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The Evolution of Consciousness
GA 227

26 August 1923, Penmaenmawr

8. During Sleep and after Death

From what has been said about the relation of sleeping to waking in man, and also about the membering of his organism, it can be seen that in sleep he experiences a profound cleavage in his earthly existence. We know that a distinction has to be made between the part of man which is materially perceptible to the senses, his physical body, and the part that can be seen only through Imagination, his etheric or formative forces body. This formative forces body embraces also the living forces which enable a man to grow, underlie his nutritive processes and generally build him up. As we have seen, the formative forces body includes also the whole system of a man's thoughts. Intermingled with his formative forces body and his physical body are two higher members, which we may call the astral body and the Ego-organisation.

In a man's life during the day these four members of his being are in active inner relationship with one another. But when he passes into the sleeping state, his physical and etheric bodies separate from the Ego and astral body. They remain—if one may put it thus—in bed, while the astral and Ego organisations enter a purely spiritual world. So that, from his falling asleep until he wakes, a man's being is split in two—on the one hand there are his physical organisation and the etheric that holds his world of thought; on the other, the Ego and the astral organisation.

I believe someone in the course of these days has voiced the misgiving: If in sleep a man's whole thought-world remains in the etheric organisation, then he must be unable to carry effectively into the sleeping state the thoughts which he can grasp only while he is awake. This shows a certain anxiety lest wishes for one's fellow-men, for example, or thoughts relating to an absent one, should lose all power because they cannot be taken over into the life of sleep. I should like to reply with a picture.

You are not very likely to have heard of anyone who, wanting to shoot at a target, thought he had to throw his gun at it. While still holding the gun he lets the charge do the work, and you cannot say that nothing reaches the target because the gun remains in the man's hands. It is just the same in the case we are considering. The effects of our thinking life when we are awake do not cease during sleep because the thoughts remain in the physical and etheric bodies. It is particularly important with these subtle matters that we should be precise in our thinking—precise to a degree unnecessary in the physical world, where the things themselves provide immediate corrections. From what has been said in these last few days, however, you will see that a much more intimate relation exists between the physical body and the etheric body than between the etheric body and the astral organisation. For throughout the whole of an earthly life the physical body and the etheric remain together, never separating even when, in sleep, the etheric body and the astral body have to part company.

There is a close connection, on the other hand, between the Ego and the astral organisation, for neither do they ever part from one another during life on Earth. But the connection between the astral and the etheric bodies is looser, and it is there that the split can occur. This has a quite definite effect on a man's earthly life, and also on his life beyond the Earth. In our waking state we give life to our senses through our Ego, and through the astral body to our nervous system; and what is brought about in this way we send down into the etheric and physical bodies, as we must do if we are to live in the physical world. Hence, because everything has to be imprinted into the physical body, in order to become manifest in life from birth or conception until death, a materialist supposes that the physical body can make up the whole of a man's being.

This work of incorporating the experiences of earthly existence into the etheric body and the physical body does not proceed, however, without meeting obstacles and hindrances. We are never able to send down straight away into the organs of these bodies our experiences and the thoughts embodied in our nervous system, for anything we absorb from the external physical world is at first in a form moulded by that world. If, for example, we perceive something angular, an experience of this angular quality forms itself in our Ego and our astral body. This cannot be taken up immediately into the etheric body, for the etheric body struggles against absorbing anything experienced in the external world of the senses. Imaginative knowledge alone is able to throw light on this situation. No ordinary sense-observation, no material experiment, no intellectual reflection, will help us to a view of this necessary re-forming, re-shaping, of what we perceive with the senses, so as to fit it for living in the etheric body and physical body in such a way that we can separate from it in sleep. It is only when we are able to observe the actual relation between waking and sleeping in earthly man that we come to realise the continuous conflict that goes on in life. Thus—in the case of the crude example already mentioned—if I have to take my experience of an angular object into my etheric and physical bodies, I must first round off its angles and give the object a form suited to those bodies. It has to be completely transformed.

This transforming of anything having as volatile a life as that of the Ego and astral body themselves, and giving it a plastic form capable of living in the etheric body and of continuing its existence as plastic movement in the physical body—this transformation creates an inner struggle not perceived by ordinary consciousness to-day, but anyone who has Imaginative knowledge can perceive it. Generally it lasts two or three days. We have to sleep on an experience for two or often three nights for it to unite with the other experiences already imprinted in the etheric and physical bodies. The dream-world is an actual expression, but only an outward expression, of this struggle. While a man is dreaming, his Ego and his astral body flow into his etheric and physical bodies and come to a sudden stop—as already explained. This check is an expression of the struggle I am now picturing; it goes on for two or three days. Until the experience has been slept upon more than once, it has not gone sufficiently far down into the etheric body, so that where the connection is loose, as it is between astral body and etheric body, a continuous interweaving is to be seen.

If we have here the etheric body and the astral is there asleep, then on the verge of waking or of going to sleep a continuous struggle takes place, a movement full of life, expressed outwardly in the dream, but signifying inwardly this weaving of experiences into the etheric and physical bodies. It is only when a man has slept on some experience two or three times—perhaps more often—that the experience is united with the memories already bound up with his etheric and physical bodies. The point is that the experience has to be transformed into memory, which is left lying in bed during sleep, for a memory is essentially the expression in thought of the physical and etheric bodies.

For Imaginative cognition, perceiving this is an extraordinarily interesting experience. The very form of its expression is significant. We give our ordinary earthly experiences definite outlines in conformity with natural laws. These laws, however, no longer hold good when the experiences merge with the etheric; everything firmly outlined becomes soft and plastic. Whatever was at rest begins to move; anything angular becomes rounded. Intellectual experience passes over into the experience of the artist.

That is the deeper reason why, in those ancient days when people still had instinctive vision, art was rooted in life in a quite different way from anything we have to-day. Even as late as the Renaissance, in the searching back to earlier art there was still in Raphael and other painters at least a tradition of that conversion of the intellectual into the artistic. For the intellectual loses its form, and takes on the nature of art, directly we rise to the super-sensible. The fact that in art to-day people are so strongly inclined to naturalism, wanting models for all their work, shows that they no longer realise its true nature. Humanity must find its way again into the true realm of art.

Human life as I have described it is thus made up in such a way that it is always possible to say: I am experiencing something which will take three days to flow into the etheric body. A day later, the experience of the previous day will flow in. Hence it takes a man two, three, or even four days to complete this uniting of an experience with the etheric body.

Now when a man passes through the gate of death, the etheric body detaches itself from the physical body—something that never happens during earthly life. And now, when the etheric body is free of the physical, all that has been interwoven into the etheric body is gradually dispersed, and this process lasts for about as long—two, three or four days—as the interweaving did. Imagination, which can judge rightly of these matters, shows how during life the physical body holds together, through its resistance, the experiences that have gradually penetrated into the etheric body. When the physical body is laid aside at death, it can be seen how in the first few days afterwards the memories woven into the etheric body pass out into the universal cosmic ether, and dissolve. And so, for two, three or four days after death, a person experiences this dissolving of his accumulated store of memories. This may be called the laying aside of the etheric body, but it involves an ever-increasing enhancement of the memories; they lose the third dimension and become two-dimensional, entirely picture-like. After the gate of death is passed, the person is faced with the whole tableau of his life, taking its course in vivid pictures for two, three or four days, the time varying with each individual.

But just as a student of botany recognises in a seed the plant that will develop from it, so anyone with Imaginative cognition does not see only at death this passing over of the etheric, of the whole memory system, to the cosmos; he has seen it already in picture form, for as a picture it is always present in human beings. Those who can grasp rightly the interweaving that goes on in the course of three days or more see already, in this incorporation of experiences in the etheric body, a picture of the inward experience that is lived through for three or four days after death. Whereas in earthly existence, before acquiring Imaginative cognition, a man experiences more or less unconsciously this blending of his experiences into the memories held together by the physical body, immediately after death he experiences the reverse process, the unwinding, as it were, of his memories and the passing away of them into the Cosmos. Our treasured thoughts, left behind whenever we fall asleep, unite directly after death with the whole Cosmos. This is what in dying we have to yield up to cosmic existence.

These things must not be grasped only intellectually, but also with heart and soul. For in face of them a man feels that his life is not to be taken egoistically, but that he is placed in the world as a thinking being. He will feel that his thoughts are not something he can preserve, for after his death they will flow out into the Cosmos and will go on working there as active forces. If we have had good thoughts, we surrender them to the Cosmos, and if we have had bad thoughts, we surrender them also. For a man does not exist on earth merely to develop himself as a free being. This he certainly should do, and he can do it precisely if he takes something else into consideration. He is here also as a being on whom the Gods themselves may work, in order to lead the Cosmos on from epoch to epoch. Moreover I would say this: What the Gods are to weave into the Cosmos as thoughts has to be prepared by them through all that can be thought and produced during individual human lives. Here is the nurturing-place where the Gods have to tend the thoughts they need for the continuing evolution of the world—thoughts they then incorporate into the Cosmos as active impulses.


During sleep, a man lives with his Ego and astral organisation outside his physical and etheric bodies. While in this state as a being of soul and spirit, as Ego and astral organisation, he is interwoven with the spiritual forces pervading the whole Cosmos. He is in the world that is, figuratively speaking, outside his skin—the world of which the only impressions he receives in waking life come through his senses. During sleep, therefore, he enters right into the things that in waking life show him only their outer side. But it is only what is experienced by the astral organisation, when outside the physical and etheric bodies, that can be brought back into the thoughts of the etheric body, not what is experienced out there by the Ego. Hence, during the whole of our existence on Earth, the experiences of the Ego in sleep remain subconscious for ordinary consciousness, and even for Imaginative consciousness. They are revealed only to Inspired consciousness, as already described.

So this may be said: In sleep a man gathers up sufficient strength to imprint on the etheric body those experiences that can be put into thoughts. But during his life on Earth he lacks the power to deal with the wishes and desires which during sleep are experienced by the Ego in connection with earthly affairs—for these also are gone over during sleep. In our epoch, therefore, only the part of sleep-life that can be transformed into thoughts, imprinted in thoughts, passes over into the conscious waking life of earthly men; while the sleep-experiences of the Ego lie hidden behind the veil of existence.

Imaginative and Inspired consciousness bring to light here things which can be perfectly well understood by any impartial person with a healthy mind, but in our present civilisation they encounter tremendous prejudice. Even the fact that when the three-dimensional in the physical world is imprinted in the etheric body, it changes from the plastic to a picture form, from three to two dimensions—even to grasp this calls for an unprejudiced approach. Directly we rise to Imagination, we no longer have to do with three dimensions, any more than with four, as a misguided science believes, but with two only. The difficulty of picturing what is then experienced comes from our being accustomed in earthly experience to reckon with three dimensions and to form our concepts accordingly. And so, when we should be finding our way over to two dimensions, we say: “Yes, but two dimensions are included in the three; the two dimensions of a plane can lie in such a way that there might still be a third.”

That, however, is not the point. As soon as we enter the Imaginative world, the third dimension no longer concerns us at all, and the position of a plane is immaterial. On our entering the etheric world of Imagination, the third dimension ceases to have any meaning. Hence—and I add this for mathematicians—all equations for the ether must be transformed so as to correspond with the two-dimensional world.

Now if we would pass on to the world accessible to Inspiration, in which we are as Ego between going to sleep and waking, we come to one dimension only; we then have to do with a one-dimensional world. This transition to a one-dimensional world, taken for granted by the faculty of Inspiration—the faculty, that is, of actually perceiving the spiritual in which we live between going to sleep and waking—this understanding of a world with only one dimension has always been part of Initiation-knowledge.

I have already described how the hidden forces of the Sun—not the forces of the external physical sunlight—are revealed to men of the Jacob Boehme type. These hidden Sun-forces do not spread out three-dimensionally, but are perceived in one dimension only. An older, more instinctive Initiation-knowledge could, and did, come to perceive this through Inspiration, but without a clearly conscious knowledge of what it was. Much that is still handed down in the ancient records of long past epochs of mankind is to be understood only when one knows: This refers to the spiritual world that is one-dimensional, the world we find through Inspiration; as regards our earthly life it refers to the hidden forces of the Sun and Stars. Between going to sleep and waking we do not live in Sun-forces that are outwardly displayed, but in those that are hidden.

These hidden forces of the Sun can, for example, pass through certain kinds of stone which are impenetrable to physically perceptible Sun-forces, and by passing through them become one-dimensional. If anyone has acquired Inspirational vision, then, although he may not perceive the physical light, he can see the hidden Sun-forces penetrating the otherwise opaque stone; thus the stone is permeable for the Sun's hidden forces and also for the forces of Inspiration.

In very ancient periods of human evolution on Earth, such expedients were not needed. But when the old instinctive clairvoyance, which in those days was the basis of Initiation-knowledge, was on the wane, these aids were adopted as a short cut—we might say—to the perception of things no longer perceptible through instinctive Inspiration. People had recourse to such measures in the following way, for example. Imagine a number of stones set up beside one another, with other stones laid across the tops of them. If this is so arranged that on certain occasions the penetrating rays of the Sun fall on the covering stone, then the physical rays of the Sun will be held up by the stone and the hidden rays will pass through.

When anyone trained to it places himself so that he can look into this structure from the side, he will see the spiritual, one-dimensional rays of the Sun shining through and vanishing into the earth. If, when all this was no longer perceived through instinctive clairvoyant powers, a short cut of that kind were taken, it enabled anyone looking from the side into the shadow-zone to perceive the world of spiritual Sun-rays which we experience every night during sleep. Hence in such contrivances, to be met with in this very district, we can see by what means, during a long transitional period, certain wise leaders of mankind tried to penetrate to the hidden forces of the Sun, which a man such as Jacob Boehme could do instinctively through simply beholding earthly things.

Although such collections of stones can be seen to-day in appropriate places, their real significance can be brought out only through what Spiritual Science reveals. Otherwise people are left with a superficial explanation which misses the real point.

Such stones can of course be distributed in the circle so as to show how the spiritual rays of the Sun differ according to particular constellations of the stars.


I have been trying to make clear to you the world in which our Ego lives during sleep. This world is not held together by the inherent forces of the physical and etheric bodies. These bodies, however, are alone responsible for the clear consciousness of earthly man; they are the source of the judgments we form, in accordance with our feelings and our will, on our own actions, our inward experiences and thoughts. Hence, when we are awake, we judge our external life according to the thoughts we have been able to imprint in our physical and etheric bodies. But it is not only a human being himself who has something to say about his experiences; his experiences and actions are the concern of the whole spiritual Cosmos. The Cosmos judges whether an action, a thought or feeling is to be declared good or bad. Between waking and sleeping we are left to form our own opinions about ourselves. As I have sufficiently shown during these lectures, the spiritual content of the Cosmos takes the moral as its natural law, and what the Cosmos has to say about our true nature and our actions is experienced by the Ego during sleep. Inspired cognition shows how the Ego, even during the shortest sleep, experiences over again everything the individual has gone through from his last moment of waking until his present sleep—however long or short this period may be. So a man, in the successive states of waking, sleeping, waking, sleeping, experiences again in sleep whatever he went through during his last waking time, especially where his own activities were concerned.

As far as this is the experience of the Ego, it remains outside ordinary consciousness, but Inspiration can call it up. Then the particular nature of the experience is disclosed, and we find it is gone through in reverse order to our experience by day. Whereas by day you go through your experiences—leaving short sleeps aside—from morning to evening, during the night, in sleep, you live through these experiences backwards—from evening to morning. This is in order that we may experience whatever the spiritual Cosmos has to say about the way we have lived through the day.

During earthly life, however, a man cannot normally call this experience up into consciousness. Yet he must become conscious of it, or his human existence would fall out of connection with cosmic existence. Inspired cognition shows that as soon as a man after death has watched his life-tableau, which, as I have said, lasts two, three, or four days, and as soon as his memories have dissolved into the Cosmos, spreading themselves out there—after this experience, often referred to as the freeing of the etheric body—a time comes when the man is able to look back on his earthly life again, but in a different way.

If we look at those few days after death, we come to a mighty panorama of our life, but at first it embraces daytime experiences alone. In reality, however, a man goes through not only his waking experiences but also those he has had during sleep. When in earthly life you look back on your ordinary memories, you always leave out your periods of sleep, as if your only experiences had been those lived through by day. And so it goes on right back to the time after birth when your memories cease.

In fact it is like this with the panorama that appears during those two or three days after death. Then, later, comes a period when soul and spirit have gained sufficient strength to experience in the spiritual world all that could manifest only unconsciously, in picture form, while we were asleep at night during our life on Earth. It now comes before us as experience. A man then passes through a period—lasting about one-third of his life on Earth, approximately the time normally spent in sleep—when he experiences his nights again, but in a backward direction. So he lives through his last night first, then the night before, and so on right back to the time of his birth and conception.

From other points of view I have described this going back through a quite different world after death in my book, Theosophy, when I was speaking of man, as a being of soul and spirit, passing through the soul-world.

Now when after death a man has gone thus through the soul-world, taking about seven years for it if he has lived twenty-one years, or, if he has lived to sixty, perhaps twenty years—always the length of time he has slept in earthly life—he has then to experience the total effect he has had upon Earth-existence—an existence created by the Gods in order to carry the world, with the help of the human race, a little further on its progress. Up to the end of this backward survey of his nights after death, a man has been gaining knowledge of what he has himself become, of his significance for the Cosmos. He now has to experience how the Earth itself has been affected by his life. This takes a long time—half the time, indeed, between earthly death and a new earthly life. Tomorrow we shall have to speak of this in greater detail.

After going backwards through our nights, we come to our birth; and having arrived there, after this backward journey through the soul-world, we have to find the way back to our previous earthly life. This enables a man to bring over with him that previous life for the shaping of his next life on Earth.

Here we enter the realm of the old Initiation-knowledge (which must be renewed to-day in a way suited to men's present faculties.) The old Initiation-knowledge led people over to religious experience. For Initiation-knowledge is always true knowledge, but of a kind that leads out from the world of the senses into the spiritual, so that the human will is stirred to take a religious form. At the stage of Initiation which leads to the Intuitive-knowledge already described, it has always been recognised as of the utmost importance that when a man goes back to his previous life on Earth, he should meet on the way a being who can become his guide after death.

In a certain region of the Earth a man would say to himself: In my earthly life I must absorb the teaching of the last Bodhisattva to appear on earth. The man may have lived three hundred years after the appearance of this Bodhisattva. But when after death he went back to his previous life on Earth, he arrived at the time when the last Bodhisattva was living on Earth. In the old Initiation-knowledge, this meeting with the last Bodhisattva to appear on the Earth was regarded as enabling the man to make a real contact with his own previous earthly life—which means finding the necessary strength for eternal life, for this can be found only when real contact with the previous earthly life is achieved.

Any possibility of this meeting with the Bodhisattvas, who descend to Earth from certain spiritual regions, ceased at a definite time in human evolution, in world-evolution. And to-day a man would have been unable, when after death he had gone back to his last birth and conception, to go further and make contact with his previous earthly lives. The way to this could be found by a man during the first millennia of earthly evolution before the Mystery of Golgotha, when, in going back, he came to the time of the last Bodhisattva. Today, however, he will find the way only if he makes the journey under the leadership of that Being who united Himself with the Earth through the Mystery of Golgotha; if, in other words, he enters into such a relation with the Mystery of Golgotha that Christ can become his guide. For the Christ gathers into Himself all those powers of leadership for life between death and rebirth which used to belong to the Bodhisattvas who appeared on Earth.

Thus the event of the Mystery of Golgotha, with its particular bearing on our experience between death and rebirth, is one of the most important facts in the whole evolution of the Earth. If anyone wishes to learn about the spiritual evolution of the Earth and the place it takes in the spiritual evolution of the Cosmos, and if moreover he wishes to understand what a man goes through in connection with this spiritual evolution of Earth and Cosmos during his life between death and a new birth, then he must give the Mystery of Golgotha its right place in the whole evolution of the world. For people to-day, therefore, a way must be found that will lead attention over from the evolution of man to the evolution of the world, so that the Mystery of Golgotha is seen in all its fundamental significance for the course of events in the evolution of the Earth and in the evolution of man within the earthly.

With these matters, as far as modern Initiation-knowledge can reveal them—matters relating to the later experiences of human beings after death, when they have gone back in memory through their night-experiences—we will deal further tomorrow, in connection with the evolution of the world.

Die Schlaferlebnisse des Menschen als Vorverkünder der Erlebnisse nach dem Tode

In der Auseinandersetzung über das Verhältnis des Schlafens und Wachens im Menschen auf der einen Seite und der Gliederung des Menschen auf der anderen Seite konnte man sehen, wie der Mensch mit dem Schlafe in der Tat eine tiefgehende Spaltung seines Erdendaseins erlebt. Wir haben aus den verschiedenen Erörterungen der letzten Tage gesehen, wie wir am Menschen dasjenige zu unterscheiden haben, was an ihm sinnlich-physisch wahrnehmbar ist: der physische Körper; dasjenige, was nicht mehr sinnlich-physisch wahrnehmbar ist, was nur in der Imagination geschaut werden kann: sein Äther- oder, wie ich auch sagen muß, sein Bildekräfteleib. Dieser Bildekräfteleib enthält die lebendigen Kräfte, die den Menschen wachsen machen, die den Vorgängen der Ernährung, des ganzen Aufbaues des Menschen zugrunde liegen und so weiter. Dieser Bildekräfteleib enthält aber auch, wie wir gesehen haben, das ganze System der menschlichen Gedanken. Eingegliedert in diesen Bildekräfte- oder Ätherleib und in den physischen Körper sind dann die zwei höheren Glieder der menschlichen Wesenheit, dasjenige, was man - ich sagte schon, man soll sich an der Terminologie nicht stoßen — als den Astralleib und was man als die eigentliche Ich-Organisation bezeichnen kann.

Wenn nun der Mensch sein Tagesleben durchlebt, so sind diese vier Glieder der menschlichen Natur ineinander tätig, in Wechselbeziehung stehend, in einem innigen Zusammenhange. Wenn der Mensch in den Schlafzustand übergeht, dann trennen sich von Astralleib und Ich physischer Körper und Bildekräfteleib - sie bleiben, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf, im Bette zurück -, und in eine rein geistige Welt treten ein die astralische Organisation und die Ich-Organisation. So daß also der Mensch vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen gespalten ist in seinem Wesen: auf der einen Seite ist die physische Organisation mit der ätherischen Organisation vorhanden, die zu gleicher Zeit die gesamte Gedankenwelt des Menschen zurückhält, und auf der anderen Seite sind die IchOrganisation und die astralische Organisation vorhanden.

Ich glaube, es hat in diesen Tagen einmal jemand das Bedenken geäußert: Wenn die gesamte Gedankenwelt zurückbleibt in der Ätherorganisation während des Schlafes, so könnte man durch die Gedanken, die man doch nur im wachen Zustande ergreift, nicht hinüberwirken in den Schlafzustand. So daß gewissermaßen in demjenigen, der dies gesagt hat, eine Art Angst zutage getreten ist, als ob dann, wenn man zum Beispiel irgendwelche Wünsche, etwa für seine Mitmenschen, in Gedanken kleidete, oder wenn sich solche Gedanken auf einen beziehen, der im Schlafzustande ist, verlorengehen könnte die Kraft dieser Gedanken, weil sie ja der Mensch in den Schlaf nicht herübernimmt. Nun, ich möchte mit einem Bilde darauf antworten.

Sie werden noch nie gehört haben, daß jemand, der mit einer Flinte ein Ziel treffen will, gleich just die Flinte dahin werfen muß. Er läßt die Ladung los, die Flinte behält er zurück. Man kann nun nicht den Gedanken äußern, daß nichts nach dem Ziele geht, weil er die Flinte zurückbehält. Ebensowenig bleiben die Wirkungen des Wachlebens, des denkenden Wachlebens für das Schlafleben aus, weil man die Gedanken im physischen und ätherischen Leib zurückhält, nicht selber hinüberschickt in das Schlafesleben. Es handelt sich gerade bei diesen Dingen, die ja subtil sind, darum, daß man immer exakt, ganz genau denkt, wie man es eigentlich für die physische Welt niemals nötig hat, weil einen ja da sofort die Dinge der Außenwelt korrigieren. Aber man sieht aus demjenigen, was in diesen Tagen hier ausgesprochen worden ist, daß eine viel innigere Beziehung zwischen dem physischen Körper und dem Ätherleib besteht als zum Beispiel zwischen Ätherleib und Astralorganisation. Denn während des ganzen Erdenlebens bleiben physischer Körper und Ätherleib zusammen. Sie trennen sich nie, auch eben im Schlafeszustand nicht. Der Ätherleib und der astralische Leib müssen sich trennen im Schlafe.

Wiederum ist ein inniger Zusammenhang vorhanden zwischen dem Ich und der astralischen Organisation, denn die trennen sich wiederum niemals während des Erdenlebens. Aber der Zusammenhang zwischen dem astralischen Leib und dem ätherischen Leib, der ist ein loserer. Da kann eben die Spaltung eintreten. Das hat für das menschliche Erdenleben und auch für das aufßerirdische Leben des Menschen eine ganz bestimmte Wirkung. Wenn wir im wachen Zustande sind, so beleben wir mit unserem Ich unsere Sinne, mit unserem astralischen Leib unser Nervensystem und schicken dann dasjenige, was auf diese Weise zustande kommt, hinein in den ätherischen Leib und in den physischen Körper; denn man muß, wenn man in der physischen Welt leben will, alles dasjenige, was man im Ich und im astralischen Leibe erlebt, hinunterschicken in den ätherischen Leib und in den physischen Körper. Deshalb glaubt der Materialismus, daß der physische Körper alles sein könne im Menschenwesen, weil tatsächlich alles sich im physischen Körper abdrükken muß, sich offenbaren muß in dem Leben zwischen der Geburt oder, sagen wir, der Empfängnis und dem Tode.

Aber diese Arbeit des Eingliederns der Erlebnisse des Erdendaseins in den ätherischen Leib und in den physischen Leib, das geht nicht ohne Hindernisse und Hemmnisse vor sich. Wir sind niemals ohne weiteres eigentlich imstande, dasjenige, was wir durch die Sinne erleben, dasjenige, was wir durch unser Denken eingliedern in unser Nervensystem, unmittelbar auch hinunterzuschicken in die Organe, die zugehörig sind dem Bildekräfteleib und dem physischen Leib. Dasjenige, was wir aus der äußeren physischen Welt aufnehmen, ist zunächst, indem wir es aufnehmen, so gestaltet, so geformt, daß es dem äußeren Dasein gleicht. Wenn wir zum Beispiel irgend etwas wahrnehmen, das eckig gestaltet ist, so bildet sich für uns zunächst innerhalb unseres Ich und unseres astralischen Leibes das Erlebnis des Eckigen aus. Aber das kann nicht unmittelbar in den ätherischen Leib aufgenommen werden. Der ätherische Leib sträubt sich zunächst gegen dieses Aufnehmen desjenigen, was wir an der sinnlichen Außenwelt erleben. In diese Verhältnisse kann nur die imaginative Erkenntnis aufklärend hineinwirken. Die gewöhnliche sinnliche Beobachtung oder auch das sinnliche Experiment am Menschen oder die intellektualistische Überlegung reichen nicht hin, um diesen Vorgang anzuschauen, der da besteht in dieser notwendigen Umbildung und Umgestaltung desjenigen, was wir sinnlich wahrnehmen, damit es geeignet werde, in unserem Ätherleib und physischen Leib nun fortzuleben, so daß wir uns auch von ihm trennen können im Schlafe. Und erst wenn man beobachten kann, wie das Verhältnis zwischen Wachen und Schlafen beim Erdenmenschen eigentlich ist, dann kommt man darauf, daß im Leben ein fortwährender Kampf stattfindet. Man nimmt einen äußeren Eindruck auf, ein äußeres Erlebnis. Das kann aber nicht sogleich hinunter in den physischen und ätherischen Leib, weil, wenn ich mich dieses groben Beispiels bediene, das Erlebnis, das man hat an einem eckigen Ding, hinein muß in den ätherischen Leib, in den physischen Leib hinein, indem es erst gerundet wird, indem es erst dessen eigene Form annimmt. Es muß eine gründliche Umformung stattfinden.

Dieses Umformen dessen, was zunächst so flüchtig lebt, wie das Ich und der astralische Leib selber, in ein plastisches Gebilde, das dann leben kann im ätherischen Leibe, und in eine plastizierende Bewegung, die dann fortexistieren kann im physischen Leibe, dieses Umformen, das gibt einen innerlichen Kampf, der für das gewöhnliche heutige menschliche Bewußtsein allerdings unbewußt bleibt. Aber wer die imaginative Erkenntnis hat, kann diesen Kampf anschauen, der in der Regel zwei bis drei Tage andauert. Man muß zwei-, manchmal dreimal geschlafen haben über einem Erlebnis, bis es sich verbindet mit den anderen Erlebnissen, die schon Abdrucke im physischen und im ätherischen Leibe sind. Man muß zwei- bis dreimal darüber geschlafen haben. Und die Traumeswelt drückt eigentlich äußerlich, aber eben nur äußerlich diesen Kampf aus. Indem der Mensch träumt, schieben sich, wie ich schon auseinandergesetzt habe, sein Ich und der Astralleib in den Ätherleib und physischen Leib hinein, stauen sich. Dieses Stauen, das ist der Ausdruck des Kampfes, den ich Ihnen jetzt schildere und der ungefähr zwei bis drei Tage dauert. Wenn man einmal über dem Erlebnis geschlafen hat, so ist es noch nicht genügend hineingesenkt in den ätherischen Leib. Erst wenn man zwei bis dreimal darüber geschlafen hat, ist es eingesenkt in den ätherischen Leib. So daß man da, wo der Mensch lose verbunden ist in bezug auf seinen astralischen Leib und ätherischen Leib, ein fortwährendes Ineinanderweben sieht.

Ganz roh schematisch gezeichnet [Originalzeichnung nicht erhalten]: Wenn dies der Ätherleib ist und das der astralische Leib im Schlafe, dann findet beim Aufwachen oder Einschlafen an der Grenze ein fortwährender Kampf statt, eine lebendige Regung, die sich äußerlich im Traume ausdrückt, die aber innerlich dieses Einverweben der Erlebnisse in den ätherischen und physischen Leib bedeutet. Und erst wenn der Mensch zwei-, dreimal, manchmal öfter, über irgendeinem Erlebnis geschlafen hat, dann hat sich wieder verbunden dieses Erlebnis mit demjenigen, was schon verbunden war mit ätherischem und physischem Leib als Erinnerung; denn das ist es, worauf es ankommt, daß sich das Erlebnis in Erinnerung umwandelt, die dann ebenso im Bette liegenbleibt, wenn wir schlafen, weil sie im wesentlichen der Ausdruck des physischen und ätherischen Leibes in Gedanken ist, - Also nach zwei bis drei Tagen hat sich das Erlebnis erst der Erinnerung einverwoben.

Es ist ein ungeheuer interessantes Erlebnis für die imaginative Erkenntnis, dies wahrzunehmen. Schon die Form, in der sich dieses ausdrückt, ist bedeutsam. Wir gehen an die äußeren Erdenerlebnisse so heran, daß wir ihnen nach den naturalistischen Gesetzen bestimmte Konturen geben. Wir erleben eben dasjenige, was in unserem Erdendasein vorhanden ist, mit bestimmten Konturen, man möchte sagen in naturgesetzlicher Form. Diese Naturgesetze werden aufgelöst, indem sich die Erlebnisse eingliedern in das Ätherische. Es geht alles, was hier bestimmte Konturen hat, in - ich möchte sagen weich Bildliches über. Was ruht, wird bewegt, was eckig ist, wird gerundet. Es geht alles über aus dem, was man als intellektueller Mensch erlebt, in dasjenige, was man als künstlerischer Mensch erlebt.

Das ist der innere Grund, warum in jenen älteren Zeiten, wo die Menschen das, was ich Ihnen jetzt beschrieben habe, noch instinktiv schauten, die Kunst ganz anders im Leben wurzelte als heute. Noch selbst in der Renaissance, beim Zurückgreifen auf die alte Kunst, in Raffael, in anderen Renaissancekünstlern, waren wenigstens Traditionen an dieses Umformen des Intellektualistischen in das Künstlerische. Denn in dem Augenblicke, wo man hinaufkommt ins Übersinnliche, geht das Intellektuelle in seiner intellektuellen Form sofort verloren, und es verwandelt sich alles in ein Künstlerisches. Indem die Menschen heute in der Kunst so sehr auf den Naturalismus angewiesen sind, alles nach dem Modell machen wollen, zeigen sie, daß sie von dem eigentlichen Künstlertum abgekommen sind. Es muß sich die Menschheit wiederum hineinleben in dieses eigentliche Künstlertum.

Und so setzt sich, wie ich beschrieben habe, das menschliche Leben eigentlich so zusammen, daß man immer sagen kann: Ich habe ein Erlebnis; das flutet durch drei Tage in den ätherischen Leib hinein. Am nächsten Tag flutet das unmittelbar Erlebte um einen Tag später hinein. Und so ist der Mensch in bezug auf seinen ätherischen Leib mit einem Erlebnis sozusagen erst nach zwei bis drei oder vier Tagen fertig.

Wenn nun der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geht, so trennt sich - was im Erdendasein nie stattgefunden hat - der ätherische Leib von dem physischen Leib. Alles dasjenige, was jeweilig durch zwei, drei, vier Tage hineinverwoben worden ist in den ätherischen Leib, das wird jetzt in dem vom physischen Leib freiwerdenden ätherischen Leib wiederum aufgelöst. Und die Auflösung dauert ungefähr ebenso lange, als das Einverweben gedauert hat. Es zeigt die Imagination, die in der richtigen Weise beurteilen kann, wie der physische Leib dasjenige, was allmählich hinübergewandert ist in den Ätherleib, durch seinen Widerstand zusammenhält. Ist nun der physische Leib im 'Tode weg, so sieht man in den ersten Tagen nach dem Tode, wie dasjenige, was sich da in den Ätherleib hineinverwoben 'hat, wiederum in den allgemeinen kosmischen Äther übergeht, sich wiederum auflöst. Und dieses Erlebnis des Sich-Auflösens des gesamten Erinnerungsgutes, das erlebt der Mensch nun wiederum zwei, drei, vier Tage nach seinem Tode. Man kann dies das Ablegen des Ätherleibes nennen. Aber dieses Ablegen ist eigentlich ein Immer-Größer- und Größerwerden der Erinnerungen; die verlieren die dritte Dimension, werden zweidimensional, werden ganz bildhaft. Und das Gesamttableau seines Lebens steht vor dem Menschen, in lebendigen Bildern ablaufend, nachdem er durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist, ungefähr zwei, drei, vier Tage lang, individuell verschieden nach dem einzelnen Menschen.

Aber geradeso wie derjenige, der Botanik studiert hat, dem Pflanzenkeim ansieht, was für eine Pflanze daraus wird, so sieht derjenige, der zu imaginativer Erkenntnis gekommen ist, nicht nur bei dem Tode dieses Übergehen des Ätherischen, das heißt des gesamten Erinnerungssystems an den Kosmos, sondern er sieht es schon, wenn es im Bilde vorhanden ist. Und im Bilde ist es immer beim Menschen vorhanden. Weiß man in der richtigen Weise aufzufassen, was da innert drei Tagen, eventuell mehr, ganz ineinander übergeht, so sieht man in diesem Einverleiben der Erlebnisse in den ätherischen Leib bildhaft vorbereitet dasjenige, was zwei, drei, vier Tage, nachdem der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist, eben vom Menschen innerlich erlebt wird. Während der Mensch im Erdendasein mehr oder weniger unbewußt, wenn er nicht zur imaginativen Erkenntnis kommt, erlebt dieses Involvieren der Erlebnisse in der durch den physischen Leib zusammengehaltenen Erinnerung, erlebt er unmittelbar nach dem Tode das Evolvieren, das Abwickeln und In-den-Kosmos-Übergehen seiner Erinnerungen. Was wir also jedesmal zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen als unsere Gedankenschätze zurücklassen, das geht unmittelbar nach dem Tode, sich mit dem Kosmos verbindend, eben in das ganze Universum über. Das ist dasjenige, was wir im Sterben zu übergeben haben an das kosmische Dasein.

Diese Dinge muß man nicht nur mit dem Verstande aufnehmen, sondern auch mit dem Gemüte. Denn man fühlt an. einem solchen Vorgang, wie der Mensch nicht bloß so dasteht, daß er sein Dasein egoistisch auffassen darf, sondern wie er dasteht in der Welt und ein denkendes Wesen ist, aber diese Gedanken nicht bloß etwas sind, das er bewahren darf, sondern Gedanken etwas sind, das nach seinem Tode übergehen muß in den ganzen Kosmos, im Kosmos fortwirkende Kräfte wird. Denken wir gut, so übergeben wir nach dem Tode unsere guten Gedanken dem Kosmos. Denken wir schlecht, so übergeben wir nach dem Tode unsere schlechten Gedanken dem Kosmos. Denn der Mensch ist im Erdendasein nicht bloß da, damit er sich als ein freies Wesen entfaltet — das soll er, und das kann er gerade auf dieser Grundlage, die außerdem noch für ihn in Betracht kommt -, er ist auch da, um ein Wesen zu sein, an dem die Götter selber arbeiten, um den Kosmos von Epoche zu Epoche zu führen. Und ich möchte sagen: Das, was die Götter als Gedanken dem Kosmos einzuverweben haben, das müssen sie zubereiten durch dasjenige, was in dem einzelnen Menschenleben gedacht und gesonnen werden kann. Da ist die Pflegestätte, jene Stätte, in der die Götter jene Gedanken pflegen müssen, die sie fortlaufend bei der Entwickelung der Welt brauchen, um sie als die eigentlichen Kräfteimpulse ihrem Kosmos einzuverleiben.


Wenn der Mensch in dem Zustande ist zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen, so lebt er ja mit seinem Ich und mit seiner astralischen Organisation außerhalb des physischen und des ätherischen Leibes. In diesem Zustande ist er als seelisch-geistiges Wesen, als Ich und astralischer Leib den geistigen Kräften, die den ganzen Kosmos durchziehen, einverwoben. Er ist in derjenigen Welt, die wenn ich mich bildhaft ausdrücken darf - außerhalb seiner Haut ist, er ist in derjenigen Welt, von der er vom Aufwachen bis zum Einschlafen nur die Sinneseindrücke empfängt. Er tritt also in das Innere der Dinge ein, die ihm ihre Außenseite während des Wachlebens zeigen. Aber nur dasjenige, was die astralische Organisation da draußen außer dem physischen Leib und dem Ätherleib erlebt, das kann zurückgebracht werden in die Gedanken des ätherischen Leibes. Nicht kann zurückgebracht werden dasjenige, was das Ich da draußen erlebt. Daher bleiben die eigentlichen Ich-Erlebnisse während des ganzen Erdenlebens, jene Ich-Erlebnisse, die im Schlafe durchgemacht werden, für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein und selbst noch für das imaginative Bewußtsein unterbewußt. Sie werden erst dem inspirierten Bewußtsein offenbar, wie ich es in diesen Tagen geschildert habe.

So daß wir also sagen können: Für dasjenige, was der Mensch so erlebt, daß es den Gedanken eingeprägt werden kann, dazu hat er Kraft genug, im Schlafe gesammelte Kraft genug, um es in den Ätherleib hinunter einzuprägen. Aber er hat nicht Kraft genug während seines Erdenlebens für dasjenige, was das Ich vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen erlebt an Wünschen, an Begierden, die sich anlehnen an die irdischen Erlebnisse, und die eben auch vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen durchgemacht werden. So daß in der Tat in unserer Epoche nur der in Gedanken zu verwandelnde Teil oder der den Gedanken einzuprägende Teil des Schlafeslebens übergeht in das bewußte Wachleben des Erdenmenschen. Dagegen bleibt, ich möchte sagen hinter dem Schleier des Daseins, dasjenige verborgen, was das eigentliche Ich während des menschlichen Schlafes erlebt.

Nun treten hier Dinge zutage für imaginatives und inspiriertes Bewußtsein, die zwar durchaus, wenn man unbefangen genug ist, begreifbar sind für den gesunden Menschenverstand, denen sich aber gerade in der heutigen Zivilisation ungeheure Vorurteile entgegenstellen. Schon die Tatsache, daß alles das, was hier in der physischen Welt dreidimensional ist - und in der physischen Welt wird ja im Grunde genommen alles dreidimensional erlebt -, wenn es eingeprägt werden soll dem Ätherleib, aus der plastischen in die - bildhafte Form, aus dem Dreidimensionalen in das Zweidimensionale übergeht, schon das zu begreifen verlangt eine Unbefangenheit. Denn in dem Augenblicke, wo wir in die Imagination übergehen, haben wir es nicht mehr mit den drei Dimensionen zu tun oder gar, wie eine abgeleitete Wissenschaft glaubt, mit vier Dimensionen; wir haben es dann mit zwei Dimensionen zu tun. Die Schwierigkeit, sich das vorzustellen, was da erlebt wird, die liegt darinnen, daß man ganz gewöhnt ist, in den Erdenerlebnissen mit drei Dimensionen zu rechnen, alles nach drei Dimensionen vorzustellen, und daß man daher, wenn man den Übergang finden soll zu zwei Dimensionen, sagt: Ja, aber die zwei Dimensionen sind in den drei Dimensionen drinnen; die zwei Dimensionen der Ebene können so oder so liegen, so daß man dennoch wiederum die dritte Dimension hätte.

Das hat man eben nicht, sondern die dritte Dimension ist, sobald man in die imaginative Welt hineinkommt, ganz gleichgültig; ob die Ebene so oder so steht, ist einerlei; die dritte Dimension hört auf, eine Bedeutung zu haben in dem Augenblicke, wo man in die ätherische imaginative Welt eintritt. Daher müssen alle Gleichungen für den Äther so transformiert werden, daß sie nicht in der dreidimensionalen Welt, sondern in der zweidimensionalen Welt spielen. Das ist nur eine Einschiebung, die ich für Mathematiker sage.

Nun aber, wenn man in die Welt übergehen will, die der Inspiration zugänglich ist, und in der wir als Ich zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen drinnen sind, dann wird diese Welt eindimensionale Welt. Dann haben wir es überhaupt nur mit einer eindimensionalen Welt zu tun. Und der Übergang zur eindimensionalen Welt, der vorausgesetzt wird von der Fähigkeit der Inspiration, von der Fähigkeit, das Geistige, in dem wir leben zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen, wirklich zu schauen, dieses Verständnis der eindimensionalen Welt, es wurde zu allen Zeiten getragen von der Initiationswissenschaft.

Ich habe Ihnen geschildert, wie beim Jakob Böhme-Typus die verborgenen Sonnenkräfte - nicht die äußere physische Licht-Sonnenkraft, sondern die verborgenen Sonnenkräfte - offenbar werden. Diese verborgenen Sonnenkräfte sind nun nicht so, daß sie sich dreidimensional ausbreiten, sondern die werden nur in einer Dimension wahrgenommen. Eine ältere, mehr instinktive Initiations-Erkenntnis konnte zu dieser Inspiration vordringen, ohne ein selbstbewußtes, klares Erkennen davon zu haben, aber sie drang vor. Und vieles selbst von dem, was noch überliefert ist in den Urkunden aus älteren Menschheitsepochen, ist nur zu verstehen, wenn man weiß: Das ist so gemeint, daß es sich auf die geistige, auf die durch Inspiration zu erlangende, eindimensionale Welt bezicht, sich bezieht also für unser Erdenleben auf die verborgenen Sonnen- und Sternenkräfte. Aber nicht in den offenbaren Sonnenkräften leben wir zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen, sondern in den verborgenen Sonnenkräften. |

Diese verborgenen Sonnenkräfte durchdringen zum Beispiel gewisse Steine, wenn die physisch offenbaren Sonnenkräfte auch durch diese Steine nicht durchgehen. Aber indem sie diese Steine durchdringen, werden sie eindimensional. Und derjenige, der das Schauen in Inspiration erlangt, der kann dann auch nicht etwa das physische Licht, aber die verborgenen Sonnenkräfte sehen durch die sonst undurchsichtigen Steine; so daß die Steine durchlässig werden für die verborgenen Sonnenkräfte, aber auch durchlässig werden für die Inspirationskräfte. |

In älteren Zeiten, in ganz alten Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung auf Erden brauchte man solche Hilfsmittel nicht. Aber als das alte instinktive Hellsehen, das den Grund der alten Initiations-Erkenntnis gegeben hat, schon im Abnehmen war, da griff man zu solchen Hilfsmitteln, ich möchte sagen, zu Abbreviaturen, um dasjenige, was nun nicht mehr durch instinktiv inspirierte Erkenntnis zu schauen war, um das doch zu schauen. Und da konnte man zum Beispiel zu solchen Abbreviaturen greifen: Denken Sie sich, man stellt eine Anzahl von Steinen zusammen - ich zeichne sie zunächst so, wie wenn sie von oben angeschaut würden. Jetzt zeichne ich sie von der Seite. Jetzt lege ich einen Stein darüber, von der Seite gezeichnet, so. Wenn nun dieses auf eine solche Art angebracht wird, daß man bei gewissen Gelegenheiten die durchgehenden Sonnenstrahlen hat, so daß sie auffallen auf den Deckstein, dann werden von dem Deckstein die physischen Sonnenstrahlen aufgehalten, die verborgenen Sonnenstrahlen gehen durch (siehe Hinweis).

Wenn sich dann derjenige, der sich dazu trainiert hat, aufstellt und nun von der Seite durchschaut, so sieht er die geistigen, eindimensionalen Sonnenstrahlen einfallen und in die Erde hinein verschwinden. Wenn man also eine solche Abbreviatur in den Zeiten, in denen das nicht mehr unmittelbar wahrnehmbar war durch instinktive Hellseherkräfte, aufstellte, so war man in der Lage, in dem kleinen Schattenraum, der sich ergab, indem man von der Seite hinschaute, diejenige Welt der geistigen Sonnenstrahlen wahrzunehmen, in der der Mensch schläft jede Nacht, das heißt, diejenige Welt anzuschauen, die der Mensch durchlebt jedesmal zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen. So daß man also in solchen Vorrichtungen, die einem ja gerade hier in dieser Gegend entgegentreten, dasjenige sehen kann, wodurch in einer Übergangszeit, die aber lange dauerte, von einer gewissen Art von weisen Führern der Menschheit versucht wurde, einzudringen in die verborgenen Sonnenkräfte, gerade in dasjenige, wodurch wiederum ein Mensch wie Jakob Böhme instinktiv durch das bloße Anschauen der irdischen Dinge eingedrungen ist.

Auch wenn man solche Steinzusammenstellungen heute an den geeigneten Orten sieht, so ist ihr eigentlicher Sinn nur zu erklären aus dem, was die Geisteswissenschaft ergeben kann. Sonst wird man selbst über diese Dinge mit einer äußerlichen, nicht die Sache treffenden Erklärung hinweggehen.

Man kann natürlich dann solche Steine auch so aufstellen, daß sie, im Kreise verteilt, die besondere Differenzierung der geistigen Sonnenstrahlen nach den einzelnen Sternbildern zeigen.


Ich habe versucht begreiflich zu machen, in welcher Welt unser Ich lebt zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen. Diese Welt ist nicht zusammengehalten von dem, was in den Kräften des physischen und des ätherischen Leibes liegt. Nun kommen aber von diesem physischen und ätherischen Leibe, die überhaupt das klare Bewußtsein allein bewirken bei den Erdenmenschen, die Beurteilungen, die wir gefühlsmäßig und auch willensmäßig über unsere eigenen Taten, über unsere eigenen inneren Erlebnisse und über unsere Gedanken prägen. Wir urteilen daher, wenn wir wachen, über unser äußeres Leben so, wie wir es eben können, je nachdem, was wir imstande waren, unserem physischen und unserem ätherischen Leib einzuprägen an Gedanken. Aber es sagt zu dem, was wir erleben, nicht bloß unser eigenes Selbst etwas, es sagt zu dem, was wir erleben und was wir tun, der ganze geistige Kosmos etwas. Der urteilt. Der heißt eine Handlung, einen Gedanken, eine Empfindung gut oder böse. Was wir zwischen dem Aufwachen und Einschlafen selber urteilen über das, was wir als Mensch sind, das sagen eben wir. Dasjenige, was der Kosmos, der Geistgehalt des Kosmos, der, wie ich ja in diesen Vorträgen genügend dargestellt habe, das Moralische wie Naturgesetze in sich schließt, zu unserem Menschenwesen, zu unseren Menschentaten sagt, das macht das Ich durch zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen. Und dieses Ich erlebt - so zeigt es sich der Inspiration — auch für den kürzesten Schlaf noch einmal alles dasjenige, was der Mensch durchgemacht hat vom letzten Aufwachen bis zu dem Einschlafen, durch das er eben zu diesem Schlaf gekommen ist, sei er kurz oder sei er lang, in dem er sich jeweilig befindet. So daß der Mensch, wenn das die aufeinanderfolgenden Zustände sind: Wachen, Schlafen, Wachen, Schlafen, im Schlafe immer wiederum erlebt das, was er in der letzten Wachensperiode durchgemacht hat, insbesondere insofern er es selber durchgemacht hat.

Dieses Erleben bleibt, insofern es Erleben des Ich ist, für das gewöhnliche Erdenbewußtsein zunächst unbewußt. Die Inspiration kann es heraufrufen in das Bewußtsein. Dann stellt sich die besondere Natur dieses Erlebten gerade dar. Dann sieht man ein, wie dieses Erleben ist. Nun, dieses Erleben ist so, daß man es gerade in der entgegengesetzten Richtung von derjenigen durchmacht, die man bei Tag durchlebt. Wenn Sie also bei Tag Ihre Erlebnisse durchmachen - ich will jetzt kürzere Schlaferlebnisse ausschließen - vom Morgen bis zum Abend, so durchleben Sie während der Nacht schlafend rücklaufend Ihre Erlebnisse vom Abend bis zum Morgen, richtig rücklaufend. Sie werden so durchlebt, daß das durchlebt wird, was der Kosmos, der Geistkosmos zu unseren Tageserlebnissen sagt.

Aber das kann während des Erdenlebens für den gegenwärtigen Menschen überhaupt nicht ins Bewußtsein hereingerufen werden. Aber es muß ins Bewußtsein kommen, sonst würde der Mensch in seinem Dasein herausfallen aus dem kosmischen Dasein. Die inspirierte Erkenntnis zeigt nun auch, daß in dem Augenblick, wo nach dem Tode der Mensch, wie ich gesagt habe, zwei, drei, vier Tage lang jenes Tableau überschaut hat, die Erinnerungen hinausevolviert werden in den Kosmos, und daß dann, nachdem dieses Erlebnis der auf den Tod folgenden zwei, drei, vier Tage erfolgt ist, während welcher die Ausbreitung der Erinnerungen geschieht was man oftmals auch nennt das Loslösen des Ätherleibes -, eine Zeit beginnt für den Menschen, in der er in anderer Weise noch zurückschauen kann auf das Erdenleben als vorher.

Wenn wir diese zwei, drei, vier Tage etwa nach dem Tode nehmen, so zeigt sich ein mächtiges Lebenstableau. Aber in diesem Lebenstableau ist nur dasjenige zunächst drinnen, was man während der 'Tage, während der Wachensperiode erlebt hat. Aber der Mensch hat ja in Wirklichkeit nicht bloß das durchgemacht, was er in seinen Wachensperioden durchgemacht hat, sondern auch dasjenige, was er in seinen Schlafensperioden durchgemacht hat. Wenn Sie zurückschauen in dem gewöhnlichen Erdenleben auch durch die gewöhnlichen Erinnerungen, so lassen Sie immer Ihre Schlafensperiode aus. Sie schauen so zurück, als ob Sie den 25. August 1923 erlebt hätten, aber nicht die Nacht, in Ihren inneren Erlebnissen. Dann stückeln Sie gleich an den 25. Tag nicht die Nachterlebnisse an, die entziehen sich ja Ihrem Bewußtsein, sondern den 24., den 23. August und so fort bis zu dem Zeitpunkte nach Ihrer Geburt, an den Sie sich nicht erinnern.

Das ist es ja in der Tat, was auch in der Zeit zwei bis drei Tage nach dem Tode auftritt. Nachher tritt diejenige Periode auf, wo das Seelisch-Geistige nach dem Tode nun stark genug geworden ist, um in der geistigen Welt das zu erleben, was es nur unbewußt im Bilde ausgestalten konnte jedesmal zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen. Das tritt als Erlebnis auf. Und der Mensch durchlebt nun ungefähr ein Drittel seines Lebens, denn das ungefähr verschläft der Mensch im normalen Erdenleben. Daher geht jetzt der Mensch durch eine Periode durch nach seinem Tode, wo er seine Nächte rücklaufend durchlebt ungefähr ein Drittel seines Lebens lang, entsprechend der Zeit des Erdenlebens. Da wird das menschliche Leben rücklaufend noch einmal durchlebt, erst die letzte Nacht, dann die vorletzte, dann die drittletzte Nacht, und so fort, bis wir bei der Geburt beziehungsweise Empfängnis angekommen sind.

Von anderen Gesichtspunkten aus habe ich dieses Durchgehen des Menschen rücklaufend durch eine ganz andere Welt nach dem Tode geschildert in dem, was ich in meiner «Theosophie» ausgeführt habe als Durchgang des menschlichen seelisch-geistigen Wesens durch die Seelenwelt.

Nun, nachdem der Mensch auf diese Weise durch die Seelenwelt gegangen ist - wenn er im Leben zwanzig oder einundzwanzig Jahre geworden ist, sind das nach dem Tode etwa sieben Jahre, wenn er sechzig Jahre geworden ist, etwa zwanzig Jahre; das ist genau ebenso lang, als er vom Leben hier auf der Erde verschlafen hat -, da steht er nun davor, dasjenige zu erleben, was durch sein ganzes Wesen aus jenem Erdendasein geworden ist, das ja die Götter geschaffen haben, um mit Hilfe des Menschengeschlechts die Welt wiederum um ein Stück vorwärtszubringen. Bis zum Ende dieses Rückwärtserlebens der Nächte hat der Mensch erfahren nach dem Tode, was aus ihm geworden ist, und was er bedeutet für den Kosmos. Jetzt hat der Mensch zu erleben, was durch sein Leben für die Erde selbst geschehen ist. Das erfordert lange Zeit wir werden morgen genauer darüber zu sprechen haben -, das füllt die Hälfte der Zeit aus zwischen dem irdischen Tode und einem neuen Erdenleben.

Zunächst kommen wir, wenn wir die Nächte rückwärtsgehen, bei der Geburt an. Wenn wir da angekommen sind, wenn wir die Seelenwelt durchwandelt haben und bei unserer Geburt wiederum rücklaufend angekommen sind — wir gehen in der Zeit zurück nach dem Tode -, dann haben wir den Weg bis zu unserem vorigen Erdenleben durchzumachen. So daß der Mensch dann sein vorhergehendes Erdenleben mit hinübernehmen kann, gestaltend für ein weiteres, ein drittes Erdenleben. Der Mensch muß also nicht nur bis zu seiner Geburt zurückgehen, nachlebend nach dem Tode, sondern bis zu seinem vorangehenden Erdenleben.

Damit betreten wir ein Gebiet der alten Initiations-Wissenschaft, die heute erneuert werden muß in der Weise, wie es den gegenwärtigen Menschenfähigkeiten angemessen ist, wo diese Initiations-Wissenschaft die Erkenntnis übergeführt hat in das religiöse Erleben des Menschen. Denn Initiations-Wissenschaft ist immer wirkliche Erkenntnis, aber eine solche Erkenntnis, die aus der sinnlichen Welt in die geistige hinüberführt, so daß sie den Willen des Menschen in der Art anregen kann, daß dieser Wille eben religiös gestaltet wird. Und da war es für die Initiations-Wissenschaft aller Zeiten eine sehr wichtige Erfahrung, die sich der dritten Art der Erkenntnis, die ich in diesen Tagen charakterisiert habe, der intuitiven Erkenntnis, ergibt, daß es für den Menschen von ganz besonderer Wichtigkeit ist, daß er, indem er nun rückwärtswandelt durch das Leben bis zu seinem vorigen Erdenleben, auf diesem Wege rückwärts trifft irgendein Wesen, das ihm Führer werden kann nach dem Tode.

Auf einem gewissen Erdengebiete haben sich die Menschen gesagt: Ich muß aufnehmen im Erdenleben die Lehren des letzten Bodhisattva, der auf Erden erschienen war. Der Mensch hat vielleicht gelebt, sagen wir, dreihundert Jahre nach dem Erscheinen des Bodhisattva. Aber nachdem er nach dem Tode zurückgewandert ist bis zu seinem vorigen Erdenleben - denn dieses Zurückwandern, dieses Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt dauert eben länger —, gelangte er noch zu derjenigen Zeit, in der der letzte Bodhisattva auf Erden war. Und dem Begegnen mit dem letzten Bodhisattva schrieb man es in der alten Initiations-Wissenschaft zu, daß der Mensch wirklich finden kann die Anknüpfung an sein vorhergehendes Erdenleben, das heißt, Kraft finden kann zum ewigen Leben, die nur gefunden werden kann, wenn an das vorhergehende Erdenleben angeknüpft werden kann.

Diese Möglichkeit, zu treffen auf die Bodhisattvas, die von gewissen Regionen des Geistigen heruntersteigen ins Irdische, hörte in einem bestimmten Zeitmomente der Menschheitsevolution, der Weltenentwickelung, auf. Und heute wäre der Mensch in einer solchen Lage, daß, wenn er nach dem Tode durchgemacht hat jenes Rücklaufen bis zu seiner Geburt beziehungsweise Empfängnis, er dann weiter den Weg suchen würde rückwärts bis zu den vorigen Erdenleben, und er würde nicht finden können die Anknüpfung an die vorigen Erdenleben.

Sehen Sie, diese Anknüpfung konnte man finden in den ersten Jahrtausenden der Erdenentwickelung vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha, indem man beim Zurückwandern auf das Zeitalter des letzten Bodhisattva traf. Heute nützt es den Menschen nur, wenn sie dieses Zurückwandern unter der Führerschaft desjenigen Wesens, das durch das Mysterium von Golgatha sich mit der Erde vereint hat, durchmachen, das heißt mit anderen Worten, wenn eine solche Beziehung des Menschen zum Mysterium von Golgatha eintritt, daß der Christus der Führer werden kann für die Menschen, weil der Christus zusammenfaßt dasjenige, was an Führergewalten immer vorhanden war für das Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt durch die auf der Erde erscheinenden Bodhisattvas.

So ist also das Eintreten des Mysteriums von Golgatha gerade für die Erlebnisse zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt mit eine der wichtigsten Tatsachen in der ganzen Erdenevolution. Will man daher die geistige Evolution der Erde und das Hereinstellen dieser geistigen Evolution der Erde in die geistige Evolution des Kosmos kennenlernen, und will man wiederum verstehen, was im Zusammenhange mit dieser geistigen Evolution von Erde und Kosmos der Mensch zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt in seinem geistigen Leben nach dem Tode durchmacht, dann muß man hineinstellen in die ganze Weltenentwickelung das Mysterium von Golgatha. So daß für den heutigen Menschen der Übergang gefunden werden muß von der Beobachtung der Evolution des Menschen zu der Beobachtung der Evolution der Welt, indem mit angeschaut wird bei diesem Übergang das Mysterium von Golgatha in seiner ganzen fundamentalen Bedeutung für die Geschehnisse der Erdenevolution und der Menschheitsevolution innerhalb des Irdischen.

Von diesen Dingen, insofern sie durch die moderne InitiationsWissenschaft nun enthüllt werden können, die sich abspielen in Anknüpfung an dasjenige, was der Mensch, nachdem er die Rückerinnerung an seine Nachterlebnisse gehabt hat, weiter nach dem Tode erlebt, von diesen Erlebnissen des Menschen nach dem Tode soll nun der morgige Vortrag im Zusammenhange mit der Weltentwickelung handeln.

The sleep experiences of man as a forerunner of the experiences after death

In the discussion about the relationship between sleeping and waking in the human being on the one hand and the organization of the human being on the other, we could see how the human being actually experiences a profound division of his earthly existence with sleep. We have seen from the various discussions of the last few days how we have to distinguish in man that which is sensually and physically perceptible in him: the physical body; that which is no longer sensually and physically perceptible, that which can only be seen in the imagination: his etheric body or, as I must also say, his body of formative forces. This body of formative forces contains the living forces that make the human being grow, that underlie the processes of nourishment, the whole structure of the human being and so on. However, as we have seen, this formative forces body also contains the entire system of human thoughts. Incorporated into this formative forces or etheric body and into the physical body are then the two higher members of the human being, that which - as I have already said, one should not be offended by the terminology - can be called the astral body and that which can be described as the actual ego organization.

When the human being lives through his daily life, these four parts of human nature are active in each other, in interrelation, in an intimate connection. When man passes into the state of sleep, the physical body and the body of formative forces separate from the astral body and the ego - they remain behind in bed, if I may so express myself - and the astral organization and the ego organization enter into a purely spiritual world. So that the human being is split in his being from falling asleep to waking up: on the one side the physical organization is present with the etheric organization, which at the same time holds back the entire world of thoughts of the human being, and on the other side the ego organization and the astral organization are present.

I believe someone once expressed this concern these days: If the entire world of thoughts remains behind in the etheric organization during sleep, then one could not work over into the sleeping state through the thoughts that one only grasps in the waking state. So that to a certain extent a kind of fear has arisen in him who has said this, as if, for example, if one clothed any wishes, for instance for one's fellow men, in thoughts, or if such thoughts relate to one who is in a state of sleep, the power of these thoughts could be lost, because man does not take them over into sleep. Well, I would like to answer this with an image.

You will never have heard that someone who wants to hit a target with a shotgun has to throw the shotgun straight at it. He lets go of the load and keeps the shotgun. One cannot now express the idea that nothing goes to the target because he keeps the shotgun back. Nor do the effects of the waking life, of the thinking waking life, remain absent for the sleeping life, because one holds back the thoughts in the physical and etheric body, does not himself send them over into the sleeping life. It is precisely with these things, which are subtle, that one always thinks exactly, very precisely, as one never really needs to do for the physical world, because the things of the outer world immediately correct one. But you can see from what has been said here these days that there is a much more intimate relationship between the physical body and the etheric body than, for example, between the etheric body and the astral organization. For throughout life on earth the physical body and the etheric body remain together. They never separate, not even in a state of sleep. The etheric body and the astral body must separate in sleep.

On the other hand, there is an intimate connection between the ego and the astral organization, for they again never separate during life on earth. But the connection between the astral body and the etheric body is a looser one. This is where the split can occur. This has a very definite effect on human life on earth and also on man's life on earth. When we are awake, we animate our senses with our ego, our nervous system with our astral body, and then send what comes about in this way into the etheric body and into the physical body; for if one wants to live in the physical world, one must send down into the etheric body and into the physical body all that one experiences in the ego and in the astral body. This is why materialism believes that the physical body can be everything in the human being, because in fact everything must be expressed in the physical body, must manifest itself in the life between birth or, let us say, conception and death.

But this work of integrating the experiences of earthly existence into the etheric body and into the physical body does not proceed without obstacles and hindrances. We are never really able without further ado to send that which we experience through the senses, that which we integrate into our nervous system through our thinking, directly down into the organs that belong to the body of formative forces and the physical body. That which we receive from the outer physical world is first of all, as we receive it, shaped, formed in such a way that it resembles outer existence. If, for example, we perceive something that is angular in shape, the experience of the angular is first formed for us within our ego and our astral body. But this cannot be absorbed directly into the etheric body. The etheric body initially resists this absorption of what we experience in the sensory external world. Only imaginative cognition can have an enlightening effect on these relationships. Ordinary sensory observation or even sensory experimentation on human beings or intellectualistic reasoning are not sufficient to look at this process, which consists in this necessary transformation and reshaping of that which we perceive sensually, so that it becomes suitable to live on in our etheric body and physical body, so that we can also separate ourselves from it in sleep. And only when one can observe how the relationship between waking and sleeping actually is in the earthly human being, then one comes to the conclusion that a constant struggle takes place in life. One takes in an external impression, an external experience. But this cannot immediately descend into the physical and etheric body, because, if I use this crude example, the experience one has of an angular thing must enter the etheric body, the physical body, by first being rounded, by first taking on its own form. A thorough reshaping must take place.

This reshaping of what at first lives as fleetingly as the ego and the astral body itself, into a plastic structure that can then live in the etheric body, and into a plasticizing movement that can then continue to exist in the physical body, this reshaping, this gives rise to an inner struggle that remains unconscious to the ordinary human consciousness of today. But those who have imaginative cognition can observe this struggle, which usually lasts two or three days. One must have slept over an experience two or sometimes three times before it connects with the other experiences which are already imprints in the physical and etheric body. One must have slept over it two or three times. And the dream world actually expresses this struggle externally, but only externally. When man dreams, as I have already explained, his ego and the astral body push themselves into the etheric body and the physical body, they accumulate. This congestion is the expression of the struggle that I am now describing to you and which lasts about two to three days. Once you have slept over the experience, it is not yet sufficiently absorbed into the etheric body. Only when one has slept over it two or three times is it absorbed into the etheric body. So that where the human being is loosely connected in relation to his astral body and etheric body, one sees a continual interweaving.

Drawn quite crudely and schematically [original drawing not preserved]: If this is the etheric body and that is the astral body in sleep, then when waking up or falling asleep a continuous struggle takes place at the boundary, a living stirring that expresses itself outwardly in dreams, but inwardly signifies this interweaving of experiences into the etheric and physical body. And only when a person has slept over some experience two or three times, sometimes more often, has this experience reconnected with that which was already connected with the etheric and physical body as memory; for that is what is important, that the experience is transformed into memory, which then also remains in bed when we sleep, because it is essentially the expression of the physical and etheric body in thought, - so after two to three days the experience has only become interwoven with memory.

It is a tremendously interesting experience for the imaginative cognition to perceive this. Even the form in which it expresses itself is significant. We approach external earthly experiences in such a way that we give them certain contours according to naturalistic laws. We experience precisely that which is present in our earthly existence with certain contours, one might say in the form of natural law. These laws of nature are dissolved by integrating the experiences into the etheric. Everything that has certain contours here becomes - I would like to say softly figurative. What rests is moved, what is angular is rounded. Everything transitions from what one experiences as an intellectual person into what one experiences as an artistic person.

This is the inner reason why in those older times, when people still instinctively saw what I have just described to you, art was rooted in life in a completely different way than it is today. Even in the Renaissance, when people went back to the old art, in Raphael, in other Renaissance artists, there were at least traditions of this transformation of the intellectual into the artistic. For the moment one reaches the supersensible, the intellectual in its intellectual form is immediately lost, and everything is transformed into the artistic. By relying so much on naturalism in art today, by wanting to do everything according to the model, people show that they have strayed from the real artistry. Humanity must once again live itself into this true artistry.

And so, as I have described, human life is actually composed in such a way that one can always say: I have an experience; it flows through three days into the etheric body. The next day the immediate experience floods in one day later. And so, with regard to his etheric body, a person is only finished with an experience after two to three or four days, so to speak.

When the human being passes through the gate of death, the etheric body separates from the physical body - something that never took place in earthly existence. Everything that has been interwoven into the etheric body for two, three or four days is now dissolved again in the etheric body that is released from the physical body. And the dissolution takes about as long as the interweaving took. Imagination, which can judge in the right way, shows how the physical body holds together through its resistance that which has gradually migrated over into the etheric body. When the physical body is gone in death, one sees in the first days after death how that which has become interwoven into the etheric body passes over again into the general cosmic ether, how it dissolves again. And this experience of the dissolution of the entire memory material is experienced by the human being two, three, four days after his death. You can call this the shedding of the etheric body. But this shedding is actually the memories becoming larger and larger; they lose the third dimension, become two-dimensional, become completely pictorial. And the entire tableau of his life stands before the person, running in vivid pictures, after he has passed through the gate of death, for about two, three, four days, individually different for each person.

But just as someone who has studied botany can see from the plant seed what kind of plant it will become, so someone who has come to imaginative knowledge not only sees this transition of the etheric, that is, of the entire memory system to the cosmos, at death, but he already sees it when it is present in the image. And it is always present in the image of the human being. If one knows how to grasp in the right way what passes completely into one another within three days, possibly more, then one sees in this incorporation of the experiences into the etheric body that which two, three, four days after the human being has passed through the gate of death is experienced inwardly by the human being. While the human being experiences this involvement of experiences in the memory held together by the physical body more or less unconsciously during his earthly existence, if he does not come to imaginative cognition, he experiences the evolving, the unwinding and passing into the cosmos of his memories immediately after death. So what we leave behind each time between falling asleep and waking up as our treasures of thought, that immediately after death, connecting with the cosmos, passes over into the whole universe. This is what we have to hand over to cosmic existence when we die.

These things must not only be received with the intellect, but also with the mind. For in such a process one feels how man does not merely stand there in such a way that he may take an egoistic view of his existence, but how he stands there in the world and is a thinking being, but how these thoughts are not merely something that he may preserve, but thoughts are something that after his death must pass over into the whole cosmos, become forces that continue to work in the cosmos. If we think good thoughts, we hand over our good thoughts to the cosmos after death. If we think badly, then after death we hand over our bad thoughts to the cosmos. For man is not merely there in earthly existence so that he can develop as a free being - he should, and he can do so on this very basis, which is also relevant to him - he is also there to be a being on which the gods themselves work in order to lead the cosmos from epoch to epoch. And I would like to say: That which the gods have to weave into the cosmos as thoughts, they must prepare through that which can be thought and conceived in the individual human life. There is the nurturing place, the place in which the gods must nurture those thoughts which they continually need in the development of the world in order to incorporate them into their cosmos as the actual impulses of power.


When man is in the state between falling asleep and waking up, he lives with his ego and with his astral organization outside the physical and etheric body. In this state he is interwoven as a soul-spiritual being, as ego and astral body, with the spiritual forces that pervade the whole cosmos. He is in that world which, if I may express myself figuratively, is outside his skin, he is in that world from which he receives only the sensory impressions from the moment he wakes up until he falls asleep. He therefore enters into the interior of the things that show him their exterior during waking life. But only that which the astral organization experiences outside the physical body and the etheric body can be brought back into the thoughts of the etheric body. What the ego experiences out there cannot be brought back. Therefore the actual ego-experiences during the whole of life on earth, those ego-experiences which are experienced in sleep, remain subconscious for the ordinary consciousness and even for the imaginative consciousness. They only become apparent to the inspired consciousness, as I have described in these days.

So that we can say: For that which man experiences in such a way that it can be impressed upon his thoughts, he has strength enough, strength enough gathered in sleep, to impress it down into the etheric body. But he does not have enough strength during his earthly life for that which the ego experiences from falling asleep to waking up in the form of desires, of cravings, which are based on earthly experiences, and which are also experienced from falling asleep to waking up. So that in fact in our epoch only that part of the sleeping life which is to be transformed into thoughts, or that part of the sleeping life which is to be impressed upon the thoughts, passes over into the conscious waking life of the earthly human being. In contrast, that which the actual I experiences during human sleep remains hidden, I would say behind the veil of existence.

Now things come to light here for imaginative and inspired consciousness which, if one is unbiased enough, are certainly comprehensible to common sense, but which are opposed by tremendous prejudices, especially in today's civilization. The very fact that everything that is three-dimensional here in the physical world - and in the physical world everything is basically experienced three-dimensionally - if it is to be imprinted on the etheric body, passes from the plastic into the pictorial form, from the three-dimensional into the two-dimensional, already requires an impartiality to comprehend. For the moment we move into the imagination, we are no longer dealing with the three dimensions or even, as a derived science believes, with four dimensions; we are then dealing with two dimensions. The difficulty in imagining what is experienced there lies in the fact that we are quite used to reckoning with three dimensions in our earthly experiences, to imagining everything according to three dimensions, and that therefore, when we are supposed to find the transition to two dimensions, we say: Yes, but the two dimensions are inside the three dimensions; the two dimensions of the plane can lie in one way or another, so that we would nevertheless have the third dimension again.

This is not the case, but the third dimension is, as soon as one enters the imaginative world, quite indifferent; it makes no difference whether the plane is positioned this way or that; the third dimension ceases to have any meaning the moment one enters the etheric imaginative world. Therefore, all equations for the ether must be transformed so that they do not play in the three-dimensional world, but in the two-dimensional world. That's just an insertion I'm saying for mathematicians.

Now, however, if we want to move into the world that is accessible to inspiration, and in which we as ego are inside between falling asleep and waking up, then this world becomes a one-dimensional world. Then we are only dealing with a one-dimensional world. And the transition to the one-dimensional world, which is presupposed by the ability of inspiration, by the ability to really see the spiritual world in which we live between falling asleep and waking up, this understanding of the one-dimensional world, it has been supported at all times by initiation science.

I have described to you how the hidden solar forces - not the outer physical light-solar force, but the hidden solar forces - are revealed in the Jakob Böhme type. These hidden solar forces are not such that they spread out in three dimensions, but are only perceived in one dimension. An older, more instinctive initiatory knowledge could penetrate to this inspiration without having a self-conscious, clear recognition of it, but it did penetrate. And much of what is still handed down in the documents from older epochs of humanity can only be understood if one knows that it is meant to refer to the spiritual, to the one-dimensional world that can be attained through inspiration, and thus refers to the hidden solar and stellar forces for our life on earth. But it is not in the revealed solar forces that we live between falling asleep and waking up, but in the hidden solar forces.

These hidden solar forces penetrate certain stones, for example, even if the physically revealed solar forces do not pass through these stones. But by penetrating these stones, they become one-dimensional. And the one who attains vision in inspiration can then see not the physical light, but the hidden solar forces through the otherwise opaque stones; so that the stones become permeable to the hidden solar forces, but also permeable to the inspirational forces.

In older times, in very old times of human development on earth, such aids were not needed. But when the old instinctive clairvoyance, which was the basis of the old initiatory knowledge, was already on the wane, people resorted to such aids, I would say to abbreviations, in order to see that which could no longer be seen through instinctively inspired knowledge. And here, for example, one could resort to such abbreviations: Imagine you put a number of stones together - I first draw them as if they were being looked at from above. Now I draw them from the side. Now I place a stone on top of them, drawn from the side, like this. Now if this is placed in such a way that on certain occasions you have the sun's rays passing through, so that they stand out on the capstone, then the physical rays of the sun are stopped by the capstone, the hidden rays of the sun pass through (see note).

If the person who has trained himself to do this then stands up and looks through from the side, he will see the spiritual, one-dimensional sunbeams falling in and disappearing into the earth. So if one set up such an abbreviation in the times when this was no longer directly perceptible through instinctive clairvoyant powers, one was able to perceive in the small shadow space that arose by looking from the side, the world of the spiritual sunbeams in which man sleeps every night, that is, to look at the world that man lives through every time between falling asleep and waking up. So that one can see in such devices, which one encounters just here in this area, that through which in a transitional time, but which lasted a long time, a certain kind of wise leaders of mankind tried to penetrate into the hidden solar forces, just into that through which again a man like Jakob Böhme instinctively penetrated through the mere looking at earthly things.

Even if one sees such stone compositions today in the appropriate places, their actual meaning can only be explained by what spiritual science can reveal. Otherwise one will pass over these things with an external explanation that does not fit the matter.

Of course, such stones can then also be placed in such a way that, distributed in a circle, they show the particular differentiation of the spiritual rays of the sun according to the individual constellations.


I have tried to explain the world in which our ego lives between falling asleep and waking up. This world is not held together by what lies in the forces of the physical and etheric body. But from this physical and etheric body, which alone bring about clear consciousness in earthlings, come the judgments that we form emotionally and also volitionally about our own deeds, our own inner experiences and our thoughts. Therefore, when we are awake, we judge our outer life as we are able, according to the thoughts we have been able to imprint on our physical and etheric bodies. But it is not only our own self that has something to say about what we experience; the whole spiritual cosmos has something to say about what we experience and what we do. It judges. It calls an action, a thought, a feeling good or bad. What we ourselves judge between waking up and falling asleep about what we are as human beings, that is what we say. What the cosmos, the spiritual content of the cosmos, which, as I have explained sufficiently in these lectures, includes the moral as well as the laws of nature, says about our human nature, about our human deeds, is what the ego goes through between falling asleep and waking up. And this ego experiences - so it shows itself to inspiration - even for the shortest sleep once again all that which the human being has gone through from the last waking up to the falling asleep, through which he has just come to this sleep, be it short or long, in which he finds himself in each case. So that the human being, if these are the successive states: Waking, sleeping, waking, sleeping, in sleep he always experiences again what he has gone through in the last waking period, especially in so far as he has gone through it himself.

This experience, insofar as it is the experience of the ego, initially remains unconscious for the ordinary earth consciousness. Inspiration can call it up into consciousness. Then the particular nature of this experience presents itself. Then one realizes what this experience is like. Well, this experience is such that you go through it in the opposite direction to the one you go through during the day. So if you go through your experiences during the day - I will now exclude shorter sleep experiences - from the morning to the evening, then during the night you go through your experiences from the evening to the morning, really going backwards. They are lived through in such a way that what the cosmos, the spirit cosmos, says about our daytime experiences is lived through.

But this cannot be called into consciousness at all for the present human being during life on earth. But it must come into consciousness, otherwise man in his existence would fall out of the cosmic existence. Inspired knowledge now also shows that at the moment when, as I have said, after death man has looked over that tableau for two, three, four days, the memories are evolved out into the cosmos, and that then, after this experience of the two, three, four days following death has taken place, during which the spreading of the memories happens - which is often also called the detachment of the etheric body - a time begins for man in which he can still look back on earth life in a different way than before.

If we take these two, three or four days after death, a powerful life tableau appears. But this life tableau only contains what we experienced during the 'days, during the waking period. But in reality man has not only gone through what he went through in his waking periods, but also what he went through in his sleeping periods. When you look back in your ordinary life on earth, even through your ordinary memories, you always leave out your sleeping period. You look back as if you had experienced August 25, 1923, but not the night, in your inner experiences. Then you do not add the night experiences to the 25th day, as they are beyond your consciousness, but the 24th, the 23rd of August and so on up to the time after your birth, which you do not remember.

This is indeed what occurs in the period two to three days after death. After that comes the period when the soul-spirit has become strong enough after death to experience in the spiritual world what it could only unconsciously form in image each time between falling asleep and waking up. This occurs as an experience. And the human being now lives through about a third of his life, because that is about what the human being sleeps through in normal earthly life. Therefore, the human being now goes through a period after his death where he lives through his nights in regression for about a third of his life, corresponding to the time of his life on earth. The human life is lived through again, first the last night, then the penultimate night, then the third last night, and so on, until we arrive at birth or conception.

From another point of view, I have described this passage of the human being running back through a completely different world after death in what I have explained in my “Theosophy” as the passage of the human soul-spiritual being through the soul world.

Now, after man has gone through the soul world in this way - if he has become twenty or twenty-one years in life, that is about seven years after death, if he has become sixty years, about twenty years; that is exactly as long as he has slept through life here on earth - there he now stands before to experience that what has become through his whole being from that earth existence, which the gods have created to bring the world again a little forward with the help of the human race. Until the end of this backward experience of the nights, man has experienced after death what he has become and what he means for the cosmos. Now man has to experience what has happened for the earth itself through his life. This takes a long time - we will talk about it in more detail tomorrow - and fills half of the time between earthly death and a new life on earth.

First, if we go backwards through the nights, we arrive at birth. When we have arrived there, when we have passed through the soul world and have arrived at our birth again going backwards - we go back in time after death - then we have to go through the path to our previous life on earth. So that the human being can then take his previous earth life with him, shaping it for a further, a third earth life. The human being must therefore not only go back to his birth, living after death, but to his previous life on earth.

With this we enter an area of the old science of initiation, which must be renewed today in a way that is appropriate to the present human abilities, where this science of initiation has transferred knowledge into the religious experience of man. For initiation science is always real knowledge, but such knowledge that leads from the sensual world into the spiritual world so that it can stimulate the will of man in such a way that this will is shaped religiously. And there it was a very important experience for the initiation science of all times, which results from the third kind of knowledge, which I have characterized in these days, the intuitive knowledge, that it is of quite special importance for man that he, by now walking backwards through life to his previous earth life, meets on this way backwards some being, which can become guide for him after death.

In a certain sphere on earth people have said to themselves: I must absorb in earthly life the teachings of the last Bodhisattva who appeared on earth. The person may have lived, say, three hundred years after the appearance of the bodhisattva. But after death he wandered back to his previous life on earth - for this wandering back, this life between death and a new birth, lasts longer - he arrived at the time when the last bodhisattva was on earth. And in the old science of initiation it was ascribed to the encounter with the last Bodhisattva that man can really find the connection to his previous earthly life, that is, find strength for eternal life, which can only be found if the previous earthly life can be connected to.

This possibility of meeting the Bodhisattvas, who descend from certain regions of the spiritual into the earthly, ceased at a certain moment in the evolution of mankind, the evolution of the world. And today man would be in such a position that, after death, when he has gone through this running back to his birth or conception, he would then continue to seek the path backwards to the previous earth lives, and he would not be able to find the connection to the previous earth lives.

You see, this connection could be found in the first millennia of the earth's development before the Mystery of Golgotha, in that one encountered the age of the last Bodhisattva while wandering backwards. Today it only benefits people if they go through this wandering back under the leadership of the being who has united with the earth through the Mystery of Golgotha, that is, in other words, if such a relationship of man to the Mystery of Golgotha occurs that the Christ can become the leader for people, because the Christ summarizes that which was always present in the powers of leadership for life between death and a new birth through the Bodhisattvas appearing on earth.

So the occurrence of the Mystery of Golgotha is one of the most important facts in the entire evolution of the earth, especially for the experiences between death and a new birth. Therefore, if one wants to know the spiritual evolution of the earth and the insertion of this spiritual evolution of the earth into the spiritual evolution of the cosmos, and if one wants to understand what, in connection with this spiritual evolution of earth and cosmos, man goes through between death and a new birth in his spiritual life after death, then one must insert the Mystery of Golgotha into the whole development of the world. So that for today's man the transition must be found from the observation of the evolution of man to the observation of the evolution of the world, by looking at the Mystery of Golgotha in all its fundamental significance for the events of earthly evolution and the evolution of mankind within the earthly.

Tomorrow's lecture will deal with these things, in so far as they can now be revealed by modern initiation science, which take place in connection with what man experiences after death, after he has had the recollection of his night experiences, these experiences of man after death in connection with the development of the world.