Occult Science
GA 13
Translated by Steiner Online Library
Sleep and Death
[ 1 ] One cannot penetrate the essence of waking consciousness without observing the state through which man passes during sleep; and one cannot come to grips with the riddle of life without considering death. For a man in whom there is no feeling of the importance of supersensible knowledge, objections to it may arise from the way in which it conducts its contemplations of sleep and death. This knowledge can appreciate the motives from which such misgivings arise. For it is nothing incomprehensible when someone says that man exists for the active, effective life and that his work is based on devotion to it. And immersion in states such as sleep and death can only arise from a sense of idle reverie and lead to nothing other than empty fantasy. People can easily see in the rejection of such "fantasy" the expression of a healthy soul and in the devotion to such "idle reveries" something morbid, which may only be suitable for people who lack vitality and joie de vivre and who are not capable of "true creation". It would be wrong to dismiss such a judgment out of hand as incorrect. For it has a certain kernel of truth in it; it is a quarter truth that must be supplemented by the other three quarters that belong to it. And you only make someone who understands one quarter quite well but has no idea about the other three quarters suspicious if you fight against the one correct quarter. It must be admitted that contemplating what sleep and death conceal is pathological if it leads to a weakening, to a turning away from true life. And it is no less true that much of what has always been called secret science in the world and what is currently practiced under this name has an unhealthy, anti-life character. But this unhealthy character does not arise from true supersensible knowledge. The true facts are rather as follows. Just as man cannot always be awake, so he cannot get along with the real conditions of life in its entirety without what the supersensible is able to give him. Life continues in sleep, and the forces that work and create in waking life draw their strength and refreshment from what sleep gives them. So it is with what man can observe in the manifest world. The realm of the world is wider than the field of this observation. And what man recognizes in the visible must be supplemented and fertilized by what he is able to know about the invisible worlds. A person who does not repeatedly draw strength from the slack forces of sleep must lead his life to destruction; likewise, an observation of the world that is not fertilized by the knowledge of the hidden must lead to desolation. And it is similar with "death". Living beings are subject to death so that new life can arise. It is precisely the knowledge of the supersensible that sheds clear light on Goethe's beautiful sentence: "Nature invented death in order to have plenty of life." 1"Death is her artifice to have much life" (Die Natur, Fragment) Just as there could be no life in the ordinary sense without death, so there can be no real knowledge of the visible world without insight into the supersensible. All cognition of the visible must be immersed again and again in the invisible in order to develop. Thus it is evident that the science of the supersensible makes the life of revealed knowledge possible in the first place; it never weakens life when it emerges in its true form; it strengthens it and makes it fresh and healthy again and again when it, dependent on itself, has made itself weak and ill.
[ 2 ] When man sinks into sleep, the context in his limbs changes. That which lies in the sleeping person's resting place contains the physical body and the etheric body, but not the astral body and not the ego. Because the etheric body remains connected with the physical body in sleep, the life effects continue. For at the moment when the physical body would be left to itself, it would have to disintegrate. But what is extinguished in sleep is the imagination, suffering and pleasure, joy and sorrow, the ability to express a conscious will, and similar facts of existence. But the astral body is the carrier of all this. For an unbiased judgment, the opinion that in sleep the astral body is destroyed with all pleasure and suffering, with the whole world of imagination and will, is of course out of the question. It is present in a different state. For the human ego and the astral body not only to be filled with pleasure and suffering and all the other things mentioned, but also to have a conscious perception of them, it is necessary for the astral body to be connected with the physical body and the etheric body. In waking it is this, in sleeping it is not. It has pulled itself out of it. It has taken on a different kind of existence than the one it has during its connection with the physical body and etheric body. It is now the task of cognition of the supersensible to observe this other kind of existence in the astral body. For observation in the outer world, the astral body disappears in sleep; the supersensible view now has to follow it in its life until it again takes possession of the physical body and etheric body on awakening. As in all cases in which it is a question of recognizing the hidden things and processes of the world, supersensible observation is necessary in order to find the real facts of the sleep state in their own form; but once it has been expressed what can be found through this, then it is readily comprehensible to a truly unbiased mind. For the processes of the hidden world show themselves in their effects in the revealed world. If one sees how that which is indicated by supersensible observation makes the sensible processes intelligible, then such a confirmation through life is the proof that one can demand for these things. Whoever does not wish to use the means to be indicated later for the attainment of supersensible observation can make the following experience. He can first accept the indications of supersensible knowledge and then apply them to the manifest things of his experience. In this way he can find that life becomes clear and understandable. And he will come to this conviction all the more, the more closely and thoroughly he observes ordinary life.
[ 3 ] Although the astral body does not experience ideas during sleep, even if it does not experience pleasure and suffering and the like, it does not remain inactive. Rather, it is responsible for a lively activity precisely in the state of sleep. It is an activity into which it must enter again and again in rhythmic succession when it has been active for a time in communion with the physical and the etheric body. Just as a clock pendulum, after having swung to the left and returned to its central position, must swing to the right through the force gathered during this swing: so the astral body and the ego in its womb, after having been active for some time in the physical and etheric bodies, must, through the results of this activity, develop their activity for a subsequent time in a soul-spiritual environment without a body. In the ordinary state of human life, unconsciousness occurs within this body-free state of the astral body and the ego, because this represents the opposite of the state of consciousness developed in the waking state through being together with the physical and etheric body: just as the right pendulum swing forms the opposite of the left. The necessity to enter this unconsciousness is felt by the spiritual-soul of the human being as fatigue. But this fatigue is the expression of the fact that during sleep the astral body and the ego prepare themselves, in the following waking state, to re-form in the physical and etheric body what, as long as they were free from the spiritual-soul, has arisen in them through purely organic - unconscious - formative activity. This unconscious formative activity and what happens in the human being during and through consciousness are opposites. Such opposites that must alternate in rhythmic sequence. - The physical body can only be given the form and shape it deserves for the human being through the human etheric body. But this human form of the physical body can only be maintained by such an etheric body, which in turn is supplied with the corresponding forces by the astral body. The etheric body is the molder, the architect of the physical body. However, it can only form in the right sense if it receives the stimulus for the way it has to form from the astral body. In this are the models according to which the etheric body gives its form to the physical body. During waking, the astral body is not filled with these models for the physical body, or at least only to a certain degree. For during waking the soul puts its own images in the place of these models. When man directs his senses towards his surroundings, he forms images in his imagination through perception, which are images of the world around him. These images are initially disturbances for those images that stimulate the etheric body to maintain the physical body. Only if the human being could, through his own activity, supply his astral body with those images that can give the etheric body the right stimulation, then such a disturbance would not exist. But it is precisely this disturbance that plays an important role in human existence. And it expresses itself in the fact that during waking hours the etheric body does not receive the full power of the images. The astral body accomplishes its waking work within the physical body; during sleep it works on the physical body from outside. b3The connection between sleep and fatigue is not usually regarded in the way required by the facts. Sleep is thought to occur as a result of fatigue. The fact that this idea is far too simple can be seen every time a person who is often not tired at all falls asleep while listening to a speech that does not interest him or on a similar occasion. Anyone who wants to claim that a person becomes tired on such occasions is using a method that lacks the proper seriousness of knowledge. Unbiased observation must come to the conclusion that waking and sleeping represent different relations of the soul to the body, which in the regular course of life must occur in rhythmic succession like the left and right swing of a pendulum. Such unbiased observation reveals that the soul's being filled with the impressions of the outside world awakens in it the desire to enter into another state after this one by being absorbed in the genus of its own corporeality. Two states of the soul alternate: Surrender to external impressions and surrender to one's own corporeality. In the first state, the desire for the second is unconsciously generated, which itself then runs in the unconscious. The expression of the desire for the enjoyment of one's own corporeality is fatigue. We must therefore actually say that we feel tired because we want to sleep, not that we want to sleep because we feel tired. Now, since the human soul can, through habituation, also arbitrarily evoke in itself the states that necessarily occur in normal life, it is possible that, when it becomes numb to a given external impression, it evokes in itself the desire for the pleasure of its own corporeality; that is, it falls asleep when there is no reason to do so due to the person's inner constitution.
[ 4 ] For example, just as the physical body needs the outside world, with which it is of the same kind, for the supply of food, something similar is also the case for the astral body. Imagine a physical human body removed from the world around it. It would have to perish. This shows that it is not possible without the whole physical environment. In fact, the whole earth must be just as it is if there are to be physical human bodies on it. In truth, this whole human body is only a part of the earth, indeed in a broader sense of the whole physical universe. In this respect it behaves like, for example, the finger of a hand in relation to the whole human body. Separate the finger from the hand and it cannot remain a finger. It withers away. The same would happen to the human body if it were removed from the body of which it is a part, from the conditions of life which the earth provides. Raise it a sufficient number of miles above the surface of the earth, and it will perish as a finger spoils when it is cut off from the hand. If man pays less attention to this fact in relation to his physical body than to his finger and body, it is merely because the finger cannot walk around on the body as man can on the earth, and for the latter the dependence is therefore more easily apparent.
[ 5 ] Just as the physical body is embedded in the physical world to which it belongs, so the astral body belongs to its own. Only it is torn out of this world through waking life. You can visualize what is going on there with a comparison. Imagine a vessel of water. A drop is nothing separate within this whole mass of water. But take a small sponge and use it to suck a drop out of the whole mass of water. This is what happens to the human astral body on awakening. During sleep it is in a world that is the same as itself. It forms something that belongs to it in a certain way. On awakening, the physical body and the etheric body absorb it. They fill themselves with him. They contain the organs through which he perceives the outer world. But in order to come to this perception, he must separate himself from his world. From this world, however, it can only receive the models it needs for the etheric body. - For example, just as the physical body receives food from its surroundings, so the astral body receives the images of the world around it during the state of sleep. It actually lives outside the physical and etheric body in the universe. In the same universe from which the whole human being is born. In this universe is the source of the images through which man receives his form. He is harmoniously integrated into this universe. And during waking he lifts himself out of this comprehensive harmony in order to come to external perception. During sleep his astral body returns to this harmony of the universe. On awakening from this harmony, it introduces so much power into its bodies that it can again do without dwelling in the harmony for some time. During sleep, the astral body returns to its home and, on awakening, brings newly strengthened forces with it into life. The possession that the astral body brings with it on awakening finds its outward expression in the refreshment that a healthy sleep gives. The further explanations of the secret science will show that this home of the astral body is more comprehensive than that which belongs to the physical body in the narrower sense of the physical environment. While man as a physical being is a member of the earth, his astral body belongs to worlds in which still other world bodies are embedded than our earth. As a result - which, as mentioned, can only become clear in the further explanations - during sleep he enters a world to which worlds other than the earth belong.
[ 6 ] It should be superfluous to point out an easily occurring misunderstanding with regard to these facts. But it is not unnecessary in our time, in which certain materialistic conceptions are present. On the part of those who hold such views, it can of course be said that it is only scientific to investigate something like sleep according to its physical conditions. Even if scholars are not yet agreed on the physical cause of sleep, one thing is certain, namely that certain physical processes must be assumed to underlie this phenomenon. But if only one would recognize that supersensible knowledge does not contradict this assertion! It admits everything that is said from this side, just as one admits that for the physical formation of a house one brick must be laid on top of another, and that when the house is finished, its form and its connection can be explained from purely mechanical laws. But the idea of the master builder is necessary for the house to come into being. It cannot be found by merely examining the physical laws. - Just as behind the physical laws which make the house explainable are the thoughts of its creator, so behind what physical science quite correctly puts forward is that which is spoken of through supersensible knowledge. Certainly, this comparison is often made when we speak of the justification of a spiritual background to the world. And one can find it trivial. But in such matters it is not a question of being familiar with certain concepts, but of attaching the right weight to them to justify something. One can be prevented from doing so simply because opposing ideas have too great a power over the power of judgment to feel this weight in the right way.
[ 7 ] Dreaming is an intermediate state between waking and sleeping. What dream experiences offer to a sensible contemplation is the colorful confusion of a world of images, which nevertheless also contains something of rule and law. Rising and falling, often in a confused sequence, seems at first to show this world. In his dream life, man is unbound by the law of waking consciousness, which chains him to the perception of the senses and to the rules of his power of judgment. And yet the dream has something of mysterious laws which are attractive and appealing to the human imagination and which are the deeper cause of the fact that one always likes to compare the beautiful play of the imagination, as it underlies artistic feeling, with "dreaming". You only have to remember a few characteristic dreams and you will find this confirmed. A person dreams, for example, that he chases away a dog rushing at him. He wakes up and finds himself unconsciously pushing off a part of the comforter that has settled on an unfamiliar part of his body and has therefore become a nuisance. What does dream life make of this sensually perceptible process? What the senses would perceive in the waking state, the sleeping life initially leaves completely unconscious. However, it retains something essential, namely the fact that the person wants to ward something off. And it spins a pictorial process around this. The images as such are echoes from waking daily life. The way in which they are taken from this has something arbitrary about it. Everyone has the feeling that the dream could also conjure up other images for him on the same external occasion. But they express the feeling that man has something to ward off symbolically. The dream creates symbols; it is a symbolizer. Inner processes can also be transformed into such dream symbols. A person dreams that a fire is roaring next to him; he sees the flames in his dream. He wakes up and feels that he has covered himself up too much and has become too warm. The feeling of too much warmth is expressed symbolically in the picture. Very dramatic experiences can take place in dreams. For example, someone dreams that he is standing on a precipice. He sees a child running towards him. The dream makes him experience all the agony of the thought: if only the child would not be inattentive and fall into the depths. He sees it fall and hears the muffled thud of the body below. He wakes up and hears that an object hanging on the wall of the room has come loose and made a muffled sound when it fell. Dream life expresses this simple process in a process that takes place in exciting images. - For the time being, there is no need to ponder how it is that in the last example the moment of the dull impact of an object is broken down into a series of processes that seem to extend over a certain period of time; one need only consider how the dream transforms what the waking sensory perception would present into an image.
[ 8 ] You see: as soon as the senses cease their activity, a creative quality asserts itself for the human being. This is the same creative quality that is also present in full dreamless sleep and which represents that state of the soul that appears as the opposite of the waking state of the soul. If this dreamless sleep is to occur, the astral body must be withdrawn from the etheric body and the physical body. During dreaming it is separated from the physical body in so far as it no longer has any connection with its sense organs; however, it still maintains a certain connection with the etheric body. The fact that the processes of the astral body can be perceived in images comes from its connection with the etheric body. The moment this connection ceases, the images sink into the darkness of unconsciousness, and dreamless sleep is there. However, the arbitrary and often absurd nature of the dream images stems from the fact that the astral body cannot relate its images to the correct objects and processes of the external environment due to its separation from the sensory organs of the physical body. The observation of such a dream, in which the ego splits to a certain extent, is particularly clarifying for this fact. For example, if someone dreams that as a pupil he cannot answer a question put to him by the teacher, while the teacher himself answers it immediately afterwards. Because the dreamer cannot use the organs of perception of his physical body, he is unable to relate the two processes to himself as the same person. Therefore, in order to recognize himself as a permanent self, man must first be equipped with external organs of perception. Only then, if man had acquired the ability to become aware of his ego in a way other than through such organs of perception, would the permanent ego also be perceptible to him outside his physical body. The supersensible consciousness has to acquire such abilities, and the means for this will be discussed further in this paper.
[ 9 ] Death, too, occurs through nothing other than a change in the coherence of the members of the human being. That which is revealed by supersensible observation can also be seen in its effects in the manifest world; and the impartial power of judgment will find the communications of supersensible knowledge confirmed by the observation of external life. But for these facts the expression of the invisible in the visible is less obvious, and one has greater difficulty in fully feeling the weight of what in the processes of external life speaks in confirmation of the communications of supersensible knowledge in this field. It is even more obvious here than for some of the things already discussed in this paper to simply declare these communications to be figments of the imagination, if one wants to close oneself off to the realization of how the sensible contains the clear indication of the supersensible.
[ 10 ] While the astral body only separates from its connection with the etheric body and the physical body during the transition to sleep, but the latter remain connected, the separation of the physical body from the etheric body occurs at death. The physical body is left to its own forces and must therefore disintegrate as a corpse. For the etheric body, however, a state has now occurred at death in which it was never during the time between birth and death, apart from certain exceptional states which will be discussed later. It is now united with its astral body without the physical body being present. For the etheric body and the astral body do not separate immediately after death. They are held together for a time by a force which it is easy to understand must be present. If it were not present, the etheric body could not separate from the physical body. For it is held together with the physical body: this is shown by sleep, where the astral body is unable to tear these two parts of the human being apart. This power comes into effect at death. It separates the etheric body from the physical, so that the former is now connected with the astral body. Psychic observation shows that this connection is different for different people after death. The duration is measured in days. For the time being, this duration will only be mentioned here in passing. - Later, the astral body also separates from its etheric body and goes on its way without it. During the connection of the two bodies, the human being is in a state through which he can perceive the experiences of his astral body. As long as the physical body is there, the work from outside must begin as soon as the astral body is detached from it in order to refresh the worn-out organs. If the physical body is detached, this work ceases. But the power that is used on it when the person is asleep remains after death, and it can now be used for other purposes. It is now used to make the astral body's own processes perceptible. An observer who is attached to the external aspects of life may say that these are all assertions which are plausible to those gifted with supersensible perception, but that there is no possibility for another person to penetrate their truth. This is not the case. Whatever supersensible knowledge observes in this field, which is remote from ordinary vision, can be grasped by ordinary judgment once it has been found. This power of judgment must only place before it in the right way the connections of life which are present in the manifest. Imagination, feeling and volition stand among themselves and with the experiences made by man in the external world in such a relationship that they remain incomprehensible if the nature of their revealed activity is not taken as the expression of an unrevealed one. This revelatory effectiveness only becomes clearer for judgment when it can be seen in its course in physical human life as the result of what supersensible knowledge establishes for the non-physical. Without supersensible knowledge, one finds oneself in the face of this activity as in a dark room without light. Just as the physical objects of the environment can only be seen in the light, so what takes place through the soul life of man can only be explained through supersensible knowledge. While the human being is connected with his physical body, the outer world comes into consciousness in images; after the shedding of this body, what the astral body experiences becomes perceptible when it is not connected with this outer world through any physical sense organs. At first it has no new experiences. The connection with the etheric body prevents it from experiencing anything new. What he does have, however, is the memory of the past life. The etheric body, which is still present, makes this memory appear as a comprehensive, vivid painting. This is man's first experience after death. He perceives life between birth and death as a series of pictures spread out before him. During this life, memory is only present in the waking state, when the human being is connected to his physical body. It is only present to the extent that this body allows it. The soul loses nothing of what makes an impression on it in life. If the physical body were a perfect tool for this purpose, it should be possible at every moment of life to conjure up its entire past before the soul. This obstacle ceases with death. As long as the etheric body remains with the human being, there is a certain perfection of memory. But it disappears to the extent that the etheric body loses the form it had during its stay in the physical body and which is similar to the physical body. This is also the reason why the astral body separates from the etheric body after some time. It can only remain united with it as long as its form corresponding to the physical body lasts. - During life between birth and death, separation of the etheric body only occurs in exceptional cases and only for a short time. For example, if a person strains one of his limbs, a part of the etheric body can separate from the physical body. A limb in which this is the case is said to have "fallen asleep". And the peculiar feeling that one then experiences stems from the separation of the etheric body. (Of course, a materialistic way of thinking can again deny the invisible in the visible and say that all this only comes from the physical disturbance caused by the pressure). In such a case, supersensible observation can see how the corresponding part of the etheric body moves out of the physical body. If a person experiences a very unusual fright or something similar, the etheric body can be separated for a very short time for a large part of the body. This is the case when a person suddenly feels close to death as a result of something, for example when he is drowning or is in danger of falling down a mountain. What people who have experienced such things say is indeed close to the truth and can be confirmed by psychic observation. They say that in such moments their whole life has appeared before their souls as if in a large memory picture. Of the many examples that could be cited here, only one may be referred to, because it comes from a man for whose way of thinking everything that is said here about such things must appear to be vain fantasy. For it is always very useful for those who take a few steps into supersensible observation to acquaint themselves with the statements of those who regard this science as fantasy. Such information cannot so easily be accused of bias on the part of the observer. (The secret scientists may only learn a great deal from those who regard their endeavors as nonsense. They need not be misled if the latter do not show them any sympathy in this respect. Supersensible observation itself, however, does not need such things to prove its results. Nor does it seek to prove, but to explain, with these indications). In his memoirs, Moritz Benedict, an excellent criminal anthropologist and important researcher in many other fields of natural research, recounts a case he himself experienced: once, when he was close to drowning in a bath, he saw his whole life before him in his memory as if in a single image. - If others describe the images experienced on a similar occasion differently, even in such a way that they seem to have little to do with the events of their past, this does not contradict what has been said, for the images that arise in the quite unfamiliar state of separation from the physical body are sometimes not readily explicable in their relationship to life. However, a correct observation will always recognize this relationship. Nor is it an objection if, for example, someone was once close to drowning and did not have the experience described. It must be remembered that this can only occur when the etheric body is really separated from the physical body and the former remains connected to the astral body. If the shock also causes a loosening of the etheric body and astral body, then the experience does not occur, because then there is complete unconsciousness, as in dreamless sleep.
[ 11 ] In the first time after death, the experienced past appears summarized in a memory painting. After the separation from the etheric body, the astral body is now on its own on its further journey. It is not difficult to see that everything remains in the astral body that it has acquired through its own activity during its stay in the physical body. The ego has to a certain extent worked out the spirit self, the life spirit and the spirit man. As far as these are developed, they do not receive their existence from what is present as organs in the bodies, but from the ego. And this ego is precisely the being that does not need any external organs for its perception. Nor does it need such organs in order to remain in possession of what it has united with itself. One could object: why is there no perception of this developed spirit self, life spirit and spirit man in sleep? It is not there because the ego is chained to the physical body between birth and death. Even if it is outside this physical body in sleep with the astral body, it still remains closely connected to it. For the activity of its astral body is turned towards this physical body. This means that the ego's perception is limited to the outer world of the senses and it cannot receive the revelations of the spiritual in its immediate form. Only through death does this revelation come to the ego, because it is freed from its connection with the physical and etheric body. At that moment another world can light up for the soul, in which it is drawn out of the physical world, which in life binds its activity to itself. - Now there are reasons why not all connection with the outer sense world ceases for the human being at this time either. Certain desires remain which maintain this connection. These are desires which man creates for himself precisely because he is aware of his ego as the fourth member of his being. Those cravings and desires which spring from the being of the three lower bodies can also only work within the outer world; and when these bodies are discarded, they cease. Hunger is caused by the outer body; it is silent as soon as this outer body is no longer connected with the ego. If the ego had no other desires than those which originate from its own spiritual being, it could, at the onset of death, draw full satisfaction from the spiritual world into which it has been transferred. But life has given it other desires. It has kindled in it a desire for pleasures that can only be satisfied by physical organs, even though they do not come from the nature of these organs themselves. Not only do the three bodies demand their satisfaction through the physical world, but the ego itself finds pleasures within this world for which there is no object for satisfaction at all in the spiritual world. There are two kinds of desires for the ego in life. Those that stem from the bodies, which must therefore be satisfied within the bodies, but which also come to an end with the disintegration of the bodies. Then there are those that stem from the spiritual nature of the ego. As long as the I is in the bodies, these too will be satisfied by the bodily organs. For the hidden spiritual is at work in the manifestations of the organs of the body. And in everything that the senses perceive, they simultaneously receive a spiritual. This spiritual is also present after death, albeit in a different form. Everything that the ego desires from the spiritual within the sense world, it also has when the senses are no longer there. If these two kinds of desires were not joined by a third, death would only mean a transition from desires that can be satisfied by the senses to those that find their fulfillment in the revelation of the spiritual world. This third kind of desires are those which the ego generates during its life in the sense world, because it finds pleasure in it even in so far as the spiritual is not revealed in it. - The lowest pleasures can be revelations of the spirit. The satisfaction which the intake of food affords the hungry being is a revelation of the spirit. For through the intake of food that is brought about without which the spiritual could not find its development in a certain respect. The ego, however, can go beyond the genus that is necessarily required by this fact. It can crave tasty food, quite apart from the service rendered to the spirit by the intake of food. The same is true of other things in the world of the senses. Desires are thereby generated which would never have appeared in the sense world if the human ego had not been incorporated into it. But such desires do not arise from the spiritual nature of the ego either. The ego must have sensual pleasures as long as it lives in the body, even insofar as it is spiritual. For the spirit reveals itself in the sensual; and the ego enjoys nothing other than the spirit when it surrenders itself in the world of the senses to that through which the light of the spirit shines. And it will remain in the enjoyment of this light, even if sensuality is no longer the means through which the rays of the spirit pass. For such desires, however, there is no fulfillment in the spiritual world for which the spirit does not already live in the sensual. When death occurs, the possibility of enjoyment is cut off for these desires. The enjoyment of tasty food can only be brought about by the presence of the physical organs that are used in the intake of the food: Palate, tongue, etc. The human being no longer has these after discarding the physical body. But if the ego still has a need for such genus, then this need must remain unsatisfied. If this genus corresponds to the spirit, it is only present as long as the physical organs are there. But if the ego has produced it without serving the spirit, it remains after death as a desire that thirsts in vain for satisfaction. We can only form an idea of what is going on in the human being if we imagine someone suffering a burning thirst in an area where there is no water to be found for miles around. This is what happens to the ego when, after death, it harbors unquenched desires for the pleasures of the outer world and has no organs to satisfy them. Of course, the burning thirst, which serves as a comparison with the state of the ego after death, must be thought of as being increased to the extreme and imagined as being extended to all the desires still present at that time, for which there is no possibility of fulfillment. The next state of the ego consists in freeing itself from this bond of attraction to the outer world. The ego must bring about a purification and liberation within itself in this respect. Everything must be eradicated from it that has been generated by it within the body and that has no right of residence in the spiritual world. - Just as an object is seized by fire and burnt, so the world of desires described above is dissolved and destroyed after death. This opens up a view into that world which supersensible knowledge can describe as the "consuming fire of the spirit". This "fire" captures a desire that is sensual in nature, but it is such that the sensual is not an expression of the spirit. One might find such ideas, as supersensible knowledge must give in relation to these processes, bleak and terrible. It might seem frightening that a hope, for the satisfaction of which sensual organs are necessary, must after death turn into hopelessness, that a wish which only the physical world can fulfill must then turn into burning deprivation. One can only hold such an opinion as long as one does not consider that all desires and cravings that are seized by the "consuming fire" after death do not represent benevolent but destructive forces in life in the higher sense. Through such forces, the ego forges a stronger bond with the world of the senses than is necessary in order to absorb from this same world of the senses everything that it desires. This world of the senses is a revelation of the spiritual hidden behind it. The ego could never enjoy the spirit in the form in which it can only reveal itself through bodily senses if it did not want to use these senses for the enjoyment of the spiritual in the sensual. But the ego also withdraws as much of the true spiritual reality in the world as it desires from the world of the senses without the spirit speaking. If sensual pleasure as an expression of the spirit means elevation, development of the ego, then that which is not such an expression means impoverishment, desolation of it. If such a desire is satisfied in the world of the senses, its destructive effect on the ego remains. But this destructive effect is not visible to the ego before death. That is why the indulgence of such desires can generate new desires of the same kind in life. And the person does not even realize that he is wrapping himself in a "consuming fire". After death, only that which already surrounds him in life becomes visible; and by becoming visible, this also appears in its salutary, beneficial consequence. Whoever loves a person is not only drawn to what can be felt through the physical organs. But it can only be said of this that it is withdrawn from perception at death. But this is precisely what becomes visible in the loved one, for whose perception the physical organs were only the means. Indeed, the only thing that prevents this full visibility is the presence of the desire that can only be satisfied by physical organs. But if this desire were not eradicated, the conscious perception of the loved one after death could not occur at all. Seen in this way, the idea of the dreadful and comfortless that events after death could have for man, as they must be described by supersensible knowledge, is transformed into that of the deeply satisfying and comforting.
[ 12 ] The next experiences after death are quite different from those during life in yet another respect. During purification, the human being lives backwards, so to speak. He goes through everything again that he has experienced in life since birth. From the processes that immediately preceded death, he begins and experiences everything again backwards to childhood. And in doing so, everything that did not arise from the spiritual nature of the ego during life comes spiritually before his eyes. Only now he also experiences all this in reverse. For example, a person who has died in his sixtieth year and who has inflicted physical or spiritual pain on someone in his fortieth year out of a surge of anger will experience this event again when he has reached the point of his fortieth year in his return journey through existence after death. The only difference is that he will not experience the satisfaction that he received in life from the attack on the other person, but rather the pain that he inflicted on this other person. From the above, however, it can also be seen at the same time that only that part of such a process can be perceived as painful after death which has arisen from a desire of the ego that originates only in the external physical world. In truth, the ego not only harms the other through the satisfaction of such a desire, but also itself; only this harm remains invisible to it during life. After death, however, this whole world of harmful desires becomes visible to the ego. And the ego then feels drawn to every being and every thing in which such a desire has been kindled, so that it can be extinguished again in the "consuming fire" just as it has arisen. Only when the human being has arrived at the time of his birth during his backward journey have all such desires passed through the purifying fire, and from now on nothing prevents him from fully surrendering to the spiritual world. He enters a new stage of existence. Just as in death he shed the physical body, and soon afterwards the etheric body, so now that part of the astral body which can only live in the consciousness of the outer physical world disintegrates. For supersensible cognition there are thus three corpses, the physical, the etheric and the astral. The time at which the latter is cast off from man is characterized by the fact that the time of purification is about a third of that which elapsed between birth and death. Later, when the course of human life is examined on the basis of the secret science, the reason why this is so will become clear. For supersensible observation, astral corpses are continually present in the human environment, which are cast off by people who pass from the state of purification into a higher existence. This is exactly the same as physical corpses arise for physical perception where people live.
[ 13 ] After purification, the ego enters a completely new state of consciousness. Whereas before death external perceptions had to flow to it so that the light of consciousness could fall on them, now a world flows from within, as it were, which reaches consciousness. The ego also lives in this world between birth and death. Only then does the latter clothe itself in the revelations of the senses; and only where the ego perceives itself in its "innermost sanctum", disregarding all sensory perception, does that which otherwise only appears in the veil of the sensory announce itself in immediate form. Just as the perception of the ego takes place inwardly before death, the spiritual world reveals itself in its fullness from within after death and after purification. Actually, this revelation is already there immediately after the etheric body has been laid aside; but the world of desires, which are still turned towards the outer world, lies before it like a darkening cloud. It is as if the black demonic shadows, which arise from the desires consuming themselves in the "fire", were mixed into a blissful world of spiritual experience. Indeed, these desires are now not mere shadows, but real entities; this becomes immediately apparent when the physical organs are removed from the ego and it can thus perceive what is of a spiritual nature. These beings appear as distorted images and caricatures of what was previously known to man through sensory perception. Supersensible observation has to say of this world of purifying fire that it is inhabited by beings whose appearance can be gruesome and painful to the spiritual eye, whose desire seems to be destruction and whose passion is directed towards an evil against which the evil of the sense world seems insignificant. What man brings into this world in the way of marked desires appears to these entities like nourishment, through which their powers constantly receive new strength and reinforcement. The picture thus formed of a world imperceptible to the senses can appear less incredible to man if he looks at a part of the animal world with an unbiased eye. What is a cruelly prowling wolf to the spiritual gaze? What is revealed by what the senses perceive in it? Nothing other than a soul that lives in desires and acts through them. You can call the wolf's outer form an embodiment of these desires. And if man had no organs to perceive this form, he would still have to recognize the existence of the corresponding being if its desires were invisible in their effects, if a force invisible to the eye were lurking around, through which everything that happens through the visible wolf could happen. Now, the beings of the purifying fire are not present for the sensual, but only for the supersensible consciousness; but their effects are obvious: they consist in the destruction of the ego when this gives them nourishment. These effects become clearly visible when the well-founded pleasure increases to intemperance and debauchery. For what is perceptible to the senses would also only stimulate the ego to the extent that the genus is founded in its essence. The animal is driven to desire only by that in the external world which its three bodies crave. Man has higher pleasures because the fourth, the ego, is added to the three bodily members. If, however, the ego desires such a satisfaction, which does not serve to preserve and further its nature, but to destroy it, then such a desire can be neither the effect of its three bodies nor of its own nature, but only that of entities which remain hidden from the senses according to their true form, but which can approach the higher nature of the ego and stimulate it to desires which are not connected with sensuality, but which can only be satisfied through it. There are beings who have passions and desires as their nourishment which are of a worse kind than all animal ones, because they do not live out their lives in the sensual, but seize the spiritual and drag it down into the sensual field. The forms of such beings are therefore uglier and more horrible to the spiritual eye than the forms of the wildest animals, in which only passions are embodied that are rooted in the sensual; and the destructive powers of these beings far surpass all the destructive rage that exists in the sensually perceptible animal world. In this way, supersensible knowledge must broaden man's view as to a world of beings that is in a certain respect lower than the visible destructive animal world.
[ 14 ] When man has passed through this world after death, then he finds himself facing a world which contains spiritual things and which also only produces a desire in him which finds its satisfaction in the spiritual. But even now man distinguishes between that which belongs to his ego and that which forms the environment of this ego - one can also say its spiritual outer world. Only that which he experiences from this environment flows to him in the same way as the perception of his own ego flows to him during his stay in the body. Thus, while man's environment speaks to him through the organs of his bodies in the life between birth and death, the language of the new environment penetrates directly into the "innermost sanctuary" of the ego after all bodies have been laid aside. The entire environment of the human being is now filled with entities that are of the same kind as his ego, for only an ego has access to an ego. Just as minerals, plants and animals surround man in the world of the senses and compose it, so after death he is surrounded by a world composed of entities of a spiritual nature. But man brings something into this world which is not his environment; it is that which the ego has experienced within the sense world. At first the sum of these experiences appeared immediately after death, as long as the etheric body was still connected with the ego, as a comprehensive memory picture. The etheric body itself is then discarded, but something of the memory painting remains as an imperishable possession of the ego. As if one were to make an extract, an excerpt, from all the experiences that have come to the human being between birth and death, so that which remains behind stands out. This is the spiritual endurance of life, the fruit of it. This experience is of a spiritual nature. It contains everything that reveals itself spiritually through the senses. But without life in the sense world it could not have come about. After death, the ego perceives this spiritual fruit of the sense world as that which is now its own, its inner world and with which it enters the world that consists of beings that reveal themselves, as only its ego can reveal itself in its deepest inner being. Just as a plant seed, which is an extract of the whole plant, only unfolds when it is immersed in another world, in the earth, so now that which the ego brings with it from the sense world unfolds like a seed which is acted upon by the spiritual environment which has now received it. The science of the supersensible can, however, only give pictures if it is to describe what is going on in this "spirit-land"; but these pictures can be such as present themselves to the supersensible consciousness as true reality when it follows the corresponding events invisible to the sensuous eye. What is to be described there can be made vivid by comparison with the world of the senses. For although it is entirely spiritual, it has a certain resemblance to the sensory world. Just as, for example, a color appears in the sensory world when this or that object acts on the eye, so an experience like that of a color appears before the ego in the "spirit world" when a being acts on it. Only this experience is brought about in the same way that only the perception of the ego within can be brought about in the life between birth and death. It is not as if the light fell into the human being from outside, but as if another being had a direct effect on the ego and caused it to imagine this effect in a color picture. Thus all beings in the spiritual environment of the ego find their expression in a color-radiating world. Since they have a different kind of origin, these color experiences of the spiritual world are naturally also of a somewhat different character than those of the sensual colors. Similar things must also be said for other impressions which man receives from the sense world. However, the sounds of the spiritual world are most similar to the impressions of the sense world. And the more the human being settles into this world, the more it becomes for him a life moving in itself, which can be compared with the sounds and their harmony in sensory reality. Now he does not feel the sounds as something that comes to an organ from outside, but as a power that flows out into the world through his ego. He feels the sound as he feels his own speaking or singing in the sense world; only in the spiritual world he knows that these sounds that flow out of him are at the same time the manifestations of other entities that pour out into the world through him. An even higher manifestation in the "spirit land" takes place when the sound becomes the "spiritual word". Then not only does the moving life of another spiritual being flow through the ego, but such a being itself communicates its inner being to this ego. And without the separating factor that every togetherness in the sense world must have, two beings live in each other when the "spiritual word" flows through the ego. And this is really the kind of togetherness of the ego with other spiritual beings after death. Before the supersensible consciousness three areas of the spirit world appear, which can be compared with three parts of the physical sense world. The first area is, so to speak, the "solid land" of the spiritual world, the second the "sea and river area" and the third the "circle of air". - What takes on physical form on earth, so that it can be perceived by physical organs, is perceived according to its spiritual essence in the first area of the "spirit land". A crystal, for example, can perceive the force that forms its shape. But what is revealed there behaves like a contrast to what appears in the sense world. The space which in the latter world is filled by the mass of stone appears to the spiritual eye like a kind of cavity; but all around this cavity is seen the force which forms the shape of the stone. A color that the stone has in the sense world appears in the spiritual world as the experience of the opposite color; thus a red-colored stone is seen from the spirit world as greenish, a green one as reddish, and so on. The other qualities also appear in their opposites. Just as stones, earth masses and the like form the solid land - the continental area - of the sensory world, so do the objects depicted compose the "solid land" of the spiritual world. - Everything that is life within the world of the senses is ocean territory in the spiritual. To the sensual eye, life appears in its effects in plants, animals and humans. To the spiritual eye, life is a flowing being that permeates the spirit land like seas and rivers. Better still is the comparison with the circulation of blood in the body. For while the seas and rivers in the world of the senses are irregularly distributed, there is a certain regularity in the distribution of the flowing life in the spirit land, as in the circulation of blood. At the same time, this "flowing life" is perceived as a spiritual sound. - The third area of the spirit land is its "circle of air". What occurs in the sense world as sensation is present in the spirit realm as pervasively as air is present on earth. Imagine a sea of flowing sensation. Sorrow and pain, joy and delight flow in this realm like wind and storm in the air of the sensual world. Think of a battle being fought on earth. There are not only human figures facing each other that the sensual eye can see, but feelings stand against feelings, passions against passions; pain fills the battlefield just as much as human figures. Everything that lives there in passion, in pain, in the joy of victory, is not only present insofar as it manifests itself in sensually perceptible effects; it comes to the consciousness of the spiritual sense as a process of the circle of air in the spirit land. Such an event in the spiritual is like a thunderstorm in the physical world. And the perception of these events can be compared to the hearing of words in the physical world. This is why it is said that just as the air envelops and permeates earthly beings, so the "wafting spiritual words" envelop and permeate the beings and processes of the spirit land.
[ 15 ] And further perceptions are still possible in this spiritual world. That which can be compared to the warmth and light of the physical world is also present here. That which, like warmth, permeates all earthly things and beings in the spirit world is the world of thought itself. Only the thoughts there are to be imagined as living, independent beings. What man grasps as thoughts in the revealed world is like a shadow of what lives as thought beings in the spirit world. Imagine the thought as it exists in man, lifted out of this man and endowed with its own inner life as an active, acting being, and you have a faint visualization of what fills the fourth region of the spirit land. What man perceives as thoughts in his physical world between birth and death is only the revelation of the world of thoughts as it can be formed through the tools of the body. But everything that man harbors in such thoughts that signify an enrichment in the physical world has its origin in this realm. With such thoughts one need not only think of the ideas of the great inventors, the geniuses, but one can see in every human being how he has "ideas" which he does not merely owe to the external world, but through which he transforms this external world himself. As far as feelings and passions come into consideration, to which the cause lies in the outer world, these feelings etc. are to be placed in the third region of the spirit world; but everything that can live in the human soul in such a way that man becomes a creator, that he has a transforming and fertilizing effect on his environment: this is revealed in its very own, essential form in the fourth field of the spiritual world. - What is present in the fifth region can be compared to physical light. It is wisdom revealing itself in its very own form. Beings who pour wisdom into their surroundings, like the sun pours light onto physical beings, belong to this region. What is illuminated by this wisdom shows itself in its true meaning and significance for the spiritual world, just as a physical being shows its color when illuminated by light. - There are still higher regions of the spirit world; they will be described later in this book. After death the ego is immersed in this world with the experience it brings with it from sensual life. And this experience is still united with that part of the astral body which is not cast off at the end of the purification period. Only that part falls away which, with its desires and wishes, was turned towards physical life after death. The sinking of the ego with what it has acquired from the sensual world into the spiritual world can be compared to the embedding of a seed in the ripening earth. Just as this seed draws the substances and forces from its surroundings in order to develop into a new plant, so development and growth is the essence of the ego embedded in the spiritual world. - What an organ perceives also contains the power by which this organ itself is formed. The eye perceives light. But without light there would be no eye. Beings who spend their lives in darkness do not in themselves develop any tools for seeing. Thus, however, the whole physical human being is created out of the hidden powers of what is perceived through the limbs of the bodies. The physical body is built up by the forces of the physical world, the etheric body by those of the living world, and the astral body is formed out of the astral world. When the ego is transported into the spirit world, it is confronted by precisely those forces that remain hidden to physical perception. What becomes visible in the first region of the spirit land are the spiritual entities that always surround the human being and which have also built up his physical body. In the physical world, therefore, man perceives nothing other than the revelations of those spiritual forces which have also formed his own physical body. After death he is in the midst of these formative forces themselves, which now show themselves to him in their own, previously hidden form. Likewise, through the second region he is in the midst of the forces of which his etheric body is composed; in the third region the powers flow towards him from which his astral body is structured. The higher regions of the spirit land now also let flow to him that from which he is built up in life between birth and death.
[ 16 ] These entities of the spiritual world now work together with that which the human being has brought with him as fruit from the previous life and which now becomes a seed. And through this interaction the human being is initially built up anew as a spiritual being. In sleep the physical body and the etheric body remain in existence; the astral body and the ego are indeed outside these two, but still connected with them. The influences they receive from the spiritual world in such a state can only serve to restore the powers that were exhausted during waking. But after the physical body and the etheric body have been discarded, and after the period of purification also those parts of the astral body which are still connected with the physical world through their desires, everything that flows into the ego from the spiritual world now becomes not only an improver but a reshaper. And after a certain time, which will be discussed in later parts of this writing, an astral body has formed around the ego, which can again dwell in an etheric body and a physical body such as are characteristic of the human being between birth and death. The human being can again go through a birth and appear in a renewed earthly existence, which has now incorporated into itself the fruit of the former life. Until the new formation of an astral body, man is witness to his reconstruction. Since the powers of the spirit world do not reveal themselves to him through external organs, but from within, like his own self in self-consciousness, he can perceive this revelation as long as his mind is not yet directed towards an external world of perception. From the moment the astral body is newly formed, however, this sense turns outwards. The astral body now demands an outer etheric body and physical body again. It thus turns away from the revelations of the inner. This is why there is now an intermediate state in which the human being sinks into unconsciousness. Consciousness can only reappear in the physical world when the organs necessary for physical perception have been formed. During this time, when the consciousness enlightened by inner perception ceases, the new etheric body begins to attach itself to the astral body, and the human being can then also move back into a physical body. Only such an ego could participate with consciousness in these two attachments, which has of its own accord generated the creative forces hidden in the etheric body and physical body, the life spirit and the spirit man. As long as the human being is not ready, entities that are further along in their development than he himself must guide this incorporation. The astral body is guided by such beings to a pair of parents so that it can be endowed with the corresponding etheric body and physical body. - Before the incorporation of the etheric body takes place, something extraordinarily significant happens for the human being re-entering physical existence. In his previous life he has created disturbing powers which have manifested themselves during the return journey after death. Take the example mentioned earlier. In the fortieth year of his previous life, out of a surge of anger, man inflicted pain on someone. After death, this pain of the other person confronted him as a disturbing force for the development of his own ego. And so it is with all such incidents of the previous life. On re-entering physical life, these obstacles to development again stand before the ego. Just as with the entrance of death a kind of memory painting stood before the human ego, so now a preview of the life to come. Again the human being sees such a painting, which now shows all the obstacles that the human being has to clear away if his development is to continue. And what he sees in this way becomes the starting point of forces that man must take with him into the new life. The image of the pain that he has inflicted on the other becomes the force that drives the ego, when it re-enters life, to make up for this pain. Thus the previous life has a determining effect on the new one. The deeds of this new life are caused in a certain way by those of the previous one. This lawful connection between a previous existence and a later one is regarded as the law of fate; it has become customary to refer to it with the term "karma", borrowed from Oriental wisdom.
[ 17 ] Building up a new bodily connection is not, however, the only activity incumbent on man between death and a new birth. While this construction is taking place, the human being lives outside the physical world. During this time, however, the physical world continues to develop. The earth changes its face in relatively short periods of time. What did it look like a few millennia ago in the areas currently occupied by Germany? When man appears on earth in a new existence, it generally never looks the same as it did at the time of his last life. While he was absent from the earth, everything possible has changed. Hidden forces are now also at work in this change in the face of the earth. They work from the same world in which the human being finds himself after death. And he himself must participate in this transformation of the earth. He can only do so under the guidance of higher beings as long as he has not acquired a clear awareness of the connection between the spiritual and its expression in the physical through the creation of the spirit of life and spiritual man. But he is involved in the transformation of earthly conditions. It can be said that during the time from death to a new birth, people reshape the earth so that its conditions match what has developed within themselves. If we look at a patch of earth at a certain point in time and then again after a long time in a completely changed state, the forces that have brought about this change are in the dead human beings. They are also in contact with the earth in this way between death and a new birth. The supersensible consciousness sees in all physical existence the revelation of a hidden spiritual. For physical observation, the light of the sun, the changes in the climate, etc. have an effect on the transformation of the earth. For supersensible observation, the ray of light that falls from the sun on the plant is the power of dead people. This observation becomes aware of how human souls hover around the plants, how they walk the earth and the like. Man is not merely turned towards himself, not only towards the preparation for his own new earthly existence after death. No, he is called to create spiritually in the outer world, just as he is called to create physically in the life between birth and death.
[ 18 ] However, it is not only the life of man from the spirit world that affects the conditions of the physical world, but conversely, the activity in the physical existence also has its effects in the spiritual world. An example can illustrate what happens in this relationship. There is a bond of love between mother and child. This love emanates from the attraction between the two, which is rooted in the forces of the sensory world. But it changes over the course of time. The sensual bond becomes more and more spiritual. And this spiritual bond is woven not only for the physical world, but also for the spirit world. It is the same with other relationships. What is woven in the physical world by spiritual beings remains in the spiritual world. Friends who have bonded closely together in life also belong together in the spirit world; and after they have shed their bodies they are in a much closer union than in physical life. For as spirits they are there for each other in the same way as described above in the revelations of spiritual beings to others through the inner being. And a bond that has been woven between two people also brings them together again in a new life. In the truest sense of the word, we must therefore speak of people finding each other again after death.
[ 19 ] What has once taken place with man, from birth to death and from there to a new birth, repeats itself. Man always returns to earth when the fruit he has acquired in a physical life has reached maturity in the spirit world. But there is not a repetition without beginning and end, but man has once passed from other forms of existence into those which proceed in the manner indicated, and he will pass to others in the future. The outlook on these transitional stages will emerge when the development of the universe in connection with man is described below in the sense of supersensible consciousness.
[ 20 ] The processes between death and a new birth are of course even more hidden to external sensory observation than that which underlies the revealed existence between birth and death as spiritual. This sensory observation can only see the effects of this part of the hidden world where they enter physical existence. The question for it must be whether the person who enters into existence through birth brings with him something of what the supersensible knowledge of processes between a previous death and birth describes. If someone finds a snail shell in which nothing of an animal is noticeable, he will only recognize that this snail shell has come into being through the activity of an animal and cannot believe that it has come together in its form through mere physical forces. Likewise, someone who observes man in life and finds something that cannot originate from this life can reasonably admit that it comes from what the science of the supersensible describes, if this sheds an explanatory light on what is otherwise inexplicable. In this way, sensory observation could also find the invisible causes comprehensible from the visible effects. And whoever observes this life with complete impartiality will find that with each new observation it becomes more and more correct. It is only a matter of finding the right point of view to observe the effects in life. Where, for example, are the effects of what supersensible knowledge describes as the processes of the time of purification? How does the effect of what man is supposed to experience after this period of purification in the purely spiritual realm, according to the indications of spiritual research, come to light?
[ 21 ] Enigmas are enough for any serious, profound consideration of life in this field. One person is born in need and misery, endowed with few talents, so that he seems predestined to a miserable existence by the facts of his birth. The other is nurtured and cared for from the first moment of his existence by caring hands and hearts; brilliant abilities develop in him; he is predisposed to a fruitful, satisfying existence. Two opposing attitudes can assert themselves in the face of such questions. The one will want to cling to what the senses can perceive and what the mind, clinging to these senses, can comprehend. This attitude will not see any question in the fact that one person is born into happiness and the other into misfortune. Even if it does not want to use the word "coincidence", it will not think of assuming any lawful connection that causes this. And with regard to dispositions and talents, such a way of thinking will stick to what is "inherited" from parents, foreparents and other ancestors. It will refuse to look for the causes in spiritual processes which the person himself has gone through before his birth - apart from the hereditary line of his ancestors - and through which he has formed his dispositions and talents. - Another mindset will feel unsatisfied by such a view. It will say that nothing happens in a certain place or in a certain environment, even in the revealed world, without having to presuppose causes as to why this is the case. Even if in many cases man has not yet investigated these causes, they do exist. An alpine flower does not grow in the lowlands. There is something in its nature that links it to the Alpine region. In the same way, there must be something in a person that causes him to be born into a certain environment. Causes that merely lie in the physical world are not enough. To the deeper thinker, they appear as if the fact that someone has struck another person a blow should not be explained by the feelings of the former, but by the physical mechanism of his hand. - This attitude must be equally unsatisfied with all explanations based on the mere "heredity" of dispositions and talents. One may at least say of it: see how certain dispositions are passed on in families. In two and a half centuries, musical talents have been passed down through the members of the Bach family. The Bernoulli family produced eight mathematicians, some of whom were destined for completely different professions in their childhood. But their "inherited" talents always drove them towards the family profession. One might also point out how one can show, through precise research into the ancestral line of a personality, that in one way or another the talent of this personality was shown by the ancestors and that it is only a summation of inherited talents. - He who has the second kind of mind indicated will certainly not disregard such facts; but they cannot be to him what they are to him who wants to base his explanations only on the processes in the world of the senses. The former will point out that the inherited dispositions can no more add up to the personality as a whole by themselves than the metal parts of the watch form themselves into the personality. And if it is objected to him that it is after all the interaction of the parents that can bring about the combination of the dispositions, i.e. that this takes the place of the watchmaker, so to speak, he will reply: Look with impartiality at the completely new thing that is given with every child's personality; this cannot come from the parents, simply because it is not present in them. c4That the personal gifts of man, if they were subject to the law of mere "heredity", would have to show themselves not at the end but at the beginning of a blood community, could of course easily be misunderstood as a statement. One could say, yes, they cannot manifest themselves there, because they must first develop. But this is no objection; for if one wants to prove that something is inherited from a previous one, one must show how that which was already there before can be found in the descendant. If it were now shown that something was there at the beginning of a consanguinity which would be found again in the further course, one could speak of inheritance. But it is not possible if something appears at the end that was not there before. The reversal of the sentence above should only show that the idea of inheritance is an impossible one.
[ 22 ] Unclear thinking can cause a lot of confusion in this area. The worst thing is when those of the former mindset portray those of the latter as opponents of what is based on "certain facts". But it need not even occur to the latter to deny the truth or value of these facts. For example, they can certainly see that a certain mental disposition, or even a certain school of thought, is "passed on" in a family and that certain dispositions, when summed up and combined in a descendant, result in a significant personality. They are quite capable of admitting when they are told that the most important name is rarely at the top, but at the bottom of a bloodline. But it should not be held against them if they are forced to form quite different ideas from those who only want to stick to the sensual and factual. The latter can be replied to: Certainly a human being shows the characteristics of his ancestors, for the spiritual-soul, which enters physical existence through birth, takes its corporeality from what heredity gives it. This, however, says nothing more than that a being bears the characteristics of the medium in which it is immersed. It is certainly a strange - trivial - comparison, but the unbiased person will not deny its justification if it is said that the fact that a human being shows itself wrapped in the characteristics of its ancestors proves nothing for the origin of the personal characteristics of this being, just as it proves nothing for the inner nature of a person if he is wet because he has fallen into water. And it can also be said that if the most significant name is at the end of a blood union, this shows that the bearer of this name needed this blood union in order to form the body that he needed for the development of his overall personality. But it proves nothing for the "inheritance" of the personal itself: indeed, for sound logic this fact proves the very opposite. For if the personal gifts were inherited, they would have to stand at the beginning of a consanguinity and then be passed on from there to the descendants. But since they are at the end, this is precisely a testimony to the fact that they are not inherited.
[ 23 ] Now it should not be denied that those who speak of spiritual causation in life contribute no less to confusion. They are often spoken of in far too general, vague terms. It can certainly be compared with the assertion that the metal parts of a watch have assembled themselves to form it, when it is said that a person's personality is made up of inherited characteristics. But it must also be admitted that with many assertions in relation to a spiritual world it is no different than if someone said: the metal parts of the clock cannot assemble themselves in such a way that the hands are pushed forward by the assembly, so there must be something spiritual that takes care of this pushing forward. Compared to such an assertion, however, the person who says: "Oh, I don't care any more about such "mystical" beings that push the hands forward; I am trying to get to know the mechanical connections that cause the hands to move forward. It is not just a matter of knowing that there is a spiritual being (the watchmaker) behind something mechanical, for example the watch, but it can only be meaningful to get to know the thoughts that preceded the production of the watch in the mind of the watchmaker. These thoughts can be found in the mechanism.
[ 24 ] All mere dreaming and fantasizing about the supernatural only leads to confusion. For it is unsuitable to satisfy the opponents. They are right when they say that such references to supernatural beings in general do nothing to promote an understanding of the facts. Certainly, such opponents may also say the same about the specific statements of spiritual science. But then it can be pointed out how the effects of hidden spiritual causes show themselves in manifest life. It can be said that it is true, as spiritual science claims to have established through observation, that a person has undergone a period of purification after death and that during this period he has experienced in his soul the obstacle to his progressive development that was a certain deed he performed in a previous life. While he was experiencing this, the urge to improve the consequences of this act formed in him. He brings this drive with him into a new life. And the presence of this drive forms the trait in his being that places him in a position from which improvement is possible. Consider a totality of such drives, and one has a cause for the fated environment into which a person is born. - The same can be done with another assumption. Let it again be assumed that what is said by spiritual science is correct, that the fruits of a past life are incorporated into the spiritual germ of man, and that the spirit-land in which he finds himself between death and a new life is the region in which these fruits ripen in order to appear in a new life, transformed into dispositions and faculties, and to form the personality in such a way that it appears as the effect of what has been gained in a previous life. - Whoever makes these assumptions and looks at life with them impartially will see that through them everything that is sensual and factual can be recognized in its full meaning and truth, but that at the same time everything becomes comprehensible that must always remain incomprehensible to those whose attitude is directed towards the spiritual world if they rely solely on sensual facts. And above all, every illogicality of the kind indicated earlier will disappear: because the most important name is at the end of a bloodline, the bearer must have inherited his gift. Life becomes logically comprehensible through the supersensible facts ascertained by spiritual science.
[ 25 ] The conscientious seeker of truth, who wants to find his way around the facts without his own experience in the supersensible world, will also be able to raise a weighty objection. It can be argued that it is inadmissible to assume the existence of any facts simply because they can explain something that is otherwise inexplicable. Such an objection is certainly completely meaningless for those who know the relevant facts from supersensible experience. And in the following parts of this writing the path is indicated which can be followed in order to become acquainted not only with other spiritual facts described here, but also with the law of spiritual causation as a personal experience. But for anyone who does not want to take this path, the above objection can have a meaning. And what can be said against it is also valuable for someone who is determined to follow the indicated path himself. For if someone takes it in the right way, then it is itself the best first step that can be taken on this path. - For it is quite true that merely because one can explain by it something which otherwise remains inexplicable, one should not assume something of whose existence one otherwise has no knowledge. But in the case of the spiritual facts mentioned, the matter is still different. If one accepts them, this not only has the intellectual consequence that one finds life comprehensible through them, but one also experiences something quite different through the inclusion of these premises in one's thoughts. Consider the following case: something happens to someone that causes quite embarrassing feelings in him. He can now relate to it in two ways. He can experience the incident as something that embarrasses him and surrender to the embarrassing feeling, perhaps even sink into pain. But he can also face it differently. He can say: In truth, in a past life I myself formed the force within me that put me in front of this incident; I actually inflicted the thing on myself. And he can now arouse all the feelings in himself that such a thought can cause. Naturally, the thought must be experienced with the utmost seriousness and with all possible strength if it is to have such an effect on the emotional and sentimental life. Whoever achieves this will have an experience that can best be illustrated by a comparison. Let us assume that two people are given a sealing wax stick. One of them makes intellectual observations about the "inner nature" of the rod. These reflections may be very clever; if this "inner nature" is not revealed by anything, someone may say to him: that is dreaming. The other, however, rubs the sealing wax with a cloth and then shows that the rod attracts small bodies. There is an important difference between the thoughts that passed through the first man's head and inspired him to make these observations, and those of the second. The thoughts of the first have no actual result; but those of the second have a power, that is, something actual, drawn out of their concealment. - So it is with the thoughts of a man who imagines that he has planted the power to come together with an event in himself through a previous life. This mere imagination stimulates a real power in him, through which he can encounter the event in a completely different way than if he did not harbor this imagination. It sheds light on the necessary nature of this event, which he could otherwise only recognize as a coincidence. And he will immediately realize: I have had the right thought, because this thought had the power to reveal the fact to me. If someone repeats such inner processes, they will continue to become a means of inner power supply, and thus prove their correctness through their fruitfulness. And this rightness shows itself, little by little, strongly enough. In spiritual, mental and also physical terms, such processes have a healthy, indeed in every respect beneficial effect on life. The human being becomes aware that he is thereby placing himself in a correct way in the context of life, whereas if he only pays attention to the one life between birth and death, he is indulging in delusion. The human being becomes stronger in soul through the marked knowledge. - However, everyone can only obtain such purely inner proof of spiritual causation for himself in his inner life. But everyone can have it. However, anyone who has not obtained it cannot judge its probative value. But anyone who has obtained it can hardly doubt it. And there is no need to be surprised that this is the case. For what is so completely connected with that which constitutes man's innermost being, his personality, it is only natural that it can only be sufficiently proven in the innermost experience. - It cannot, however, be argued that such a matter, because it corresponds to such an inner experience, must be settled by each person for himself, and that it cannot be a matter for spiritual science. It is certain that everyone must have the experience himself, just as everyone must realize the proof of a mathematical theorem. But the way in which the experience can be achieved is valid for all people, just as the method of proving a mathematical theorem is valid for all.
[ 26 ] It is not to be denied that - apart from supersensible observations, of course - the proof just given by the power of the corresponding thoughts is the only one that stands up to any unbiased logic. All other considerations are certainly very significant; but they will all have something that an opponent can find points of attack on. However, anyone who has acquired a sufficiently impartial view will find something in the possibility and actuality of man's upbringing that has the logical power to prove that a spiritual being struggles to exist in the bodily shell. He will compare the animal with the human being and say to himself: in the former, the characteristics and abilities that are decisive for it appear at birth as something determined in itself, which clearly shows how it is predetermined by heredity and unfolds in the outside world. We can see how the young chick carries out life's activities in a certain way from birth. Through education, however, the human being enters into a relationship with his inner life that can stand without any relation to heredity. And he can be in a position to appropriate the effects of such external influences. Those who educate know that such influences must be met by forces from within the human being; if this is not the case, then all training and education is meaningless. For the unbiased educator, the boundary between the inherited dispositions and those inner forces of the human being which shine through these dispositions and which stem from earlier life courses is very clear. Certainly, it is not possible to cite such "weighty" evidence for such things as one can for certain physical facts through the scales. But these things are the intimacies of life. And for those who have a sense for them, even such intangible evidence is proof; even more proof than tangible reality. The fact that animals can also be trained, i.e. that they take on characteristics and abilities through education, is no objection for those who are able to look at the essentials. For apart from the fact that transitions can be found everywhere in the world, the results of training do not merge with an animal's personal nature in the same way as they do with humans. It is even emphasized how the abilities that are imparted to domestic animals in living together with humans are inherited, i.e. have an immediate generic, not a personal effect. Darwin describes how dogs retrieve without having been trained or seen to do so. Who would say the same about human education?
[ 27 ] Now there are thinkers who, through their observations, go beyond the opinion that man is put together by purely inherited forces from outside. They rise to the idea that a spiritual being, an individuality, precedes the bodily existence and shapes it. But many of them do not find the possibility to understand that there are repeated earth lives and that in the intermediate existence between the lives the fruits of the previous lives are co-forming forces. One such thinker may be cited from the series. Immanuel Hermann Fichte, the son of the great Fichte, cites his observations in his "Anthropology", which lead him (page 528) to the following summarizing judgment: 3Brockhaus, Leipzig 1860 "The parents are not the producers in a complete sense: they provide the organic material, and not merely this, but at the same time that intermediate, sensual-comfortable, which shows itself in temperament, in peculiar coloring of the mind, in definite specification of the instincts, and the like, as the common source of which the 'imagination' has arisen in that wider sense which we have proved. In all these elements of the personality the mixture and peculiar connection of the parental souls is unmistakable; to declare them therefore to be a mere product of procreation is perfectly justified, still more so if, as we had to decide, procreation is conceived as a real process of the soul. But the actual, concluding center of the personality is missing here; for on deeper observation it becomes apparent that even those comfortable peculiarities are only a shell and a tool to contain the actual spiritual ideal dispositions of man, suitable to promote or hinder them in their development, but by no means capable of letting them arise from themselves." And it goes on to say: "Everyone pre-exists according to his basic spiritual form; for spiritually speaking, no two individuals are alike, any more than one animal species is like another" (page 532). These thoughts only go so far as to allow a spiritual entity to enter into the physical corporeality of the human being. But since its formative powers are not derived from the causes of previous lives, every time a personality arises, such a spiritual entity would have to emerge from a divine origin. Under this assumption, however, there would be no possibility of explaining the relationship that exists between the dispositions that emerge from the human inner being and that which penetrates this inner being from the external earthly environment in the course of life. The human inner being, which for each individual human being originated from a divine source, would have to be completely alien to what it encounters in earthly life. Only then - as is indeed the case - will this not be the case if this human inner being was already connected with the outer world, if it is not living in it for the first time. The unbiased educator can clearly perceive that I am bringing something to my pupil from the results of his life on earth which is alien to his merely inherited qualities, but which nevertheless appears to him as if he had already been present during the work from which these results originate. Only the repeated earth lives in connection with the facts presented by spiritual research in the spiritual realm between the earth lives: only all this can give a satisfactory explanation of the all-round life of present humanity. - It is expressly said here: the "present" humanity. For spiritual research shows that the cycle of earthly lives did indeed once begin and that different conditions existed then than at present for the spiritual being of man entering the bodily shell. In the following chapters we will go back to this primeval state of the human being. When the results of spiritual science will have shown how this human being received its present form in connection with the development of the earth, it will also be possible to indicate more precisely how the spiritual essence of man penetrates from supersensible worlds into the bodily shells, and how the spiritual law of causation, the "human destiny", is formed.