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Philosophy, Cosmology & Religion
GA 215

11 September 1922, Dornach

6. The Transition from the Soul-Spiritual Existence in Human Development to the Sensory-Physical

From the descriptions I have given of inspired and intuitive knowledge it will be evident that it is possible for man to experience the cosmos in his inner nature, his soul and spirit. I was able to indicate yesterday that such an experience occurs during sleep, only that ordinary consciousness is unaware of it. Man experiences cosmically, but in ordinary consciousness he knows nothing of it. One can say that man in his physical sense life experiences himself in his physical and etheric bodies and considers their organs as his inner nature. In cosmic experience—as it occurs in sleep, for example—he experiences as his inner nature a reflection of cosmic beings. Thus, even in the state of sleep man's ordinary inner world becomes in fact an outer world. When he sleeps, he simply has before him as an outer world his physical and etheric bodies, which otherwise constitute his being, and the cosmos which to sense observation constitutes the surrounding world becomes in a certain sense an inner world.

But, during sleep, a continuing desire to return to his physical body exists in man's astral and ego nature. This is especially strong in that deepest stage of sleep which I pointed to yesterday as the sleep in what I have called “fixed star consciousness.” This desire to return to the physical and etheric bodies naturally is connected with the fact that these bodies continue to exist, fully alive, during sleep. Man develops this intense longing to return because of the spiritual moon forces active in the cosmos, as I described yesterday.

If spiritual science, anthroposophy, is to be rightly understood, one must keep clearly in mind that the various relationships must be presented from the greatest number of viewpoints. For instance, someone might hear me say that the reason why a man wants to return into his physical and etheric bodies in the morning is that his soul yearns to do so. Then someone else could say that this return depends upon the moon forces. Both are correct, only that the wish to return is aroused during man's cosmic experience by the moon forces that also permeate his astral and ego organizations between falling asleep and waking. These moon forces, that is their spiritual correlation, cannot function when man is in his pre-earthly existence prior to his descent from the spiritual world and prior to his having taken on his physical body. When he is in a purely spiritual cosmos in his prenatal existence, no such relation to a physical and etheric body is possible, for they are non-existent. During sleep, however, they wait to be ensouled and filled again with spirit by the actual inner human entity.

Such a physical-etheric organism is not present in pre-earthly man, but something else is. At a certain stage of his pre-earthly existence he experiences a kind of cosmos as his , inner world. In a way he feels himself to be a cosmos. But in this prenatal existence, this cosmos differs from the one that surrounds us between birth and death and is perceived by the senses. This cosmos, which is experienced at a certain stage of pre-earthly life, is a kind of cosmic seed of the later physical human organism with which man must clothe himself when he descends to earth existence. Just think of everything earthly man possesses as his physical organism, spread out boundlessly: lungs, liver, heart, etc., all their processes—naturally as forces, not as physical-material organs—spread out into cosmic infinity. Man experiences this in such a way, however, that his soul encompasses this cosmos, having it at the same time as his inner life.

When I say that man experiences his future physical organism as a germ, a seed, there is a difference between using the word germ in one instance for spiritual existence and in another for physical existence. In the latter one means something small that unfolds into a larger organism. But when I say that the cosmic germ of man's physical body is experienced in pre-earthly existence as a cosmos, this germ is immeasurably large, and gradually contracts until at last it is small. Naturally, one must consider that in this case—at least for the spiritual, the pre-earthly existence—the word large is used figuratively in relation to the later word small, for in pre-earthly existence one does not experience space as one does here in the physical world. Everything is experienced qualitatively. Space as we know it in our sense world exists only for this sense world. But in order to illustrate this so that we can take something from human language to characterize these conditions of pre-earthly existence, this distinction can well be made. So, we can say that the cosmic human germ is immense, and gradually contracts more and more, until it finally appears small in man's physical organism.

Thus, we must picture to ourselves that in his pre-earthly existence man does not have the same star-filled view of the cosmos as we perceive it from the physical world; he has a cosmos around him that contains soul-spiritual beings. Man feels himself bound up with them, he feels them, as it were, within him. He feels his soul nature spread out far across this cosmos. This cosmos is actually nothing else than his future physical body expanded to a universe. Man experiences his future inner world as a cosmic outer world, which, however, he experiences along with his inner being. Therefore, we can say that this whole cosmos—I would like to call it the cosmos of man—that man experiences as his own, is his own individual existence. At the same time, he experiences the life of other beings, of other human souls and spiritual beings who do not enter physical existence. He lives into these beings, so that he experiences a kind of universe of his own and at the same time a kind of being-together with other beings. I should like to call this being-together with other beings at this stage of pre-earthly existence an active intuition; a real, experienced intuition. What is at other times reproduced in supersensible perception by intuition is a living reality for pre-earthly existence.

Now, in the way I described it yesterday, while man in sleep lives in a replica of the cosmos—being outside his physical as well as etheric organizations which, however, possess finished and completed form—in pre-earthly life he has the developing physical organism as his being, I cannot even say, around, but within himself. Yet, at the same time, man is within as well as outside himself, and his life consists in active soul-spiritual labor on the development of this organism. Whereas, in physical life, we arrange our work so that outer sense-perceptible objects are purposefully transformed and we ourselves are changed with them, in our pre-earthly life we labor to make our physical organism as it should be. We incorporate into it what later in earth life must be present as wisdom-filled cooperation of the physical organs with each other as well as with the soul, and of the soul with the spirit. Before birth, we live in a universe (which is our own being), whose development consists in being molded purposefully to serve as our future earth organism.

In this pre-earthly condition, we possess consciousness because we are present in this universe not only with our perceptions but also with our activity of spirit and soul. Sleep, by contrast, is without consciousness because the physical and etheric bodies are no longer developing but completed, and we cannot work in sleep on what is already finished. But we experience them in the form described by me yesterday. In the pre-earthly condition, everything representing our link with the developing universe, which draws together increasingly so as later to become our physical organism, all this is force, an inner mobility that expresses itself as a form of consciousness differing from that of earth life. It is a bright, clearer state of consciousness than the one that comes into being in our physical existence. With it we are able to experience our own working toward earthly life that is to come. If, here in earth existence, we observe our physical organism externally, or in the way it is seen by anatomy or physiology, we certainly cannot compare it with the grandeur, the glorious majesty of the universe that surrounds us as the world of the stars, the clouds, and so forth. Yet, what has been compressed into this human physical organism is grander, more powerful, more majestic than the physical cosmos around us in earthly existence, when it is seen as the universe by the human soul before it descends to earth. If you think of everything contained in materialized form in the physical body, all that is hidden in man here on earth because it has been compressed and covered over by matter, and you picture all this transposed into the spiritual, then you would have to think of a universe with which our physical cosmos, despite all its stars, suns, etc., cannot in the remotest degree be compared for vastness, grandeur and majesty.

We find our way into earthly existence out of a spiritual, pre-earthly world view having a grand, mighty content. The highest cultural work in which we can ever participate here on earth is but a trifle compared to that in which man shares during his pre-earthly existence. I say shares, because countless spiritual beings of the most varied hierarchies work together with man in creating the wondrous structure of his physical organism. This work, when seen in its essence, is of an inspiring and blissful nature. Truly, nothing small and unimportant is indicated, when, to the question, “What does man do between death and a new birth in pre-earthly existence?”—the answer is: At a certain stage he works with the spirits of the cosmos on the configuration, the inner wisdom-filled structure of a physical human body by preforming it as an universal spirit-germ.1For this concept see especially the cycle given in the Hague in November 1923 translated under the title of Supersensible Man, in the fourth lecture of which Rudolf Steiner explains how the spirit-germ of each organ is created in the different spheres of the cosmos during the life between death and rebirth. Compared to man's earthly existence, this is a celestial, blissful existence. But everything that happens in celestial existence is concealed in immeasurable depths in the physical organism in which man is clothed on earth. Indeed, as far as ordinary consciousness is concerned, these celestial events belong to the most concealed aspects of the human physical organization.

This is the tragedy of materialism that it believes it can know matter and speaks always of matter and its laws. But in all matter, there lives spirit, but not only in such a form that we can uncover it in the present; it lives in such a way that to discover it we must look back into very different ages and states of experience. What materialism knows the least about is the material human organism. Not until materialism came into being did the complicated material structures of physical earth existence become as concealed as they now are from the otherwise admirable natural science of the present time. We shall now proceed to discuss other aspects of man's pre-natal existence.

The stage of pre-earthly experience I have just described can also be characterized by saying that man experiences his given environment, which is at the same time his own being, as an existence he has in common with the spiritual universe.

That universe, however, is an association of living spiritual beings, among whom man experiences himself as soul and spirit. This consciousness, alive and luminous in the highest degree, begins to dim, to fade at a definite point in time. It is not that it is then experienced as a weak consciousness but compared to the clarity and intensity it possessed during a certain stage of pre-earthly existence, it dims down. If I should describe by an imagination what a significant and intense experience it is, I would express it like this. At a certain point of pre-natal existence, man begins to say to himself: Along with my own being I have seen other spiritual-divine beings around me. Now it appears to me as if these divine beings are beginning to cease to show their complete form to me. It now seems to me as if they were assuming an external figurativeness in which they envelop themselves. It appears to me as if they were becoming star-like—like the stars I learnt to know through physical sight when I was last on earth. They are not yet stars, but spirit beings which seem to be on their way to star-existence.

It is a feeling as if the real spirit world withdraws a little from the human being, then retreated more and more until only a replica of it stood before him as a cosmic revelation of this spirit world. Instead of the intuitive, active life with the spiritual world, it is as if we were becoming inspired by a cosmic replica of this spiritual world.

Parallel with this vision goes an inner soul experience that man must undergo, as it were, in which the spiritual world in its primal aliveness withdraws and bestows only a revelation of itself to him. This awakens in his soul in pre-earthly existence an experience that, if I may borrow a word from earth life, I could call a sense of privation which expresses itself—again describing it in earthly terminology—as a longing for what he is about to lose. In the first stage something he once possessed is in the process of being lost, but it has not yet been lost. To the extent that man feels that he is losing it, a sense of privation and a desire to have it back arises inwardly. It is at this stage of pre-earthly existence that the human soul becomes accessible to the spiritual moon forces of the cosmos. The sense of privation and longing just spoken of prepare the soul to be accessible to them.

Earlier, these spiritual moon forces seemingly did not exist for them. Now, as the spiritual cosmos begins to fade away, a connection arises between what vibrates through the universe as moon forces and the forces of desire that the cosmos, which previously appeared to man as inwardly and spiritually alive, changes into a mere revelation to the degree that the earlier active, living intuition becomes an active living inspiration, to this extent the moon forces cause an inner individual being of man to appear. As a consequence, he no longer feels himself to be in an universe where subject and object do not really exist for him and everything is subjective. Hitherto, he has lived within other beings. Now, subject and object once again begin to have some significance for him. He has a feeling that he exists subjectively as an individual soul, something that the moon forces bring about for him. At the same time, he now begins to sense the revelation of the cosmos as an objective outer world.

To make use again of an earthly way of expressing what is actually present in this pre-earthly existence, I could say that in this human soul, gifted with inwardness by the moon forces, something like the following thought springs to life: I must possess it, this physical body, toward which everything has tended, which I myself along with others worked on as on a cosmic, spiritual germ. In this way man becomes ready to descend to earth existence. The sense of privation and longing linked with the moon forces prepare him for desiring earthly existence, to wish he were down on earth. This wish is the after-effect of his earlier work on the universal, cosmic part of the physical body. I said already yesterday that the moon forces always represent the element that prepares man for another earth life. During sleep it is these forces which impel him back into earth life. As I said, in a certain stage of his pre-earthly existence man is unconnected with these moon forces, but then he penetrates them. To the same degree, the tendency arises in him to turn again to the life on earth. Even though the earthly physical body and etheric organism are not yet there, within him are contained the after-effects of what he himself worked on and brought about as the cosmic-spiritual preliminary stage of the earthly body. After the translation I shall proceed at once to discuss the additional processes leading to earth life.

If I am to speak further in the way I have thus far been characterizing the relationships of man's total life as perceived by inspired and intuitive perception, I must say now that what man experiences in full clear consciousness during pre-earthly existence, as I described it at the beginning of today's lecture, is what he experiences later in earth life as his religious disposition. This natural tendency consists of these experiences as they are reflected in his feelings and heart (Gemüt), the feeling of his connection with the divine foundation of the world. If therefore man as a soul being in pre-earthly existence wished to explain to himself how this soul nature places itself here in earthly existence, then, in the moment when he passes from sharing in the living-spiritual cosmos to the experience of mere revelation under the influence of the moon forces, he would have to say: I pass from an existence saturated with divine activity to a cosmic existence. Under the influence of the moon forces, I now begin to draw together that brilliant cosmic consciousness I previously developed out of the whole universe into a more inward consciousness.

I said, the brilliant cosmic consciousness grows dim, but the more it fades the more does a subjective consciousness arise in man's soul to which the cosmic revelations appear as something objective. So we can say that man passes over into an inspiration in which he knows himself as a member of the cosmos. In this second stage of pre-earthly existence he experiences cosmology.

What man bears within him on earth as a striving for cosmological wisdom is an after-effect of these experiences of pre-earthly existence that I have just described, in the same way that the religious consciousness is an after-effect of the earlier stage of divinely permeated consciousness. These things are lived through in pre-earthly existence. They have their after-effects in earthly existence in which they appear as the religious and cosmological endowments of the human soul. Every night, as I described yesterday, they are renewed afresh. They are present as man is born into earthly life; he brings them along as endowments. The sequences of day and night cause them to become dim, but each night man's cosmological inclinations are stimulated again by the experience of the world of planets and stars. In the same way, his God-permeated nature is kindled during the last stage of sleep as I have already indicated. Therefore, one could say that if man desires to come to a religious life founded on knowledge, and to a cosmology grounded in knowledge, he must be able in fully conscious earthly life to call forth pictures of what is experienced in pre-earthly existence, as has been described.

In the stage when man is seized by the moon forces, when the outer universal world, which earlier was the universe of his own physical body, now appears only as a revelation—in that moment there occurs what I may call the loss of his connection with what earlier was his own human universe. Man loses this universal germ of his physical body on which he had worked so long. At a certain stage of pre-earthly life, he no longer possesses it. Instead, he has an inner being, called into existence by the moon forces, shot through and permeated by the desire for earth life, and he is surrounded by images of a spiritual cosmos. If he reaches out spiritually for these pictures he pierces right through them. Their reality is no longer there, at a certain stage of his experience in pre-earthly existence, reality has been lost to his soul. The soul no longer has the reality of this, man's universe, around and within it. Shortly thereafter—after the loss of this universal reality—earthly conception of the physical body takes place. The physical body is now taken over, drawn together out of the spiritual universe and further developed within the course of physical, hereditary evolution. What man worked upon cosmically for a long time in the spiritual world falls away from him and reappears again as conception of the physical human body takes place on earth. The processes that man has undergone spiritually above and in which he collaborated now find their physical continuation on the earth below. For the time being man remains unconscious of this physical continuation in his prenatal spiritual existence, for it takes place below on the earth. His spiritual-physical organism has streamed down to the earth and contracts into the tiny physical human body. The whole majestic universe is drawn together and permeated and penetrated by what physical heredity contributes. What man previously had as reality now surrounds him only in pictures; it is a cosmic recollection of the cosmic reality of work done on the physical organism.

In this prenatal period of his pre-earthly experiences when man is surrounded by the cosmic pictures of his human universe in which reality is no longer contained, he becomes ready to draw the etheric element into these pictures from all directions of the cosmos—for the cosmos also includes an etheric nature and is in this respect an etheric cosmos. Out of the cosmic ether man now draws etheric elements into his cosmic picture world. What is within him only as cosmic memory, he fills with world ether, draws it together and so forms his etheric organism. He does this at the time his Physical organism has fallen away from him, finding its continuation below, through conception, in the stream of physical heredity. Thus, man clothes himself in his etheric organism.

Now everything that lives in the soul as a sense of privation and desires, as longing for earthly life, passes along into the etheric organism, which is accustomed to being united with a physical, bodily organization since it permeates the physical organization of the cosmos. From all this arise the forces that draw man down again into what he was unaware of earlier when he had cosmic consciousness. Now, the soul-spiritual human being, clothed in the etheric body, strives by its own wish down toward what his physical organism has become on earth, which he himself prepared in the first place in its spiritual form. This, then, after the above-described experiences, brings about the union of the soul-spiritual with the physical body. The remaining points that can be mentioned will be added in the last brief consideration.

I believe it has become clear where the boundary exists between that of what the human soul is aware and that of what the human soul is unaware in a pre-earthly sense during the last stage of prenatal experience which directly precedes earthly experience. The human soul is conscious of the subjective element that the moon forces have brought about in the soul; it is conscious of the universal tableau that is now merely present in pictures like a cosmic memory of the work done on man's universe; it is conscious of how the forces draw together out of the world ether to create the human etheric organism. It remains unconscious of everything that happens on the earth below in the physical human organism, which only now has come into form through its physical metamorphosis, and through conception will develop further in the line of physical heredity. But, as I indicated, there is a union of the last cosmic consciousness with what is unconscious; a submerging into this unconsciousness.

With this, the cosmic consciousness is extinguished, and in a tiny infant there appears something like an unconscious memory of what has been experienced in pre-earthly exis tence. An unconscious but active memory then works intensively upon the baby's development, using the undifferentiated, or little differentiated substance of the human brain and the rest of the organism. Already during the embryonic stage, during which the uniting process mentioned gradually takes place, and also later, after birth, man works like a sculptor on the formation of the brain and the remaining organs. This unconscious but active memory of pre-earthly life works on the organism most intensively in a child's first years. While what is most essential has been previously prepared and then is realized in its after-effects, much is still to be worked into this cosmic-physical, spiritual organism condensed into a physical human body. This is a contradiction but must be understood in the context in which I have described it for you today. Much is still to be worked into this organism. It is therefore the unconscious but active memory that works in the infant as an inner human, sculpturing element.

If the consciously experienced last stage of pre-earthly life could be brought into earth life, the pure philosophy of ideas would have its supersensible content. For just that cosmic etheric element that plays into the images of the human organism is what yields a truly alive philosophical conception. But, even so, in spite of its lively quality, something in this philosophical conception is lacking. It corresponds, after all, to a stage of pre-earthly experience where man is particularly estranged from his physical organism, when he is unconscious of it. This lends a somewhat otherworldly quality to even the most alive philosophy, for instance the kind that arises out of the dreamlike clairvoyance of primeval times. Because philosophy, if it is alive, corresponds an experience which earth life escapes, it always has a strong desire to comprehend earthly activities but feels itself hovering above earthly existence. Philosophy always has an idealistic quality, which implies that it is based on something not of this earth, particularly when it is inwardly alive. Actually, it is only in the last stage of pre-earthly existence that a man is a philosopher. It would be necessary to recall here in earth life what is spontaneously present in his conscious experience in that last period. There, man is a true philosopher, as earlier he was a true cosmologist when confronting the cosmic revelations, when the cosmic beings had already withdrawn from him; and he was a true perceiver of religion in the first pre-earthly stage I described today. But since an unconscious but active memory appears in the infant, it was also possible for me to say here: If you could include in the philosophy of ideas and bring to full consciousness what appears unconsciously in an infant, philosophy would arise. That is quite natural, because what an infant experiences is the unconscious memory of what the soul experiences in the last stage before its union with the physical body.

Therefore, religious insight, cosmology and philosophy must be gifts out of the supersensible world if they are to be right. Only if they become this again, and are recognized as such by man, will they fully satisfy humanity's spiritual needs.

Today I have sought to describe for you those matters connected with the mystery of birth. In the following days I will have to present the other side, the matters that are connected with the mystery of death, in order gradually to round out the picture that should represent for us how what is of the greatest spiritual value here in earth life must be a reflection, a replica, an effect of what man can experience, perceive and know in supersensible existence, because he is not only an earthly sense being but a soul-spiritual, supersensible being and therefore belongs also to the world of soul and spirit. And if he is to feel himself fully as man in human life at every stage of sense experience, he must also include knowledge of the supersensible in his life on earth.

Der Übergang vom seelisch-geistigen Dasein in der Menschenentwickelung zum sinnlich-physischen

[ 1 ] Aus den Darstellungen, die ich über inspiriertes und intuitives Erkennen gegeben habe, wird ersichtlich geworden sein, daß es für das menschliche Innere, für das Geistig-Seelische des Menschen ein kosmisches Erleben gibt. Ich konnte gestern darauf hinweisen, daß ein solches kosmisches Erleben des Menschen vorhanden ist im Schlafzustande, nur daß es für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein eben unbewußt bleibt. Der Mensch erlebt kosmisch, aber er weiß im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nichts davon. Man kann sagen, während der Mensch im sinnlichen Erfahren im physischen Erdendasein sich erlebt in seinem physischen und ätherischen Leib und das, was dieser physische und ätherische Leib als Organe in sich haben, als sein Innenwesen ansieht, wird während des kosmischen Erlebens, wie es zum Beispiel beim Schlafe geschieht, eine Nachbildung kosmischer Wesenheiten als Innenleben erfahren, so daß man tatsächlich sagen kann, schon für den gewöhnlichen Schlafzustand wird die gewöhnliche Innenwelt des Menschen eine Außenwelt. Der Mensch hat einfach, wenn er schläft, den physischen und den ätherischen Leib, die sonst sein Wesen ausmachen, als eine Außenwelt vor sich, und das, was in der sinnlichen Beobachtung Umwelt, Kosmos ist, das wird in einem gewissen Sinne zu einer Innenwelt.

[ 2 ] Nur besteht während des Schlafzustandes in dem astralischen Menschen, in dem Ich-Menschen, ein fortlaufender Wunsch, wiederum in den physischen Leib zurückzukehren. Dieser Wunsch wird ganz besonders regsam in demjenigen Stadium des Schlafes, das ich gestern als das tiefste bezeichnet habe, als den Schlaf — wenn ich ihn nach der gestrigen Charakteristik so nennen darf — mit dem Fixsternbewußtsein. Dieser Wunsch, wieder in den physischen und in den ätherischen Leib zurückzukehren, hängt natürlich damit zusammen, daß lebensvoll während des Schlafzustandes vorhanden bleiben, da sind in der Welt der physische und der ätherische Leib. Und daß der Mensch wiederum zurückkehren will, eine Begierde in sich entwickelt, wieder zurückzukehren, das wird in ihm angefacht, wie ich gestern ausgeführt habe, durch die im Kosmos wirksamen geistigen Mondenkräfte.

[ 3 ] Wenn man Geisteswissenschaft, Anthroposophie, in richtiger Weise verstehen will, muß man sich klar darüber sein, daß die einzelnen Verhältnisse von den verschiedensten Gesichtspunkten aus dargestellt werden müssen. Es könnte zum Beispiel jemand einmal hören, daß ich gesagt habe: Der Grund, warum der Mensch wiederum am Morgen in den physischen und in den ätherischen Leib zurückkehren will, liegt darin, daß die Seele sich zurücksehnt, den Wunsch hat, zurückzukehren. -— Dann könnte jemand sagen: Diese Rückkehr hängt von den Mondenkräften ab. — Beides ist richtig, nur daß eben der Zusammenhang besteht, daß der Wunsch, wieder mit dem physischen Organismus verbunden zu werden, angefacht wird während des kosmischen Erlebens durch die Mondenkräfte, die eben auch den menschlichen astralischen und den Ich-Organismus zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen durchsetzen. Diese Mondenkräfte, das heißt ihr geistiges Korrelat, können nun nicht tätig sein, wenn der Mensch im vorirdischen Dasein ist, also bevor er aus der geistig-seelischen Welt heruntergestiegen ist und sich in einen physischen Menschenleib eingekleidet hat. Wenn der Mensch im vorirdischen Dasein in einem rein geistigen Kosmos ist, so ist da zunächst keine Beziehung vorhanden zu einem physischen und zu einem ätherischen Organismus, denn diese sind nicht da. Während des Schlafes jedoch warten gewissermaßen der physische und der ätherische Organismus, wiederum durchseelt und durchgeistigt zu werden von dem eigentlichen inneren Menschen.

[ 4 ] Ein solcher physischer und ätherischer Organismus sind im vorirdischen Dasein des Menschen nicht vorhanden. Aber etwas anderes ist dann vorhanden. Der Mensch erlebt in einem gewissen Stadium dieses vorirdischen Daseins eine Art Kosmos, die er eben auch als seine Innenwelt erlebt. Er fühlt sich gewissermaßen selber als ein Kosmos. Aber dieser Kosmos ist in diesem vorirdischen Dasein etwas anderes als der Kosmos, der uns zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode für die sinnliche Beobachtung umgibt. Jener Kosmos, der da in einem gewissen Stadium des vorirdischen Daseins erlebt wird, ist nämlich eine Art kosmischer Keim des späteren physischen Menschenorganismus, desjenigen physischen Menschenorganismus, in den sich der Mensch einkleiden muß, wenn er zum Erdendasein heruntersteigt. Stellen Sie sich erweitert alles vor, was der Mensch als physischen Organismus im Erdenleben an sich hat, als ein Unermeßliches erweitert, sagen wir die Lungen, die Leber, alle Prozesse - natürlich als Kräfte, nicht als physisch-materielle Organe -, also die Lungenprozesse, ebenso die Herzprozesse und so weiter erweitert, ins kosmisch Unermeßliche erweitert, das erlebt der Mensch, nur daß er dann diesen Kosmos mit seiner Seele umfaßt, daß er diesen Kosmos zugleich als Innenleben hat.

[ 5 ] Wenn ich sage: Der Mensch erlebt seinen späteren physischen Organismus als Keim, so muß natürlich der Unterschied hervorgehoben werden zwischen dem Gebrauch des Wortes Keim hier für das geistige Dasein und im anderen Falle für das physische Erdendasein. Wenn man im physischen Erdendasein von Keim spricht, so meint man irgend etwas Kleines, das sich dann entfaltet und ein großer Organismus wird. Wenn ich jedoch jetzt davon spreche, daß der Keim des menschlichen physischen Leibes als ein Kosmos erlebt wird im vorirdischen Dasein, so ist dieser kosmische Keim unermeßlich groß, zieht sich immer mehr und mehr zusammen und wird zuletzt klein. Man muß natürlich berücksichtigen, daß in diesem Falle, wenigstens für das Geistige, zunächst für das vorirdische Dasein, der Ausdruck «groß» im Verhältnis zu dem späteren «klein» in bildlicher Art gebraucht ist, denn im vorirdischen Dasein wird eben nicht so räumlich erlebt wie hier im sinnlich-physischen Dasein. Es wird alles qualitativ erlebt. Der Raum, so wie wir ihn aus unserer Sinneswelt kennen, ist eigentlich nur für diese Sinneswelt vorhanden. Nur um sich zu verdeutlichen, um aus der Menschensprache etwas nehmen zu können, was auch diese rein geistigen Verhältnisse des vorirdischen Daseins charakterisiert, kann zum Zwecke der Veranschaulichung diese Unterscheidung auch ganz gut genommen werden. So können wir eben sagen, der kosmische Menschenkeim ist groß und zieht sich immer mehr und mehr zusammen und erscheint dann zuletzt klein im physischen Organismus des Menschen.

[ 6 ] So müssen wir uns also vorstellen: Der Mensch hat im vorirdischen Dasein nicht etwa einen solchen Sternenanblick vom Kosmos, wie wir ihn hier im physischen Dasein haben, sondern er hat einen Kosmos um sich. Dieser Kosmos enthält geistig-seelische Wesenheiten. Aber der Mensch fühlt sich mit diesen geistig-seelischen Wesenheiten verbunden, er fühlt diese gewissermaßen in sich. Er fühlt sein Seelisches umfänglich ausgedehnt über diesen Kosmos. Dieser Kosmos ist eben nichts anderes als der zum Universum erweiterte spätere menschliche physische Leib. Der Mensch erlebt also seine spätere Innenwelt als eine kosmische Außenwelt, die er aber mit seinem Inneren miterlebt. Daher kann man sagen: Dieser ganze Kosmos — ich möchte ihn den Menschen-Kosmos nennen -, dieser Menschen-Kosmos, den der Mensch als sein Eigenes erlebt, der ist sein individuelles Dasein. Aber zu gleicher Zeit erlebt der Mensch mit das Leben anderer Wesenheiten, anderer Menschenseelen und anderer geistiger Wesenheiten, die nicht in ein physisches Erdendasein kommen. Der Mensch lebt sich hinüber in andere Wesenheiten, so daß er gleichzeitig eine Art Universum für sich selbst erlebt und eine Art Zusammensein mit anderen Wesenheiten. Ich möchte dieses Zusammensein mit anderen Wesenheiten für dieses Stadium des vorirdischen Daseins eine tätige Intuition nennen, eine reale, eine erlebte Intuition. Was man sonst in der übersinnlichen Erkenntnis der Intuition nachbildet, das ist für dieses vorirdische Dasein lebendiges Dasein.

[ 7 ] Während nun der Mensch im Schlafzustande in einer Nachbildung des Kosmos in der Art lebt, wie ich es gestern beschrieben habe, also auch seinen physischen Organismus ebenso wie seinen ätherischen Organismus außer sich hat — aber als fertige, vollendete -, hat er im vorirdischen Dasein den werdenden physischen Organismus als sein Wesen, ich kann jetzt nicht einmal sagen außer sich, sondern in sich. Aber dieses In-sich ist zugleich ein Außer-sich, und sein Leben besteht in einem tätigen Arbeiten, in einem seelisch-geistigen Arbeiten an dem Werden dieses Organismus. Während wir hier im physischen Dasein unser Arbeiten so einrichten, daß die äußeren Sinnesdinge zielvoll verändert, verwandelt werden, während wir selbst hier im physischen Dasein mit den Sinnesdingen verwandelt werden, arbeiten wir in unserem vorirdischen Dasein unseren physischen Organismus zurecht. Wir gliedern ihm dasjenige ein, was dann weisheitsvolles Zusammenwirken der Organe sowie der Organe mit dem Seelischen und des Seelischen mit dem Geistigen im Erdendasein sein muß. Wir leben in einem Universum, dessen Werden darin besteht, daß es zielvoll hingestaltet wird auf unseren künftigen Erdenorganismus.

[ 8 ] Dadurch, daß wir nicht nur mit unseren Anschauungen, sondern mit unserer seelischen und geistigen Tätigkeit in diesem Universum drinnen sind, dadurch haben wir in diesem vorirdischen Zustande ein Bewußtsein. Weil der physische und der ätherische Organismus während des Schlafzustandes fertig sind, vollendet sind, deshalb ist der Schlaf bewußtlos, denn wir können an dem Fertigen während des Schlafes nicht arbeiten, sondern wir erleben es, wie ich es gestern beschrieben habe. Im vorirdischen Zustande ist alles, was unsere Verbindung darstellt mit dem werdenden Universum, das sich aber immer mehr und mehr zusammenzieht, um später unser physischer Organismus zu werden, ist alles Kraft, ist innere Regsamkeit, die sich als eine andere Form des Bewußtseins auslebt, als das Bewußtsein des Erdenlebens ist. Aber es ist ein vollbewußter, ja hell-bewußterer Zustand als der, welcher in unserem Erdenleben im physischen Dasein zustande kommt. Wir erleben dieses unser eigenes Hinarbeiten auf das spätere Erdenleben. Ja, wenn wir hier im Erdendasein unseren physischen Organismus betrachten etwa so, wie der äußere Anblick oder die physische Anatomie oder Physiologie ihn uns vor Augen stellen, dann können wir ihn nicht recht mit der Herrlichkeit, mit der Großartigkeit und der Majestät des Universums, das als Sternenwelt, als Wolkenwelt und so weiter um uns ist, vergleichen. Dasjenige aber, was in diesen physischen Menschenorganismus zusammengezogen ist, das ist dann, wenn es von der Menschenseele im vorirdischen Dasein so als Universum angeschaut wird; größer, ist gewaltiger, majestätischer als der Kosmos, der als physischer Kosmos im Erdendasein um uns herum ist. Denkt man sich alles, was im physischen Menschenorganismus materialisiert steckt, was also in dem Menschen, der hier auf der Erde steht, verborgen ist, weil es zusammengezogen und durch das Materielle verdeckt ist, denkt man sich dies alles ins Geistige umgesetzt, so hätte man an ein Universum zu denken, mit dem sich das physische hier, trotz aller seiner Sterne, seiner Sonnen und so weiter an Größe, an Gewaltigkeit und Majestät auch nicht im entferntesten messen kann.

[ 9 ] Wir leben uns in das irdische Dasein herein aus einer geistigen, vorirdischen Anschauung, die einen großen, gewaltigen Inhalt hat. Und alles, woran wir jemals hier auf der Erde auch an höchster Kulturarbeit mittun können, das ist eine Kleinigkeit gegenüber demjenigen, woran der Mensch während seines vorirdischen Daseins mittut. Ich sage: mittut, denn unzählige geistige Wesenheiten der verschiedensten Hierarchien arbeiten mit dem Menschen an der Herstellung dieses wunderbaren Gebildes, das den physischen Organismus darstellt. Und dieses Arbeiten ist, wenn es eben als solches betrachtet wird, ein beseligendes Arbeiten. Es wird wahrhaftig nicht auf etwas Kleines, Unbedeutendes hingedeutet, wenn auf die Frage: Was tut der Mensch zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt in seinem vorirdischen Dasein? — die Antwort gegeben wird: In einem gewissen Stadium arbeitet er mit den Geistern des Kosmos an der Zusammenfügung, an der inneren weisheitsvollen Ausgestaltung eines physischen Menschenleibes, indem er ihn als universellen Keim vorgestaltet. Dies ist schon gegenüber dem Erdendasein ein Himmelsdasein. Nur ist alles das, was da geschieht, in diesem physischen Erdenorganismus, in den der Mensch eingekleidet ist, in unermeßlichen Tiefen verborgen, und es gehört das einmal für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein zu dem Verborgensten gerade der menschlichen physischen Organisation. Das ist die Tragik des Materialismus, daß er glaubt, die Materie zu erkennen, daß er immerdar von der Materie und ihren Gesetzen spricht. Aber in aller Materie lebt ein Geist, und er lebt nicht nur so, daß wir ihn herauswickeln können im Augenblick, sondern er lebt so darinnen, daß, wenn wir ihn entdecken wollen, wir zurückschauen müssen in ganz andere Zeiten und Erlebnisarten. Wovon der Materialismus am wenigsten kennt, das ist der materielle physische Menschenorganismus. Es mußte erst der Materialismus entstehen, damit die komplizierten materiellen Gebilde des physischen Erdendaseins so verborgen bleiben, wie sie für die sonst bewundernswürdige Naturwissenschaft der heutigen Zeit gegenwärtig verborgen sind. Über Weiteres im vorirdischen Dasein des Menschen werde ich gleich nachher sprechen.

[ 10 ] Die Etappe des vorirdischen Erlebens, die ich soeben beschrieben habe, kann man auch dadurch charakterisieren, daß man sagt: Der Mensch erlebt dasjenige, was er als seine Umgebung hat, was zugleich sein eigenes Wesen ist, als ein Zusammensein zwischen ihm selbst und dem geistigen Universum. Aber das geistige Universum ist eben ein Zusammenhang von wirklichen, in sich lebendigen geistigen Wesen, in deren Kreisen sich der Mensch fühlt als Seele und als Geist. Dieses im höchsten Grade lebendige und helle Bewußtsein beginnt nun in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt sich nach und nach zu verdunkeln, abzudämmern. Nicht, als ob es etwa dann als ein schwaches Bewußtsein erlebt wird, aber gegenüber der Helligkeit und der Klarheit und Intensität in einem gewissen Zustande des vorirdischen Daseins dämmert es herab. Wenn ich durch eine Imagination dasjenige beschreiben soll, was ein sehr bedeutsames und intensives Erlebnis ist, so könnte ich es so aussprechen. Der Mensch fängt in einem bestimmten Punkte dieses vorirdischen Daseins an, sich zu sagen: Ich habe um mich zugleich als meine Wesenheit andere göttlich-geistige Wesenheiten gesehen. Jetzt kommt mir vor, als ob diese göttlich-geistigen Wesenheiten anfingen, nicht mehr ganz ihre Gestalt zu zeigen. Jetzt kommt mir vor, wie wenn sie eine äußere Bildhaftigkeit annehmen würden, in die sie sich einkleiden. Jetzt kommt mir vor, wie wenn die Wesenheiten sternenhaft werden würden, so wie ich die Sterne im vorigen Erdenleben durch physische Anschauung kennengelernt habe. Noch nicht sind sie Sterne, aber Geistwesenheiten scheinen mir auf dem Wege zum Sternendasein zu sein. — Es ist eine Empfindung, wie wenn sich die eigentliche Geistwelt von dem Menschen etwas zurückzöge und immer mehr und mehr zurückzöge, und nun ein Abbild dieser Geistwelt, als eine kosmische Offenbarung derselben, vor dem Menschen stünde. An die Stelle des intuitiven tätigen Miterlebens der geistigen Welt tritt so etwas wie das Inspiriertwerden mit einem kosmischen Abbilde dieser geistigen Welt.

[ 11 ] Parallel mit dieser Anschauung geht ein seelisches inneres Erleben, daß der Mensch gewissermaßen erleben muß, wie sich die geistige Welt in ihrer ureigenen Lebendigkeit zurückzieht und ihm nur ihre Offenbarung zuteil wird. Das erweckt in seiner Seele im vorirdischen Dasein ein Erlebnis, das ich mit einem Ausdruck, der dem physischen Erdenleben entlehnt ist, bezeichnen möchte als ein Entbehren, das sich auch äußert, wieder mit einem physischen Erdenausdruck beschrieben, als ein Begehren desjenigen, was man im Verlieren ist. Man hat es in den ersten Stadien noch nicht verloren, aber man ist im Verlieren dessen, was man vorher hatte. In dem Maße, als man in diesem Stadium des Verlierens ist, entsteht innerlich ein Entbehren des in Verlust Kommenden und ein Begehren danach. Man will es wiederhaben.

[ 12 ] In diesem Stadium des vorirdischen Daseins ist es nun, daß die Menschenseele für die geistigen Mondenkräfte zugänglich wird. Dieses Entbehren und Begehren präpariert die Menschenseele, für die geistigen Mondenkräfte im Kosmos zugänglich zu sein. Vorher waren diese geistigen Mondenkräfte wie nicht vorhanden für den Menschen. Jetzt, wo der geistige Kosmos abzudämmern beginnt, entsteht eine Zusammenbindung desjenigen, was kosmisch durch das Universum vibriert als Mondenkräfte, und der Wunschkräfte, die als Begehren und Entbehren im Menschen auftauchen. Und in demselben Maße, in dem sich der früher in innerer geistiger Lebendigkeit darstellende Kosmos in eine bloße Offenbarung verwandelt, in demselben Maße, in dem die früher tätige lebendige Intuition eine tätige lebendige Inspiration wird, in demselben Maße bewirken die Mondenkräfte, daß ein eigenes Inneres des Menschen auftritt, und der Mensch sich nicht im Universum bloß fühlt, so daß Subjekt und Objekt für ihn eigentlich nicht vorhanden sind, sondern wo alles subjektiv ist. Er hat in anderen Wesenheiten ‚drinnen gelebt, aber während dies bisher der Fall war, beginnt jetzt wieder für den Menschen Subjekt und Objekt eine Bedeutung zu haben. Er fühlt ein inneres seelisches subjektives Dasein, das ihm die Mondenkräfte zubereiten, und was Offenbarung des Kosmos ist, das fängt er jetzt an, als eine objektive Außenwelt zu fühlen.

[ 13 ] Wenn ich wiederum mit irdischen Ausdrucksformen das bezeichnen will, was eigentlich in diesem vorirdischen Dasein vorhanden ist, so könnte ich sagen, in dieser so durch die Mondenkräfte mit einer Innerlichkeit begabten Menschenseele entsteht etwa der lebendige Gedanke: Ich muß ihn haben, diesen physischen Leib, nach dem dasjenige hintendiert hat, woran ich selber mitgearbeitet habe als an einem kosmischen, geistigen Keim. - Und der Mensch wird auf diese Weise reif, zum Erdendasein herunterzusteigen. Die Entbehrung und das Begehren, in Verbindung mit den Mondenkräften, die machen ihn reif, eben gerade das Erdendasein zu begehren, nach dem Erdendasein sich herunter zu wünschen, welcher Wunsch eben die Nachwirkung des früheren Arbeitens an dem universellen, kosmischen Geistteil des physischen Leibes ist. Ich habe schon gestern gesagt: Die Mondenkräfte stellen immer dasjenige dar, was den Menschen wiederum für das Erdenleben präpartert. Während des Schlafzustandes stellen sie dasjenige dar, was den Menschen wiederum ins Erdenleben zurücktreibt. Im vorirdischen Dasein ist der Mensch zunächst in einer gewissen Etappe seines Erlebens, wie ich eben dargestellt habe, ohne Zusammenhang mit diesen Mondenkräften, aber er kommt in die Mondenkräfte hinein. Und in demselben Maße entsteht in ihm die Geneigtheit, sich dem Erdenleben wieder zuzuwenden. Wenn auch der physische Erdenleib und der ätherische Erdenorganismus noch nicht da sind, so sind doch in ihm die Nachklänge von demjenigen da, was er als das kosmisch-geistige Vorstadium des physischen Erdenleibes selber erarbeitet hat.

[ 14 ] Über die weiteren Vorgänge bis zum Erdenleben hin werde ich dann gleich nachher sprechen.

[ 15 ] Wenn ich in der Art, wie ich im Zusammenhange mit der inspirierten und intuitiven Erkenntnis die Verhältnisse des totalen Menschenlebens in den vorangehenden Tagen charakterisiert habe, weitersprechen soll, so muß ich nun sagen: Was der Mensch in der heute zuerst charakterisierten Etappe seines vorirdischen Daseins im klaren, hellen Bewußtsein erlebt, das ist dasjenige, was dann im irdischen Dasein im Abbilde, im gefühls- und gemütsmäßigen Abbilde nacherlebt wird in der religiösen Anlage, in dem Fühlen eines Zusammenhanges des Menschen mit dem göttlichen Weltengrunde. Denn wenn der Mensch sich selber als Seele im vorirdischen Dasein Rechenschaft geben will darüber, wie diese Art und Weise der Seele sich hier in das Erdendasein hineinstellt, so könnte man sagen: In dem Augenblick, wo der Mensch von dem Miterleben eines lebendigen geistigen Kosmos übergeht zu dem Erleben dessen bloßer Offenbarung unter dem Einfluß der Mondenkräfte, da müßte sich der Mensch in diesem Momente seines vorirdischen Daseins sagen: Ich gehe von einem gottdurchtränkten Dasein über zu einem kosmischen Dasein. Ich beginne jetzt, jenes helle kosmische Bewußtsein, das ich universell früher entwickelt habe, unter dem Einfluß der Mondenkräfte zu einem mehr innerlichen Bewußtsein zusammenzuziehen. — Ich sagte, es wird das helle kosmische Bewußtsein abgedämmert, aber je mehr es abgedämmert wird, desto mehr entsteht im Inneren der Menschenseele ein subjektives Bewußtsein, dem die Offenbarung des Kosmos als ein Objektives gegenübersteht. Und so können wir sagen: Der Mensch geht über zu einer Inspiration, in der er sich weiß als ein Glied des Kosmos. Er erlebt Kosmologie in dieser zweiten Etappe des vorirdischen Daseins.

[ 16 ] Was der Mensch im Erdenleben als Streben nach einer kosmologischen Weisheit an sich trägt, das ist ebenso eine Nachwirkung dieser eben charakterisierten Erlebnisse des vorirdischen Daseins, wie das religiöse Bewußtsein Nachwirkung ist des zuerst geschilderten Stadiums, des gottdurchdrungenen Bewußtseins. Diese Dinge werden im vorirdischen Dasein durchlebt. Sie haben ihre Nachwirkungen im irdischen Dasein, in dem sie als religiöse beziehungsweise als kosmologische Veranlagung der Menschenseele sich darstellen, und sie werden - in der Art, wie ich das gestern geschildert habe - jede Nacht wieder aufgefrischt. Sie sind da, indem der Mensch geboren ist im irdischen Dasein. Er bringt sie als Anlagen mit; sie verdunkeln sich in der Aufeinanderfolge von Tag und Nacht, aber jede Nacht werden sowohl die kosmologischen Neigungen des Menschen wieder angefacht aus dem Erleben der Planetenwelt, der Sternenwelt, wie ich es dargestellt habe, und ebenso wird das gottdurchdrungene Dasein wieder angefacht, wie ich es gestern für das letzte Stadium des Schlafes dargestellt habe. Daher könnte man sagen: Will der Mensch zu einer erkenntnismäßigen Grundlage des religiösen Lebens kommen und will er zu einer Erkenntnisgrundlage für Kosmologie kommen, so muß er im vollbewußten Erdendasein Bilder desjenigen hervorrufen können, was auf die geschilderte Weise im vorirdischen Dasein erlebt wird.

[ 17 ] In dem Stadium, in dem der Mensch von den Mondenkräften ergriffen wird, in dem die äußere universelle Welt, die früher das Universum seines eigenen physischen Leibes war, nur in der Offenbarung noch erscheint, in diesem Augenblick tritt dasjenige ein, was ich nennen möchte, dem Menschen entfällt überhaupt der Zusammenhang mit demjenigen, was früher sein Menschenuniversum war. Dieser universelle Keim des physischen Leibes, an welchem der Mensch so lange mitgearbeitet hat, entfällt ihm. Er hat ihn nicht in einem gewissen Stadium des vorirdischen Erlebens. Es stellt sich dann die Sache so dar, daß er ein Inneres hat, angefacht von den Mondenkräften, durchzuckt und durchzogen von der Begierde nach Erdenleben, umgeben von Bildern jetzt einer geist-kosmischen Welt. Wenn der Mensch jetzt geistig-seelisch nach diesen Bildern greift, so durchsticht er sie. Die Realität ist nicht mehr da, die Realität ist der Menschenseele im vorirdischen Dasein an einer bestimmten Etappe ihres Erlebens entfallen. Die Seele hat die Realität dieses Menschenuniversums nicht mehr um sich und in sich. Und kurz darauf, nachdem dem Menschen diese universelle Realität entfallen ist, kurz darauf tritt auf der Erde die Konzeption, die Empfängnis für den physischen Leib ein, der nun übernommen wird, zusammengezogen übernommen wird von dem Geistuniversum und weitergebildet wird im Laufe der physischen Vererbungsevolution. Was der Mensch lange Zeit in der geistigen Welt universell herangebildet hat, das entfällt ihm und es taucht wieder auf, indem die Konzeption des physischen Menschenleibes unten auf der Erde ausgeführt wird. Die Prozesse, die der Mensch geistig oben durchgemacht hat, an denen er mittätig war, sie finden unten auf der Erde ihre physische Fortsetzung. Das bleibt dem Menschen zunächst jetzt auch in seinem vorirdischen Geistdasein ein Unbewußtes. Das geht da unten auf der Erde vor sich. Da hinunter ist gewissermaßen sein geist-physischer Organismus geströmt, zieht sich zusammen in den kleinen physischen Menschenleib. Da ist das ganze majestätische Universum zusammengezogen und durchsetzt und durchdrungen von demjenigen, was die physische Vererbung hinzubringt. Und das, was der Mensch früher als Realität gehabt hat, das hat er jetzt nur in Bildern um sich, gewissermaßen eine kosmische Erinnerung an die kosmische Realität des Arbeitens am physischen Organismus.

[ 18 ] In dieser Zeit seines vorirdischen Erlebens wird der Mensch reif, in alles das, was er da als Bilder seines Menschenuniversums um sich hat, in denen keine Realität mehr steckt, in diese Bilder von allen Seiten des Kosmos das Ätherische hereinzuziehen. Der Kosmos enthält auch ein Ätherisches, einen Äther-Kosmos. Aus dem kosmischen Äther zieht nun der Mensch in diese seine kosmische Bildwelt das Ätherische herein. Er zieht es zusammen; er füllt das, was nur noch als kosmische Erinnerung in ihm ist, mit Weltenäther aus, den er zusammenzieht, und er bildet sich so seinen ätherischen Organismus. Der Mensch bildet seinen ätherischen Organismus in der Zeit, in der ihm der physische Organismus entfallen ist, in der der physische Organismus unten seine Fortsetzung findet durch die Konzeption in der physischen Vererbungsevolution, und der Mensch kleidet sich ein in seinen ätherischen Organismus.

[ 19 ] Jetzt ist alles das, was an Entbehrungen und Begehren, an Wunsch nach dem Erdenleben in der Seele lebt, das ist jetzt mit übergegangen in die ätherische Organisation. Diese ätherische Organisation ist ja gewöhnt, weil sie die physische Organisation des Kosmos durchdringt, zusammenzusein mit der physischen Leibesorganisation. Durch alles das entstehen die Kräfte, die nun den Menschen wiederum hinunterziehen zu dem, was ihm vorher kosmisch unbewußt war. Der jetzt mit dem ätherischen Leib umkleidete seelisch-geistige Mensch strebt durch seinen Wunsch hinunter zu dem, was der physische Organismus unten auf der Erde geworden ist, den er selber erst in seiner Geistesgestalt vorbereitet hat. Das gibt dann die Vereinigung des Geistig-Seelischen nach den geschilderten Erlebnissen mit dem physischen Leib.

[ 20 ] Was darüber noch weiter zu sagen ist, werde ich in der letzten kurzen Betrachtung noch anfügen.


[ 21 ] Ich glaube, daß deutlich geworden ist, wo in diesem letzten Stadium des vorirdischen Erlebens, das ich geschildert habe und das dem irdischen Erleben unmittelbar vorangeht, die Grenze ist zwischen dem, was der Menschenseele vorirdisch bewußt ist und was ihr unbewußt ist. Bewußt ist dasjenige, was die Mondenkräfte in der Menschenseele als Subjektives bewirkt haben; bewußt ist das universelle Tableau, das nur noch in Bildern vorhanden ist wie eine kosmische Rückerinnerung an das Arbeiten am Menschenuniversum, und bewußt ist das, was vor sich geht als Zusammenziehen der Kräfte aus dem Weltenäther zu dem menschlichen ätherischen Organismus. Unbewußt bleibt alles das, was — wenn ich mich des Ausdruckes bedienen darf — unten auf der Erde vor sich geht mit dem physischen Menschenorganismus, der eben erst jetzt durch seine physische Metamorphose sich herausgebildet hat und der durch die Konzeption in der physischen Vererbungsevolution weitergebildet wird. Aber es findet da, wie ich angedeutet habe, eine Vereinigung des letzten kosmisch Bewußten mit diesem Unbewußten statt, ein Untertauchen in dieses Unbewußte.

[ 22 ] Damit erlischt das kosmische Bewußtsein, und es tritt auf in dem ganz kleinen Kinde etwas wie eine unbewußte Erinnerung an das, was im vorirdischen Dasein erlebt worden ist. Eine unbewußte, aber tätige Erinnerung ist dann im intensiven Arbeiten des ganz kleinen Kindes, unbewußt natürlich. Diese tätige Erinnerung braucht als eine noch undifferenzierte oder sehr wenig differenzierte Materie das menschliche Gehirn und den übrigen menschlichen Organismus. Schon während des embryonalen Zustandes, während dessen die erwähnte Vereinigung nach und nach geschieht, aber auch noch später, nach der Geburt, arbeitet der Mensch als ein Plastiker an der Ausbildung des Gehirns und der übrigen Organe. Die unbewußte, aber tätige Erinnerung an das vorirdische Dasein arbeitet am intensivsten in den ersten Kindesjahren am menschlichen Organismus. Das Wesentlichste ist allerdings schon früher vorbereitet worden und realisiert sich im Nachwirken, aber es muß noch vieles hineingearbeitet werden in diesen zum physischen Menschenleib zusammengezogenen kosmisch-physischen Geistorganismus. Das ist zwar ein Widerspruch, aber aus dem Zusammenhang, den ich heute vor Ihnen entwickelt habe, ist das zu verstehen. In diesen Organismus ist noch vieles hineinzuarbeiten. Es arbeitet also die unbewußte, aber tätige kosmische Erinnerung an dem Säugling eine innere Menschenplastik.

[ 23 ] Könnte dasjenige, was im letzten Stadium des vorirdischen Daseins bewußt erlebt wird, hereingeholt werden ins Erdendasein, dann würde die bloße Ideenphilosophie den übersinnlichen Inhalt haben. Denn gerade das, was als das Hereinspielen des Kosmisch-Ätherischen in die Bilder des Menschenorganismus sich erweist, das gibt eine wirklich lebendige philosophische Anschauung. Nur daß, wenn das so ist, dieser philosophischen Anschauung trotz aller Lebendigkeit etwas fehlt. Sie entspricht ja einem Stadium des vorirdischen Erlebens, wo der Mensch gerade seinem physischen Organismus entfremdet ist, wo der physische Organismus ihm unbewußt ist. Das gibt auch der lebendigsten Philosophie, zum Beispiel der, die aus dem traumhaften Hellsehen uralter Zeiten entstanden ist, etwas Erdenfremdes. Weil nämlich gerade die Philosophie, wenn sie lebendig ist, einem Erleben entspricht, dem das Erdenleben entfallen ist, deshalb hat die Philosophie immer auch eine starke Sehnsucht, das Erdenwirken zu begreifen, aber sie fühlt sich auch immer als über dem Erdendasein schwebend. Die Philosophie hat immer etwas Idealistisches, das heißt nicht von Irdischem Getragenes, gerade wenn sie recht innerlich lebendig ist. Eigentlich ist man nur Philosoph im letzten Stadium des vorirdischen Erlebens. Man müßte sich hier im Erdenleben erinnern an das, was im letzten Stadium des vorirdischen Lebens selbstverständlich bewußt ist. Da ist man richtiger Philosoph, wie man richtiger Kosmologe etwas vorher ist, wo man die kosmischen Offenbarungen vor sich hat, aber wo die kosmischen Wesenheiten sich schon von einem zurückgezogen haben, und wie man richtiger religiöser Erkenner ist in dem ersten vorirdischen Stadium, das ich heute geschildert habe. Aber weil beim Säugling eine unbewußte, aber tätige Erinnerung auftritt, so durfte ich in den letzten Tagen hier auch sagen: Wenn man das, was unbewußt beim Säugling auftritt, in die Ideenphilosophie hereinziehen und zur Vollbewußtheit bringen könnte, würde auch Philosophie entstehen. Das ist ganz natürlich, weil das, was der Säugling erlebt, die unbewußte Erinnerung dessen ist, was im letzten vorirdischen Stadium vor der Vereinigung mit dem physischen Menschenleib von der Seele erlebt wird.

[ 24 ] So müssen Religionserkenntnis, Kosmologie und Philosophie, wenn sie richtig sein sollen, dennoch Gaben aus der übersinnlichen Welt sein. Nur wenn sie das wiederum werden und als solche von dem Menschen erkannt werden, werden sie wiederum als Religionserkenntnis, als Kosmologie, als Philosophie auch die Menschheit in ihren geistigen Bedürfnissen voll befriedigen.

[ 25 ] Heute habe ich versucht, Ihnen diejenigen Dinge zu schildern, die mit dem Mysterium der Geburt zusammenhängen. Ich werde in den folgenden Tagen die andere Seite darzustellen haben, dasjenige, was mit dem Mysterium des Todes zusammenhängt, um das Bild immer mehr und mehr zu vervollständigen, das uns darstellen soll, wie das geistig Wertvollste hier im Erdendasein eben sein muß ein Abglanz, ein Abbild, eine Wirkung dessen, was der Mensch erleben, erkennen, erfahren kann im übersinnlichen Dasein, weil er nicht bloß ein sinnliches Erdenwesen, sondern ein seelisch-geistiges übersinnliches Wesen ist, daher auch der Geistwelt, der Seelenwelt angehört und, wenn er sich vollständig als Mensch in seinem Menschendasein in jedem Stadium des Sinnlichen erfühlen will, auch das Übersinnliche in sein Dasein hereinbeziehen muß.

The transition from the spiritual-soul existence in human development to the physical-sensory existence

[ 1 ] From the descriptions I have given of inspired and intuitive knowledge, it will have become clear that there is a cosmic experience for the human inner life, for the spiritual-soul life of the human being. Yesterday I was able to point out that such a cosmic experience is available to human beings in the state of sleep, only that it remains unconscious to ordinary consciousness. Human beings experience the cosmos, but they know nothing of it in their ordinary consciousness. One can say that while human beings experience themselves in their physical and etheric bodies during their sensory experience in physical earthly existence, and regard what these physical and etheric bodies have as organs within themselves as their inner being, during cosmic experience, as happens for example during sleep, they experience a reproduction of cosmic beings as their inner life, so that one can actually say that even in the ordinary state of sleep, the ordinary inner world of the human being becomes an outer world. When a person sleeps, they simply have the physical and etheric bodies, which otherwise constitute their being, as an outer world before them, and what is the environment, the cosmos, in sensory observation becomes, in a certain sense, an inner world.

[ 2 ] However, during the state of sleep, there is a continuous desire in the astral human being, in the I-human being, to return to the physical body. This desire becomes particularly active in the stage of sleep that I described yesterday as the deepest, as sleep—if I may call it that according to yesterday's characterization—with fixed-star consciousness. This desire to return to the physical and etheric bodies is naturally connected with the fact that the physical and etheric bodies remain alive in the world during the state of sleep. And the fact that the human being wants to return, develops a desire to return, is stirred up in him, as I explained yesterday, by the spiritual forces of the moon that are active in the cosmos.

[ 3 ] If one wants to understand spiritual science, anthroposophy, in the right way, one must be clear that the individual relationships must be presented from the most diverse points of view. For example, someone might hear me say that the reason why human beings want to return to their physical and etheric bodies in the morning is because the soul longs to return, has the desire to return. Then someone might say: This return depends on the forces of the moon. Both are correct, except that there is a connection: the desire to be reunited with the physical organism is kindled during cosmic experience by the forces of the moon, which also permeate the human astral and ego organisms between falling asleep and waking up. These lunar forces, that is, their spiritual counterpart, cannot be active when the human being is in pre-earthly existence, that is, before he has descended from the spiritual-soul world and clothed himself in a physical human body. When humans are in their pre-earthly existence in a purely spiritual cosmos, there is initially no relationship to a physical and etheric organism, because these do not exist. During sleep, however, the physical and etheric organisms wait, as it were, to be animated and spiritualized again by the actual inner human being.

[ 4 ] Such a physical and etheric organism does not exist in the pre-earthly existence of the human being. But something else is present. At a certain stage of this pre-earthly existence, the human being experiences a kind of cosmos, which he also experiences as his inner world. He feels himself, as it were, to be a cosmos. But this cosmos in this pre-earthly existence is something different from the cosmos that surrounds us between birth and death and can be observed by the senses. The cosmos experienced at a certain stage of pre-earthly existence is a kind of cosmic germ of the later physical human organism, the physical human organism that humans must clothe themselves in when they descend to earthly existence. Imagine everything that man has as a physical organism in earthly life expanded, let us say the lungs, the liver, all processes—naturally as forces, not as physical-material organs— that is, the lung processes, as well as the heart processes and so on, expanded into the cosmic immeasurable, this is what the human being experiences, only that he then encompasses this cosmos with his soul, that he has this cosmos at the same time as his inner life.

[ 5 ] When I say that human beings experience their later physical organism as a germ, the difference must of course be emphasized between the use of the word germ here for spiritual existence and in the other case for physical earthly existence. When we speak of a germ in physical earthly existence, we mean something small that then unfolds and becomes a large organism. However, when I now speak of the germ of the human physical body being experienced as a cosmos in pre-earthly existence, this cosmic germ is immeasurably large, contracts more and more, and finally becomes small. Of course, one must take into account that in this case, at least for the spiritual, initially for pre-earthly existence, the term “large” is used figuratively in relation to the later “small,” because in pre-earthly existence, things are not experienced spatially as they are here in sensory-physical existence. Everything is experienced qualitatively. Space, as we know it from our sensory world, actually exists only for this sensory world. Only to clarify, to be able to take something from human language that also characterizes these purely spiritual conditions of pre-earthly existence, can this distinction be used quite well for the purpose of illustration. Thus, we can say that the cosmic human germ is large and contracts more and more, finally appearing small in the physical organism of the human being.

[ 6 ] So we must imagine the following: In pre-earthly existence, human beings do not have a view of the cosmos as we have it here in physical existence, but rather they have a cosmos around them. This cosmos contains spiritual-soul beings. But human beings feel connected to these spiritual-soul beings; they feel them within themselves, so to speak. They feel their soul extended throughout this cosmos. This cosmos is nothing other than the later human physical body expanded into the universe. Humans therefore experience their later inner world as a cosmic outer world, which they experience together with their inner world. We can therefore say that this entire cosmos—I would like to call it the human cosmos—this human cosmos, which humans experience as their own, is their individual existence. But at the same time, human beings also experience the lives of other beings, other human souls, and other spiritual beings that do not come into physical earthly existence. Human beings live their way over into other beings, so that they simultaneously experience a kind of universe for themselves and a kind of togetherness with other beings. I would like to call this togetherness with other beings an active intuition for this stage of pre-earthly existence, a real, experienced intuition. What is otherwise reproduced in the supersensible knowledge of intuition is, for this pre-earthly existence, living existence.

[ 7 ] While the human being in the state of sleep lives in a reproduction of the cosmos in the way I described yesterday, that is, with both his physical organism and his etheric organism outside himself — but as finished, complete entities —, in pre-earthly existence he has the physical organism in the process of becoming as his essence, which I cannot even say is outside himself, but rather within himself. But this being within himself is at the same time a being outside himself, and his life consists in active work, in spiritual work on the becoming of this organism. While here in physical existence we organize our work in such a way that the external sense objects are purposefully changed, transformed, while we ourselves here in physical existence are transformed with the sense objects, we work in our pre-earthly existence to prepare our physical organism. We incorporate into it that which must then be the wise interaction of the organs, as well as of the organs with the soul and of the soul with the spirit in earthly existence. We live in a universe whose becoming consists in being purposefully shaped toward our future earthly organism.

[ 8 ] Because we are not only in this universe with our perceptions, but also with our soul and spirit, we have consciousness in this pre-earthly state. Because the physical and etheric organisms are complete during the state of sleep, sleep is unconscious, for we cannot work on what is complete during sleep, but we experience it as I described yesterday. In the pre-earthly state, everything that constitutes our connection with the becoming universe, which is contracting more and more to later become our physical organism, is power, is inner activity that lives out as a different form of consciousness than the consciousness of earthly life. But it is a fully conscious, indeed more clearly conscious state than that which comes about in our earthly life in physical existence. We experience this working toward our later earthly life. Yes, when we here in our earthly existence look at our physical organism as it appears to us in its external appearance or physical anatomy or physiology, we cannot really compare it with the glory, the grandeur, and the majesty of the universe that surrounds us as a world of stars, a world of clouds, and so on. But what is concentrated in this physical human organism is, when viewed by the human soul in its pre-earthly existence as a universe, greater, more powerful, and more majestic than the cosmos that surrounds us as the physical cosmos in our earthly existence. If one imagines everything that is materialized in the physical human organism, everything that is hidden in the human being standing here on earth because it is contracted and covered by the material, if one imagines all this transformed into the spiritual, one would have to think of a universe with which the physical here, , with all its stars, suns, and so on, cannot even begin to measure in terms of size, power, and majesty.

[ 9 ] We live our earthly existence from a spiritual, pre-earthly perspective that has a great and powerful content. And everything we can ever contribute here on earth, even in the highest cultural work, is a trifle compared to what human beings contribute during their pre-earthly existence. I say “participate,” because countless spiritual beings from the most diverse hierarchies work with human beings to create this wonderful structure that is the physical organism. And this work, when viewed as such, is a blissful work. It is truly not something small or insignificant that is meant when, in answer to the question, “What does man do between death and a new birth in his pre-earthly existence?”, the answer is given: “At a certain stage, he works with the spirits of the cosmos on the assembly, on the inner, wise formation of a physical human body, by preforming it as a universal germ.” This is already a heavenly existence compared to earthly existence. Only everything that happens there is hidden in immeasurable depths in the physical earthly organism in which the human being is clothed, and for ordinary consciousness it belongs to the most hidden aspects of the human physical organization. This is the tragedy of materialism, that it believes it knows matter, that it always speaks of matter and its laws. But in all matter there lives a spirit, and it does not live in such a way that we can extract it in a moment, but it lives in such a way that if we want to discover it, we must look back to completely different times and types of experience. What materialism knows least about is the material physical human organism. Materialism had to arise first so that the complex material structures of physical earthly existence could remain as hidden as they are at present to the otherwise admirable natural science of our time. I will speak about further aspects of the pre-earthly existence of human beings in a moment.

[ 10 ] The stage of pre-earthly experience that I have just described can also be characterized by saying that human beings experience what they have as their environment, which is at the same time their own being, as a coexistence between themselves and the spiritual universe. But the spiritual universe is precisely a connection of real, living spiritual beings, in whose circles the human being feels himself as soul and spirit. This highly alive and bright consciousness now begins, at a certain point in time, to gradually darken and fade. Not that it is then experienced as a weak consciousness, but compared to the brightness, clarity, and intensity of a certain state of pre-earthly existence, it dims. If I were to describe through imagination what is a very significant and intense experience, I could express it as follows. At a certain point in this pre-earthly existence, the human being begins to say to himself: I have seen other divine-spiritual beings around me as my own being. Now it seems to me as if these divine-spiritual beings are beginning to lose their form. Now it seems to me as if they were taking on an external pictorial form in which they were clothing themselves. Now it seems to me as if the beings were becoming star-like, just as I had come to know the stars in my previous earthly life through physical observation. They are not yet stars, but spirit beings seem to me to be on their way to becoming stars. — It is a feeling as if the actual spirit world were withdrawing somewhat from the human being and withdrawing more and more, and now an image of this spirit world, as a cosmic revelation of itself, were standing before the human being. In place of the intuitive, active co-experience of the spiritual world, there is something like being inspired by a cosmic image of this spiritual world.

[ 11 ] Parallel to this view is a spiritual inner experience that human beings must, in a sense, experience how the spiritual world withdraws in its very own liveliness and only its revelation is granted to them. This awakens in his soul in pre-earthly existence an experience that I would like to describe with an expression borrowed from physical earthly life as a deprivation, which also manifests itself, again described with a physical earthly expression, as a desire for what one is losing. In the first stages, one has not yet lost it, but one is in the process of losing what one had before. To the extent that one is in this stage of losing, an inner deprivation of what is being lost and a desire for it arise. One wants to have it back.

[ 12 ] It is at this stage of pre-earthly existence that the human soul becomes accessible to the spiritual forces of the moon. This deprivation and desire prepare the human soul to be accessible to the spiritual forces of the moon in the cosmos. Previously, these spiritual forces of the moon were as if non-existent for human beings. Now, as the spiritual cosmos begins to dawn, a connection arises between what vibrates cosmically through the universe as the forces of the moon and the forces of desire that arise in human beings as desire and deprivation. And to the same extent that the cosmos, which previously manifested itself in inner spiritual vitality, is transformed into a mere revelation, to the same extent that the previously active living intuition becomes an active living inspiration, to the same extent the lunar forces cause a separate inner life to emerge in human beings, and the human being no longer feels merely in the universe, so that subject and object do not actually exist for him, but where everything is subjective. He has lived ‘inside’ other beings, but while this was the case, subject and object now begin to have meaning again for the human being. He feels an inner, soulful, subjective existence prepared for him by the forces of the moon, and what is revelation of the cosmos he now begins to feel as an objective external world.

[ 13 ] If, on the other hand, I want to use earthly forms of expression to describe what actually exists in this pre-earthly existence, I could say that in the human soul, which has been endowed with inner life by the forces of the moon, a living thought arises: I must have this physical body, toward which that which I myself have helped to create as a cosmic, spiritual germ has been striving. And in this way, the human being becomes ready to descend to earthly existence. Deprivation and desire, in connection with the lunar forces, make him mature to desire earthly existence, to long to descend to earthly existence, which desire is precisely the after-effect of his earlier work on the universal, cosmic spirit part of the physical body. I said yesterday that the lunar forces always represent that which prepares human beings for earthly life. During sleep, they represent that which drives human beings back into earthly life. In pre-earthly existence, human beings are initially at a certain stage of their experience, as I have just described, without any connection to these lunar forces, but they enter into the lunar forces. And to the same extent, the inclination arises in him to turn back to earthly life. Even if the physical earthly body and the etheric earthly organism are not yet there, the echoes of what he has worked out himself as the cosmic-spiritual preliminary stage of the physical earthly body are still present in him.

[ 14 ] I will speak about the further processes leading up to earthly life immediately afterwards.

[ 15 ] If I am to continue in the manner in which I have characterized the conditions of the total human life in the preceding days in connection with inspired and intuitive knowledge, I must now say: What human beings experience in clear, bright consciousness in the stage of their pre-earthly existence that I have just characterized is what is then relived in earthly existence in the form of images, emotional and mental images, in the religious disposition, in the feeling of a connection between human beings and the divine foundation of the world. For if human beings want to give themselves an account, as souls in pre-earthly existence, of how this nature of the soul enters into earthly existence, one could say: At the moment when human beings pass from experiencing a living spiritual cosmos to experiencing its mere manifestation under the influence of the lunar forces, at that moment of their pre-earthly existence, human beings must say to themselves: I am passing from a God-filled existence to a cosmic existence. I am now beginning to draw together, under the influence of the lunar forces, that bright cosmic consciousness which I developed universally earlier into a more inner consciousness. I said that the bright cosmic consciousness is dimmed, but the more it is dimmed, the more a subjective consciousness arises within the human soul, which is opposed by the revelation of the cosmos as an objective reality. And so we can say: Man passes over to an inspiration in which he knows himself to be a member of the cosmos. He experiences cosmology in this second stage of pre-earthly existence.

[ 16 ] What human beings carry within themselves in earthly life as a striving for cosmological wisdom is just as much an aftereffect of these experiences of pre-earthly existence that have just been characterized as religious consciousness is an aftereffect of the first stage described, that of God-filled consciousness. These things are lived through in pre-earthly existence. They have their after-effects in earthly existence, where they manifest themselves as religious or cosmological predispositions of the human soul, and they are refreshed every night in the way I described yesterday. They are there because human beings are born into earthly existence. They are brought with us as predispositions; they become obscured in the succession of day and night, but every night both the cosmological tendencies of human beings are rekindled from the experience of the planetary world, the world of the stars, as I have described, and likewise the God-pervaded existence is rekindled, as I described yesterday for the last stage of sleep. Therefore, one could say: If human beings want to arrive at a cognitive basis for religious life and want to arrive at a cognitive basis for cosmology, they must be able to evoke images of what is experienced in the pre-earthly existence in the manner described above during their fully conscious earthly existence.p>

[ 17 ] At the stage when human beings are seized by the forces of the moon, when the outer universal world, which was formerly the universe of their own physical body, appears only in revelation, at that moment what I would like to call the following occurs: human beings lose all connection with what was formerly their human universe. This universal germ of the physical body, on which the human being has worked for so long, is lost to him. He does not have it at a certain stage of pre-earthly experience. The situation then presents itself as follows: he has an inner life, stirred by the forces of the moon, shot through and permeated by the desire for earthly life, surrounded by images of a spiritual-cosmic world. When the human being now reaches out spiritually and soulfully for these images, he pierces them. Reality is no longer there; reality has been lost to the human soul in its pre-earthly existence at a certain stage of its experience. The soul no longer has the reality of this human universe around it and within it. And shortly after this universal reality has been lost to the human being, shortly after this, conception occurs on earth, the conception of the physical body, which is now taken over, contracted and taken over by the spiritual universe and further developed in the course of physical hereditary evolution. What humans have universally developed over a long period of time in the spiritual world is lost to them and reappears when the conception of the physical human body is carried out down on Earth. The processes that man has undergone spiritually above, in which he has been actively involved, find their physical continuation below on earth. For the time being, this remains unconscious to man in his pre-earthly spiritual existence. This is what is happening down there on earth. His spiritual-physical organism has, so to speak, flowed down there and contracted into the small physical human body. There, the entire majestic universe is contracted and permeated and imbued with that which physical heredity brings about. And what human beings once had as reality, they now have only in images around them, a kind of cosmic memory of the cosmic reality of working on the physical organism.

[ 18 ] During this time of his pre-earthly experience, the human being matures to draw into everything that surrounds him as images of his human universe, in which there is no longer any reality, into these images from all sides of the cosmos, the etheric. The cosmos also contains an etheric element, an etheric cosmos. From the cosmic ether, the human being now draws the etheric into his cosmic world of images. He draws it together; he fills what is now only a cosmic memory within him with world ether, which he draws together, and in this way he forms his etheric organism. Human beings form their etheric organism during the time when their physical organism has been lost, when the physical organism finds its continuation below through conception in physical hereditary evolution, and human beings clothe themselves in their etheric organism.

[ 19 ] Now everything that lives in the soul in terms of deprivation and desire, in terms of longing for earthly life, has now passed over into the etheric organization. This etheric organization is familiar because it permeates the physical organization of the cosmos and is accustomed to being together with the physical body organization. All this gives rise to forces that now pull human beings back down to what was previously cosmically unconscious to them. The soul-spiritual human being, now clothed in the etheric body, strives through its desire downwards to what has become the physical organism down on earth, which it itself has first prepared in its spiritual form. This then brings about the union of the spiritual-soul with the physical body after the experiences described above.

[ 20 ] I will add what else needs to be said on this subject in the last brief consideration.


[ 21 ] I believe it has become clear where, in this last stage of pre-earthly experience that I have described and which immediately precedes earthly experience, the boundary lies between what is conscious to the human soul before earth and what is unconscious to it. Conscious is that which the lunar forces have brought about in the human soul as something subjective; conscious is the universal tableau, which exists only in images like a cosmic memory of the work on the human universe, and conscious is that which is going on as a gathering of forces from the world ether to the human etheric organism. Unconscious remains everything that — if I may use the expression — goes on down here on earth with the physical human organism, which has only just emerged through its physical metamorphosis and which is further developed through conception in the physical evolutionary process of heredity. But, as I have indicated, there takes place a union of the last cosmic consciousness with this unconscious, a submergence into this unconscious.

[ 22 ] With this, the cosmic consciousness disappears, and something like an unconscious memory of what was experienced in pre-earthly existence appears in the very small child. An unconscious but active memory is then at work in the intense activity of the very small child, unconscious of course. This active memory needs the human brain and the rest of the human organism as a still undifferentiated or very little differentiated matter. Already during the embryonic state, during which the aforementioned union gradually takes place, but also later, after birth, the human being works as a sculptor on the formation of the brain and the other organs. The unconscious but active memory of pre-earthly existence works most intensively on the human organism during the first years of childhood. The most essential elements, however, have already been prepared earlier and are realized in the after-effects, but much still has to be worked into this cosmic-physical spirit organism that has been drawn together into the physical human body. This is a contradiction, but it can be understood from the context I have developed before you today. Much still has to be worked into this organism. Thus, the unconscious but active cosmic memory works on the infant as an inner human sculptor.

[ 23 ] If what is consciously experienced in the last stage of pre-earthly existence could be brought into earthly existence, then mere idea philosophy would have a supersensible content. For it is precisely what proves to be the interplay of the cosmic-etheric in the images of the human organism that gives rise to a truly living philosophical view. Only that, if this is so, something is missing from this philosophical view, despite all its liveliness. It corresponds to a stage of pre-earthly experience where the human being is alienated from his physical organism, where the physical organism is unconscious to him. This gives even the most lively philosophy, for example that which arose from the dreamlike clairvoyance of ancient times, something unearthly. For it is precisely because philosophy, when it is alive, corresponds to an experience that has lost its earthly life, that philosophy always has a strong longing to understand earthly activity, but it also always feels as if it is floating above earthly existence. Philosophy always has something idealistic about it, that is, it is not supported by anything earthly, especially when it is truly alive within. Actually, one is only a philosopher in the final stage of pre-earthly experience. Here in earthly life, one would have to remember what is naturally conscious in the final stage of pre-earthly life. There one is a true philosopher, just as one is a true cosmologist before one has the cosmic revelations before one, but where the cosmic beings have already withdrawn from one, and just as one is a true religious knower in the first pre-earthly stage that I have described today. But because an unconscious but active memory arises in the infant, I was able to say here in recent days that if one could draw what arises unconsciously in the infant into the philosophy of ideas and bring it to full consciousness, philosophy would also arise. This is quite natural, because what the infant experiences is the unconscious memory of what is experienced by the soul in the last pre-earthly stage before union with the physical human body.

[ 24 ] Thus, if they are to be correct, religious knowledge, cosmology, and philosophy must nevertheless be gifts from the supersensible world. Only when they become this again and are recognized as such by human beings will they once more fully satisfy humanity's spiritual needs as religious knowledge, cosmology, and philosophy.

[ 25 ] Today I have tried to describe to you those things that are connected with the mystery of birth. In the coming days, I will have to present the other side, that which is connected with the mystery of death, in order to complete the picture that is to show us how the most spiritually valuable thing here in earthly existence must be a reflection, a reflection, an effect of what human beings can experience, recognize, and learn in the supersensible existence, because they are not merely sensual earthly beings, but soul-spiritual, supersensible beings, therefore also belongs to the spiritual world, the world of souls, and, if he wants to feel himself completely as a human being in his human existence at every stage of the sensual, he must also include the supersensible in his existence.