know that these two things are one and the same, because here, in the depths of his soul, man carries within himself what he experienced between death and rebirth in the stellar spheres—in the spheres of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, in the stellar spheres. I have now described the stellar spheres not as they correspond to astronomy. What I have described there is what the human being lives into between death and a new birth. And when the seer looks at human souls, he sees that for a time after death they remain in the lunar sphere. This sphere extends to the area we obtain when we draw a circle that encloses the Earth and the Moon.

[ 20 ] At a later stage, we find the souls expanding and growing ever larger in the sphere of Mercury; later still in the sphere of Venus, then in the sphere of the Sun, in the sphere of Mars, then in the sphere of Jupiter, then in the sphere of Saturn, and finally in the sphere of the stars. Human beings pass through all these spheres between death and rebirth. From these stellar spheres—that is, from what the Sun, Mars, and so on represent spiritually—a wide variety of influences radiate out to human beings.

[ 21 ] When we consider human beings on Earth, they first appear to us in their physical form. Only a few of the spiritual forces and beings of the stellar spheres exert an influence on this physical human being. Namely, on the physical human being, whom we must divide into two parts. One part is everything enclosed within the outwardly tightly sealed bony capsule of the brain and the rings of the spinal cord. That is one part. It is a world unto itself within the human being. And what lies outside this part is, in turn, a separate part in itself. Only the spiritual beings of the Sun, Moon, and Earth exert an influence on that which lies outside the brain and the vertebrae. Nothing in our present surroundings exerts any influence on what lies within the skull bones and the vertebrae. There, the forces of the ancient Saturn, the ancient Sun, and the ancient Moon exert their influence. Only the human soul has a relationship to the forces of the other planets.

[ 22 ] Thus, the forces and beings of the starry world influence our organism in a completely different way. This becomes particularly clear when one considers human life between death and rebirth. In the initial period—which lasts longer for some, shorter for others, and in exceptional cases is very brief or does not occur at all—everyone nevertheless experiences the same process in some way. In this initial period, people are still in a living connection with their earthly life. They live, so to speak, solely on memories. That is why it is so painful immediately after death: although all the deceased live on in memory, the souls they remember can no longer perceive them. That is why it is such a comfort when, after death, the souls have passages read to them by those left behind. The deceased is then not shut away in cruel solitude, but has, so to speak, the company of the living. Human beings need this companionship for a long time to come, for it is the sole sustenance of their souls. Only at a later stage does the soul have the opportunity to establish a connection with the spirits of higher hierarchies. In fact, it is only in the Venus sphere that one can become acquainted with these higher beings, provided one is sufficiently prepared. Before that, one can only be in contact with fellow beings from one’s last or previous incarnation.

[ 23 ] But making contact with higher beings is possible only under certain conditions. A soul that arrives in the Venusian sphere without the moral disposition it acquired on Earth will not find there the possibility of connecting with other souls—not even with those with whom it was once united—and certainly not the possibility of uniting with the spiritual beings of higher hierarchies. The preparation for a life in the Venusian sphere that does not pass in cruel solitude is a moral disposition here on Earth. If we could look into the Venusian sphere, we would see souls living in appalling solitude. Spiritually, they are very close to other souls, but they do not perceive them. They cannot reach them. And they have condemned themselves to this through an immoral attitude. What in this life is, in a certain sense, sleep—that is what many souls in these spheres would yearn for. The souls there cannot fall unconscious; they merely become lonely, as if living alone on an island. This loneliness is a kind of death-sleep. Even in the sphere of Mercury, one cannot get by without a moral attitude, but in the sphere of Venus, it is one of the most important prerequisites. If one wants to live in the sphere of Venus, if one wants to get to know human souls and beings of the higher hierarchies, then one must arrive there not only with moral but also with religious feelings, for there one finds oneself among souls who are of a similar religious disposition.

[ 24 ] From the sphere of Venus, one then enters the sphere of the Sun. There, it is essential not only to arrive with a religious disposition, but also with an understanding of all the religious creeds that exist on Earth. One can only get along there with true, genuine, inner tolerance—the kind first poured out by Christ and which is now to be understood through Theosophy. For within the life of the Sun, we find, so to speak, people and beings of all kinds, and our life there can only be a peaceful one if we have understanding for every soul, regardless of the educational elements through which it has passed. In the solar sphere, we can understand souls only if we are tolerant of the religious beliefs and religious experiences they have undergone. Among the beings of the higher hierarchies, for example, there are some whom Buddhists can understand most easily. They are of a particular nature. They are not the kind that can be understood by everyone right away. There is a certain degree of aloofness present.

[ 25 ] When we encounter these beings in the solar sphere, something else special happens. These beings are there to give us something. And we need what they have to offer. If we lack an understanding of them, then what they can give us remains of no use to us. It is quite correct to say: What the angels in the solar sphere have to offer can be understood through what one acquires by immersing oneself in the age and in the forces bestowed by the Buddha. — If one lacks this understanding, if one encounters the angels who are the guiding powers of these creeds on Earth, then they cannot give one what one needs. Then the soul’s situation is just like that of a person here on Earth who has no legs or no eyes. If one does not arrive in the solar sphere with complete tolerance, one will be a spiritual cripple. This is a significant truth, my dear friends.

[ 26 ] What Christianity first offered and what Theosophy now offers to humanity must be embraced. The Christ impulse was a very special impulse, and Christianity is very different from all other faiths. This becomes very clear when one picks up theosophical journals from recent years. The theosophical principles have been acknowledged, but the Indian adept has understood only his own religion and not the creeds of others. Hinduism and Buddhism are presented in these journals as the only paths to salvation. It is said that all religions should be studied, but this is not accepted as truth, and it cannot be accepted as truth unless one has received from Christ the power of tolerance. In light of all religious creeds, it is an anomaly that we have been accused of intolerance. This is incorrect, for we have spoken of the various religious systems in exactly the same way as we have spoken of Christianity. This is closely connected to the way Christianity spread throughout Europe. Westerners would still be worshippers of Wotan today, but they are not, because they did not retain their religion; rather, they adopted Christianity and submitted to it. This must be taken into account. In the naive way that Christianity has been presented to the peoples thus far, it has sufficed—despite the great excesses against tolerance. But now it is no longer sufficient in this form. It must be deepened through theosophy. And today, one can only truly understand Christianity if one knows that theosophy must be grasped. And anyone who seeks to keep theosophy separate from Christianity is sinning against Christianity.

[ 27 ] Here we find ourselves once again at the point where we realize the significance of the various religious systems of the peoples.

[ 28 ] God had to descend to Earth to experience death in the human way. This Mystery could not have been fulfilled in any other world. When we grasp this, we will clearly understand that we, too, must experience the Christ impulse here on Earth; we cannot experience it in another sphere if we have failed to experience it here. It must remain with us as a memory after death. We must carry this memory through all the spheres.

[ 29 ] When we arrive in the sphere of the Sun, my dear friends, we find two thrones there. One throne is empty; it is not occupied by a real being, but rather an Akashic being sits upon it. We can only understand this being if we contemplate it with the memory of the Mystery of Golgotha that we carry with us from this Earth. Only with this memory can we understand this Akashic image on the Sun, for it reveals Christ to us. Christ, after all, gradually descended from the solar sphere and came to Earth. At the baptism in the Jordan, the Christ being passed into the earthly sphere; since that time, it has been experienced here on Earth.

[ 30 ] And there we find yet another throne—a throne occupied by the being who has always held it: Lucifer. Lucifer must now guide us into the further spheres. Without Lucifer, we cannot proceed. Even if Lucifer’s influence becomes pernicious to us on Earth, even if we must strive on Earth not to fall prey to him, we must nevertheless bear in mind that all influences are justified—but only within their own sphere. Our further guide upward into the universe must be Lucifer. We are guided in the same way by Christ and by Lucifer into the other spheres, so that we may absorb the forces of the universe that we must absorb.

[ 31 ] And once we have evolved to a certain extent—once we have, so to speak, become a large, very diffuse sphere—we then compress ourselves again, as it were, and pass back through all the spheres once more; in the process we become smaller and smaller, until we have become a very small spiritual sphere and are guided to a pair of parents to incarnate anew; and a connection has always been established between that which has traversed the entire universe between death and new birth, and that which is given by the father and mother when we are born. That which lives within the human embryo has traversed the entire cosmos of our planetary system and yet another stellar sphere, and now clothes itself once more in a body to reconnect with life on Earth.

[ 32 ] Thus, with what we carry in our souls—the powers we have acquired—we come from the cosmos. And when we now say to ourselves, out of a sense of morality: ‘You must do this; you must not do that’—this is because we have passed through the stellar spheres and absorbed impulses there for our earthly life. In each sphere we absorbed different impulses, and everything works together within us to form the overall constitution of our soul. When we look out into the vastness of the stars, we say to ourselves: How closely related the starry worlds are to us! After all, we carry within us something of those starry worlds! We absorbed there what is within us. Let us recall once more Kant’s saying: “Two things fill me with profound reverence: the moral law within me and the starry heavens above me.” The moral law lives within us only because we absorbed it while we wandered through the starry heavens.

[ 33 ] I have been able to describe only a little, my dear friends, about life between death and a new birth. How could it be otherwise, given the limited time? But we have, after all, been able to discuss some important points. And my words are meant to help make human life, in all its fullness, more and more understandable. And if we draw from this a sense of responsibility, then we have in Theosophy a true elixir of life. For once we have become aware that our powers have been gathered from the vastness of the worlds, a sense of responsibility can awaken within us—that we must not let these soul powers lie fallow, but must cultivate them if we do not wish to sin.