The Rudolf Steiner Archive

74. The Mystery of Death as a Mystery of Life

My dear friends!

[ 1 ] Once again, we begin by commemorating those souls who stand outside, in the vast fields of events, and who must commit their souls and lives to the great realities within which we live:

Spirits of your souls, watchful guardians!
May your wings carry
The imploring love of our souls
To the earthly people entrusted to your care.
So that, united with your power
Our plea may shine forth in aid
To the souls it lovingly seeks!

[ 2 ] And for those who, as a result of these events, have already passed through the gates of death:

Spirits of your souls, watchful guardians!
May your wings carry
The imploring love of our souls
To the beings of the spheres who trust in your care.
So that, united with your power
Our plea may shine out in aid
To the souls it lovingly seeks!

[ 3 ] And may the Spirit we seek through the Spiritual Science we strive to attain—the Spirit who, through the Mystery of Golgotha, brought healing to the Earth and freedom and progress to humanity—be with you and your heavy duties!

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[ 4 ] During this time, death intrudes into life in a thousand different ways... And just as it is in keeping with our Spiritual Science endeavor to always consider those aspects of life that are expressed here in the physical world, but which are spiritual aspects that human beings, in the normal course of their existence, experience only through death, it must be particularly fitting in our time to look toward this world that lies beyond the sensory world, insofar as it is from this world that what people call death, in all its mystery, dissolves and itself becomes a part of life. Indeed, from the various reflections we have undertaken, we have certainly already been able to gain the conviction that the kind of contemplation of death we engage in is not an idle contemplation that distances a person from life, but rather that a full, pure vision of life emerges precisely from the contemplation of the mystery of death. Therefore, when we contemplate death, we do not believe that we are turning away from the life within the physical body—which has been assigned to us as a divine-spiritual task—but, on the contrary, we believe that by contemplating eternal forces through human death, we actually bring greater courage and greater strength into the very life that has been assigned to us within the physical world.

[ 5 ] We have, time and again, turned our attention to the mystery of death, and our writings do the same. But we have probably already become accustomed to thinking—as is proper within Spiritual Science—that one can only gain a conviction regarding the facts of the spiritual world by repeatedly examining the phenomena and facts from a wide variety of perspectives.

[ 6 ] It is, after all, a fact about the spiritual world that one must modify the mental images and conceptions derived from the sensory world—and in many cases change them entirely—because the world beyond the sensory world is not merely a shadowy reflection of the sensory world, but is, in many respects, fundamentally different from it. And only gradually, by considering the facts of the spiritual world from various perspectives, does the possibility open up for us to gain true mental images of what exists in the spiritual world. Thus, let us once again, from a certain perspective, view the mystery of death—in a sense, as the mystery of life—even in today’s context.

[ 7 ] What death initially presents to the senses, man already sees from this side: the decay of the physical body. But if death were to have anything terrible or horrific about it at all, it could only be in relation to this view from the physical world; for here it appears as the end of what we always see in human beings as long as they dwell in the physical world between birth and death. But once we ourselves have passed through the gate of death, we have a view of death from the other side. While here in physical life we see the physical body decaying, when we view death from the perspective of the phase we experience between death and a new birth, we have, from that side, the vision of how the eternal core of the human being emerges from the physical shell. There we do not experience death as a decline; we experience it as an ascent.

[ 8 ] [Just as] we experience it as a dawn, so it convinces us of the eternal victory of the spirit over the physical. And here we must immediately accustom ourselves to a mental image that is foreign to physical perception: the beginning of our physical life here on Earth never enters our normal consciousness during this physical life. We can recall events back to a certain point in time; this is not the moment of birth, but occurs later than the moment of birth. Yet no one in the physical world here can, without heightened powers, look back to the time of their birth; no one can, based on their own experience, speak of their birth in a normal way; it does not enter physical consciousness. Just as true as it is that the event of physical birth never enters our physical consciousness between birth and death, it is equally true that from the moment consciousness awakens after death, throughout the entire time we live between death and a new birth, the recollection of the experience of death from the other side is always present to us. So while we can never experience our birth—the beginning of our physical existence—with normal consciousness, it is normal for the life between death and a new birth to always be able to look back on death from the other side—where it is a victory of the spirit over the physical, where it is not the perishing of the physical body but the ascent of the spiritual, which must now live through the span of time between death and a new birth, where death is the victory of the spiritual. And if we did not have this perspective, then we would have no sense of self during this time between death and a new birth. But at the moment when, after death, we enter a state—and such states do exist—in which, so to speak, the perspective on death eludes us, we are in a sleep-like state during the time between death and a new birth; our condition becomes sleep-like. Just as we know nothing of our “I” here when we are asleep, outside our physical body, so too do we know nothing of our “I” after death if we cannot look back on the experience of death. This looking back on the experience of death continually kindles our self-awareness after death. And as I said, if death could have anything dreadful about it at all, it can only have it here in its physical appearance. For the most sublime, the greatest event we can look back upon is precisely that which represents this victory of the spiritual over the physical—viewed from the other side, from the perspective beyond death—which we always possess when we live self-consciously in the time between death and a new birth. Just as we must immerse our “I” and our astral body into the physical body upon waking so that we may become conscious of our “I,” so it is through this penetration of the “I” and the astral body that we are able to become conscious of our “I”—for the “I” can indeed be present as it is in sleep; many are not conscious of their “I.” Thus, after death, it is necessary that we turn our spiritual gaze toward the moment of dying, toward the events of dying, so that this gaze may kindle our self-awareness after death.

[ 9 ] We return our physical body to the elements of the earth—quickly through cremation, slowly through decomposition. Essentially, the two ways of returning the physical body to the earth differ only in the length of time involved. Both are, in essence, the same process. We surrender our physical body to the elements of the earth; we no longer have it; in a sense, it departs from us in death. What remains to us of this physical body? It is not as though nothing remains for us; rather, something of this physical body remains with us. It would be entirely wrong to believe that nothing at all remains for us. You see, when we are here in the physical world, we feel ourselves to be self-aware human beings within our skin. And the fact that we have our physical body within our skin is what enables us to feel ourselves to be self-aware human beings here. Everything we possess in this way falls away from us; it falls away from us right to the very outer limits of our skin... But what truly remains is what filled our body; it remains present in our consciousness after death like a kind of void encompassing the entire universe—as strange and paradoxical as that may sound—it remains present. It is not the place that matters, but the form. While we feel ourselves here within the form of our skin, after death—when the physical body has fallen away from us—we gain a mental image of the entire universe, which, as we shall soon see, fills us more and more: yet a void remains within this universe of our physical bodily form. And we do not perceive this merely as a void; that is by no means the main point… rather, after death it becomes a sensation, a fundamental feeling; it becomes an extraordinarily blissful and important feeling. It becomes the feeling: Behold, there is something in the world that only you can fill. There is, of course, much in the entire universe, but whatever exists in the entire universe leaves your place empty. And that place will always remain empty from beginning to end unless you fill it.

[ 10 ] The feeling that one belongs, as a building block, to the entire universe, to the whole world—that is the sensation that arises from this contemplation, if I may put it that way, of the hollow space, the hollow space of our physical body. Here, between birth and death, our physical body is filled with muscles, blood, and bones. There, in the world, we find precisely what is filled here—hollow, empty. And we know: this space belongs to us; it belongs to us. And that is a source of bliss. One knows that one is incorporated into the whole world as something that has meaning and purpose within it.

[ 11 ] Do not underestimate the significance of precisely this kind of feeling, for it is given to us when the physical body is shed. Since we no longer have the physical body, what we otherwise feel within it is transformed into the realization: You are not in the world in vain. You are a building block within it. It depends on you. You must be there.

[ 12 ] Naturally, those who had a true, genuine—or at least intuitive—understanding of the spiritual world felt this way. Angelus Silesius, for example, coined his beautiful saying based on such a feeling when he said:

God could not live a moment without me;
If I were to perish,
He would have to give up his spirit out of despair.

[ 13 ] This means: Whatever divine and spiritual things there are in the world, there is one place where I belong. The soul—precisely because it has been set free by shedding the physical body—may tell itself this throughout the entire time between death and a new birth. And that is a sustaining feeling, an important, essential feeling.

[ 14 ] Then we know that even for days after death we continue to carry our etheric body—as we say—with us, and that during this time we have, so to speak, a tableau of life depicting everything we have experienced, in a certain sense, between birth and death. But we must also understand this tableau of life correctly—truly understand it. ... Perhaps we can take our life here between birth and death as a starting point to gain a mental image of what actually happens to us immediately after death. After all, we live here in the physical body between birth and death. We have the most varied experiences. While awake, we have experiences every hour, every minute; whether we hear something or do something, we are always having experiences. And these experiences accompany our thoughts. As human beings, we are thinking beings. Whether we hear something or do something, we think. Mental images and thoughts accompany what we experience in the physical body. And through these thoughts, we work through our inner soul. And these thoughts are not merely, as we know, of a transient nature; rather, we can retrieve them again and again from our soul. We have a memory—that is to say, a thought that I have just formed does not pass away immediately, but I may be able to retrieve it from my soul even years later. Imagine for a moment everything you carry within you: you carry within you this entire world of thoughts that you have formed from experiences of the outer world. Imagine that... then you must say: You are constantly weaving in your thoughts. What are you weaving when you think? In truth, you are weaving in your etheric body. So this weaving—which enables the thought to remain in memory—actually takes place in the etheric body; it truly happens in the etheric body.

[ 15 ] But now the human being lives in this etheric body and thinks and says: “Well, I think, and I carry my thoughts within me, and sometimes I remember my thoughts.” And he believes that this web of thoughts exists only within him. But that is not the case; it is not so at all. In reality, human beings do not know themselves at all! The fact that we go through the world having thoughts, and that these thoughts are woven together by us, is actually the least significant aspect of this process. Let’s look at the matter in very concrete terms: You are sitting here now, listening to me. Thoughts are constantly passing through your soul, which you can then retain... certainly, that is one side of the matter. But that is only the lesser aspect of the matter. While all of you are thinking here, beings of the higher hierarchy—from the Angeloi through the Archangeloi up to the Archai—flit or undulate through the space, and they must do their part in shaping these thoughts. You do not perceive any of this with your normal consciousness. But do not believe that human beings are placed in this world merely so that, for their own amusement, they may form their thoughts here between birth and death; rather, while we form our thoughts, a multitude of spiritual beings from the higher hierarchies are working on these very thoughts here. Our soul is merely the stage where these thoughts appear. From these thoughts, something entirely different is created than what merely lives on in our memories. These thoughts are interwoven with one another; they are formed into one another and signify something entirely different from what we make of them. We do not live only for ourselves; we also live—if we may put it that way—for the gods between birth and death. And while we think, the gods are working on their world. We, on the other hand, piece our thoughts together, one after another, so that they serve us until our death. The gods arrange these thoughts differently. They arrange them within us in such a way that they serve the gods in the shaping—in the ongoing shaping—of the world. While we arrange our thoughts according to our logical human rules, the gods simultaneously arrange them in such a way that—when a human being passes through the gate of death—they have created a new piece of the world within those thoughts. They then draw them out of the etheric body… and there they have a new part of the world. It is not in vain that a human being contemplates the world. Rather, as he thinks, a new part of the world is woven from his thoughts—truly, a new part of the world is woven. Let us only become aware that behind the outer aspect of our thinking, which we perceive inwardly, there are world-shaping divine spirits of the various hierarchies who—while allowing us to weave our thoughts between birth and death so that we may enjoy our freedom—are carrying out their work with our thoughts for the sake of the world!

[ 16 ] After death, our thoughts remain for a few days much as they were in our memory; but not only those we recall as thoughts—even those we have otherwise forgotten resurface during these days. And they do not appear as they are recalled here—with one coming later and another earlier—but rather they appear all at once in a panorama of life, in a tableau. For a few days, our entire life surrounds us all at once. Yes, that is how it is. Our entire life is viewed for a few days, truly viewed for a few days. But then, once it has been viewed through these few days, the divine-spiritual beings take what we call our etheric body away from us and weave it into the entire etheric universe. At first it is woven in on a small scale; then it grows correspondingly larger and from that point on forms a part of the entire etheric realm.

[ 17 ] So what does “dying” actually mean for a human being? For human beings, “dying” means—forgive me for using a trivial expression, though it is accurate—that throughout their entire life they have woven a thought-form, and that a few days after their physical death, they now surrender this thought-form to the world ether. And it is now woven into the world ether.

[ 18 ] His physical body held it together within him until his death. Now that his physical body has been shed, it is being drawn apart and woven into the entire world-ether—in one case to a greater extent, in another to a lesser extent; but it is woven into the entire world-ether. Thus, what we have always carried within us in our thoughts is now outside of us; for only the thoughts with which we have accompanied what we have experienced are woven into the world ether in this way by the gods. Thus, what we have always carried within us—what the physical body has held together—is now outside of us... Is it not true that, until death, we can regard what constitutes our web of thoughts as our own, as something inner? No one, when recalling this, will say: “That thought would have been located anywhere other than in my soul; I drew it up from there.”—Now it is outside of us, belonging to the outer world. This, in turn, is a significant experience after death: that, having passed through the days following the tableau of life, we, so to speak, turn the inner into the outer. What was once the course of our thoughts now becomes an external course, living within the outer world. And just as we here look upon the stars and the moon, just as we here look upon mountains and rivers, so after death we look upon that which the gods have woven from our thoughts during our lifetime, and which is now interwoven into the world-ether. There we look back. It is entirely correct to say: With this event, the inner world has become the outer world for human beings. The inner world of their thoughts has become an outer reality.

[ 19 ] And now begins that life we have often spoken of—one with which you are quite familiar—in which a person, over a period roughly one-third the length of their earthly life, relives that life; they relive it in such a way that, moving three times as fast as they did between birth and death, they now retrace the events once more, from death back to birth. But they relive these events differently than they did here during their physical existence—differently. Here, during physical existence, we perform certain actions, for example, or we form certain thoughts based on inner impulses. In these actions and thoughts, we have certain feelings within us.

[ 20 ] But now it is especially important to consider what is at stake in the time after death—which we are now discussing—and to consider what effect both our thoughts and our actions have had on the world around us. Take, for example, the extreme case I often cite, simply because it helps illustrate the point: I inflict an insult on someone in life, whether through words or through deeds. Isn’t it true that I, the one inflicting the insult, will have certain feelings? After all, I wouldn’t inflict a certain insult on them for no reason—unless I’m a fool—but I’ll have my reasons for doing so. I feel something. But they feel differently—differently when they receive the insult. What they and I feel are two different things. But during life here, between birth and death, I experience only what I feel in the moment. This experience does not repeat itself in the same way after death during the “life in reverse”; rather, I experience what he felt at that moment. I go through all my actions in terms of their effects. I go through what I experienced here in terms of its effects—that is, I relive what I have done. I go through that experience.

[ 21 ] One can, in turn, quite rightly say that what is there—what can be experienced here in physical life outside of us—can now be experienced inwardly. You see, the weaving of the etheric tableau of thought into the world ether can be described by saying: The inner becomes the outer. In this time that now follows, when one relives the past, the external becomes internal; for until now, what the other person felt was outside of oneself. Everything that the other person felt now becomes internal—one experiences it as one’s own experience during this reliving. One experiences everything in this way. One truly experiences it this way! And nothing, absolutely nothing, is spared one there. One relives everything—everything one has ever done, thought, or felt that has had an effect on the world—one experiences it all again by now feeling from within the other person.

[ 22 ] The etheric body is shed upon death. What the etheric body has experienced becomes woven into the etheric world. One continues to live in what we call the astral body... and in the I. Now, it is also good to consider this life in the astral body here and now, during physical existence between birth and death. You see, while a person is here on Earth, with all that he can think, understand, and judge, he actually considers himself tremendously clever. There is no doubt at all that a person considers himself extraordinarily clever. But things would be very bad for a person if this cleverness he possesses were to guide him through life. For it does not do so at all. This cleverness does not, in fact, guide them through life; yet human beings cannot hold any other view than that they are guided through life by their own cleverness, because they are unable to perceive what else is necessary for their life. In a sense, human beings see only a very small part of what actually pertains to their life—very little. Let’s take an extreme, a radical case.

[ 23 ] Someone is required to report to work at eight o’clock in the morning. He always leaves his home in such a way that he arrives at work promptly at eight o’clock. One day, he happens to be five minutes late. It has no effect whatsoever other than that he arrives at the office five minutes past eight. If the boss is grumpy, well, there’s a little fuss; if the boss isn’t grumpy, there isn’t even that, is there! So it doesn’t have to have any particular effect at all—it just passes by. But it could be that one might have missed something important—not noticed it at all. Suppose the situation had been such that, even if one had left on time that day, one would have crossed a road embankment somewhere and an accident would have befallen one right there: all the conditions were in place for an accident to happen. You only see the one thing—that you arrived at the office five minutes later, don’t you! But the fact that you emerged from the situation unscathed and how you were spared from something that could have brought you great misfortune—that doesn’t even cross your mind. Yes, that’s a specific example—but that’s how we live all the time. We always focus only on how we entangle ourselves in life, on how we lead our lives. We pay no attention at all to the things from which we are constantly protected—the things we pass by without a second thought simply because they do not affect us. If we were to pay attention to what we are spared from—to what is constantly at work around us, so to speak—and realize that life does not unfold the way it seemingly does because of our cleverness… then we would finally become aware of how, in every

[ 24 ] Every minute of our lives, entire hierarchies of divine beings work their way into our astral body, and we are guided by the beings of the higher hierarchies as we complete our lives under their guidance.

[ 25 ] A complete knowledge of the wisdom necessary to guide a human being along the path of life between birth and death would be such all-encompassing wisdom, such colossal wisdom—which is bestowed upon us by the beings of the higher hierarchies—that we cannot even create a mental image of it based on the wisdom we are able to accumulate here between birth and death using the tools of our brain. But this wisdom flows through our astral body as the work of the gods. Why, then, is it that we know nothing of this wisdom? If we knew anything of it, we would not be able to learn freedom as human beings. We would always be guided. It is wisely arranged in the world that we know nothing of this wisdom between birth and death; for this is our school of freedom. Therefore, through the wise guidance of the higher hierarchies, we are prevented from seeing this wisdom in our astral body. How is it that we cannot see it? Yes, this wisdom must, of course, be obscured. And it is obscured by all the feelings that dwell in our astral body, which numb us to what is actually happening. These feelings constantly spread like a fog over the wisdom that actually shines into our astral body from the entire world on all sides. The fact that I walk down the street and take in impressions—all of that obscures the wisdom that shines into my astral body, making it inaccessible to normal consciousness... That is why there are so many lies in the world today: because the truth would be agonizing; because the truth would be terrible.

[ 26 ] Well, in the same way we shield ourselves from the wisdom we cannot bear; that immensely vast light of wisdom that constantly permeates our astral body—we shield ourselves from it by constantly arousing feelings and sensations about the positive things we experience, the very things we are going through at that moment. On the other hand, everything that is necessary to guide us past the overall current of the world—that which is full of wisdom—we shield ourselves from!

[ 27 ] But even after death, we must gradually accustom ourselves to the sight of that which, as wisdom from the higher hierarchies, pulses through the entire world and flows through our astral body. We must first get used to it! And this happens during our return journey by transforming the external into the internal. By seeing the effects—the outer effects—of our thoughts and deeds, we become attuned to the outer world. In this way, we accustom ourselves to seeing not only what lies within our own wisdom, but also what lies within the wisdom of the world. You see: every single sequence of events we go through—even between death and a new birth—has a profound meaning.

[ 28 ] And then, once we have gone through this, what kind of time begins? Yes, you see, what begins then—you’ll come to realize it if you’re willing to look at it deeply within yourself—perhaps by going through the following mental image with me now. You see, thank God, human beings have not been assigned the task—through world events—of consciously shaping that marvel of a structure that they themselves are. Just think, for example, how little human beings know—even through modern science—about the marvelous structure of their own organism! If human beings had to build it from scratch, using only the concepts and mental images that modern science can already provide: something truly beautiful would emerge! Now, of course, the clever people who construct a worldview based on modern science will say: Human beings don’t need that at all, because it all happens on its own. All a person needs to do, after all, is be born! The forces of nature take care of the rest. Why would a person need to build up their own organism? That happens all on its own! — That is, of course, a sensible point of view! It is truly a perspective befitting an epoch of human development that has its own opinions, in contrast to earlier opinions, which were based solely on authority, isn’t that right? People today, of course, always have their own opinions, because they’ve forgotten that they read the “original” parts of these opinions in the newspaper; for today, one’s own opinions are those that one has forgotten were read in the newspaper—or, at most, in a pamphlet or a modern book!

[ 29 ] I said: It is a common view today that human beings do not need to build anything in their own organism from the spiritual realm. After all, isn’t it true that human beings naturally create themselves?—That’s what people say. But just imagine for a moment: There could be beings—and we are certainly allowed to accept this hypothesis—who would not be able to perceive human beings, who would not perceive human beings at all... but who could otherwise perceive everything. Here in Bremen—let’s assume this again—these beings could perceive everything except human beings. Well, just as humans do not perceive angels, these beings would not perceive humans, but they could perceive clocks… they could perceive clocks. Suppose these beings were now walking around in their own way—or flying—or whatever—through Bremen. They would say: There are clocks in Bremen; but there are no humans there to make the clocks; so the clocks come into being all by themselves. No one needs to be there to make the clocks, right? These beings could even walk into a clock shop; they would see how it all comes together to form clocks… They don’t see humans! So they would say: The clocks come into being all on their own. - That is the level of those who say today: Why should we even think about the fact that human beings arise from some kind of spiritual activity? Human beings come into being on their own, don’t they, through conception and birth; that is how they take shape. - That what appears to be an external process is entirely organized by spiritual beings, that it is merely the external process for the work of the spiritual beings: This, of course, is something that must be understood. And just as the watchmaker must stand behind the watch, so must countless beings of the higher hierarchies stand behind this process, which—according to the view of today’s very intelligent people—unfolds “all by itself”—isn’t that so?

[ 30 ] But there is something else we must take into account in order to gain insight into this area. You see, modern science says: We can see from geniuses that the qualities of the soul are also inherited. - Not too long ago, a rather thick book about Goethe was published. In it, Goethe’s characteristics are discussed, and then researchers looked to his mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather—in every direction, as far back as they could go—to see whether these characteristics, you see, could be found in his ancestors; and there they had organized themselves in such a way that they ultimately manifested in the genius. So, based on experience, heredity is taken for granted—or so they say—and it goes without saying that the genius inherited all of this, doesn’t it! But this “wisdom” isn’t very clever, for it resembles the view that considers it particularly clever to say that when someone falls into water, they get wet. Isn’t that right? Because the soul winds its way through the succession of generations, it takes on the characteristics of that succession, just as someone who falls into water takes on the water and gets wet. Thus, a person bears the characteristics of the generations with which he lives—as we shall see shortly—he carries them within himself; there is nothing particularly wondrous about that.

[ 31 ] But if one were to take a different approach—to prove it scientifically—one would have to start with the genius and then show how the descendants of that genius inherited the genius’s characteristics. One will probably refrain from doing that. For one can, after all, make all sorts of speculations, talk at length about how Goethe inherited certain traits from his ancestors; but to show that his great, genius-like traits were passed on to his son or his grandchildren—well, one will probably refrain from doing that. And if one were to prove it… well, there is, for example, a very well-known European statesman today who is his father’s son: It certainly seems as if the genius-like qualities were passed directly from father to son. The greatest quality…—which posterity may one day recognize—is that neither of them was a genius, neither the father nor the son!

[ 32 ] Yes, there is absolutely no truth to this whole line of thinking about heredity. Instead, this whole matter must be examined in the following way ... for the occult perspective reveals the following to us.

[ 33 ] Consider this: Does a person actually know anything at all about the inside of their own body—about how they live inside their own body, beneath their skin? Yes, sometimes one does know something: When someone has a terrible headache, they know something about the inside of their head; they feel what’s inside, feel their head—something one doesn’t feel at all when in normal, healthy condition. The stomach only growls when one is hungry, when something is wrong—as a result of pain or deprivation. This is merely a rather vague awareness, and one wouldn’t be able to do much with it. Still, in contrast to what we usually perceive of the outside world, it is a kind of inner sensation. But in a subtle way—in a very subtle way—this experience of our inner self is actually present throughout our entire life between birth and death, as we grow older and older between birth and death. What does it mean, then, to grow older and older? It means, doesn’t it, that the physical body becomes less and less alive; it makes us more and more tired as we try to work through it. As the years go by, one already feels this. In a sense, it is truly the case that one feels one’s physical body more and more… even if this process proceeds out of habit and one naturally does not feel it so strongly. But just imagine if someone were to compare the way they related to their physical body as an eight-year-old boy or girl—through their work—with how they relate to their physical body at the age of fifty; the differences would become immediately apparent: Then one would already notice how different the physical body has become, how a certain slackening in the physical body—a weariness of life that is quite natural, but which is nevertheless there—how this weariness of life arises. The infirmities of old age consist of nothing other than the fact that one feels one’s physical body, that it becomes more and more perceptible to one. And the core vitality of youth consists in the fact that one does not feel it, that one carries it imperceptibly through life. The whole of life between birth and death proceeds in such a way that one can say: The physical body is felt and perceived more and more.

[ 34 ] When one sheds it, this cannot yet become apparent at first. But once one has shed the etheric body—and, as I have described, has retraced one’s life by contemplating its effects—only then does one realize the significance of living so deeply into the physical body through feeling. For then one realizes that immense, intuitively grasped wisdom is necessary to shape, out of the vastness of the universe, what a human body is as a microcosm. And this is fused together in our physical body throughout our lives. We now perceive this as the wisdom of the entire cosmos. Indeed, it is almost impossible today to make a person understand the true significance of the convergence of this wisdom from all the divine endeavors necessary to create the marvelous structure of the human head alone—which truly crystallizes out of the entire universe as a small world in itself, yet one built with wisdom. As we carry our head through the world, we make use of this head between birth and death; but for this head to come into being—for it to truly be a reflection of this entire world—the work of many, many divine-spiritual beings of the highest hierarchies is necessary.

[ 35 ] I tried to convey a mental image of the feeling one might have when one realizes: What you are wearing there above your neck is truly the work of divine realms, just as a machine is not merely the work of the one who makes it, but the very work of the one who first had to think in order for it to be invented. But on the physical plane of Earth, a wretched machine is brought into being—from the entire universe, this head is brought into being, through which we carry the whole world within us. We truly carry the whole world within us! Not only the whole world, but the work of the gods we carry within us! Oh, if only people could feel this!

[ 36 ] And when what has been described between birth and death has been shed during the journey from death back to birth at three times the speed, then it becomes clear to the human being that the preparation for a subsequent earthly existence has already begun, so that his next earthly existence may take the form he needs in light of all that he has shaped in the etheric world picture—which is interwoven with the effects he has sent out into the world. These causes now serve, as it were, as the foundation.

[ 37 ] You can truly create a mental image of it: When we have reached this time that has been described, then the work on us—into which we must integrate ourselves, in which we ourselves participate, but under the guidance of the spirits of the hierarchies—will be taken over by these spirits of the higher hierarchies. And just as truly as what happens to us is concentrated here within our skin, so truly—I would say—is what is now being worked out throughout the entire period between death and a new birth poured out, as it were, into a hollow sphere encompassing the whole world. So, with the exception of the time we have already discussed, everything is being shaped everywhere—but now in the universe, not at the center, not within our skin, but in the surrounding space. This must be so. There must be some kind of vibration there. If you were to create a mental image (figuratively speaking, of course), instead of being here: the firmament as a real reality… and genii or beings of the higher hierarchies working on the firmament, drawing a spiral… precisely this spiral, which must be worked out so that it corresponds exactly to our karma, to what we have lived through… then another curve that would have to be drawn… and when the time has elapsed that we spend between death and a new

[ 38 ] When a birth takes place, a structure woven together through the work of the gods is woven into the entire universe. It is there inside—it then contracts, becoming smaller and smaller, and finally manifests by uniting with what is predisposed within the mother.

[ 39 ] Drawn together from the entire world and united with what occurs in the mother on a purely material level, that which is called the incarnation of a human being comes into being. What is inside—these convolutions of the brain—are folded together from the entire universe.

[ 40 ] Such mental images can truly give rise to deep, deep religious feelings. For how can one sense one’s human share in the mysteries of the world if one can look upon another human being!

[ 41 ] When a person has now reached, between death and a new birth, what was called the midnight hour of existence in the last Mystery Play, that is, roughly halfway between death and a new birth—when a human being has reached this point, then, in the normal course of the ongoing work carried out in the spiritual world so that the human being can reappear in the manner just described, there is also the time when the human being is already working its way back down to Earth. What is created in the spiritual world is already working its way back down to Earth.

[ 42 ] So let’s take the specific case of “Goethe.” After all, he must have been incarnated at some point in the past. Now he has entered the spiritual world, and then comes the period midway between death and a new birth: there he is already working his way back down—and something happens that brings certain people living here into relationships with him. Relationships between people are certainly, on the one hand, connected to people’s karmic relationships, but they also depend on many other factors. So connections arise between many people because a person begins to influence the earth again long before he returns—that is, right in the midst of the period between death and a new birth. And these relationships then continue, extending ever further under the influence of the spiritual world, until finally, out of these relationships, what emerges is the relationship between father and mother, through which the soul’s particular incarnation then takes place. Goethe, then, played a part in all the relationships that formed in the world, so that ultimately Caspar Goethe and Mrs. Rat Goethe could come together, and so that their parents and grandparents could come together. And we can go back centuries in the way people are brought together, until ultimately what emerges is what leads the elderly Caspar Goethe to the woman known as “Frau Aja”; the fact that they come together is already influenced by the individuality of Goethe himself. It is the individual himself who plays a part through the generations that preceded his parents. It is not hereditary factors that make a person similar to his ancestors, but rather he [himself] who, over long periods of time, has already organized that inheritance. If you think, for example, from our present time all the way back to Charlemagne, that is roughly thirty generations. You don’t need to think any further than that: there are only thirty generations back to Charlemagne. If you create a mental image of thirty people standing in a line, holding hands and reaching back toward one another, you could picture them as having lived since the time of Charlemagne. What is worked out up there in the spiritual realm already exerts its influence down onto the physical earth over such a period of time.

[ 43 ] As a rule, the exact opposite of what physical science promotes as a worldview is true. While physical science believes that heredity gives us our characteristics, it is rather the case that, centuries before our birth, our characteristics cause the relevant conditions to be established in our ancestors, within which we can then incarnate. All of this is connected to processes taking place in the spiritual world. And from this you will now be able to surmise that one need not create a mental image of human beings, here in the physical world as beings incarnated in physical bodies, having to work hard and being able to lie back in the lazy comfort of bliss—though, of course, they have no skin—and surrender themselves to bliss, do they not? That is by no means the case. Creation takes place between death and a new birth just as it does here. And this creative work is not only significant for the spiritual world; it also flows down into what happens here—things that are just as invisible as the beings themselves—which humans cannot see, though clocks could record what occurs daily as people are born on Earth and one generation succeeds another. All of this is organized; behind it lies the organization of the spiritual world. And this is based on work—on the serious work of the spiritual world. All of this is, of course, hidden from physical observation.

[ 44 ] All the wisdom necessary to build up a human being between death and rebirth must be put to use. And a person then assimilates this in what they unconsciously absorb between birth and death from this sense of growing older—in the sensing, in the feeling of growing older, in that subtle sensation of growing older. What they have acquired in this way is received by the gods, and it is precisely this—what is experienced here as weariness of life—that, through the gods’ wisdom, so to speak, sprouts into fruitful forces for a new organization, for a new incarnation. One does not grow weary in an incarnation for no reason. One needs this weariness so that the forces one must develop to form a new incarnation can spring forth from it.

[ 45 ] One can only ever hint at individual aspects of these things, but from these hints you will see how multifaceted the mental images must be that we need to grasp if we truly wish to gain an appropriate understanding of life between death and a new birth—one that is so appropriate that we also comprehend the connection between life between death and a new birth and between birth and death. If we consider life between death and a new birth, as we have done again today, we will not be so foolish as to believe that the forces we first develop between death and a new birth do not continually flow into life. They are constantly and perpetually present.

[ 46 ] Now that we have considered various aspects of life between death and a new birth, it may still be important to draw attention to something else: the way in which, after death, the one who has passed through the gate of death is regarded. They have the ability to perceive the soul and the spirit—in a soul-spiritual way. Now one must create a mental image of this very perception being a spiritual experience.

[ 47 ] The perception of those souls who have gone before us through the gate of death into the spiritual world—whom we encounter there—is much more profound, so to speak, than when we perceive these souls here, where they are separated from us by the body. Even though it is much more intimate—but precisely because it is much more intimate—the mental images we form of the dead, that is, of those we encounter there as the dead who have passed away before us—these mental images must, in essence, first be created by ourselves. So consider: Someone passes through the gate of death, and there is someone there whom they knew here in life: they enter that person’s region. (They always enter that person’s region.) They sense: There is someone there. They also know, out of an immediate feeling, who it is; but they cannot create a mental image of them unless, as it were, they mentally probe that which they only know is there. You can form a rough idea of the way in which one must work to form a mental image of the souls one thus comes to know after death if you imagine: We would be here in the dark, and one would not see the other with physical eyes, but would recognize them only by touch; in that case, we must actively create the mental image ourselves. In the same way, all mental images of souls who have passed through the gate of death before us must first be formed through spiritual exploration. We must be active—something people generally do not imagine correctly—and we must not surrender passively to the impressions of the spiritual world the way we surrender to the impressions of the physical-sensory world. For me to see one of you physically and sensually, all that is needed is for you to walk through the door: then you appear to my eye—I need do nothing. It is not like that after death. There, one knows of it, but one must first form the mental image. In this way, I am active, in that I must form the mental image of the soul out of my own creative process.

[ 48 ] This is somewhat different for souls who are still here on Earth and whom the deceased sees—from the spiritual world—as souls who are still living on Earth, that is, who have not yet died. The deceased also perceives such souls who have not yet died, but in such a way that he does not need to form the mental images himself; rather, these mental images appear to him as imaginations. Through this, one knows even after death, for example, whether one is dealing with an inhabitant of the same world who has also already passed through the gate of death. One imagines the latter through active thought; the one who still lives in the physical body appears before one as an imagination, as an image, as a complete picture. That is the significant difference. And everything that lives within such a soul—especially if it is connected to the spiritual world—can also be perceived from the other world. Hence the advice, isn’t it, to send loving thoughts to the deceased or to read aloud things that relate to the spiritual world. Reading aloud is something like spiritual nourishment for the dead or like a spiritual breathing process. They participate in this when we direct our thoughts toward them.

[ 49 ] There are certainly some people today who believe they are idealists. They are not. For although they want to be idealists, they think in a thoroughly materialistic way. So there is one of the leading—let’s say—criminal anthropologists of our time (I have mentioned him before), Benedikt. Benedikt first examined the brains of criminals with great care and on a broad scale. And there is always a peculiar feature that emerges in the brains of criminals. These criminal brains have the characteristic that the occipital lobe does not properly cover the cerebellum, whereas in a normally developed person, the occipital lobe covers the cerebellum quite properly. So, isn’t it true that through such an examination—and it is accurate, it is entirely correct— one comes to the conclusion through such an examination that humans can be divided into two classes: those who have normal occipital lobes that cover the cerebellum, and who do not commit crimes; and those who have an occipital lobe that is too small, an atrophied one that does not cover the cerebellum, and who become criminals. That is correct; that is an absolutely correct observation. This smaller, this atrophied occipital lobe is also present in monkeys. So the criminal simply reverts to a monkey-like nature—says the materialist. Well, that is how it is.

[ 50 ] Yes, I ask you: What can a person do about it if he is biologically predisposed to have an occipital lobe that is too small, and this causes him to become a criminal? Doesn’t it follow that, if one adheres to a worldview that focuses solely on this, the very idea of introducing criminal justice is nothing but a lie? Can you still punish someone if you can tell yourself: “A person is bound to become a criminal if he has an occipital lobe that’s too small!?” Does it make any reasonable sense to punish that person at all? Or isn’t it rather only sensible to say to yourself: “Yes, if it depends on someone becoming a criminal because they have a too-small occipital lobe, then being a criminal is just as necessary as rain and sunshine; and just as one does not punish the rain or the sea—unless one happens to be Xerxes and has it whipped into submission, doesn’t one, when it becomes unpleasant”—so one cannot punish a criminal. The entire criminal justice system would become a lie! And yet it is true what Professor Benedikt said: It is indeed the case that all criminal minds have an occipital lobe that is too small.

[ 51 ] Now just imagine: if there is any truth to this view, which is based on materialism, then all punishment and all talk of moral responsibility could actually be abolished! It wouldn’t make the slightest sense, and it would have to be abolished if, in truth, no other worldview were to take its place. It is quite clear that it would have to be abolished.

[ 52 ] What do people need to know in order for it to be possible to even speak of morality anymore? People would need to know that human beings also have an etheric body, and that even if one’s physical brain—specifically, the occipital lobe—is too small, the etheric brain, the etheric occipital lobe, can still develop not only normally but even in an excessively normal way, beyond what is normal; and that a person compensates for what they develop as an inner soul life—and what they miss out on when they have an occipital lobe that is too small or underdeveloped—by having an etheric body that is all the more powerfully developed, precisely because care was taken to ensure this during their upbringing. For these two—the physical occipital lobe and the etheric occipital lobe—are mutually aligned and balance each other out. This means that a time must come when people will say to one another: It is quite true that the criminal has an occipital lobe that is too small; but how to remedy the consequences will become clear once we learn to view human beings in their development in the way outlined in the simple little book The Education of the Child from the Point of View of Spiritual Science. When one observes people, one will know: one must apply these and those educational principles so that what is lacking in the physical body is balanced in the etheric body. People will have to know this in the future—truly know it in the future! One will have to take into account that the spiritual human being exists. From this time on, it is the task of human beings to know this and to apply it in life. For what else would happen if nowhere—nowhere in the world—were people educated in this way, and if one did not relate to human beings as one does on the assumption that an etheric human being exists? Yes, then, under the influence of those thoughts that cling solely to the physical body, humanity would come to depend solely on the physical body. It would come to depend solely on the physical body! If the materialistic worldview were to prevail, the etheric body would be forgotten, and it would not be developed even in the near future. - A person born with an occipital lobe that is too short shows that, by nature, they also have an etheric lobe that is too short, for the physical brain is formed this way because the etheric lobe is also too short; but through education, one can lengthen the etheric lobe... though not the physical one, at least only partially

[ 53 ] ... you then have to extend it by taking a detour through the etheric lobe.

[ 54 ] What may be a materialistic worldview today can become a human institution after a corresponding period of time. For the moment one forgets the spiritual, the physical is left at the mercy of Ahriman: He then takes possession of the entire physical realm. One can wrest it from him only by taking the spiritual into account in the way one relates to human beings. If one forgets the spiritual, then one is working in the spirit of Ahriman: one is, as it were, handing over the earthly world to Ahriman through the materialistic worldview. People do not even realize how they are on the path to handing the earth over to the devil. It is truly terrible how far they have gone down this path! Some of these phenomena can be heart-wrenching!

[ 55 ] Isn’t it true that, driven by a deep instinct, a man like Goethe wrote his Faust to show people that the devil really exists, that Mephisto exists, and that he is at work? A man as clever as Stendhal, who wrote so many beautiful works, objected to Faust by saying that it would actually be silly to invent the Faust tale in such a way... forgive me for repeating the expression, but as I said, a very witty Frenchman like Stendhal said it—he said: Well, there’s truly no need to go to such lengths as Goethe did! After all, even a reasonably normal person would be able to seduce a milliner without the Devil’s help.

[ 56 ] This is the witty Stendhal’s critique of Faust! It is stated so clearly there that even in the case of this witty man, one must say:

This little crowd never senses the devil,
even if he had them by the collar!

[ 57 ] He just doesn’t see the devil when, in his view, “a reasonably normal person” “seduces a milliner”! He just doesn’t see that the devil is there—always there. - And so one can say: The materialists do not see the devil into whose hands they are playing. And they are, in essence, in the process of adopting a materialistic worldview today and bringing about a materialistically shaped humanity in the future.

[ 58 ] One really would like to see what would become of humanity if only the materialistic worldview were to continue to prevail. Of course, the very clever people of today have a mental image of what the human world and the animal world will look like in centuries to come! But even from geology alone, they could deduce that this is not the case: for the mammalian fauna appears at certain stages in the Earth’s evolution and tells us of extinct species… But then again, people don’t think about such things, do they! A time will come when there will be a completely different animal world on Earth, with which human beings will only be able to cope if they have developed within themselves, spiritually, that which can be developed through a spiritual worldview. What exists today, for example, as the higher animal kingdom will have almost entirely died out. There will be peculiar higher animals. Yes, there will then be, for example, a species of animal very closely related to humans that will emit a kind of glow backward and have an organ at the front that, so to speak, reproduces in sounds what is influenced by the world. But humans will only be able to find their way in this animal world if they have developed their spiritual nature according to the principles of understanding this spiritual realm. Only then will they be able to find their way in this world; otherwise, they will have to wander the Earth as an upright animal, probably with nothing but oversized occipital lobes. — You see, one could, of course, conveniently say: Well, let’s just leave it to the gods to ensure that this doesn’t happen and that the Earth reaches its destination! If the gods are wise enough (one might say), then people can remain materialists for a long time—the gods will surely guide the Earth to its destination.

[ 59 ] But that is not how the gods have arranged the world. The gods want human beings to be free beings. And we must play our part! It is up to us whether we now incorporate Spiritual Science into the spiritual development of humanity. It really does depend on that. What spiritual science imparts must take root in people’s hearts.

[ 60 ] It is so disheartening to see how short-sighted people are! Some time ago, I told our friends in Hamburg how one can see—even outwardly, from external documents—that, until relatively recently, people had true insights into the spiritual world, insights such that they knew: ‘There is a spiritual world behind this.’ Back then, these were atavistic views. Now this must develop consciously. But just think how impressive it is when something like the following can be experienced: Let us recall the biblical image of Lucifer’s temptation of humankind. If a painter were to paint that today—in a naturalistic, futuristic, or cubist style, or in an impressionistic or expressionistic manner... (after all, paintings today have to be “-istic” in some way, don’t they?)... but in any case, he paints the serpent—as a figure of temptation on a tree. In doing so, he believes he is being quite realistic. But just imagine that a modern-day snake could seduce a woman! Even Eve wouldn’t be able to be seduced by a modern-day snake! At most, the modern-day snake, as a real animal, can itself be only an image of what is meant. Or do you believe that someone is thinking realistically if they cling to the mental image that the serpent of Paradise must be imagined as a modern-day snake… and paint it that way? - That person thinks just as unreally as the critic who—let’s face it—doesn’t think realistically when he accuses anthroposophy or theosophy of being populated by dreamers, nothing but dreamers. For instance, there’s a review about me (I believe it appeared in Hammer): It’s a long tale about how everything that’s presented is pure fantasy. And then such “fantasy” is condemned, and the person in question shares some notes about me: “It’s pure fantasy! It’s all just conjured up from the imagination! About the place where I was born, how I was born, who my ancestors were—it’s all pure fantasy!” Yes, that’s how consistent people can be!

[ 61 ] You see, if one wants to paint Lucifer, one must bear in mind that he lived on the Moon and remained behind in his lunar development—so one must depict him in such a way that he cannot be seen as an external being at all. He cannot be absolutely similar to an external earthly being—only remotely, not absolutely. What, then, is this Lucifer? And one comes to understand this as soon as one realizes that the human organism actually consists of two parts. We have our head with the spine attached to it, and then—as you can see from the skeleton—everything else is actually attached to that. What we bring with us from the Moon is our head. Everything else, formed only on Earth, is actually so constituted within us that one can also see all of it—but now inwardly; on the Moon it was still etheric, not yet physically formed. If one were to paint Lucifer on the Moon, one would have to paint a human head and, attached to it—just as is now the case with our spinal cord—a serpent’s body.

[ 62 ] Now there is—I saw this in Hamburg—a painting by Master Bertram, who in the thirteenth or fourteenth century depicted the Fall of Man in this way: Lucifer with a human head, with the spinal cord attached to it in the shape of a snake. So in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, there was a painter who depicted this correctly. And it simply doesn’t occur to people today: So the people of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries must have known this through some ancient form of clairvoyance… yet people today claim that everything in development proceeds so gradually. Even though every flower could teach us that it doesn’t happen gradually, because the green leaves transition into the colored petals in a single leap! Gradual development—without leaps—is the silliest thing one can say, because nature makes nothing but leaps; it’s constantly making leaps. But people think to themselves, don’t they: All of this is child’s play, all of this is made up, it’s a figment of the imagination!—It is not a figment of the imagination, it is not made up; rather, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries—as we can see—people still looked into the spiritual world in an atavistic way, and this can be proven externally, through documentation. Many such examples could be cited.

[ 63 ] The centuries we have now lived through served to alienate humanity from the spiritual world, and humanity must now re-enter the spiritual world. This must be achieved through Spiritual Science. It is absolutely essential that we take seriously—very seriously—what we recognize as the task of Spiritual Science: as I said, the cultivation of spiritual knowledge, so that this spiritual knowledge can truly permeate all aspects of practical life. And a special aid will indeed arise for this purpose. Humanity is currently facing a terrible event. Oh, if only people would think a little, just a little, today! But in their own opinion, people today are actually too clever to think! The lecture I gave here publicly yesterday—I also gave it recently in Leipzig. After that lecture, two gentlemen approached me—pacifists who hold quite significant positions in Leipzig—pacifists. They expressed their astonishment that, in light of current events, even Spiritual Science—which ought to be much closer to pacifism than any other worldview—could emphasize precisely what constitutes the significance of a nation. The national, they said—and this, they implied—was far removed from a worldview such as Spiritual Science.

[ 64 ] Of course, one cannot expect people to take this on board, to realize that, essentially, ever since the advent of this abstract pacifism, the greatest wars in world history have taken place—wars that have ultimately led up to the one we are facing today! One cannot even expect people to realize that they are, aren’t they, imitating that strange man who rules a great empire in the East, who has embroiled it in a devastating war, who at the same time officially proclaimed pacifism to the world, and who, at the same time, hasn’t he, helped orchestrate the most terrible war that is now tearing humanity apart! But people live trapped in their own opinions and plow through the world like bulls, unwilling to look left or right.

[ 65 ] One of these gentlemen said afterward, after I had replied to him: “Yes, but isn’t it reducing to absurdity what people have felt and thought based on their previous worldviews when humanity today is tearing each other apart?” Isn’t that taking things to an absurd extreme? Doesn’t that prove that something entirely new must enter the world if such absurdities are to be avoided?

[ 66 ] “Well, that’s just an illness that needs to be cured!” said the gentleman in question. It doesn’t help at all to say to such a gentleman what I had to say to him… for surely, the very worst thing is to have half-true or quarter-true mental images: “Yes, but just imagine what an illness is! An illness isn’t there simply because it has to afflict people, but because something wasn’t right beforehand.” Likewise, war is not sent by the spiritual world of humanity for war’s sake, but because what existed before was not right. War itself is not what is abnormal: just as illness exists—the disease process exists—to compensate for something that is not right in the organism, so too does war.

[ 67 ] If only people understood what they themselves were saying, that would already be a step in the right direction! When it comes to the physical world, people acknowledge the conservation of forces; they talk about how no force is lost. If this is to be extended to the spiritual world... Yes, then of course thought is not lost either, but it is handed over to Ahriman. Yet what all sorts of things do people say today! Even within Germany, a philosophy has emerged—the so-called “as if” philosophy—modeled after what I referred to yesterday as English pragmatism. The philosophy of “as if”... what does this philosophy of “as if” mean? A certain Vaihinger justified the philosophy of “as if” as follows: A human being is not supposed to have a soul, but one should regard what manifests in a human being as if he or she had a soul... because, after all, it is convenient to view it under a certain useful concept. No one has seen an atom either, but atomism is accepted. One should view the world as if atoms were in it. The philosophy of “as if”! People have no concept at all—do you see that—if one views something “as if” and views it as real—one cannot do that: view something “as if” when it isn’t actually there! For example, people today—yes, people of a certain ilk, well, let’s say, like those who read the Berliner Tageblatt—they regard Fritz Mauthner today as a great philosopher, greater than Kant, who has “out-Kanted” Kant himself and written the Critique of Language. They regard Fritz Mauthner as a great philosopher! I don’t want to talk about Fritz Mauthner right now, but I just want to mention this: This philosophy, contained in three thick volumes as a Critique of Language, which is really nothing more than the most hackneyed philosophical drivel (it’s even included in a thick dictionary), could lead one, for example, to regard Fritz Mauthner as if he had a spark of philosophical spirit! But you get nothing out of it. If only one could say, “I regard Fritz Mauthner as if he possessed a philosophical spirit!” If only he really did! But as it is, you get nowhere. “As-if” philosophy is of no help if things do not contain what the “as if” implies!—Yes, the fact is that one lives much deeper within materialism than one thinks, and that Central European thought, in particular, must be stirred up precisely in those areas where German identity must, above all else, become aware of what it actually contains within its national essence!

[ 68 ] One would hope that such things could make an impression! For they are, in and of themselves, capable of making an impression, just like the things I read aloud regarding Karl Christian Planck. What conclusion, then, should we actually draw from what I read aloud in public yesterday about Karl Christian Planck? He died in 1880. In his “Testament of a German,” which is available to the public in print, there is a sentence—written before 1880—that corresponds exactly to what is now happening in this war! The man was not even mistaken about the fact that Italy might stand on the side of the Entente! But he was an “impractical idealist.” The “practical” people who were mistaken—yes, many of them right up to the very last moment—about Italy’s position are the practical people of today. The impractical philosopher, after all, is not allowed to pass judgment on the physical world! But it really ought to dawn on people what it means that someone who judges based on the laws of the world wrote down before the year 1880 something that corresponds exactly to current events.

[ 69 ] In many respects, humanity has lost its esteem and respect for engaging with the spiritual world. This will be the great task of the German people in the future: to draw upon the achievements of the great spirits (and we have seen just how many great spirits there have been who have been forgotten) to educate ourselves, so that we may in turn continue to educate others in spreading reverence and respect for the spiritual world. Only then will what can stand before us as a great, significant event come to pass. Spiritual forces can no more be lost than physical forces. A human being has an etheric body; he possesses forces within his etheric body that would certainly last for decades in relation to his physical body. Let us suppose he meets a sacrificial death, as perhaps a million people—counting only on the German side—will soon do... Let us suppose he meets a sacrificial death at a young age. The forces of his etheric body could have continued to work within his physical body for decades to come: they are not lost; they remain. He incorporates into his physical body only that which he has mentally developed from the spiritual world up until his death; the rest remains in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world there will be the unused etheric bodies of thousands upon thousands of people. People will have to know: these bodies are floating up there in the spiritual world. It will depend on whether there will be souls here on Earth who know how to make progress in spiritual knowledge, in human culture, and in the understanding of humanity by being conscious of the fact that these unused etheric bodies are floating there. And one need only, as it were, surrender to the feeling, and they will inspire the necessary strength into one’s words. Oh, this awareness of the unspent etheric bodies—which will be there and will work within human souls toward the spiritualization of humanity—could truly be a great help from the spiritual world!

[ 70 ] But if people choose to be materialists, and if there are no souls here on Earth who know of the existence of those souls dwelling in the spiritual world—that they are active there and work down from there—then all these sacrificial deaths might have been in vain ... And all those etheric bodies up there could be robbed from humanity by the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces. It is precisely in human freedom that our participation in the spiritual world is rooted. Oh, if only one could kindle in as many souls as possible the fire that illuminates an understanding of this connection—the connection that humanity must now establish with the spiritual world, because humanity must be consciously guided forward! If only we could kindle the fire that brings understanding to the fact that these grave events of the present are a warning and a test, so that people might reflect on what materialism, if allowed to advance, will lead to—and will lead to more and more! If only we could truly awaken an understanding that as many of us as possible should hold fast to Spiritual Science with this very faithfulness, by imbuing their souls with the necessity of such faithful adherence to Spiritual Science in the sense of further educating humanity for this distinctive connection, if we could awaken an understanding that there must be souls here on Earth in the future—as many souls as possible—who become aware of the new connection with the spiritual world! If we could awaken an awareness of how true it is what lies in the words with which we wish to conclude once again today:

From the courage of the warriors,
from the blood of battle,
from the suffering of the forsaken,
from the sacrifices of the people
the fruit of the spirit grows,
guiding souls, spiritually aware,
to direct their minds toward the spiritual realm!