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Memory and Love
GA 218

4 December 1922, Stuttgart

Translator Unknown

It gives me great satisfaction to be able to speak to you today on passing through Stuttgart, and I should like to make this an opportunity for discussing several things connected with the last two lectures I have been permitted to give here. I spoke then about man's relation to the spiritual world in so far as knowledge of it can be advanced by bringing to light the processes that go on during sleep without our being conscious of them, and by the illumination that spiritual science can throw on the experiences undergone by man in the spiritual world between death and a new birth.

Today I would like to speak of how man's life on earth is in a certain sense a reverse image of those experiences. Human life on earth is understood only when particular expressions of it can be related to their counterparts in the spiritual world, where man spends the major part of his existence.

I would like first to speak of some of the ways in which the human soul expresses itself during earthly life, in so far as they can be related to experiences in the spiritual world. From my last two lectures here you will have gathered that the experiences of the human soul between death and rebirth differ essentially from those between birth and death. Here on earth a man's experiences are all mediated through his body, be it the physical body or the etheric body. Nothing of what he experiences on earth can be experienced without the support of the bodily nature. We might easily imagine, for example, that thinking is a purely spiritual act, and that in the way it comes about on earth in the human soul it has nothing to do with existence in a body. In one sense this is so. But spiritually independent as human thinking is, it could not take its course here in earth existence were it unable to have the support of the body and its processes. I may avail myself of a comparison which I have often used here on similar occasions. When a man is walking, the ground he walks on is certainly not the essential part of his activity; the essential part is inside his skin; but without the support of the ground he could not get along.

It is the same with thinking. In essence, thinking is certainly not a brain-process, but without the support of the brain it could not take its earthly course. In the light of this comparison one gets a right conception of the spirituality as well as of the physical limitations of human thinking In short, my dear friends, here in earthly life there is nothing in man that does not depend on the body for support. Within the body we carry our organs—lung, heart, brain, and so on. In normal health we have no conscious perception of our internal organs. We perceive them only when they are ill, and then in a very imperfect way. We can never say that we have knowledge of an organ by looking directly at it, unless we are studying anatomy, and then we are not studying a living organ. We can never say that we have the same view of an internal organ that we have of an external object. It is characteristic of earthly life that we do not know the interior of our body by means of ordinary consciousness. Least of all does a man know what he generally considers of most value for his bodily existence—the interior of his head. For when he begins to know anything of it, as a rule the knowledge proves most unpleasant—headache and all that goes with it.

In spiritual life between death and a new birth the exact opposite prevails. There we do really know what is within us. It is as if here on earth we were not to see trees and clouds outside, but were to look in the main inside ourselves, saying: Here is the lung, here the heart, here the stomach. In the spiritual world we contemplate our own interior. But what we see is the world of spiritual beings, the world we come to know in our anthroposophical literature as the world of the higher Hierarchies. That is our inner world. And between death and rebirth we feel ourselves actually to be the whole world—when I speak of the whole it is only figuratively, but it is entirely true—at times we each of us feel ourselves to be the whole world. And at the most important moments of our spiritual existence between death and a new birth we feel within us and experience the world of spiritual beings and are conscious of them. It is just as true that we are conscious there of spirits of the higher world within us as it is true that here on earth we have no consciousness of our interior, of liver, lungs, and so on. What is most characteristic is that in spiritual experience all our physical experience is reversed. Gradually, through initiation-knowledge, we learn how this is to be understood.

Now, however, there is an essential process—or group of processes—related to this inward living together with the beings of the higher Hierarchies. Were we in the spiritual world to perceive inwardly only the world of the higher Hierarchies, we would never find ourselves. We would indeed know that various beings were living in us, but we would never become fully aware of ourselves. Hence in our experience between death and a new birth there is a rhythm. It consists in an alternation between our inward contemplation and experience of the world of spiritual beings described in anthroposophical literature, and a damping down of this consciousness. We do the same with the spiritual within us when in physical life we close our eyes and ears and go to sleep. If I may put it like this, we turn our attention from the world of spiritual beings within us and begin to perceive ourselves. Certainly it is as if we were outside ourselves, but we know that this being outside ourselves is what we are. Thus in the spiritual world we alternately perceive ourselves and the world of spiritual beings.

This constantly repeated rhythmical process can be compared with two different things here in physical existence on earth. It can be compared with in-breathing and out-breathing, and also with sleeping and waking. In physical existence on earth both these are rhythmical processes; both may be compared with what I have been describing. But with the processes that take place in the spiritual world between death and rebirth, it is not a question of knowing something in a purely abstract way, or—I might add—for the satisfaction of spiritual curiosity; it is a matter of recognising life on earth as an image of the super-earthly. And the question necessarily arises: What takes place in earthly life that is like a faculty of memory such as man does not have in ordinary consciousness, a faculty that might be possessed by beings of the Hierarchies, Archangels? What is there in physical life that is like a memory of living oneself into the world of spiritual beings, or like a memory of experiencing oneself there?

Now, my dear friends, had we no experience between death and a new birth of looking within ourselves and finding there the world of the spirit, down here on earth there would be no such thing as morals. What we retain of this experience of beings in the spiritual world when we enter life on earth is an inclination towards the moral life. This inclination is strong in proportion to the clearness with which between death and a new birth a man has experienced his living together with the spirits of the higher world. And anyone who in a spiritually right sense sees into these things, knows that immoral men, as a result of their preceding life on earth, had too dull an experience of this spiritual existence. But if between death and a new birth we were able to experience only what makes us one with the beings of the higher world, and were never able to experience ourselves, then on earth it would be impossible for us ever to achieve freedom, consciousness of freedom, consciousness of our personality, which is fundamentally identical with the consciousness of freedom. Thus when on earth we develop morality and freedom, they are memories of the rhythm we experience in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. But by directing our gaze to the soul we can speak more exactly of what echoes on in the soul—the becoming one with spiritual beings on the one hand, and on the other our experience of spiritual consciousness of the self. What during earthly life remains in our soul as an echo of the becoming one with the beings of the spiritual world is the capacity for love. This capacity for love is more deeply connected than people think with the moral life. For without the capacity for love there would be no moral life here on earth; it all arises from the understanding with which we meet the soul of another, and from striving to accomplish what we do out of this understanding. How we behave to others with selflessness, or how in love we can act morally, are essentially echoes from our life between death and rebirth in common with spiritual beings; and this remains with us after our experience of what one might call loneliness—for so it is felt to be—the lonely experience of our self in the spiritual world. For we do then feel lonely when we, as it were, breathe out. In-breathing is like an experience of spiritual beings; out-breathing like an experience of our self. But feeling lonely—well, this feeling lonely has its echo here on earth as our capacity for remembering—our memory. As human beings we should have no memory were it not an echo of what we have described as a feeling of loneliness. We are real individuals in the spiritual world because—I cannot say because we withdraw into ourselves—but because we can liberate ourselves from the higher spirits within us. That makes us independent in the spiritual world. Here on earth we are independent because we are able to remember our experiences. Just think what would become of your independence if in your thoughts you had always to live in the present. Your remembered thoughts are what make it possible for you to have anything of an inner life. Remembering makes us into personalities here on earth. And remembering is the echo of what I have described as the experience of loneliness in the spiritual world.

Now why do we come down at all to the physical out of the spiritual world? You may gather from what I said here last time that the forces holding us together with higher spiritual beings grow weaker. Here in physical life we become old because the forces holding us in connection with the physical earth weaken; over there the forces weaken which hold us in connection with spiritual beings. Above all, those forces weaken that enable us to grasp ourselves within spiritual beings and so to be independent. In the spiritual world, an appreciable time before descending to earth, we lose the capacity for living together with spiritual beings. With the help of spiritual beings we form the spirit-seed of our physical body: this we send down first; then we take up our etheric body and follow after. I pictured this for you in my last lecture. Our capacity for living with spirit-beings in the spiritual world fades out, and we feel how through the forces of the moon we approach ever nearer to the earth. We feel ourselves as a self, but continually become less able to comprehend, to maintain, ourselves within spiritual realms; this capacity becomes increasingly feeble. We have a growing feeling that faintness may overcome us in the spiritual world. This creates in us a need for what we can no longer carry within us, the feeling of self, to be supported by something outside, namely our body—a need to be supported by a body. I might put it thus, that we have gradually to unlearn flying and learn to walk. You understand that I am speaking figuratively, but the picture is in absolute accord with truth, with reality. Thus we find our way into our body. The feeling of loneliness finds a refuge in the body and becomes the faculty of remembering, and we have to win through to a new feeling for community on earth. This proves to be very significant when with the aid of spiritual science we study the state of sleep.

I described this state of sleep from a certain aspect last time I was here. I now want to add something about the processes mentioned then. I know that such things are easily misunderstood. Over and over again one hears that people are saying: “Last time he described man's experience between going to sleep and waking, and now he is telling us something different about it.” My dear friends, if I tell you what an official experiences in his office, it does not contradict what later I tell you about him in the bosom of his family. The two things go together. So you must be clear that when I tell you of experiences between going to sleep and waking this is not the whole story, just as an official can still have a family life outside his office.

Thus man, between going to sleep and waking, actually experiences a kind of backward repetition of what he accomplished in the course of the day. It is not simply that between going to sleep and waking—the sleep can be quite short, and then things are telescoped together—it is not simply that between going to sleep and waking man has a retrospective view of his experiences during the day, an unconscious view, for naturally it must be unconscious—no, when the soul during sleep becomes really clairvoyant, or when the clairvoyant soul looks back in memory on the experiences between going to sleep and waking, it is seen that man really experiences the going backward of what he has experienced since the last time he woke. If he sleeps through the night in an ordinary way, he goes backward through what he has done by day. The last event takes place immediately on going to sleep, and so on. The whole of his sleep works in a wonderfully regulating way. I can but tell you what can be investigated by spiritual science. When you fall asleep for a quarter of an hour, the beginning of the sleep knows when it will end, and in this quarter of an hour you experience in backward order what you have brought about since last you woke. It is all given its right proportion—marvellous as this may seem. And this backward experience may be said to lie somewhere between reality and semblance.

If one has a memory-picture of something experienced in physical life twenty years before, a healthy, thoughtful person will not take it for a present experience; it is in the nature of the memory-picture itself that we relate it to a past experience. Anyone who looks clairvoyantly into what the soul experiences during sleep in backward order does not connect this with the present; he connects it with the future after death. Just as anyone realises that his recollection of something experienced twenty years before refers to that past time, so does anyone who clairvoyantly sees into the state of sleep know that what he sees has no significance for the present but foreshadows what is to be experienced after death, when we have to go backwards through all that we have done on earth. That is why this sleep-picture is half-reality and half-semblance—it is related to the future. Thus for ordinary consciousness it is an unconscious experience of what man has to live through in what I called in my book, Theosophy, the soul world. And the intuitive and inspired consciousness described in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, gathers from the observation of sleep what man has to go through during the first stage after death. These things are not mere fabrications; they are plainly observed once the gift of observation has been acquired. Thus, from going to sleep till waking, man lives without his body through what he has done with his body when awake.

We come now to an extraordinarily subtle concept. Just think how from outside we have to live through our deeds again with our ego and our astral body. The capacity to do so is acquired in proportion to the degree of love we unfold. That is the secret of life where love is concerned. If a man is able really to go out of himself in love, loving his nearest as himself, he learns what he needs in sleep for experiencing in reverse, fully and without pain, what has to be experienced in this way. For then he must be quite outside himself. If a man is a loveless being, a feeling arises when, outside himself, he has to experience the actions he performed without love. This hems him in. Loveless persons sleep as if—to use a metaphor—they were short-winded. So it is that whatever we have been able to implant in ourselves through love becomes truly fruitful while we are asleep. And in what is thus developed between going to sleep and waking, we have something that goes through the gate of death and then lives on further in the spiritual world. It is lost between death and rebirth when we are living together with the spiritual beings of the higher worlds and we recover it as a seed during earthly life through love. For love discloses its meaning when with his ego and astral body a man in sleep is outside his physical body and etheric body. Between going to sleep and waking his essential being widens if he is full of love and prepares himself well for what is to happen to him after death. If he is loveless and is poorly prepared for what is to happen to him after death, his being narrows. The seed for what happens after death lies pre-eminently in the unfolding of love.

During our life on earth between birth and death, our memories are extraordinarily fleeting; only pictures remain. Think how little these pictures retain of the events lived through. Just remind yourself of the unspeakable grief experienced at the death of someone very close to you, and imagine vividly the inner condition of soul attendant upon it, and then observe how this appears as an inner experience when after ten years you call it up. It has become a pale, almost abstract shadow. That is what our capacity for recollection is—pale and abstract compared with the full vigour of immediate life. Why is our recollection thus weak and shadowy? It is indeed the shadow of our experience of self between death and a new birth. Within it is the faculty of remembering, so that it really gives us our existence. That which gives us flesh and blood here on earth, between death and a new birth gives us the faculty of memory. Over there memory is robust and full-blooded—if I may use such expressions for what is spiritual—then it takes on flesh and becomes weak. When we die. for a few days—I have often described this—the last remnant of memory is still present in the etheric body. If when we go through the gate of death we look back over our past life on earth, memory fades out. And out of this memory there unwinds what the force of love on earth has given us as force for life after death. Thus the force of memory is the heritage we receive from our pre-earthly life, and the force of love is the seed for what we have after death. That is the relation between earthly life and the spiritual world.

Now, my dear friends, I have compared what man experiences in connection with higher beings in the spiritual world, alternating with his experience of the self, with breathing—in-breathing, out-breathing. In our breathing process, and in the processes concerned with speech and song, we can recognise an image of “breathing” in the spiritual world. As I have said, our life in the spiritual world between death and a new birth alternates between contemplation of the inner self, and becoming one with the beings of the higher Hierarchies; looking out from within, becoming one with ourself. This goes on like in-breathing and out-breathing. We breathe into ourselves and then breathe ourselves out, and this is of course a spiritual breathing. Here on earth this breathing process becomes memory and love. And in fact memory and love also work together here in physical earth-life as a kind of breathing. And if with the eyes of the soul you are able to look at this physical life rightly, you will be able to observe in an important manifestation of breathing—speaking and singing—the physiological working together of memory and love.

Study the child up to the change of teeth. You will observe how the power of recollection, of memory, gradually unfolds. At first it is quite elementary. The child has a certain memory, but it becomes an independent force only towards the time when the teeth change, and is complete in its development when the child is ripe for school. It is only then that we can begin to build upon memory. Earlier than this, by building too much on memory we make the child rigid and create a sclerotic condition of soul for its later life. When dealing with children before the change of teeth, it is a question of their receiving impressions of the present in the right way. It is between the change of teeth and puberty that we may venture to build upon memory.

Today the science of physiology has not reached the point when it can describe in detail the process just pictured. Spiritual science is capable of this and physiological science will certainly follow suit, for these things can be discovered by a close observation of human nature. One may say: When we give out a sound or a note, to begin with the head is engaged. But from the head comes the same faculty that inwardly, in the soul, gives memory, which plays into sound and tone: this comes from above. For anyone to be able to speak without having a faculty of memory is inconceivable. Were we always to forget what is contained in sound or tone, we should never be able to speak or sing. It is precisely embodied memory that lives in tone or sound, on the one hand; on the other hand, for the part played by love, even in its physiological sense, in the breathing process that gives rise to speaking and singing—for this you have clear witness in the full inner volume of tone that comes to the male with puberty, when love finds physiological expression during the second important period of life: this comes from below. There you have the two elements together—from above what lies at the physiological basis of memory—from below what lies at the physiological basis of love: together they form tone in speech and in song. There you have their reciprocal interplay. In a way it is also a breathing process running through the whole of life. Just as we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide so, united in us we have the force of memory and the force of love, meeting one another in speech, meeting one another in tone. One can say that speaking and singing in man are an alternating interchange of permeation by the force of memory and by the force of love.

Herein lies something extraordinarily significant for disclosing the real secret of tone and sound.

Thus there is real truth in what is expressed in the more ancient languages by calling the sum of world forces and world thoughts the Logos. That is the other side, the super-physical side of that which comes to physical expression in speech. We do not only breathe in and breathe out higher beings between death and rebirth, but we also speak, though this speaking is at the same time a singing. In the alternation between going out into the spiritual beings and coming back into ourselves, we speak a spiritual speaking—with the beings of the higher Hierarchies. When we are in the state of becoming one with the beings of the spiritual world, we look upon them even though they are within ourselves. When we are free from them again and come to ourselves, then we have the after-effect, then we are ourselves. Over there they express their own being in us: they tell us what they are: the Logos lives in us. On earth this is reversed; in speech and song our own being is expressed. We express our whole being in the process of out-breathing; whereas when between death and rebirth we release the spirit beings, we have received in the Logos the whole being of the world.

But, my dear friends, the fact is that when we pass over from the spiritual world into the physical we go through the great oblivion. Who with ordinary consciousness sees here in the weak, shadowy force of memory the echo of what we were as self in the spiritual world? Who still recognises in speech, in the part that comes from memory, the after-vibration of the self? Who recognises in the plastic forming of speech, in singing and speaking, an echo of beings of the higher Hierarchies? Nevertheless is it not true that whoever understands how to listen to speech without taking the meaning into consideration, whoever can give ear to what the tones express through their very nature, has a feeling—particularly if he is artistically inclined—that more is revealed in speaking and singing than what the ordinary consciousness receives? Why then do we transform ordinary speech that we have here on earth as a utilitarian faculty—why do we transform it into song by divesting it of its utilitarian function and making it express our own being in declamation, in song? Why do we transform it? What are we doing then?

Now we get the right idea of this if we say: Before descending to earth you were in the spiritual world and lived there in the way described. The great oblivion came. In what your mouth utters, in what your soul remembers, in how your soul loves, you do not recognise the echo of what you were in the spiritual world. In art, however, we retreat a few steps from life, as it were, and come a few steps nearer to what we were in our pre-natal life and what we shall be in our life after death. And if we are able to recognise how memory is an echo of what we had in pre-earthly life, and how the unfolding of love is the seed of what we shall have after death, if through spirit-knowledge we picture the past and the future of human existence, in art we call up into the present—as far as this is possible for man within his physical organisation—we call up into the present what unites us to the spirit.

That is the essential glory of art: it takes us by simple means into the spiritual world in the immediate present. Anyone who is able to look into the inner life of man will say: Generally a man remembers only the things he has experienced in the course of his present earthly life. But the force through which he remembers these earthly experiences is the weakened force of his existence as a self in pre-earthly life. And the love that he is able to unfold here as a universal love of humanity is the weakened force of the seed which will come to fruition after death. And as in song and in declamatory speech there must be united what a man is, through memory, with what he can give the world, through love, so it is in all art. A man may experience a harmony of the self with what is outside, but unless he is capable of showing outwardly what is within him—be it in tone, painting or any other branch of art—of showing on the surface what he is, what life has made of him, what is the essential content of his memory, he can be no artist. Neither is he a true artist who in a pronounced way is impelled to be an egotist in his art. Only those who are disposed to open out to the world, who become one with their fellows, who unfold love, can unite this unfolding of love closely with their own being. Altruism and egotism unite in one stream. They flow together naturally and most intimately in the sounding arts, but they flow together also in the plastic arts. And when through a certain deepening of our forces of knowledge there is revealed to us how man is connected with a super-sensible world where past and future are concerned, we can also say that man has a present foretaste of this connection in his creation and enjoyment of art. Actually art never acquires its full value if it is not to some extent in accord with religion. Not that it has to be sanctimonious—even art in a jovial mood can have this accord.

Ample proof of this lies in the way art has developed. Originally it was one with religious life. In primitive ages of mankind it was woven into religious cults. The images men formed of their gods was the source of plastic art. As an instance of this let us recall the Samothracean Mysteries alluded to by Goethe in the second part of his Faust, where he speaks of the Kabiri.1See the lecture-cycle, “Goetheanism as an impulse for man's transformation” Dornach, January 1919. In my studio in Dornach I tried to make a picture of these Kabiri. And what came of it? It was something very interesting. I simply set myself the task of puzzling out intuitively how the Kabiri must have appeared in the Samothracean Mysteries. And just imagine this: I arrived at three pitchers, but pitchers, it is true, shaped plastically and in accordance with art. At first I astonished myself, although Goethe actually spoke of pitchers. The matter became clear to me only when I found that these pitchers stood on an altar: then something in the nature of incense was put into them, the sacrificial words were sung, and from the power of the sacrificial words—which in the more ancient times of mankind had a force of vibratory stimulus quite different from anything possible today — the smoke of the incense was formed into the desired image of the divinity. Thus in the ritual you had the accompanying chant immediately expressing itself plastically in the smoke of the incense.

Mankind had truly drawn art from the religious life. And Schiller is right in saying: “Only through the dawn of beauty do you press on into the land of knowledge,” which you generally find quoted in books as “Only through the door of beauty do you press on into the land of knowledge.” If an artist makes a slip of the pen, it gets handed down to posterity. The right reading, of course, is: “Only through the dawn of beauty do you press on into the land of knowledge.” In other words—all knowledge comes through art. Fundamentally, there is no knowledge that is not intimately related to art. It is only the knowledge connected with externals, with usefulness, which appears to have no connection with art. But this knowledge can extend only to what in the world a mere colour-grinder would know of painting. As soon as in chemistry or physics one goes beyond—I am speaking figuratively but you will know what I mean—what mere colour-grinding implies, science becomes art. And when the artistic is grasped in its spiritual nature in the right way, it gradually passes over into the religious. Art, religion and science were formerly one, and we should still have a sense of their common origin. This we can have only when there is a return to the spirit in human civilisation and human development; when we take seriously the relation existing between man here in his physical existence on earth and the spiritual world. This knowledge we ought to make our own from the most varied points of view.

Today I wished to deal with one of these points of view, my dear friends, so that from a certain aspect you may have a picture of how man is connected with the spiritual world. I hope that we shall be able to go on enlarging these studies in a not too distant future.

Beziehung Des Erdenlebens Des Menschen Zum Leben Zwischen Tod Und Neuer Geburt

Es gereicht mir zur großen Befriedigung, daß ich gewissermaßen auf der Durchreise heute wiederum zu Ihnen sprechen kann, und ich möchte diese Gelegenheit dazu benützen, um manches nach einer gewissen Richtung hin weiter auszuführen, was gerade Gegenstand der letzten beiden Vorträge war, die ich hier halten durfte. Ich sprach ja dazumal über die Beziehungen des Menschen zur geistigen Welt, insofern sie erkannt werden können durch Aufhellung der für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein unbewußt verlaufenden Vorgänge während des Schlafes, und insofern sie aufgehellt werden können dadurch, daß man geisteswissenschaftlich hineinleuchtet in die Erlebnisse, die der Mensch durchzumachen hat in der geistigen Welt zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt.

Heute möchte ich davon sprechen, wie das Leben, das der Mensch hier auf der Erde zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode zubringt, in einer gewissen Beziehung ein umgewandeltes Abbild ist desjenigen, was durchlebt wird in den geistigen Welten zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt. Man versteht das menschliche Leben auf Erden eben nur dann, wenn man die einzelnen Äußerungen dieses Lebens beziehen kann auf dasjenige, was ihnen entspricht in der geistigen Welt, in der ja der Mensch, man möchte sagen, den Hauptteil seines Daseins zuzubringen hat.

Nun möchte ich zunächst vorzugsweise sprechen von den seelischen Äußerungen des Menschen, insofern sie als irdische seelische Äußerungen bezogen werden können auf Erlebnisse der geistigen Welt. Sie können ja entnehmen aus demjenigen, was ich in meinen beiden letzten Vorträgen hier vorgebracht habe, daß die Erlebnisse der Menschenseele zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt in der geistigen Welt wesentlich andere sind als diejenigen, die der Mensch hier zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode hat. Hier, zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode hat er ja alle seine Erlebnisse durch die Vermittlung seines Körpers, sei es seines physischen Leibes, sei es seines ätherischen Leibes. Gar nichts, was der Mensch hier auf Erden erlebt, kann erlebt werden, ohne daß es sich stützt auf das Leibliche. Man könnte zum Beispiel sehr leicht glauben, daß das Denken ein rein geistiger Akt sei, und so, wie es sich auf Erden in der Menschenseele vollzieht, nichts zu tun habe mit dem körperlichen Dasein. Das ist ja nach einer Richtung hin zutreffend. Aber so selbständig geistig das Denken des Menschen auch ist, so könnte dieses Denken hier im irdischen Dasein nicht verlaufen, wenn der Mensch nicht sich auf seinen Leib und dessen Vorgänge stützen könnte. Ich darf einen Vergleich gebrauchen, den ich bei dieser Gelegenheit öfters auch schon hier angewendet habe. Wenn ein Mensch über den Erdboden geht, so hat ja ganz gewiß der Erdboden nichts Wesentliches in sich, was den Menschen ausmacht; der Mensch trägt innerhalb seiner Haut sein Wesentliches. Aber der Mensch könnte sich als physischer Mensch ohne die Stütze des Erdbodens eben überhaupt nicht im physischen Dasein befinden.

Und so ist es mit dem Denken, das als Vorgang der Seele lebt. Es ist seinem Wesen nach ganz gewiß nicht irgendein Gehirnvorgang, aber es könnte nicht verlaufen, wenn es nicht das Gehirn zur Stütze hätte hier im physischen Leben. Nur wenn man im Sinne dieses Bildes die Sache ansieht, hat man von der Geistigkeit und auch von der körperlichen Bedingtheit des menschlichen Denkens eine richtige Vorstellung. Kurz, es ist nichts im Menschen hier im Erdendasein, was sich nicht stützen müßte auf das körperliche Dasein. Wir tragen mit Bezug auf unser körperliches Dasein in uns unsere Organe: Lunge, Herz, Gehirn und so weiter. Im gewöhnlichen gesunden Leben ist unser Bewußtsein nicht erfüllt mit der Wahrnehmung unserer inneren Organe. Eigentlich nehmen wir es erst wahr, wenn wir an irgendeinem Organe krank sind, und zwar auch in einer recht unvollkommenen Weise. Wir können niemals sagen, daß wir von einem inneren Organ durch unmittelbare Anschauung wissen, wenn wir nicht Anatomie studieren, und dann haben wir ja auch nur das tote und nicht das lebende Organ vor uns. Wir können niemals sagen, daß wir von einem inneren Organ eine solche Anschauung, eine solche Wahrnehmung hätten wie von einem äußeren Gegenstande. Das ist gerade das Charakteristische, daß wir während des Erdendaseins durch unmittelbares Bewußtsein unser körperliches Inneres nicht kennen. Am wenigsten kennt ja der Mensch hier auf Erden dasjenige, was er gewöhnlich für das Wertvollste im körperlichen Dasein ansieht, das Innere seines Kopfes. Denn wenn er anfängt das kennenzulernen, so ist das in der Regel die unangenehmste Bekanntschaft, die Kopfschmerzen und alles, was damit zusammenhängt. Im geistigen Dasein, zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt ist das gerade Gegenteil der Fall. Da kennen wir wirklich unser Inneres. Da ist es so, wie wenn wir hier auf Erden gar nicht die Bäume und die Wolken außer uns sehen würden, sondern in der Hauptsache immer in uns hineinsehen würden und uns sagen würden: Da ist die Lunge, da ist das Herz, da ist der Magen. - In der geistigen Welt schauen wir in unser Inneres hinein. Nur ist dasjenige, was wir sehen, die Welt der geistigen Wesenheiten, die Welt, die wir ja kennenlernen aus unserer anthroposophischen Literatur als die Welt der höheren Hierarchien. Das ist unsere Innenwelt. Und wir fühlen uns eigentlich zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt als die ganze Welt - wenn ich vom Ganzen spreche, so ist das nur uneigentlich gesprochen, aber es ist trotzdem die volle Wahrheit -, wir fühlen uns jeweils jeder als die ganze Welt. Und in uns fühlen wir gerade in dem wichtigsten Momente unseres geistigen Daseins zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, in uns fühlen wir, erleben wir die Welt der geistigen Wesenheiten, und von ihnen haben wir ein Bewußtsein. Ebenso wahr ist es, daß wir da ein Bewußtsein haben von unserem Inneren als den Geistern der höheren Welt, wie wir hier kein Bewußtsein von unserem Inneren haben, von der Leber, von der Lunge und so weiter. Das ist eben gerade das Charakteristische, daß im Grunde genommen in der geistigen Erfahrung alles umgekehrt ist gegenüber der physischen Erfahrung hier. Nur kommt man erst nach und nach durch die Initiationswissenschaft darauf, wie man sich diese Umkehrung zu denken hat.

Aber nun gibt es doch einen wesentlichen Vorgang, oder eigentlich könnte ich sagen, eine Gruppe von Vorgängen, welche sich gerade bezieht auf dieses innerliche Zusammenleben mit den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien. Wenn das immer so wäre, daß wir nur in der geistigen Welt innerlich wahrnehmen würden die Welt der höheren Hierarchien, wir würden niemals zu uns selber kommen. Wir würden zwar wissen: in uns leben diese und jene Wesen, aber wir würden in der geistigen Welt niemals zu uns selber kommen. Daher gibt es im Erleben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt einen Rhythmus. Dieser Rhythmus besteht darin, daß wir abwechselnd in unser Inneres schauen und erleben jene Welt der geistigen Wesenheiten, die in unserer anthroposophischen Literatur beschrieben ist; dann dämpfen wir gewissermaßen dieses Bewußtsein ab. Wir machen es diesem geistigen Inneren gegenüber so, wie wir es hier im physischen Leben machen, wenn wir die Augen schließen und mit den Ohren nicht mehr hören, wenn wir schlafen. Aber das Schlafen bedeutet hier etwas anderes. Wenden wir — wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf — unsere Aufmerksamkeit ab von der Welt der geistigen Wesenheiten in uns, dann fangen wir an uns selber wahrzunehmen. Allerdings ist es dann so, wie wenn wir außer uns wären, aber wir wissen: dieses Außer-Uns sind wir selber. Wir nehmen uns also abwechselnd selber wahr in der geistigen Welt, oder wir nehmen wahr die Welt der geistigen Wesenheiten.

Sehen Sie, diesen rhythmischen Vorgang, der sich immer wiederholt, den könnte man vergleichen mit zweierlei hier im physischen Erdendasein. Man könnte ihn dem Einatmen und Ausatmen vergleichen, man kann ihn aber auch vergleichen mit Schlafen und Wachen. Beides sind hier im physischen Erdendasein rhythmische Vorgänge, beide lassen sich vergleichen mit dem, was ich Ihnen eben beschrieben habe. Aber nun handelt es sich darum, von solchen Vorgängen in der geistigen Welt, die zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt verlaufen, nicht nur etwas Abstraktes zu wissen, und, ich möchte sagen, die spirituelle Neugierde zu befriedigen, sondern es handelt sich darum, das irdische Leben als ein Abbild des überirdischen zu erkennen. Und fragen muß man sich: Was spielt sich denn hier im irdischen Leben ab, was wie ein Erinnerungsvermögen — das ja der Mensch im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nicht hat, aber wie ein Erinnerungsvermögen, das Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien, Archangeloi haben würden -, was spielt sich denn hier im physischen Erdenleben ab, was wie eine Erinnerung an dieses Sich-Hineinleben in die Welt geistiger Wesenheiten und wiederum an dieses Erleben seines eigenen Selbstes in der geistigen Welt ist? Was spielt sich hier ab?

Nun, wenn wir in der Zeit zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt jenes Erleben nicht hätten, durch das wir hineinschauen in uns und die Welt des Geistes erleben, so gäbe es hier auf der Erde keine Moral. Dasjenige, was wir von diesem Erleben der Geistesweltwesen zurückbehalten, wenn wir durchgehen durch das Embryonalleben und ins Erdenleben hereingehen, das, was wir zurückbehalten, ist die Neigung für das moralische Leben. Die Neigung für das moralische Leben ist bei dem Menschen um so stärker, je mehr er in heller Klarheit dieses Zusarmmensein mit den Geistern der höheren Welt zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt erlebt hat. Und derjenige, der in diese Dinge hineinschaut mit rechtem geistigem Sinn, der weiß, daß die unmoralischen Menschen hier auf der Erde infolge ihres früheren Erdenlebens ein zu dumpfes Erleben hatten, wenn sie hineinschauten in dieses geistige Dasein. Aber wiederum, wenn wir nur das erleben könnten zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, was uns eins macht mit den Wesen der höheren Welt, wenn wir niemals in der geistigen Welt zu uns selbst kommen würden, dann könnten wir unmöglich hier auf der Erde jemals zur Freiheit, zum Freiheitsbewußtsein kommen, zum Bewußtsein unserer Persönlichkeit, was ja im Grunde genommen identisch ist mit dem Freiheitsbewußtsein. Indem wir also Moral und Freiheit hier auf der Erde entwickeln, sind Moral und Freiheit Erinnerungen an jenen Rhythmus, den wir oben in der geistigen Welt, zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, in der geschilderten Weise erleben.

Aber wir können, indem wir den Blick auf die Seele lenken, noch genauer sagen, was in der Seele vorhanden bleibt als Nachklang, auf der einen Seite jenes Einswerdens mit den geistigen Wesen, auf der anderen Seite jenes geistigen Selbstbewußtseins, das wir abwechselnd damit erleben. Dasjenige, was uns bleibt als ein Nachklang hier im Erdenleben innerhalb unserer Seele des Einswerdens mit den Wesen der geistigen Welt, ist die Fähigkeit, zu lieben. Diese Fähigkeit, zu lieben, hängt inniger, als man denkt, eben zusammen mit dem moralischen Leben. Denn ohne die Fähigkeit, zu lieben, gäbe es hier auf Erden kein moralisches Leben. Jedes moralische Leben geht hervor aus dem Verständnis, das wir der anderen Menschenseele entgegenbringen, geht hervor aus dem Bestreben, das, was wir tun, zu vollbringen aus dem Verständnis der anderen Menschenseele heraus. Wie wir uns selbstlos verhalten zu den anderen Menschen, das heißt, wie wir in Liebe moralisch werden können, das ist im wesentlichen ein Nachklang des Zusammenlebens mit den geistigen Wesen in der Welt zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt. Und was bleibt uns von dem, ich möchte sagen, einsamen Erleben — denn so stellt es sich dar —, vom einsamen Erleben unseres Selbstes in der geistigen Welt? Denn wir fühlen uns einsam, wenn wir gewissermaßen ausatmen. Es ist Einatmen wie Erleben der geistigen Wesen, Ausatmen wie Erleben unseres Selbstes. Aber Einsamkeitsgefühl, sehen Sie, der Nachklang dieses Einsamkeitsgefühles, der ist hier auf Erden die Fähigkeit des Gedächtnisses, der Erinnerung. Wir würden kein Gedächtnis haben als Menschen, wenn das nicht ein Nachklang wäre dieses eben beschriebenen Einsamkeitsgefühles. Wir sind eigentliche Menschen in der geistigen Welt dadurch, daß wir uns, ich kann nicht sagen, auf uns selbst zurückziehen können, sondern uns freimachen können von dem, was in uns ist an höheren Geistern. Dadurch sind wir Menschen, selbständige Menschen in der geistigen Welt. Und hier auf Erden sind wir selbständige Menschen dadurch, daß wir uns an unsere Erlebnisse erinnern können. Denken Sie sich nur, was es wäre mit Ihrer Selbständigkeit, wenn Sie immer nur in der Gegenwart leben könnten mit Ihren Gedanken. Ihre erinnerten Gedanken machen ja das aus, wodurch Sie eine Innerlichkeit überhaupt haben. Das Gedächtnis macht uns hier auf Erden zur Persönlichkeit. Dieses Gedächtnis ist eben der Nachklang jenes Einsamkeitserlebnisses in der geistigen Welt, das ich beschrieben habe.

Nun, warum steigen wir denn überhaupt aus der geistigen Welt hier herunter in die physische? Sie können aus dem, was ich das letzte Mal hier beschrieben habe, entnehmen, daß die Kräfte, die uns zusammenhalten mit den höheren geistigen Wesenheiten, eben schwächer werden. Hier im physischen Leben werden wir alt, weil die Kräfte, die uns zusammenhalten mit der physischen Erde, schwächer werden; dort drüben werden die Kräfte eben schwächer, die uns zusammenhalten mit den geistigen Wesenheiten. Vor allen Dingen werden auch diejenigen Kräfte schwächer, die uns befähigen, uns zu erfassen innerhalb der geistigen Wesenheiten und ein Mensch zu sein, ein selbständiger. Wir verlieren zuerst innerhalb der geistigen Welt — ziemlich lange bevor wir auf die Erde heruntersteigen — die Fähigkeit, mit den geistigen Wesen zusammenzuleben. Ich habe es ja das letzte Mal mitgeteilt: mit den geistigen Wesen zusammen formen wir den Geistkeim unseres physischen Leibes; den schicken wir aber als erstes herunter, dann nehmen wir den Ätherleib und kommen nach. Das habe ich Ihnen das letzte Mal geschildert. Wir verlieren zuerst die Fähigkeit, mit den Geistwesen der geistigen Welt zu leben; die dämmert herunter. Und wir fühlen, wie wir durch die Mondenkräfte immer mehr uns der Erde annähern. Wir fühlen uns als ein Selbst, aber immer weniger fühlen wir diese Fähigkeit, uns innerhalb des geistigen Gebietes zu erfassen, zu erhalten; sie wird immer schwächer und schwächer. Wir fühlen immer mehr und mehr etwas, wie wenn wir ohnmächtig würden innerhalb der geistigen Welt. Das bringt uns dazu, das Bedürfnis zu haben, das, was wir nicht mehr in uns selber tragen können, dieses Selbstgefühl, auf ein Äußeres, nämlich auf unseren Körper zu stützen, auf einen Körper zu stützen. Ich möchte sagen, wir verlernen allmählich das Fliegen und müssen gehen lernen. Sie wissen, es ist bildlich gesprochen, aber das Bild bedeutet durchaus wiederum eine Wahrheit, eine Wirklichkeit. Und so leben wir uns in unseren Körper hinein. Das Einsamkeitsgefühl stützt sich auf den Körper und wird zu der Fähigkeit des Gedächtnisses, und das Gemeinschaftsgefühl müssen wir uns auf Erden erst wiederum erobern. Und diese Eroberung, die zeigt sich eigentlich so recht in ihrer ganzen Bedeutung, wenn wir geisteswissenschaftlich den Schlafzustand studieren.

Von einer gewissen Seite aus habe ich Ihnen diesen Schlafzustand das letzte Mal, als ich hier war, beschrieben. Ich will jetzt zu den Vorsängen, die ich dazumal beschrieben habe, noch andere hinzufügen. Ich weiß, daß solche Dinge leicht mißverstanden werden. Es kommt immer wieder und wiederum vor, daß Leute sagen: Nun ja, da hat er uns das letzte Mal doch beschrieben, was der Mensch erlebt zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen, und jetzt erzählt er uns etwas anderes. Ja, meine lieben Freunde, wenn ich Ihnen einmal erzähle, was ein Hofrat in seiner Kanzlei erlebt, so ist das nicht ein Widerspruch damit, wenn ich Ihnen das nächste Mal erzähle, was er im Kreise seiner Familie erlebt. Die Dinge gehen eben ineinander. Und so müssen Sie sich klar darüber sein, daß, wenn ich Ihnen von den Erlebnissen zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen erzähle, da noch manches andere hineingeht, wie in das Leben eines Hofrates außer dem Büroleben auch noch das Familienleben hineingehen kann.

Und so erlebt der Mensch zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen tatsächlich eine Art von rückwärtiger Wiederholung desjenigen, was er während des Tages verrichtet hat. Es ist nicht bloß, daß der Mensch vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen - der Schlaf kann auch kurz sein, dann schieben sich eben die Dinge zusammen -, es ist nicht nur so, daß der Mensch zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen etwa einen Rückblick hat auf seine Tageserlebnisse, einen unbewußten Rückblick — es müßte ja natürlich ein unbewußter Rückblick sein —, nein, wenn die Seele wirklich hellseherisch wird während des Schlafes, oder wenn sie sich hellseherisch rückerinnert an dasjenige, was sie erlebt hat zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen, da zeigt sich, daß der Mensch wirklich das rückwärtslaufend erlebt, was er erlebt hat seit dem letzten Aufwachen. Wenn man also regelmäßig lebt in der Nacht, so macht man rückwärts ablaufend das durch, was man bei Tag getan hat. Das letzte Ereignis spielt sich ab unmittelbar nach dem Einschlafen und so fort. Der ganze Schlaf wirkt dabei eben merkwürdig ausgleichend. Ich kann Ihnen ja nichts anderes erzählen als dasjenige, was man durch Geisteswissenschaft erforschen kann. Wenn Sie eine Viertelstunde schlafen, so weiß gewissermaßen der Anfang des Schlafes, wann das Ende sein wird. Und Sie erleben in der einen Viertelstunde auch das zurück, was Sie seit dem letzten Aufwachen vollbracht haben. Es verteilt sich ganz ordentlich, so wunderbar einem das erscheint. Und dieses Zurückerleben, das ist, ich möchte sagen, etwas, was zwischen der vollen Wirklichkeit und zwischen dem Schein liegt. Es ist so: Wenn man ein Erinnerungsbild hat an etwas, was man im physischen Leben vor zwanzig Jahren erlebt hat, so har man nicht als gesunder Mensch, als besonnener Mensch die Vorstellung: Das erlebst du jetzt —, sondern im Erinnerungsbild selbst liegt es, daß man es auf ein vergangenes Erlebnis bezieht. Derjenige, der hellseherisch das durchschaut, was die Seele im Schlafe rückwärtsgehend erlebt, der bezieht es nicht auf die Gegenwart, sondern er bezieht es auf die Zukunft nach dem Tode, und er weiß: ebenso wie der, der sich erinnert an das, was er vor zwanzig Jahren erlebt hat, daß das vor zwanzig Jahren war, so weiß derjenige, der den Schlafzustand hellseherisch durchschaut, daß dies nicht für die Gegenwart Bedeutung hat, sondern daß es das Vorbild ist für das, was nach dem Tode zu erleben ist: daß wir also durchmachen müssen rückwärtsverlaufend, wiedertuend alle die Taten, die wir auf der Erde getan haben. Deshalb ist dieses Bild im Schlafe halb Wirklichkeit und halb Schein, denn es bezieht sich auf Zukünftiges. Es ist also für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein ein unbewußtes Durchmachen desjenigen, was der Mensch in der Seelenwelt, wie ich sie in meinem Buche «Theosophie» genannt habe, eben zu durchleben hat. Und das intuitive und inspirierte Bewußtsein, wie ich es ja beschrieben habe in meinem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», die entnehmen aus der Beobachtung des Schlafes, was der Mensch durchzumachen hat in dem ersten Stadium nach dem Tode. Es sind nicht Dinge, die aus dem Blauen heraus konstruiert werden, sondern es sind Dinge, die einfach beobachtet werden, wenn die Beobachtungsgabe dazu erworben ist. So also lebt der Mensch dasjenige durch vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen ohne seinen Leib, was er mit seinem Leib beim Wachen getan hat.

Nun kommen wir zu einer außerordentlich subtilen Vorstellung. Denken Sie sich einmal, wir müssen mit unserem Ich und unserem astralischen Leib äußerlich unsere Taten noch einmal durchleben. Die Fähigkeit, das zu tun, eignen wir uns um so mehr an, je mehr wir Liebe entfalten können. Das ist das Geheimnis des Lebens in bezug auf die Liebe. Kann der Mensch in der Liebe wirklich aus sich herausgehen, gewissermaßen seinen Nächsten als sich selbst lieben, so lernt er das, was er im Schlafe braucht, um da voll ohne Qual zurückerleben zu können dasjenige, was er eben zurückerleben muß. Denn da muß er ganz außer sich sein. Ist der Mensch ein liebloses Wesen, dann gibt das eine Spannung, wenn er nun außer sich seine Taten, die er in Lieblosigkeit vollbracht hat, wiederum erleben soll. Das engt ihn ein. Lieblose Menschen schlafen, wenn ich mich bildhaft ausdrücken darf, engbrüstig. Und so wird, während wir schlafen, dasjenige eigentlich für uns Menschen recht fruchtbar, was wir durch die Liebe im Leben in uns hineinverpflanzen. Und in dem, was da sich entwickelt zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen — es geht ja hervor aus meiner gerade gegebenen Darstellung -, haben wir dasjenige, was durch die Pforte des Todes hinausgeht und dann da draußen weiterlebt in der geistigen Welt. Es verliert sich selbst in den Zuständen zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt das Zusammenleben mit den geistigen Wesen der höheren Welten; wir erringen es uns keimhaft wiederum während unseres Erdenlebens durch die Liebe. Denn die Liebe enthüllt ihren Sinn, wenn der Mensch mit seinem Ich und seinem astralischen Leib außerhalb seines physischen und Ätherleibes im Schlafe ist. Des Menschen Wesenheit wird weit zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen, wenn er liebevoll ist, und bereitet sich gut vor zu demjenigen, was nach dem Tode geschehen soll mit ihm. Des Menschen Wesenheit wird eng, wenn er lieblos ist, und bereitet sich schlecht vor für dasjenige, was nach dem Tode mit ihm geschehen soll. In der Liebe-Entfaltung liegt vorzugsweise das, was Keim ist für jenes Geschehen, das nach dem Tode sich abspielt.

Die Erinnerung ist während unseres Erdenlebens, zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode, etwas außerordentlich Flüchtiges; es sind ja nur Bilder, die in unserem Gedächtnis vorhanden sind. Denken Sie, wie wenig das ist von den Ereignissen, die wir durchleben, was uns da in den Erinnerungsbildern bleibt. Man soll sich nur einmal vorstellen, was man vielleicht für einen namenlosen Schmerz durcherlebt hat beim Tode irgendeiner nahestehenden Persönlichkeit, und soll sich den inneren Seelenzustand für einen solchen Fall einmal lebhaft vorstellen, und dann sich vorstellen, wie sich das ausnimmt als inneres Erlebnis, wenn man nach zehn Jahren das Erinnerungsbild rege werden läßt an dasjenige, was man damals erlebt hat. Abgeblaßt, fast abstrakt geworden ist es. So ist es mit unserer Erinnerungsfähigkeit. Sie ist blaß und abstrakt gegenüber der Vollfrische unseres Lebens. Warum ist unsere Erinnerung schwach und schattenhaft? Sie ist ja eben der Schatten unseres Selbsterlebnisses zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Da drinnen ist die Fähigkeit der Erinnerung, so daß sie uns eigentlich unser Dasein gibt. Was uns hier auf der Erde Fleisch und Blut gibt, das gibt uns zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt die Fähigkeit der Erinnerung. Da ist die Erinnerung vollsaftig und stark wenn ich diese Ausdrücke von Geistigem gebrauchen darf -, sie gebraucht des Fleisches und wird schwach. Und wenn wir sterben, dann ist wenige Tage — ich habe das oftmals beschrieben und Sie finden das auch in meinen Büchern — der letzte Rest der Erinnerung im ätherischen Leibe noch vorhanden. Gehen wir durch die Pforte des Todes, schauen wir zurück auf unser verflossenes Erdenleben, dann blaßt diese Erinnerung ab. Und es windet sich aus dieser Erinnerung dasjenige heraus, was uns die Kraft der Liebe auf Erden eben an Kraft für das Leben nach dem Tode gegeben hat. So ist die Kraft unserer Erinnerung die Erbschaft, die wir haben von unserem vorirdischen Leben, und so ist die Kraft der Liebe die Keimeskraft für dasjenige, was wir haben nach unserem Tode. So bezieht sich das Erdenleben auf die geistige Welt.

Aber ich habe ja vergleichen müssen dasjenige, was der Mensch erlebt im Zusammenhang mit den höheren Wesen der geistigen Welt, abwechselnd mit seinem Selbsterlebnis in der geistigen Welt, mit dem Atmen, Einatmen, Ausatmen. Gewissermaßen kann man auch wiederum in unserem Atmungsprozeß und in demjenigen, was zusammenhängt mit unserem Atmungsprozeß, in dem Sprach- und Singprozeß, in den Sprach- und Singvorgängen ein Abbild dieses Atmens in der geistigen Welt erkennen. Und zwar in der folgenden Weise: Nicht wahr, unser Leben in der geistigen Welt, zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, geht eigentlich so vor sich: Einblick in das eigene Innere, Einswerden mit den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien; Ausblick aus dem eigenen Inneren, Einswerden mit sich selbst. So geht es vor sich wie Einatmen und Ausatmen. Wir atmen da nur in uns selber hinein, und atmen uns da selber heraus, und das Atmen ist ein Geistiges. Hier auf dieser Erde wird dieser Atmungsprozeß, wie ich eben dargestellt habe, zur Erinnerung und zur Liebe. Und in der Tat: Erinnerung und Liebe wirken auch wie ein Atmen hier im physischen Erdenleben zusammen. Und Sie können sogar, wenn Sie dieses physische Leben richtig mit Seelenaugen betrachten können, an einer wichtigen Offenbarung des Atmens — im Sprechen und Singen — das Zusammenwirken von Erinnerung und Liebe immer beobachten, sogar physiologisch.

Studieren Sie das Kind bis zum Zahnwechsel. Zu dem interessantesten Studium am Kinde bis zum Zahnwechsel gehört dasjenige, wie sich allmählich die Kraft des Gedächtnisses, die Erinnerungskraft ergibt. Die ist erst ganz elementar. Das Kind hat eine gewisse Erinnerung, aber selbständige Kraft wird diese Erinnerung erst gegen die Zeit des Zahnwechsels hin. Ungeheuer interessant ist es zu beobachten, wie sich die Kraft des Erinnerns herausarbeitet in der ersten menschlichen Lebensepoche. Sie ist eigentlich erst fertig ausgebildet, wenn das Kind schulfähig geworden ist. Da können wir erst auf die Erinnerung bauen. Früher machen wir den Menschen steif und für das spätere Leben seelisch sklerotisch, wenn wir zu stark auf seine Erinnerung bauen. Beim Kinde handelt es sich darum — beim Kinde bis zum Zahnwechsel —, daß die Gegenwartseindrücke richtig sind. Auf die Erinnerung dürften wir erst bauen zwischen dem Zahnwechsel und der Geschlechtsreife.

Heute ist unsere physiologische Wissenschaft noch nicht so weit, um die Einzelheiten dieses eben geschilderten Vorganges genau zu beschreiben. Geisteswissenschaft kann das, und die physiologische Wissenschaft wird ihr gewiß nachfolgen, denn die Dinge sind auch durch ganz exaktes Beobachten der Menschennatur herauszubekommen. Wir können sagen, wenn wir einen Laut oder einen Ton von uns geben, dann wirkt erstens der Kopf mit. Aber aus dem Kopfe ist es dieselbe Fähigkeit, die innerlich seelisch die Erinnerung gibt, die gewissermaßen in den Laut und in den Ton hineinschießt; das kommt von oben. Und daß irgendein Wesen sprechen kann, ohne eine Erinnerungsfähigkeit zu haben, das können Sie sich doch nicht vorstellen. Wenn man immer vergessen würde das, was im Laut oder im Ton liegt, so würde man natürlich niemals sprechen oder singen können, Es ist geradezu die verkörperte Erinnerung, die im Ton oder im Laute liegt, auf der einen Seite. Auf der anderen Seite: welchen Anteil die Liebe, auch im physiologischen Sinne, an dem hat, was im Atmungsprozeß zum Sprechen und Singen wird, dafür ist Ihnen ja ein deutliches Zeugnis, daß nun in der zweiten wichtigen Epoche des Lebens, wenn also die Liebe physiologisch zum Ausdruck kommt, beim männlichen Geschlechte sogar erst die volle innere Fülle des Tones auftritt; das kommt von unten. Da haben Sie die beiden Elemente zusammen. Von oben dasjenige, was physiologisch der Erinnerung zugrunde liegt, und von unten dasjenige, was physiologisch der Liebe zugrunde liegt: das bildet den Sprach- und Gesangston. Da haben Sie das wechselweise Zusammenwirken. Es ist gewissermaßen auch ein Atmungsprozeß, der durch das ganze Leben hindurchgeht. Wie wir den Sauerstoff einatmen und die Kohlensäure ausatmen, so verbindet sich in uns die Kraft der Erinnerung mit der Kraft der Liebe, begegnet sich in der Sprache, begegnet sich im Ton. Und wir können sagen: Sprechen und Singen sind beim Menschen ein wechselseitiges Sich-Durchdringen von der Kraft der Erinnerung mit der Kraft der Liebe. In dem liegt außerordentlich Bedeutsames für die Enthüllung des eigentlichen Ton- und Lautgeheimnisses.

So ist schon etwas Wahres in dem, was ältere Sprachen zum Ausdruck bringen dadurch, daß sie die Summe der Weltenkräfte und Weltengedanken den Logos nennen, der das Jenseitige, das Übersinnliche desjenigen ist, was physisch in der Sprache zum Ausdruck kommt. Wir atmen nicht nur die höheren Wesen ein und aus, sondern wir sprechen gewissermaßen — obwohl dieses Sprechen zugleich ein Singen ist — zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, in diesem Wechselverhältnis zwischen Aufgehen in den geistigen Wesen der höheren Welt und Zu-sich-selbst-Kommen, wir sprechen mit den Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien. Denn es ist ein geistiges Sprechen zugleich. Wenn wir in dem Zustande sind, daß wir eins werden mit den Wesen der geistigen Welt, dann schauen wir sie, wenn auch in uns selber, an. Wenn wir wieder sie los werden und zu uns selber kommen, dann haben wir den Nachklang, da sind wir wir selbst. Dort drücken sie ihr eigenes Wesen in uns aus, dort sagen sie uns, was sie sind, dort lebt der Logos in uns. Wenn wir zu uns kommen, auf Erden, ist es umgekehrt: da drücken wir unser eigenes Wesen aus, wenn wir sprechen und singen. Denn es ist das eigene Wesen des Menschen, was wir ausdrücken im Gesang und in der Sprache. Unser ganzes Wesen drücken wir im Ausatmungsprozesse aus; während wir das ganze Wesen der Welt im Logos empfangen, wenn wir uns des Zusammenseins mit den Geistwesen entledigen zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt.

Nun ist es aber so, daß wir, wenn wir den Übergang durchmachen von der geistigen Welt in die physische herein, gewissermaßen durch das große Vergessen zugleich gehen. Wer sieht hier in der schwachen, schattenhaften Kraft der Erinnerung durch das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein den Nachklang dessen, was wir eigentlich als ein Selbst in der geistigen Welt waren? Und wer erkennt noch in der Sprache, in dem Teil, der aus der Erinnerung kommt, das Nachvibrieren des Selbstes? Und wer erkennt in der Gestaltung der Sprache, im Singen und Sprechen, in dem Ausbilden der Plastik der Sprache, wer erkennt mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein den Nachklang der Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien? Dennoch, ist es denn nicht so, daß derjenige, der versteht die Sprache anzuhören ohne ihr Nützlichkeitsmoment, der hinhorchen kann auf dasjenige, was die Töne durch ihre selbsteigene Wesenheit äußern, daß der doch eine Ahnung bekommt, namentlich wenn er künstlerischen Sinn hat, wie sich im Sprechen und Singen mehr offenbart als das, was das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein hat? Und warum bilden wir denn um dasjenige, was die gewöhnliche Sprache ist, die wir als Nützlichkeitsfähigkeit hier auf der Erde haben, warum bilden wir sie denn um im Gesang, indem wir ihre Eigenschaften als Nützlichkeitsfähigkeit abstreifen und sie zum Ausdruck unseres eigenen Wesens machen in der Deklamation, im Gesang? Warum bilden wir sie denn da um? Was tun wir denn da?

Nun, wir bekommen die richtige Vorstellung darüber, wenn wir uns sagen: Du warst, bevor du auf diese Erde herabgestiegen bist, in der geistigen Welt, hast darin so gelebt, wie es beschrieben worden ist. Es trat das große Vergessen ein. Du erkennst in demjenigen, was dein Mund äußert, was deine Seele erinnert, wie deine Seele liebt, nicht den Nachklang desjenigen, was du in der geistigen Welt warst. Aber in der Kunst treten wir gewissermaßen einige Schritte zurück vom Leben, und wir treten einige Schritte näher demjenigen, was wir waren im vorgeburtlichen Leben und was wir werden im nachtodlichen Leben. Und wenn wir auf der einen Seite erkennen können, wie die Erinnerung der Nachklang ist dessen, was wir im vorirdischen Leben gehabt haben, wie die Liebe-Entfaltung der Keim ist zu demjenigen, was wir nach dem Tode haben werden, wenn wir gewissermaßen durch die GeistErkenntnis Vergangenheit und Zukunft des Menschenseins vergegenwärtigen: in der Kunst rufen wir in die Gegenwart selber — soweit es eben dem Menschen möglich ist innerhalb seiner physischen Organisation —, in der Kunst rufen wir in die Gegenwart herein dasjenige, was uns mit dem Geiste zusammenbindet.

Sehen Sie, das gibt der Kunst ihren eigentlichen Glanz, daß sie uns in naiver Weise versetzt in die geistige Welt in unmittelbarer Gegenwart. Derjenige, der in das Innere des Menschenlebens zu schauen vermag, der sagt sich: Der Mensch erinnert sich gewöhnlich ja nur an die Dinge, die er in dem unmittelbar vorangehenden Erdenleben durchgemacht hat. Aber die Kraft, durch die er sich an diese irdischen Erlebnisse erinnert, diese Kraft ist nur die abgeschwächte Kraft seines eigentlichen Selbstdaseins im vorirdischen Leben. Und die Liebe, die der Mensch hier als allgemeine Menschenliebe entfalten kann, ist die abgeschwächte Keimeskraft desjenigen, was voll erblühen wird nach dem Tode: Vergangenheit, Zukunft. Und so wie zum Beispiele im Gesang und im deklamatorischen Sprechen sich wirklich verbinden muß das, was der Mensch ist, eben Erinnerung, mit demjenigen, wie der Mensch sich der Welt geben kann, Liebe, so ist es eben in aller Kunst so: Der Mensch erlebt in der Gegenwart den Zusammenklang seines Selbstes mit dem Äußeren, und ohne daß der Mensch fähig ist, gewissermaßen sein Inneres — sei es nun der Laut, sei es der Ton, sei es die Verrichtung des Malens, sei es irgendein anderes Künstlerisches —, ohne daß der Mensch fähig ist, an seine Oberfläche zu tragen dasjenige, was er ist, was das Leben aus ihm gemacht hat, was im Grunde genommen doch der Inhalt seiner Erinnerung ist, kann er nach der einen Seite hin kein Künstler sein. Und der ist kein wahrer Künstler, der im ausgesprochensten Sinne auch in seiner Kunst ein Egoist sein will. Nur derjenige, der Sinn hat, gewissermaßen in die Welt auszufließen, eins zu werden mit anderen, der Liebe-Entfaltung hat, der kann diese Liebe-Entfaltung mit seinem eigenen Wesen in eins vereinigen. Altruismus und Egoismus fließen in eines zusammen. Sie fließen am innigsten natürlich in den tönenden Künsten, aber sie fließen auch in den bildenden Künsten in eins zusammen. Und wenn wir durch eine gewisse Vertiefung unserer Erkenntniskräfte enthüllen, wie der Mensch nach Vergangenheit und Zukunft zusammenhängt mit einer übersinnlichen Welt, so können wir auf der anderen Seite auch uns sagen, daß der Mensch ahnend in der Gegenwart diesen Zusammenhang hat eigentlich in der Kunstproduktion oder im Kunstgenuß. Und eigentlich ist immer die Kunst nicht in ihrer vollen Geltung, wenn sie nicht in einem gewissen Sinn doch eine Art Anklang an etwas Religiöses hat. Nicht daß sie religiös-Frömmelnd sein muß, es kann eine lustige Kunst auch diesen Anklang an das Religiöse haben.

Aber ein voller Beweis dafür ist auch, wie dasjenige sich entwickelt hat, was Kunst ist. Sie war ja ursprünglich eins mit dem religiösen Leben. Dasjenige, was Kunst war, war durchaus verwoben in einen Kultus in den Urzeiten der Menschheit, in den religiösen Kultus. Dasjenige, was der Mensch als seine Götterbilder formte, das war die Quelle der Plastik. Erinnern wir dabei zum Beispiel an die samothrakischen Mysterien, auf die Goethe im zweiten Teile seines «Faust» anspielt, wo er von den Kabiren spricht. Ich habe versucht, in meinem Atelier in Dornach diese Kabiren nachzubilden. Was habe ich herausbekommen? Es war etwas sehr Interessantes. Ich habe einfach mir die Aufgabe gestellt, herauszubekommen durch Anschauung, wie innerhalb der samothrakischen Mysterien die Kabiren ausgesehen haben müssen. Und denken Sie: Ich habe drei Krüge, allerdings plastisch-künstlerisch gestaltete Krüge bekommen! Ich war anfangs selbst erstaunt, obwohl Goethe auch von Krügen spricht. Die Sache wurde mir erst erklärlich, als ich darauf kam: diese Krüge standen auf einem Altar, da wurde etwas Weihrauchähnliches hineingebracht, das Opferwort wurde gesungen, und aus der Kraft des Opferwortes, das in älteren Menschheitszeiten noch eine ganz andere schwingungserregende Gewalt hatte als heute, gestaltete sich der Opferrauch zu dem Bilde der Gottheit, das gesucht wurde. Sie haben unmittelbar in der religiösen Verrichtung den sekundierenden Gesang, der unmittelbar in der Plastik des Rauches sich auslebt.

Die Menschheit hat wirklich die Kunst aus dem religiösen Leben herausgezogen. Und Schiller hat recht, wenn er sagt: «Nur durch das Morgenrot des Schönen dringst du in der Erkenntnis Land», was gewöhnlich in den Büchern so gedruckt steht: «Nur durch das Morgentor des Schönen dringst du in der Erkenntnis Land.» Wenn einmal ein Künstler einen Schreibfehler macht, so wird natürlich von der Nachwelt dieser Schreibfehler weiter überliefert. Es heißt natürlich: «Nur durch das Morgenrot des Schönen dringst du in der Erkenntnis Land.» Das heißt mit anderen Worten: alles Wissen ist aus der Kunst genommen. Es gibt im Grunde genommen kein Wissen, das nicht mit der Kunst innig verwandt wäre. Nur das Wissen, das sich auf das Äußere, Nützliche bezieht, scheint keinen Zusammenhang mit der Kunst zu haben. Aber dieses Wissen kann sich in der Welt nur auf das erstrecken, was der bloße Farbenreiber von der Malerei weiß. Sobald man in der Chemie oder Physik über dasjenige hinausgeht - ich spreche bildlich, Sie wissen, was gemeint ist —, was das bloße Farbenreiben bedeutet, so wird die Wissenschaft zum Künstlerischen. Und wenn das Künstlerische in der richtigen Weise in seiner Geistigkeit erfaßt wird, dann geht es allmählich über in das Religiöse. Kunst, Religion und Wissenschaft waren einstmals eins. Aber wir sollen auch noch ahnen in ihnen ihren gemeinsamen Ursprung. Das können wir nur, wenn wir in der Menschheitszivilisation, in der Menschheitsentwickelung wiederum zum Geist zurückkehren, wenn wir die Beziehungen ernst nehmen, die zwischen dem Menschen hier in seinem physischen Erdendasein und der geistigen Welt bestehen. Das müssen wir von den verschiedensten Gesichtspunkten aus zu unserer Erkenntnis machen.

Einen dieser Gesichtspunkte wollte ich heute einnehmen, um Ihnen wiederum von einer gewissen Seite her zu schildern, wie der Mensch mit der geistigen Welt zusammenhängt. Ich hoffe, daß wir ergänzend wiederum in nicht allzu ferner Zeit hier diese Betrachtungen fortsetzen können.

Relationship of Man's Life on Earth to Life Between Death and New Birth

I am very pleased to be able to speak to you again today as I pass through, so to speak, and I would like to use this opportunity to expand on some of the things that were the subject of the last two lectures I was allowed to give here. At that time I spoke about man's relationship to the spiritual world, in so far as it can be recognized by illuminating the processes that take place unconsciously for the ordinary consciousness during sleep, and in so far as they can be illuminated by shining a spiritual-scientific light into the experiences that man has to go through in the spiritual world between death and a new birth.

Today I would like to speak about how the life that man spends here on earth between birth and death is in a certain respect a transformed image of that which is lived through in the spiritual worlds between death and a new birth. One can only understand human life on earth if one can relate the individual manifestations of this life to that which corresponds to them in the spiritual world, in which man, one might say, has to spend the main part of his existence.

Now I would like to speak first of all preferably of the spiritual expressions of man, insofar as they can be related as earthly spiritual expressions to experiences of the spiritual world. You can see from what I have said here in my last two lectures that the experiences of the human soul between death and a new birth in the spiritual world are essentially different from those which the human being has here between birth and death. Here, between birth and death, he has all his experiences through the mediation of his body, be it his physical body or his etheric body. Nothing that man experiences here on earth can be experienced without being based on the physical body. For example, it would be very easy to believe that thinking is a purely spiritual act and, as it takes place on earth in the human soul, has nothing to do with physical existence. That is true in one sense. But as independent as man's thinking is spiritually, this thinking could not take place here in earthly existence if man could not rely on his body and its processes. I may use a comparison that I have often used here on this occasion. When a human being walks on the ground, the ground certainly has nothing essential in it that constitutes the human being; the human being carries his essential within his skin. But man as a physical human being could not be in physical existence at all without the support of the ground.

And so it is with thinking, which lives as a process of the soul. By its very nature it is certainly not just any brain process, but it could not take place if it did not have the brain as its support here in physical life. Only if one looks at the matter in the sense of this picture does one have a correct idea of the spirituality and also of the physical conditionality of human thinking. In short, there is nothing in man here on earth that does not have to be based on physical existence. With reference to our physical existence, we carry within us our organs: lungs, heart, brain and so on. In ordinary healthy life our consciousness is not filled with the perception of our inner organs. In fact, we only become aware of it when we are ill in some organ, and that too in a rather imperfect way. We can never say that we know of an internal organ by direct observation unless we study anatomy, and then we have only the dead and not the living organ before us. We can never say that we have such a view, such a perception of an internal organ as we have of an external object. This is precisely the characteristic that we do not know our bodily interior through direct consciousness during our earthly existence. Here on earth man knows least of all that which he usually regards as the most valuable thing in bodily existence, the inside of his head. For when he begins to get to know it, it is usually the most unpleasant acquaintance, the headache and everything connected with it. In spiritual existence, between death and a new birth, the exact opposite is the case. There we really know our inner self. It is as if we did not see the trees and the clouds outside ourselves here on earth, but instead always looked inside ourselves and told ourselves: There are the lungs, there is the heart, there is the stomach. - In the spiritual world we look inside ourselves. But what we see is the world of the spiritual beings, the world that we get to know from our anthroposophical literature as the world of the higher hierarchies. This is our inner world. And between death and a new birth we actually feel ourselves to be the whole world - when I speak of the whole, I am only speaking falsely, but it is nevertheless the full truth - we each feel ourselves to be the whole world. And in us, precisely in the most important moment of our spiritual existence between death and a new birth, we feel, we experience the world of spiritual beings, and we have a consciousness of them. It is just as true that there we have a consciousness of our inner being as the spirits of the higher world, as here we have no consciousness of our inner being, of the liver, of the lungs and so on. This is precisely the characteristic that basically everything in the spiritual experience is the opposite of the physical experience here. Only gradually, through the science of initiation, do we come to understand how this reversal is to be conceived.

But now there is an essential process, or actually I could say a group of processes, which relates precisely to this inner coexistence with the beings of the higher hierarchies. If it were always the case that we only inwardly perceived the world of the higher hierarchies in the spiritual world, we would never come to ourselves. We would know that these and those beings live within us, but we would never come to ourselves in the spiritual world. Therefore there is a rhythm in the experience between death and a new birth. This rhythm consists in the fact that we alternately look into our inner being and experience that world of spiritual beings which is described in our anthroposophical literature; then we dampen this consciousness to a certain extent. We do to this spiritual inner being what we do here in physical life when we close our eyes and no longer hear with our ears when we sleep. But sleeping means something different here. If we - if I may put it this way - turn our attention away from the world of the spiritual beings within us, then we begin to perceive ourselves. However, it is then as if we were outside ourselves, but we know that this outside-us is ourselves. So we alternately perceive ourselves in the spiritual world, or we perceive the world of spiritual beings.

You see, this rhythmic process, which always repeats itself, could be compared to two things here in physical existence on earth. You could compare it to breathing in and breathing out, but you can also compare it to sleeping and waking. Both are rhythmic processes here in physical earthly existence, both can be compared with what I have just described to you. But now it is a matter of not only knowing something abstract about such processes in the spiritual world, which take place between death and a new birth, and, I would like to say, satisfying spiritual curiosity, but it is a matter of recognizing earthly life as an image of the supernatural. And one must ask oneself: What then takes place here in earthly life that is like a memory - which man does not have in ordinary consciousness, but like a memory that beings of the higher hierarchies, Archangeloi, would have - what then takes place here in physical earthly life that is like a memory of this living into the world of spiritual beings and again of this experiencing of one's own self in the spiritual world? What takes place here?

Well, if we did not have this experience in the time between death and a new birth, through which we look into ourselves and experience the world of the spirit, then there would be no morality here on earth. That which we retain from this experience of the spirit world beings when we pass through embryonic life and enter earthly life, that which we retain is the inclination for moral life. The inclination for the moral life is all the stronger in man the more he has experienced in bright clarity this being together with the spirits of the higher world between death and a new birth. And he who looks into these things with the right spiritual sense knows that the immoral people here on earth had too dull an experience as a result of their earlier life on earth when they looked into this spiritual existence. But again, if we could only experience that between death and a new birth which makes us one with the beings of the higher world, if we could never come to ourselves in the spiritual world, then we could not possibly ever come to freedom here on earth, to the consciousness of freedom, to the consciousness of our personality, which is basically identical with the consciousness of freedom. So by developing morality and freedom here on earth, morality and freedom are memories of the rhythm that we experience above in the spiritual world, between death and a new birth, in the way described above.

But by directing our gaze to the soul we can say even more precisely what remains in the soul as an echo, on the one side of that becoming one with the spiritual beings, on the other side of that spiritual self-consciousness which we experience alternately with it. That which remains for us as an echo here in earthly life within our soul of becoming one with the beings of the spiritual world is the ability to love. This ability to love is more closely connected with the moral life than one might think. For without the ability to love, there would be no moral life here on earth. Every moral life arises from the understanding we have for the other human soul, from the endeavor to accomplish what we do out of the understanding of the other human soul. How we behave selflessly towards other people, that is, how we can become moral in love, is essentially an echo of living together with the spiritual beings in the world between death and a new birth. And what remains for us of the, I would like to say, lonely experience - for that is how it presents itself - of the lonely experience of our self in the spiritual world? Because we feel lonely when we breathe out, so to speak. Breathing in is like experiencing the spiritual beings, breathing out is like experiencing ourselves. But the feeling of loneliness, you see, the echo of this feeling of loneliness is the ability of memory here on earth. We would not have a memory as human beings if it were not an echo of this feeling of loneliness just described. We are real human beings in the spiritual world in that we can, I cannot say, withdraw into ourselves, but can free ourselves from the higher spirits within us. This makes us human beings, independent human beings in the spiritual world. And here on earth we are independent people because we can remember our experiences. Just think what it would be like with your independence if you could only ever live in the present with your thoughts. After all, your remembered thoughts are what give you your inner self. Memory is what makes us a personality here on earth. This memory is precisely the echo of the experience of loneliness in the spiritual world that I have described.

Now, why do we descend from the spiritual world into the physical world at all? You can see from what I described last time that the forces that hold us together with the higher spiritual beings are weakening. Here in physical life we grow old because the forces that hold us together with the physical earth become weaker; over there the forces that hold us together with the spiritual beings become weaker. Above all, those forces that enable us to grasp ourselves within the spiritual entities and to be a human being, an independent one, are also weakening. We first lose the ability to live together with the spiritual beings within the spiritual world - quite a long time before we descend to earth. I told you last time: together with the spiritual beings we form the spirit germ of our physical body; but we send it down first, then we take the etheric body and follow it. I described this to you last time. We first lose the ability to live with the spirit beings of the spiritual world; it fades away. And we feel how the lunar forces bring us closer and closer to the earth. We feel ourselves as one self, but less and less do we feel this ability to grasp and maintain ourselves within the spiritual realm; it becomes weaker and weaker. We feel more and more like we are fainting within the spiritual world. This leads us to feel the need to support what we can no longer carry within ourselves, this sense of self, on something external, namely on our body, on a body. I would like to say that we are gradually forgetting how to fly and have to learn to walk. You know, it's figurative, but the image in turn means a truth, a reality. And so we live ourselves into our bodies. The feeling of loneliness is based on the body and becomes the ability to remember, and we first have to conquer the feeling of community on earth. And this conquest actually reveals itself in all its significance when we study the state of sleep from a spiritual-scientific perspective.

The last time I was here, I described this state of sleep from a certain perspective. I will now add others to the premonitions I described then. I know that such things are easily misunderstood. It happens again and again that people say: Well, last time he described to us what a person experiences between falling asleep and waking up, and now he is telling us something else. Yes, my dear friends, if I tell you once what a court councillor experiences in his office, it is not a contradiction when I tell you the next time what he experiences in the circle of his family. Things just go hand in hand. And so you must be aware that when I tell you about the experiences between going to sleep and waking up, there are many other things that enter into it, just as family life can also enter into the life of a court councillor in addition to office life.

And so, between going to sleep and waking up, man actually experiences a kind of backward repetition of what he has done during the day. It is not merely that the human being from falling asleep to waking up - sleep can also be short, in which case things are pushed together -, it is not merely that between falling asleep and waking up the human being has a retrospective view of his day's experiences, an unconscious retrospective view - it would of course have to be an unconscious retrospective view -, no, when the soul really becomes clairvoyant during sleep, or when it clairvoyantly remembers what it has experienced between falling asleep and waking up, then it becomes apparent that the person really experiences in reverse what he has experienced since the last time he woke up. So if you live regularly during the night, you go backwards through what you did during the day. The last event takes place immediately after falling asleep and so on. The whole sleep process has a strangely balancing effect. I cannot tell you anything other than what can be researched through spiritual science. When you sleep for a quarter of an hour, the beginning of your sleep knows to a certain extent when it will end. And in that quarter of an hour you also relive what you have accomplished since the last time you woke up. It spreads out quite nicely, as wonderful as that seems. And this reliving is, I would say, something that lies between full reality and appearance. It's like this: If you have a memory image of something you experienced in physical life twenty years ago, you do not, as a sane person, as a prudent person, have the idea that you are experiencing it now, but it is in the memory image itself that you relate it to a past experience. The person who clairvoyantly sees through what the soul experiences backwards in sleep does not relate it to the present, but relates it to the future after death, and he knows: Just as he who remembers what he experienced twenty years ago knows that it was twenty years ago, so he who clairvoyantly sees through the sleep state knows that this has no meaning for the present, but that it is the model for what is to be experienced after death: that we must therefore go through, going backwards, re-doing all the deeds we have done on earth. That is why this image in sleep is half reality and half illusion, for it refers to the future. For the ordinary consciousness it is therefore an unconscious going through of that which man has to live through in the world of the soul, as I have called it in my book “Theosophy”. And the intuitive and inspired consciousness, as I have described it in my book “How does one attain knowledge of the higher worlds?”, takes from the observation of sleep what man has to go through in the first stage after death. These are not things that are constructed out of the blue, but things that are simply observed when the gift of observation has been acquired. Thus the human being lives through from falling asleep to waking up without his body what he did with his body when he was awake.

Now we come to an extraordinarily subtle idea. Imagine for a moment that we have to relive our deeds externally with our ego and our astral body. The more we can develop love, the more we acquire the ability to do this. This is the secret of life in relation to love. If a person can really go out of himself in love, in a sense love his neighbor as himself, then he learns what he needs in sleep in order to be able to fully relive what he has to relive without agony. For there he must be completely beside himself. If man is a loveless being, then there is a tension when he has to relive his deeds, which he has done in lovelessness, outside himself. That constricts him. Loveless people sleep, if I may express myself figuratively, narrow-breasted. And so, while we sleep, that which we transplant into ourselves through love in life actually becomes quite fruitful for us humans. And in that which develops between falling asleep and waking up - as can be seen from the description I have just given - we have that which goes out through the gate of death and then lives on out there in the spiritual world. Even in the states between death and a new birth, coexistence with the spiritual beings of the higher worlds is lost; we acquire it again in a germinal way during our life on earth through love. For love reveals its meaning when man is asleep with his ego and his astral body outside his physical and etheric body. Man's being becomes wide between falling asleep and waking up when he is loving, and prepares himself well for what is to happen to him after death. Man's being becomes narrow when he is unloving and prepares himself badly for what is to happen to him after death. In the unfolding of love lies preferably that which is the seed for the event that takes place after death.

During our life on earth, between birth and death, memory is something extraordinarily fleeting; it is only images that are present in our memory. Think how little of the events we live through remains in our memories. Just imagine what kind of nameless pain you might have experienced at the death of someone close to you, and imagine vividly the inner state of your soul in such a case, and then imagine what it would be like as an inner experience if, ten years later, you let your memory picture come alive of what you experienced then. It has faded, become almost abstract. So it is with our ability to remember. It is pale and abstract compared to the freshness of our lives. Why is our memory weak and shadowy? It is, after all, the shadow of our self-experience between death and a new birth. The ability to remember is in there, so that it actually gives us our existence. What gives us flesh and blood here on earth gives us the ability to remember between death and a new birth. There the memory is full-bodied and strong - if I may use these expressions of the spiritual -, it uses the flesh and becomes weak. And when we die, for a few days - I have often described this and you will also find it in my books - the last remnants of memory are still present in the etheric body. When we pass through the gate of death, when we look back on our past life on earth, this memory fades away. And out of this memory winds that which the power of love on earth has just given us in strength for life after death. Thus the power of our memory is the inheritance we have from our pre-earthly life, and thus the power of love is the germinating power for that which we have after our death. This is how earthly life relates to the spiritual world.

But I have had to compare that which man experiences in connection with the higher beings of the spiritual world, alternating with his self-experience in the spiritual world, with breathing, inhaling, exhaling. To a certain extent, one can also recognize a reflection of this breathing in the spiritual world in our breathing process and in that which is connected with our breathing process, in the speaking and singing process, in the speaking and singing processes. And in the following way: Not true, our life in the spiritual world, between death and a new birth, actually proceeds like this: insight into one's own inner being, becoming one with the beings of the higher hierarchies; outlook from one's own inner being, becoming one with oneself. It is like breathing in and breathing out. We only breathe into ourselves and breathe ourselves out, and breathing is a spiritual process. Here on this earth, this breathing process, as I have just described, becomes memory and love. And indeed, memory and love also work together like breathing here in physical life on earth. And you can even, if you can look at this physical life properly with the eyes of your soul, always observe the interaction of memory and love, even physiologically, in an important manifestation of breathing - in speaking and singing.

Study the child until the change of teeth. The most interesting study of the child up to the change of teeth is the gradual development of the power of memory, the power of recollection. This is very elementary at first. The child has a certain memory, but this memory only becomes independent towards the time of the change of teeth. It is tremendously interesting to observe how the power of memory develops in the first epoch of human life. It is actually only fully developed when the child is ready for school. Only then can we build on memory. If we rely too heavily on memory, we make people stiff and sclerotic for later life. In the case of the child - until the change of teeth - it is a matter of the present impressions being correct. We should only rely on memory between the change of teeth and sexual maturity.

Today our physiological science is not yet ready to describe the details of the process just described. Spiritual science can do this, and physiological science will certainly follow it, for things can also be found out by very exact observation of human nature. We can say that when we make a sound or a tone, it is first of all the head that is involved. But from the head it is the same faculty that inwardly gives the memory in the soul, that shoots, as it were, into the sound and into the tone; that comes from above. And you cannot imagine that any being can speak without having the ability to remember. If one were always to forget what lies in the sound or in the tone, one would of course never be able to speak or sing. On the other hand, the part played by love, also in the physiological sense, in what becomes speech and singing in the breathing process, is clearly demonstrated by the fact that in the second important epoch of life, when love is expressed physiologically, the full inner fullness of sound first appears in the male sex; this comes from below. There you have the two elements together. From above, that which physiologically underlies memory, and from below, that which physiologically underlies love: this forms the tone of speech and song. There you have the alternating interaction. In a way, it is also a breathing process that runs through the whole of life. Just as we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, so the power of memory combines with the power of love in us, meeting in speech, meeting in sound. And we can say: speaking and singing in humans are a mutual interpenetration of the power of memory with the power of love. There is something extraordinarily significant in this for the revelation of the actual mystery of tone and sound.

So there is already something true in what older languages express by calling the sum of the world forces and world thoughts the Logos, which is the beyond, the supersensible of that which is physically expressed in language. We not only breathe in and out the higher beings, but we speak, as it were - although this speaking is at the same time a singing - between death and a new birth, in this interrelationship between being absorbed in the spiritual beings of the higher world and coming to ourselves, we speak with the beings of the higher hierarchies. For it is a spiritual speaking at the same time. When we are in the state that we become one with the beings of the spiritual world, then we look at them, even if within ourselves. When we get rid of them again and come to ourselves, then we have the resonance, then we are ourselves. There they express their own essence in us, there they tell us what they are, there the Logos lives in us. When we come to ourselves, on earth, it is the other way round: we express our own being when we speak and sing. For it is man's own being that we express in song and speech. We express our whole being in the process of exhalation; while we receive the whole being of the world in the Logos when we rid ourselves of our union with the spirit beings between death and a new birth.

But now it is so that when we go through the transition from the spiritual world into the physical world, we go through the great forgetting at the same time, so to speak. Who here sees in the faint, shadowy power of memory through the ordinary consciousness the echo of what we actually were as a self in the spiritual world? And who still recognizes in language, in the part that comes from memory, the aftervibration of the self? And who recognizes in the shaping of language, in singing and speaking, in the formation of the sculpture of language, who recognizes with ordinary consciousness the echo of the beings of the higher hierarchies? Nevertheless, is it not the case that he who understands how to listen to language without its utilitarian aspect, who can listen to what the sounds express through their self-sustaining essence, that he gets an idea, especially if he has an artistic sense, how more is revealed in speaking and singing than what the ordinary consciousness has? And why then do we transform that which is ordinary language, which we have as a useful faculty here on earth, why do we transform it in song by stripping it of its qualities as a useful faculty and making it the expression of our own being in declamation, in song? Why are we transforming them? What are we doing there?

Well, we get the right idea when we say to ourselves: Before you descended to this earth, you were in the spiritual world and lived in it as described. The great forgetting occurred. In what your mouth utters, what your soul remembers, how your soul loves, you do not recognize the echo of what you were in the spiritual world. But in art we take a few steps back from life, so to speak, and we take a few steps closer to what we were in the prenatal life and what we will become in the afterlife. And if, on the one hand, we can recognize how memory is the echo of what we had in the pre-earthly life, how the unfolding of love is the seed of what we will have after death, if we, so to speak, visualize the past and future of being human through the knowledge of the spirit: in art we call into the present itself - as far as it is possible for man within his physical organization - in art we call into the present that which binds us together with the spirit.

You see, this is what gives art its real brilliance, that it transports us in a naive way into the spiritual world in the immediate present. He who is able to look into the inner life of man says to himself: Man usually only remembers the things he has gone through in the immediately preceding life on earth. But the power by which he remembers these earthly experiences, this power is only the weakened power of his actual self-existence in the pre-earthly life. And the love that man can develop here as general human love is the attenuated germinal power of that which will fully blossom after death: past, future. And just as, for example, in singing and in declamatory speech, what man is, memory, must really be combined with what man can give himself to the world, love, so it is in all art: Man experiences in the present the harmony of his self with the external, and without man being able, so to speak, to bring his inner being - be it sound, be it tone, be it the act of painting, be it any other artistic quality - without man being able to bring to the surface that which he is, that which life has made of him, which is basically the content of his memory, he cannot be an artist in one sense. And he is not a true artist who wants to be an egoist in the most pronounced sense in his art. Only he who has the sense to flow out into the world, so to speak, to become one with others, who has an unfolding of love, can unite this unfolding of love with his own being into one. Altruism and egoism flow together into one. They flow most intimately, of course, in the tonal arts, but they also flow into one in the visual arts. And if, through a certain deepening of our powers of cognition, we reveal how man is connected with a supersensible world in the past and the future, we can also say to ourselves, on the other hand, that man has an inkling of this connection in the present, actually in the production of art or in the enjoyment of art. And in fact art is always not fully valid if it does not in a certain sense have a kind of echo of something religious. Not that it has to be religiously pious, funny art can also have this echo of the religious.

But full proof of this is also how that which is art has developed. It was originally one with religious life. That which was art was definitely interwoven into a cult in the primitive times of mankind, into the religious cult. That which man formed as his images of the gods was the source of sculpture. Let us recall, for example, the Samothracian mysteries to which Goethe alludes in the second part of his “Faust”, where he speaks of the Kabirs. I tried to recreate these Kabirs in my studio in Dornach. What did I come up with? It was something very interesting. I simply set myself the task of finding out through visualization what the Kabirs must have looked like within the Samothracian mysteries. And just think: I received three jars, albeit plastic and artistically designed jars! I was astonished myself at first, although Goethe also speaks of jars. The matter only became clear to me when I realized that these jars stood on an altar, something similar to incense was placed in them, the sacrificial word was sung, and from the power of the sacrificial word, which in older times had a completely different vibrational force than today, the sacrificial smoke was transformed into the image of the deity that was being sought. They have the secondary song directly in the religious performance, which is lived out directly in the sculpture of the smoke.

Mankind really has extracted art from religious life. And Schiller is right when he says: “Only through the dawn of beauty do you enter the land of knowledge”, which is usually printed in books as follows: “Only through the dawn of beauty do you enter the land of knowledge.” If an artist makes a spelling mistake, this mistake will of course be passed on to posterity. Of course, it means: “Only through the dawn of beauty do you enter the land of knowledge.” In other words: all knowledge is taken from art. Basically, there is no knowledge that is not intimately related to art. Only knowledge that relates to the external, the useful, seems to have no connection with art. But in the world this knowledge can only extend to what the mere colorist knows about painting. As soon as one goes beyond that in chemistry or physics - I am speaking figuratively, you know what is meant - which means the mere rubbing of colors, then science becomes artistic. And if the artistic is grasped in its spirituality in the right way, then it gradually merges into the religious. Art, religion and science were once one. But we should still sense their common origin in them. We can only do this if we return to the spirit in human civilization, in human development, if we take seriously the relationships that exist between man here in his physical existence on earth and the spiritual world. We must recognize this from the most diverse points of view.

I wanted to take up one of these points of view today in order to describe to you again from a certain angle how man is connected with the spiritual world. I hope that we will be able to continue these reflections here in the not too distant future.