The Rudolf Steiner Archive

83. Misunderstanding and Hatred of People

[ 1 ] We must be just as interested in the roots of moral impulses in the spiritual world as we are in the workings of natural forces. This is the most important thing that can make us, as earthly human beings, beings imbued with morality. It is difficult to justify morality because one must point to that within the human being which forms and strengthens morality. Whatever morally good a person can do must spring from two sources: first, from an understanding of other people; second, from love for humanity. Where there is no understanding, love cannot prevail. All moral and ethical behavior arises from these two sources. Until this insight is gained, the social question cannot be resolved.

[ 2 ] How do the moral impulses of love for humanity and understanding of humanity manifest themselves in the supersensible realm? In every human being, an immense amount of hatred and contempt for humanity accumulates in the subconscious. After death, these qualities of the soul, clinging to the astral body and the “I,” depart. One hardly notices this as long as the person is still in the physical body and the etheric body. But after death, the astral body is entirely permeated by brownish-gray spots from which a spiritual coldness radiates. If one imagines physical coldness translated into the spiritual realm, this is the atmosphere that surrounds a person after death. The beings of the third hierarchy (Angels, Archangels, Archai) have the task of relieving a person of these terrible forces and helping to carry them away. These beings must restore order to the disorder that a person brings into the spiritual world through this coldness.

[ 3 ] But what these beings cannot take away from us is our hatred of humanity. Even if the astral body is already free from the coldness of human incomprehension, this coldness—which stems from hatred of humanity—still clings to it. To transform this, it requires even greater forces, namely the beings of the second hierarchy (Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes). They relieve the human being of whatever has to do with antipathy toward humanity.

[ 4 ] During the Midnight of the Worlds, human beings must be bathed in the light of the beings of the First Hierarchy; this grace must be bestowed upon them. When this bathing in light begins, the first foundation for a future body can be laid. This world of Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones cannot be compared to our world. It is both; the creative Spirit works in the physical world, and the two are one. But the spiritual does not appear in physical heaviness. It is all radiant and pervasive, of immense mobility, an everlasting life and weaving.

[ 5 ] After death, one sees the person in an image. It is woven from light, colors, and darkness, and is melodious. In the first half—between death and new birth—it still recalls what the person was during their earthly life. Through the centuries, this image bears their features. The forms are still present, but behind them the formative forces are at work; these are the ones that last the longest. First and foremost, the head disappears. As the person continues to develop within his or her spiritual shadow image, he or she becomes increasingly headless. Yet he or she is also an image of color, an image of sound, and an image of warmth, and one knows: it is this or that person. He or she also reveals his or her spiritual name. When he enters the sphere of the Cherubim, Seraphim, and Thrones, everything about him appears as moral qualities. Hatred is transformed into love, coldness into warmth, and through this the human being can complete his further path. There is little of a moral nature to be seen in the head. The head is a comedian; it intellectualizes everything. When one considers the metabolic system of the limbs, one finds within it the entire moral being. This being carries its karma into the sphere of the first hierarchy. A remarkable transformation now takes place. For example, the legs are transformed into the jaw system. The cheekbones develop from the arms.

[ 6 ] The new limbs come from the physical earth, and when they begin to move, the head parts can also be used for speaking and singing. If a person can sing, it is because he acquired this ability in a previous incarnation. In the second half of the period between death and rebirth, a person is once again given back what they have carried up in the form of misunderstanding and hatred of humanity. The beings of the second and third hierarchies return it to the person. They had only taken it away so that the person might be protected in the highest sphere. After being strengthened by the Cherubim, Seraphim, and Thrones, the person can take on their karma once more. As a head being, they first form themselves as an image of the world sphere. Only then do their chest and limb systems take shape; these are attached and formed from their hatred of and misunderstanding toward humanity. Just as the limbs have expressed themselves in the heart (?), so in the next incarnation they form the optic mounds, the pineal gland, and so on. What develops from the limbs constitutes the deeper parts of the head organism. In this way, a biography can be written for every human being based on their cosmic experiences after death.

[ 7 ] Humanity has suffered a weakness: having to endure the world’s midnight hour. This has given rise to a special sphere from which unspent hatred and misunderstanding of humanity have rained down upon us. Hatred and coldness cast out of heaven have been alive in these three decades of the twentieth century. This has a particular consequence for life on Earth. It has caused human civilization to gradually become a parasite. We can all write so much these days, for example, but it does not spring from full humanity. It is something that has been forced into us. Thus, spiritual life can become poison within the human being. It is not civilization that becomes poison, but rather it becomes so within the human being.

[ 8 ] This parasitic civilization poisons the ether from which humanity must be recreated. The antidote has been created in the etheric manifestation of Christ. This event, which is imminent, will replace etheric disease with etheric health. In the last third of the [nineteenth] century, the appearance of Michael was the harbinger.

[ 9 ] Reality is described when, on the one hand, we describe the poisoning of the ether by our civilization and, on the other hand, the ethereal manifestation of Christ. It is not simply a matter of adopting a new worldview; we must take a spiritual drink from anthroposophy in order to choose the right path.