Cosmology, Religion and Philosophy
GA 25
X. On Experiencing the Will-part of the Soul
[ 1 ] When the ordinary consciousness sets Will in action there is a part of the astral organism at work which is more loosely connected with the physical organism than the part which corresponds with feeling. And already this part of the astral organism corresponding with feeling is more loosely connected with the physical organism than is the part corresponding with thinking. At the same time we have in the astral organism of the will the true nature of the Ego. While something psychic-spiritual which is continually active in the rhythmical part of the physical organism corresponds with feeling, the will-part of the soul continually permeates the metabolic organism and the organization of the limbs. But it is only actively connected with these parts of the human body while in the act of volition.
[ 2 ] The connection between the thinking part of the soul and the head-organization is a surrender of the psychic-spiritual to the physical. The connection between the feeling soul with the rhythmical organization is an alternate surrender and drawing-back. But the connection of the will-part to the physical is at first felt to be something unconsciously psychic. It is an unconscious longing for the physical and etheric event. This will-part is by its own nature prevented from being resolved into physical activity. It stands back from it and remains psycho-spiritually alive. Only when the thinking part of the soul extends its activity into the metabolic and limb-organization, the will-part is stimulated to surrender itself to the physical and etheric organization and to be active in it. [ 3 ] The thinking part of the soul is founded on a destructive activity of the physical organism. During the making of thoughts this destruction extends only to the head-organization. When the will ordains something the destructive activity of metabolism and of the limb-organization takes charge. The thought-activity flows into the organization of trunk and limbs, where a corresponding destructive activity of the physical organism takes place. This stimulates the will-part of the soul to oppose this destruction with a re-building and the dissolving organic activity with a constructive one.
[ 4 ] Thus life and death are warring together in the human being. In thought is manifest an ever dying activity while will stands for something life-awakening, life-giving.
[ 5 ] Those exercises of the soul which are undertaken as exercises of the will, aiming at supernatural vision, are successful only when they become an experience of pain. The man who succeeds in raising his will to a higher level of energy will feel sorrow. In former epochs of the development of mankind this pain was directly occasioned by ascetic practices. They reduced the body to a state which made it difficult for the soul to absorb herself in it. This caused the will-part of the soul to break away from the body and to be stimulated to independent experiences of the spiritual world. [ 6 ] This kind of practice is no longer suitable to the human organization which has reached the present moment of earthly development. The human organism is now so constituted that the presentation of the ego-development in it would be disturbed if we went back to the old ascetic practices.
At present we must do the opposite. The soul exercises now wanted to set free the will-part of the soul from the body have been characterized in the previous studies. They do not achieve the strengthening of this soul part from the direction of the body, but from the direction of the soul. They strengthen the soul and spiritual part of man and leave the physical part untouched.
[ 7 ] Our ordinary consciousness makes us realize already how the experience of sorrow is connected with the development of psychic experience. Whoever has gained any kind of supernatural knowledge will say: The happy, joy-giving events of my life I owe to fate; but my really true knowledge of life I owe to my bitter and sorrowful experiences.
[ 8 ] If the will-part of the soul has to be strengthened as is necessary for the attainment of ‘Intuitive cognition’ we must first strengthen the desire which in ordinary human life is satisfied through the physical organism. This is done by the exercises described. If this desire becomes so strong that the physical organism in its earthly form cannot be a foundation for it, then the experience of the will-part of the soul enters into the spiritual world and intuitive vision is attained. And then in this vision the spiritual-eternal part of the soul grows conscious of itself. Just as the consciousness living inside the body realizes the body in itself, so spiritual consciousness realizes the content of a spiritual world.
[ 9 ] In the alternating processes of destruction and construction of the human organization, as they are manifested in the thinking, feeling and willing organization of mankind, we must recognize the more or less normal course of human life on earth. It differs in childhood from that of the grown-up man. The task of the true pedagogue is a perception of the effect of the destructive and constructive activities in childhood and of the influence of education and tuition upon them.
A true educational science can only arise from the supernaturally-derived knowledge of the human nature complete in its physical, psychic and spiritual being. A knowledge keeping solely within the limits of what is attainable to natural science cannot be called a foundation of a true educational science.
[ 10 ] In illness the more or less normal course of the inter-relation between the constructive and destructive elements is disturbed throughout the whole organization—or in separate organs. We get there an overbalancing either of construction in a prolific life or of destruction in shifting forms of single organs or processes. What exactly happens in this case can only be seen in the whole by someone who has complete knowledge of the human organization, according to its physical, etheric and astral organism, as well as to the nature of the ego; and the cure can be found only by means of such knowledge. For in the realms of the outer world are to be found mineral and herbal things in which constructive knowledge recognizes forces which counteract certain kinds of too strongly stimulating. or too actively lowering forces in the organism. In the same way such a counteraction can be found in certain functions of the organism itself, which in a state of health are not applied or stimulated. A genuine medical knowledge, a real Pathology and Therapy can be built up only on a knowledge of the human being which embraces spirit, soul and body, a knowledge, moreover, which knows how to value the products of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. The demand for such a medical science is to-day called childish, because we view everything from the ground of a physical science. From this point of view this is quite intelligible, because according to it one has not the least idea how much more is a complete knowledge of the human being than mere knowledge of the human body. We can genuinely say that Anthroposophy is aware of the objections of its opponents and knows how to appreciate them. But just for this reason we also know how difficult it is to convince these opponents.
[ 11 ] The will part of the soul experiences also what passes in the feeling parts, unconsciously as far as the ordinary life of the soul is concerned; but in the depths of man's organization it occurs as a combination of facts. The evaluation of human earth-activity completed through feeling and will is there transformed into an effort to contrast in further experiences a more worthy deed with a less worthy one. The whole moral quality of the man is unconsciously experienced; and from this experience is formed a kind of spiritual-psychic being which during life on earth grows up in the unconscious region of the human being. This spiritual-psychic being represents whatever earthly life produces as a desirable objective, unattainable however by man in earthly life, because his physical and etheric organism with their forms predestined from former earth life, make it impossible. Therefore man strives through this spiritual-psychic being or nature to form another physical and etheric organism, through which the moral results of the earth-life can be transformed in the subsequent existence.
[ 12 ] This new form can be achieved only if man carries with him this spiritual-psychic nature through the gates of death into the supernatural world.
[ 13 ] Immediately after death the psychic-spiritual man retains for a short time the etheric organism. In his consciousness at this point he has no more than an indication of the moral value which has unconsciously arisen during earth-life in the spiritual and psychic part of him. For man is there completely pre-occupied with the vision of the etheric cosmos. In the following longer state of experience (which I have called the Soul-world in my Theosophy) a clear consciousness of this moral valuation is actually present, but not yet the strength to begin working at the construction of the spirit-cell which is to be a future physical earth-organism. Man then still has a tendency to look back at his earthly life because of his moral qualities acquired there. After a certain time man can find the transition to a state of experience in which the tendency is no longer there. (In my Theosophy I have called the region here traversed by man the real domain of the spirit.) From the point of view of the supernatural thought-content to which man attains—after death—in the cosmic consciousness—we might say: For a short while after death man lives turned towards the earth and is permeated with those spiritual activities which have their outward reflection in the physical phenomena of the moon. Outwardly he has been separated from the earth, but he is indirectly connected with it through a spiritual-psychic content. Everything of world-spiritual value that man during his presence on earth has developed into a real value in his astral organism (or as expressed above: in the unconscious region of his soul-life according to feeling and willing), all this is permeated by the spiritual moon-activities already described. This moral being with its spiritual quality is related by content with the spiritual moon-activities, and it is they which hold man bound to earth. But for the development of the spirit-cell for the future physical organism he must also sever himself psycho-spiritually from the earth. This he can only do by cutting himself loose at the same time from the region of the moon-activities. There he must leave behind that moral quality-being with which he is related. For the working for the future physical organism in conjunction with the spiritual beings of the supernatural world must take place unhampered by that quality-being.
[ 14 ] Man cannot obtain this severance from the region of the spiritual moon-activities through his own psycho-spiritual powers. But it has to be done nevertheless.
[ 15 ] Before the mystery of Golgotha the science of initiation could speak to man as follows: At a certain period of existence after death, human experience has to be withdrawn from the lunar sphere which keeps man within the region of planetary life. Man cannot himself bring about this withdrawal. Here it is that the being, whose physical reflection is the sun, comes to man's aid, and guides him into the sphere of pure spirit in which he, himself and not the spiritual moon beings are active. Man then experiences a stellar existence in such a way as to view the spiritual patterns of the fixed star constellations from the farther side, as it were; from the periphery of the cosmos. This vision is non-spatial even though the stars are made visible to him. With the powers now permeating man his ability to form the spirit-cell of physical organism out of the cosmos grows. The divine in him brings forth the divine. Once the spirit-cell has ripened, its descent to earth begins. Man enters once more into the lunar sphere and finds there the being of moral-spiritual quality which he left behind at his entry into the pure stellar existence; he adds it to his psychic-spiritual being to make it the foundation of his destined future life on earth.
[ 16 ] The Initiation-science of Christianity finds something else. In the absorption of the strength accruing to the soul through the contemplative and active sympathy with the earthly life of Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha, man gains, already while still on earth and not aided only by the solar-being after death, the faculty of withdrawing from the lunar activities at a certain point after his earthly existence, and of entering into the pure stellar sphere. This faculty is the spiritual counterpart, experienced after death, of the freedom brought about in earthly life by the ego-consciousness. Man then takes over in the period between death and re-birth his moral-spiritual quality-being, left behind in the lunar sphere, as the designer of his fate which he can thus experience in freedom in his new existence on earth. He also carries within him in freedom the earthly after-effect of his god-filled existence between death and rebirth as religious consciousness.
[ 17 ] A modern science of Initiation can recognize this and can see the activity of the Christ in human existence. It adds to a living Philosophy and to a Cosmology which recognizes also the spirit cosmos, a religious knowledge which recognizes the Christ as the mediator of a renewed religious consciousness and as the leader of the world in freedom.
[ 18 ] In these studies I have not been able to do more than sketch a possible beginning of a Philosophy, a Cosmology and a Religious Cognition. Much more would have to be said if the sketch were to be converted into a coloured picture with all its colours.
X. Das Erleben des Willensteils der Seele in seiner Wirkung über den Tod hinaus
[ 1 ] Wenn das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein den Willen in Tätigkeit versetzt, so ist ein Teil des astralischen Organismus besonders wirksam, der mit dem physischen Organismus in einer loseren Verbindung steht als derjenige, der dem Fühlen entspricht. Und dieser dem Fühlen entsprechende Teil des Astralorganismus ist schon loser mit dem physischen Organismus verbunden als der dem Denken entsprechende. Zugleich liegt in dem Astralorganismus des Willens die wahre Wesenheit des «Ich». Während dem Gefühl ein Seelisch-Geistiges entspricht, das mit dem rhythmischen Teil des physischen Organismus fortwährend in tätiger Verbindung ist, durchdringt der Willensteil der Seele den Stoffwechsel-Organismus und die Gliedmaßen-Organisation zwar fortwährend; aber er ist mit diesen Gliedern des Menschenwesens in einer tätigen Verbindung nur, während sich ein Wollen vollzieht.
[ 2 ] Die Beziehung des denkenden Seelenteiles zur Kopf-Organisation ist ein Hingegebensein des Geistig-Seelischen an das Physische. Die Beziehung der fühlenden Seele an die rhythmische Organisation ist ein abwechselndes Hingegebensein und Sich-wieder-Zurückziehen. Der Willensteil aber steht zum Physischen in einer Beziehung, die er zunächst als ein unbewußtes Seelisches erlebt. Es ist ein unbewußtes Begehren nach dem physischen und ätherischen Geschehen. Dieser Willensteil geht durch seine eigene Wesenheit nicht in die physische Tätigkeit auf. Er hält sich von ihr zurück und bleibt seelisch-geistig lebend. Nur wenn der denkende Seelenteil seine Tätigkeit in die Stoffwechsel- und Gliedmaßen-Organisation hinein erstreckt, dann wird der Willensteil angeregt, sich an die physische und ätherische Organisation hinzugeben und in ihr tätig zu sein.
[ 3 ] Dem denkenden Seelenteil liegt eine abbauende Tätigkeit des physischen Organismus zugrunde. Im Bilden von Gedanken erstreckt sich dieser Abbau nur auf die Kopf-Organisation. Wenn ein Willensmäßiges entstehen soll, so ergreift die abbauende Tätigkeit die Stoffwechsel- und die Gliedmaßen-Organisation. Die Gedankenkraft strömt in den Rumpf- und Gliedmaßen-Organismus ein, in denen ihr eine abbauende Tätigkeit des physischen Organismus entspricht. Das regt den Willensteil der Seele an, dem Abbau einen Aufbau, der auflösenden organischen Tätigkeit eine bildende, gestaltende entgegenzusetzen.
[ 4 ] Tod und Leben kämpfen so im Menschenwesen. Im Denken offenbart sich eine stets im Absterben begriffene organische Tätigkeit; im Wollen offenbart sich ein Lebenweckendes, Lebenerschaffendes.
[ 5 ] Bei denjenigen Seelenübungen, welche mit dem Ziele der übersinnlichen Anschauung als Willensübungen unternommen werden, tritt ein Erfolg nur ein, wenn sie zu einem innerlichen Schmerzerlebnis werden. Wer seinen Willen zu einer erhöhten Energie bringt, bei dem stellt sich ein Leidgefühl ein. In älteren Epochen der Menschheitsentwickelung wurde dieser Schmerz unmittelbar durch asketische Übungen herbeigeführt. Durch diese wurde der Körper in einen Zustand versetzt, der es dem Seelischen schwer machte, sich an ihn hinzugeben. Dadurch wurde der Willensteil der Seele von dem Körper losgerissen und zum selbständigen Erleben der geistigen Welt angeregt.
[ 6 ] Diese Art von Übungen ist derjenigen Menschenorganisation, die im gegenwärtigen Zeitpunkt der Erdenentwickelung erreicht ist, nicht mehr angemessen. Der menschliche Organismus ist jetzt so beschaffen, daß man ihn als die Grundlage der Ich-Entwickelung stört, wenn man die alten Übungen zur Askese anstellt. Man muß jetzt das Gegenteil machen. Die Seelenübungen, die in der gegenwärtigen Zeit notwendig sind, um den Willensteil der Seele leibfrei zu machen, bildeten den Gegenstand einer Charakteristik in den vorangehenden Darstellungen. Sie bringen die Erstarkung dieses Seelenteiles nicht von der Körperseite her zustande, sondern von der Seelenseite. Sie erkraften das Seelisch-Geistige im Menschen und lassen das Physisch-Körperliche unberührt.
[ 7 ] Man kann schon vom gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein aus sehen, wie das Schmerzerlebnis mit der Entwickelung der seelischen Erfahrungen zusammenhängt. Jeder, der sich einiges an Erkenntnissen höherer Art errungen hat, wird sagen: Für die glücklichen, lustbringenden Einschläge in mein Leben bin ich dem Schicksal dankbar; meine in wahrer Wirklichkeit wurzelnden Lebens-Erkenntnisse verdanke ich aber meinen bitteren, meinen leidvollen Erlebnissen.
[ 8 ] Soll der Willensteil der Seele verstärkt werden, wie es zur Erlangung der intuitiven Erkenntnis notwendig ist, dann muß zunächst das Begehren verstärkt werden, das im gewöhnlichen Menschenleben durch den physischen Organismus sich auslebt. Es geschieht dieses durch die charakterisierten Übungen. Wird dieses Begehren dann so, daß der physische Organismus in seinem Erdenbestande für dasselbe keine Grundlage sein kann, dann geht das Erleben des Willensteiles der Seele in die geistige Welt über; und das intuitive Anschauen tritt ein. Es wird also für dieses Anschauen der geistig-ewige Teil des Seelenlebens seiner selbst bewußt. Wie das im Körper lebende Bewußtsein diesen in sich erlebt, so erlebt das geistige Bewußtsein den Inhalt einer geistigen Welt.
[ 9 ] In dem Wechselgeschehen von Aufbau und Abbau der menschlichen Organisation, wie es sich in der denkenden, fühlenden und wollenden Menschheitsorganisation offenbart, muß man den mehr oder weniger normalen menschlichen Lebenslauf des Erdendaseins sehen. Er ist in der Kindheit anders als beim erwachsenen Menschen. Ein Durchschauen, wie die abbauenden und aufbauenden Kräfte in der Kindheit wirken und welche Wirkung auf sie durch die Erziehung und den Unterricht ausgeübt werden, ist die Aufgabe einer wahren Pädagogik. Eine solche kann nur entstehen aus der im Übersinnlichen wurzelnden Erkenntnis der vollständigen Menschennatur nach deren körperlichem, seelischem und geistigem Wesen. Eine Erkenntnis, die nur in den Grenzen des naturwissenschaftlich Erreichbaren sich hält, kann nicht die Grundlage einer wahren Pädagogik sein.
[ 10 ] In dem kranken Menschen ist der mehr oder weniger normale Verlauf des Wechselverhältnisses zwischen aufbauenden und abbauenden Kräften für den ganzen Organismus oder für einzelne Organe gestört. Es überwiegt da entweder der Aufbau in einem wuchernden Leben, oder der Abbau in ertötenden Bildungen einzelner Organe oder Vorgänge. Überschauen, was da vorgeht, kann nur derjenige, welcher die totale Menschenorganisation nach physischem, ätherischem, astralischem Organismus und Ich-Wesenheit erkennt. Und die Mittel zur Heilung können auch nur durch eine solche Erkenntnis gefunden werden. Denn in den Reichen der äußeren Welt sind mineralische und pflanzliche Wesen vorhanden, in denen man bei aufbauender Erkenntnis Kräfte erkennt, die einer bestimmten Art von zu stark aufbauenden oder abbauenden Kräften im Organismus entgegenwirken. Ebenso kann ein solches Entgegenwirken in gewissen Verrichtungen des Organismus selbst gefunden werden, die für den gesunden Zustand nicht ausgeführt oder angeregt werden. Eine wahre medizinische Erkenntnis, eine echte Pathologie und Therapie können nur auf einer Geist, Seele und Leib umfassenden Menschen-Erkenntnis auferbaut sein, welche die Ergebnisse der Imagination, Inspiration und Intuition verwertet. Heute nennt man die Forderung nach einer solchen Medizin noch kindlich. Man tut dieses, weil man auf dem Gesichtspunkt einer bloßen Sinneswissenschaft steht. Von diesem Standpunkt aus ist das ganz begreiflich, denn man ahnt von ihm aus nicht, wieviel mehr man wissen muß für eine Erkenntnis des ganzen Menschen als für diejenige des bloßen Menschenkörpers. Man kann wirklich sagen, daß Anthroposophie die Einwände ihrer Gegner kennt und zu würdigen versteht. Gerade deshalb aber weiß sie auch, wie schwer diese Gegner durch sie zu überzeugen sind.
[ 11 ] Der Willensteil der Seele erlebt dasjenige mit, was in dem Gefühlsteil vor sich geht. Dieses Erleben vollzieht sich für das gewöhnliche Seelenleben unbewußt. Aber es geht in den Tiefen der Menschenorganisation als ein Tatsachenzusammenhang vor sich. Da gestaltet sich das durch Gefühl und Wille vollzogene Bewerten der menschlichen Erdentätigkeit zu dem Streben um, der minderwertigen Tat eine wertvolle im weiteren Erleben entgegenzusetzen. Es wird die ganze moralische Qualität des Menschen unbewußt erlebt; und aus diesem Erleben formt sich eine Art geistig-seelischer Wesenheit, die während des Erdendaseins in der unbewußten Region des Menschenwesens heranwächst. Sie stellt dasjenige dar, was sich als zu erreichendes Ziel aus dem Erdendasein ergibt, Ziel dem aber der Mensch in diesem nicht gelangen kann, weil der physische und ätherische Organismus, die aus dem vorigen Erdenleben ihre bestimmte Gestaltung haben, dies nicht ermöglichen. Es lebt deshalb in dem Menschen durch diese geistig-seelische Wesenheit das Bestreben, einen andern physischen und ätherischen Organismus zu bilden, durch den das moralische Ergebnis des Erdendaseins im weiteren Erleben umgestaltet werden kann.
[ 12 ] Die Bildung eines solchen physischen und ätherischen Organismus kann nur bewirkt werden, indem der Mensch die gekennzeichnete geistig-seelische Wesenheit durch die Pforte des Todes in die übersinnliche Welt trägt.
[ 13 ] Unmittelbar nach dem Tode hat der seelisch-geistige Mensch kurze Zeit den ätherischen Organismus an sich. Da tritt in dem Bewußtsein nur eine Andeutung des im Erdenleben entstandenen, unbewußten moralischen geistig-seelischen Wert-Wesens auf. Denn der Mensch ist da ganz in die Anschauung des ätherischen Kosmos versunken. In dem folgenden längeren Erlebnis zustande (den ich in meiner «Theosophie» die Seelenwelt genannt habe) ist zwar ein deutliches Bewußtsein dieser moralischen Wertwesenheit vorhanden, aber noch nicht die Kraft, das Wirken an dem Aufbau des Geistkeimes für den folgenden physischen Erdenorganismus zu beginnen. Der Mensch hat da noch eine Tendenz, wegen seiner im Erdenleben erworbenen moralischen Qualität nach diesem zurückzublicken. Nach einer gewissen Zeit kann der Mensch den Übergang zu einem Erlebniszustande finden, in dem diese Tendenz nicht mehr vorhanden ist. (Ich habe die Region, die der Mensch da durchlebt, in meiner «Theosophie» als das eigentliche Geistgebiet bezeichnet.) Vom Gesichtspunkte des übersinnlichen Gedankeninhaltes, den der Mensch - nach dem Tode - im kosmischen Bewußtsein erringt, kann man sagen: der Mensch lebt eine Zeitlang nach dem Tode noch der Erde zugewandt, indem er sich mit den geistigen Kräften durchdringt, die in den physischen Mondenerscheinungen ihr sinnliches Abbild haben. Er hat sich zwar äußerlich von der Erde losgelöst, hängt aber indirekt durch seinen geistig-seelischen Inhalt mit ihr zusammen. Mit den gekennzeichneten geistigen Mondenkräften durchdringt sich alles, was der Mensch während des Erdendaseins an moralisch-geistiger Bewertung zu einem realen Wert-Wesen in seinem astralischen Organismus - oder wie oben gesagt ist: in der unbewußten Region des gefühls- und willensgemäßen Seelenlebens - ausgestaltet. Dieses moralisch-geistige Wertwesen hat eine inhaltliche Verwandtschaft mit den geistigen Mondenkräften. Und diese sind es, die den Menschen an der Erde festhalten. Zur Ausgestaltung des Geistkeimes für den physischen Organismus des nächsten Erdenlebens muß er sich aber auch geistig-seelisch von der Erde trennen. Das kann er nur, wenn er sich auch aus dem Bereiche der Mondenkräfte löst. In diesem Bereiche muß er das mit ihm verwandte moralische Wertwesen zurücklassen. Denn das Wirken für den künftigen physischen Organismus im Zusammenhange mit den geistigen Wesen der übersinnlichen Welt muß unbeschwert durch jenes Wesen geschehen.
[ 14 ] Diese Loslösung aus dem Gebiet der geistigen Mondenkräfte kann der Mensch nicht durch die ihm eigenen geistig-seelischen Kräfte erreichen. Sie muß sich aber doch vollziehen.
[ 15 ] Vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha war es so, daß die Initiationswissenschaft den Menschen sagen konnte: In einem gewissen Zeitpunkte des nachirdischen Daseins muß das menschliche Erleben der Mondensphäre entzogen werden, das den Menschen im Bereich des Planetenlebens erhält. Der Mensch kann dieses Entziehen nicht selbst bewirken. Da aber tritt das Wesen, dessen physischer Abglanz die Sonne ist, für ihn ein und führt ihn in eine reine Geistsphäre, in der es selbst, nicht aber die geistige Mondwesenheit wirksam ist. Der Mensch erlebt ein Sternendasein so, daß er die geistigen Urbilder der Fixsternkonstellationen gewissermaßen von der andern Seite, von der Peripherie des Kosmos aus schaut. Dieses Schauen ist, wenn sich ihm auch die Sterne offenbaren, doch ein unräumliches. Mit den Kräften, von denen der Mensch jetzt durchdrungen ist, erwächst ihm die Möglichkeit, den Geist-Keim des physischen Organismus aus dem Kosmos heraus zu gestalten. Göttliches vollbringt in ihm Göttliches. Ist der Geist-Keim gereift, so beginnt der Herunterstieg zu einem erneuten Erdendasein. Der Mensch tritt wieder in die Mondensphäre ein. Er findet da die moralisch-geistige Wert-Wesenheit, die er beim Eintritt in das reine Sternendasein zurückgelassen hat; und er gliedert sie seinem seelisch-geistigen Wesen ein, um sie zur Grundlage seines schicksalgemäßen (kosmisch bestimmten) folgenden Erdenlebens zu machen.
[ 16 ] Die Initiationswissenschaft des Christentums ergibt etwas anderes. Im Aufnehmen der Kraft, welche für die Seele aus dem anschauenden und tätigen Gefühls-Miterleben des irdischen Christuslebens und des Mysteriums von Golgatha erwächst, erringt der Mensch schon auf der Erde, nicht erst durch das Sonnenwesen nach dem Tode, die Fähigkeit, sich in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte des nachirdischen Daseins dem Mondeneinfluß zu entziehen und in die reine Sternensphäre einzutreten. Diese Fähigkeit ist das geistige, nach dem Tode erlebte Gegenbild der durch das Ichbewußtsein im Erdenleben herbeigeführten Freiheit. Der Mensch übernimmt dann in der Zeit zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt sein in der Mondensphäre zurückgelassenes moralisch-geistiges Wertwesen als den Bildner seines Schicksals, das er dadurch während des folgenden Erdendaseins in Freiheit erleben kann. Er trägt auch in Freiheit die irdische Nachwirkung seines zwischen Tod und Geburt durchlebten gottdurchdrungenen Daseins als religiöses Bewußtsein in sich.
[ 17 ] Eine neuere Initiationswissenschaft kann das durchschauen und die Wirksamkeit des Christus im menschlichen Dasein erkennen. Sie fügt zu einer lebensvollen Philosophie und einer Kosmologie, die den Geist-Kosmos miterkennt, eine Religionserkenntnis, welche den Christus als den Mittler eines erneuten religiösen Bewußtseins, als den Weltenführer in der Freiheit, anerkennt.
[ 18 ] Skizzenhaft habe ich in diesen Darstellungen nur die mögliche Entstehung einer Philosophie, Kosmologie und Religionserkenntnis darstellen können. Es würde noch vieles zu sagen sein, wenn die Skizze zum farbigen Bilde werden sollte.
X. The experience of the will part of the soul in its effect beyond death
[ 1 ] When the ordinary consciousness sets the will into activity, a part of the astral organism is particularly effective, which is in a looser connection with the physical organism than that which corresponds to feeling. And this part of the astral organism that corresponds to feeling is already more loosely connected to the physical organism than the part that corresponds to thinking. At the same time, the true essence of the "I" lies in the astral organism of the will. While feeling corresponds to a soul-spiritual entity that is in constant active connection with the rhythmic part of the physical organism, the will part of the soul does indeed constantly permeate the metabolic organism and the organization of the limbs; but it is only in an active connection with these members of the human being while volition is taking place.
[ 2 ] The relationship of the thinking part of the soul to the head organization is a surrender of the spiritual-soul to the physical. The relationship of the feeling soul to the rhythmic organization is an alternating surrender and withdrawal. The will part, however, has a relationship to the physical which it initially experiences as an unconscious soul. It is an unconscious desire for physical and etheric events. This part of the will is not absorbed into physical activity through its own being. It holds itself back from it and remains soul-spiritually alive. Only when the thinking part of the soul extends its activity into the metabolic and limb organization is the will part stimulated to devote itself to the physical and etheric organization and to be active in it.
[ 3 ] The thinking part of the soul is based on a decomposing activity of the physical organism. In the formation of thoughts, this degradation extends only to the head organization. If something volitional is to arise, the degrading activity takes hold of the metabolic and limb organization. The power of thought flows into the trunk and limb organism, in which it corresponds to a decomposing activity of the physical organism. This stimulates the will part of the soul to counter the degradation with a building up, the dissolving organic activity with a forming, shaping one.
[ 4 ] Death and life thus struggle in the human being. Thinking reveals an organic activity that is always in the process of dying; willing reveals a life-awakening, life-creating activity.
[ 5 ] In those exercises of the soul which are undertaken with the aim of supersensible contemplation as exercises of the will, success only occurs when they become an inner experience of pain. Whoever brings his will to a heightened energy will experience a feeling of suffering. In earlier epochs of human development, this pain was brought about directly through ascetic exercises. Through these, the body was put into a state that made it difficult for the soul to surrender to it. As a result, the will part of the soul was torn away from the body and stimulated to experience the spiritual world independently.
[ 6 ] This type of exercise is no longer appropriate to the human organization that has been achieved at the present time of earthly development. The human organism is now so constituted that it is disturbed as the basis of ego development when the old ascetic exercises are practiced. One must now do the opposite. The exercises of the soul, which are necessary in the present time in order to make the will part of the soul free of the body, formed the subject of a characterization in the preceding descriptions. They do not bring about the strengthening of this part of the soul from the body side, but from the soul side. They strengthen the soul-spiritual in the human being and leave the physical-bodily untouched.
[ 7 ] You can already see from ordinary consciousness how the experience of pain is connected with the development of spiritual experiences. Anyone who has gained some knowledge of a higher kind will say: I am grateful to fate for the happy, pleasurable impacts on my life; but I owe my knowledge of life, which is rooted in true reality, to my bitter, painful experiences.
[ 8 ] If the will part of the soul is to be strengthened, as is necessary for the attainment of intuitive knowledge, then the desire must first be strengthened, which in ordinary human life lives itself out through the physical organism. This happens through the exercises described above. If this desire then becomes such that the physical organism in its earthly existence cannot be a basis for it, then the experience of the will-part of the soul passes over into the spiritual world; and the intuitive contemplation enters. Thus the spiritual-eternal part of the soul's life becomes conscious of itself for this contemplation. Just as the consciousness living in the body experiences this within itself, so the spiritual consciousness experiences the content of a spiritual world.
[ 9 ] In the alternating process of building up and breaking down the human organization, as it manifests itself in the thinking, feeling and willing human organization, one must see the more or less normal human life course of earthly existence. It is different in childhood than in the adult human being. The task of a true pedagogy is to see through how the degrading and constructive forces work in childhood and what effect is exerted on them through education and teaching. This can only arise from a knowledge of the complete human nature, rooted in the supersensible, according to its physical, mental and spiritual essence. A knowledge that only remains within the limits of what can be achieved scientifically cannot be the basis of a true pedagogy.
[ 10 ] In the sick person, the more or less normal course of the interrelationship between constructive and destructive forces is disturbed for the whole organism or for individual organs. Either the build-up in a proliferating life or the degradation in deadening formations of individual organs or processes predominates. Only those who recognize the total human organization according to the physical, etheric and astral organism and the ego being can see what is going on. And the means of healing can only be found through such a realization. For in the realms of the outer world there are mineral and vegetable beings in which, with constructive knowledge, one recognizes forces that counteract a certain kind of excessively constructive or destructive forces in the organism. Likewise, such counteracting can be found in certain activities of the organism itself that are not carried out or stimulated for a healthy state. True medical knowledge, genuine pathology and therapy can only be based on a knowledge of the human being that encompasses spirit, soul and body and utilizes the results of imagination, inspiration and intuition. Today, the demand for such a medicine is still called childish. We do this because we stand on the standpoint of a mere sensory science. From this point of view it is quite understandable, for from it one has no idea how much more must be known for a knowledge of the whole man than for that of the mere human body. It can truly be said that anthroposophy knows and appreciates the objections of its opponents. For this very reason, however, it also knows how difficult it is to convince these opponents.
[ 11 ] The will part of the soul experiences that which takes place in the emotional part. This experience takes place unconsciously for the ordinary life of the soul. But it takes place in the depths of the human organization as a context of facts. There the evaluation of human earthly activity carried out through feeling and will is transformed into the striving to counter the inferior deed with a valuable one in further experience. The whole moral quality of the human being is experienced unconsciously; and from this experience a kind of spiritual-soul entity is formed, which grows in the unconscious region of the human being during his earthly existence. It represents that which results from the earthly existence as a goal to be reached, but which the human being cannot reach in this because the physical and etheric organism, which have their certain formation from the previous earthly life, do not make this possible. Therefore, through this spiritual-soul entity, the human being strives to form another physical and etheric organism through which the moral result of the earthly existence can be reshaped in further experience.
[ 12 ] The formation of such a physical and etheric organism can only be brought about by the human being carrying the marked spiritual-soul entity through the gate of death into the supersensible world.
[ 13 ] Immediately after death, the soul-spiritual human being has the etheric organism for a short time. Only a hint of the unconscious moral, spiritual-mental value-being that has arisen in earthly life appears in the consciousness. For the human being is then completely absorbed in the contemplation of the etheric cosmos. In the following longer experience (which I have called the soul world in my "Theosophy") there is indeed a clear consciousness of this moral value-being, but not yet the power to begin the work of building up the spirit-germ for the following physical earth organism. The human being still has a tendency to look back because of the moral quality acquired in earthly life. After a certain time, the human being can find the transition to a state of experience in which this tendency is no longer present. (In my "Theosophy" I have described the region through which man then passes as the actual spiritual realm.) From the point of view of the supersensible thought-content which man - after death - acquires in cosmic consciousness, one can say: man lives for a time after death still turned towards the earth, in that he permeates himself with the spiritual forces which have their sensuous image in the physical phenomena of the moon. Although it has detached itself outwardly from the earth, it is indirectly connected with it through its spiritual content. With the marked spiritual lunar forces, everything that the human being forms during his earthly existence in terms of moral-spiritual evaluation into a real value-being in his astral organism - or as said above: in the unconscious region of the emotional and volitional life of the soul - is permeated. This moral-spiritual value-being is related in content to the spiritual moon forces. And it is these that hold man to the earth. But in order to shape the spiritual germ for the physical organism of the next earthly life he must also separate himself spiritually and mentally from the earth. He can only do this if he also detaches himself from the realm of the moon forces. In this realm he must leave behind the moral value being related to him. For the work for the future physical organism in connection with the spiritual beings of the supersensible world must take place unencumbered by that being.
[ 14 ] This detachment from the realm of the spiritual lunar forces cannot be achieved by man through his own spiritual-soul forces. But it must nevertheless take place.
[ 15 ] Before the Mystery of Golgotha it was so that the science of initiation could say to man: At a certain point in the post-earthly existence, the human experience must be withdrawn from the lunar sphere, which sustains the human being in the realm of planetary life. Man cannot bring about this withdrawal himself. But then the being, whose physical reflection is the sun, enters for him and leads him into a pure spiritual sphere in which it itself, but not the spiritual moon being, is active. Man experiences a stellar existence in such a way that he sees the spiritual archetypes of the fixed star constellations from the other side, so to speak, from the periphery of the cosmos. Although the stars reveal themselves to him, this vision is non-spatial. With the powers with which man is now imbued, the possibility arises for him to form the spirit-germ of the physical organism out of the cosmos. Divinity accomplishes divinity in him. Once the spirit-germ has matured, the descent to a renewed earthly existence begins. The human being re-enters the sphere of the moon. There he finds the moral-spiritual value-entity that he left behind when he entered the pure star existence; and he incorporates it into his soul-spiritual being in order to make it the basis of his fateful (cosmically determined) following earth life.
[ 16 ] The initiation science of Christianity reveals something different. By absorbing the power that arises for the soul from the contemplative and active emotional co-experience of the earthly life of Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha, man acquires the ability already on earth, not only through the solar being after death, to withdraw from the influence of the moon at a certain point in his post-earthly existence and to enter the pure starry sphere. This ability is the spiritual counterpart, experienced after death, of the freedom brought about by the ego-consciousness in earthly life. In the time between death and a new birth, man then takes over his moral-spiritual value-being left behind in the sphere of the moon as the maker of his destiny, which he can thereby experience in freedom during the following earthly existence. He also carries in freedom the earthly after-effect of his God-infused existence experienced between death and birth as a religious consciousness.
[ 17 ] A newer science of initiation can see through this and recognize the effectiveness of Christ in human existence. It adds to a vital philosophy and a cosmology that recognizes the spirit-cosmos, a religious knowledge that recognizes the Christ as the mediator of a renewed religious consciousness, as the world leader in freedom.
[ 18 ] In these descriptions I have only been able to sketch the possible emergence of a philosophy, cosmology and religious knowledge. There would still be much to say if the sketch were to become a colorful picture.