The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. Studies on Life Between Death and Rebirth I

[ 1 ] My task this evening is to speak to you about some peculiarities in the understanding of the spiritual world and also to touch upon the implications of such insights for one’s entire life. Anyone who has been given the task of communicating something from the spiritual worlds to their fellow human beings cannot emphasize enough the need to continually test their insights for accuracy and absolute spiritual correctness. My remarks will ultimately aim to share with you some insights into human life between death and a new birth. It has been possible for me, especially in recent times, to thoroughly examine the investigations that the human spirit can undertake in this realm; and today, in the second part of my remarks, I would like to speak to you about this thorough examination. For it is necessary that I preface the first part of my lecture with a few remarks on the nature of the acquisition of spiritual insights.

[ 2 ] To attain spiritual insights, a very specific state of the human soul is necessary. And this state of the human soul is, in a certain sense, quite the opposite of the state the human soul has in external life on the physical plane. In external life, especially in our present time, the human soul is essentially in a state of constant restlessness. Hour by hour throughout the day, the soul continually receives new impressions, and because the human soul identifies with these impressions, this results in a constant restlessness of the soul.

[ 3 ] The opposite must occur in the soul of anyone who wishes to enter the spiritual world. The first condition for ascending into the spiritual world and for comprehending the insights from the spiritual worlds is complete stillness, steadfastness, and inner peace of the soul. This peace of the soul is more difficult to achieve than one might think. In order for this peace of the soul to be established, we must, above all, silence all agitation, all anxieties, all sorrows, and even the concerns of external life during the time in which we wish to transport ourselves into the spiritual world. It must be as if we were standing at a single point in the world and had no will to step even a little way from that point, so that the things of the spiritual world may pass before us. Yet we must bear in mind that in everyday life on the physical plane we can move from one thing to another, and the things are there. This is not the case in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, we must first actually bring things to ourselves—to the still point within us—through our thinking and our mental images. We must, as it were, step out of ourselves, enter into the things, and then bring the things to us from the outside. In doing so, we then have experiences that can be frightening for the human soul.

[ 4 ] We discover that in our ordinary life on the physical plane, we can change things, that we can improve ourselves when we see things incorrectly or do things wrong. None of this is the case on the spiritual plane. Rather, on the spiritual plane we must learn that things appear true or false to us depending on what was already within us at the moment we approach the spiritual plane. All preparation for the correct perception of the spiritual worlds must therefore take place before entering the spiritual world; for once one has passed through the gate into the spiritual world, one can no longer correct what is seen there, but instead makes the mistakes that one is bound to make according to one’s character traits. And in order to avoid certain mistakes one has made thereafter, one must return to the physical plane and improve one’s character traits there, and then return to the spiritual world to do better this time. — You will see from this how immensely necessary good, proper preparation for the spiritual world is before one enters through the gate into the spiritual world.

[ 5 ] Everything I am saying here depends on the cycles of human development, and the situation for the soul today is not what it has always been. At present, when entering the spiritual world, people should fear the overwhelming presence of visionary visions more than they should welcome them. When we begin our exercises to ascend into the higher worlds, visionary apparitions and visionary realities can intrude upon us. And there is only one way, in the present time, to avoid error in relation to the visionary world. This one way is the necessity of first telling oneself regarding one’s visions: through these visions, one initially recognizes nothing other than oneself. When an entire visionary world appears around us, it need be nothing other than a reflection of our own being. Our qualities, our own maturity, everything we think and feel, is transformed in the visionary world into realities that appear to us as an objective world. If, for example, we believe we see beings or events in the astral world that appear completely objective to us, this need not be anything other than a reflection of, say, one of our virtues or vices, or even just our headache. Anyone who wishes to ascend to true initiation must, especially today, come to comprehend and penetrate through thought what confronts them in the visionary world. The initiate will therefore not rest until they have understood what confronts them in the visionary world just as they understand what confronts them in the physical world.

[ 6 ] Now, however, as we ascend toward initiation, we encounter those very things that we also experience in the world between death and a new birth. Recently, a question has arisen in connection with my occult research: How does the visionary world—which can be accessed through initiation or through a shock that loosens the etheric body—relate to the world in which one lives between death and a new birth? — The following then emerged: When, starting from the time of the Kamaloka—which you are familiar with—we turn our attention to the subsequent period between death and a new birth, we first observe that we live in a kind of objective world comparable to the world of the initiate. This does not mean that after death we do not live in a real world; we live in an absolutely real world, living with those with whom we have already entered into relationships in this physical world, in thoroughly real circumstances. But just as on Earth everything is conveyed to us through sensory perception, so after death all things are conveyed to us through visions.

[ 7 ] Let us suppose that, after death, we meet someone in the spiritual world who passed away before us. They are actually there for us; we are truly standing before them, but we must also be able to perceive them, must enter into a relationship with them in the visionary world, just as we must enter into a relationship with a person in the physical world through our eyes and ears. But now a difficulty arises that is just as present in the experience of the initiate as it is between death and a new birth: as already indicated, the visionary world initially gives us only a reflection of our own being. When a person, as has been described, approaches us in the spiritual world, a vision arises. But this vision initially reflects nothing other than the kind of love or antipathy we felt for them here, or some other relationship we have with the one who approaches us in the spiritual world. We can thus stand before a person in the spiritual world and yet perceive nothing other than what has become fixed within us before death. It may therefore be that we stand before the person and surround ourselves with our own feelings, sympathies, or antipathies as with a visionary mist, so that he becomes the very cause of our shutting ourselves off from him through our own mist. The most important thing here is that such behavior toward a person in the spiritual world after death is linked to a real feeling, to a real inner experience. We feel, for example, that we can no longer love a person whom we did not love fully in life—as we should have—any more after death than we loved them in life, even though we stand before them and wish to love them more, and cannot make up for what we failed to do in physical life. This inability, this absolute inability to develop one’s own soul any further, can be felt as an immense pressure on the soul and is experienced in this way even after death.

[ 8 ] And here I come to the topic that has recently come to my attention: The initial experiences in what is known as Devachan are essentially shaped by what has already taken root in our soul—namely, our relationships with other people prior to our death. For example, we cannot ask a person at a specific time after death: How should I love him? — but we can only ask: How did I love him in earthly life, and how do I love him as a consequence now? This state changes as we gradually become able, after death, to feel the effects of the beings of the spiritual world and the beings of the hierarchies on the visions surrounding us. So this state, which I have just described, changes only in that we gradually learn to feel: the beings of the hierarchies are working upon the mist that surrounds us; they radiate upon this mist, just as the sun radiates upon the clouds. We must even bring with us a certain sum of memories of our pre-death experiences, which surround us like a cloud, and with these we must make ourselves capable of receiving the light of the other hierarchies. — In general, even in the present day, almost every human being is inclined to surrender in this way to the influences and effects of the higher hierarchies. That is to say: Every human being who dies today and enters the spiritual world finds that the hierarchies illuminate their mist of visions.

[ 9 ] But this influence of the hierarchies, which takes place over time—this bestowal of light—gradually changes. It changes in such a way that we gradually feel how, through the influx of light from the higher hierarchies, our consciousness can gradually be subdued. And then we realize that the preservation of consciousness depends on very specific factors prior to death. For example, consciousness darkens more easily in a person with an immoral state of mind. The most important thing, therefore, is to pass through death with moral strength, for moral consciousness keeps our soul open to the light of the hierarchies. Recently, I have had the opportunity to examine people after death who possessed both a moral and an immoral state of mind, and it consistently turned out that those with a moral state of mind retain a consciousness after death that is bright and clear; those with an immoral state of mind fall into a kind of dark twilight of consciousness.

[ 10 ] One might well ask: What harm is there if, after death, people enter a kind of sleep of consciousness? Then they suffer nothing and even escape the consequences of their immorality. — But this cannot be used as an objection, because this darkening of consciousness is linked to immense states of anxiety that result from immorality. After death, there are no greater states of anxiety than this darkening of consciousness.

[ 11 ] Later, once a certain amount of time has passed since death, one has yet other experiences: One compares people of different kinds between death and a new birth; for the period following death, in addition to moral dispositions of the soul, religious dispositions of the soul come into consideration, and it simply turns out to be an undeniable fact that people with a lack of religious concepts experience a darkening of consciousness some time after death due to this lack of religious concepts. One cannot help but be struck by the impression that emerges from such studies of people who hold only materialistic mental images: that they indeed feel their consciousness fading or dimming soon after death. And no matter how plausible materialistic worldviews may seem, this fact, which has just been stated, simply stands in opposition to what is beneficial to humanity in materialistic views. They are simply not conducive to human development after death.

[ 12 ] I have thus described, so to speak, two periods that exist for human life after death: one in which moral concepts play a role, and the other in which religious concepts play a role. But then comes a third era, which would bring about a darkening of consciousness for every human being if it were not for certain cosmic measures that prevent this darkening of consciousness. When we now examine this third era, we must take into account the evolution of all humanity through the various cycles of development. Through what they were able to acquire on Earth, the people of the pre-Christian era could not obtain anything that would have given them consciousness in this third epoch after death. The fact that people in this pre-Christian era nevertheless possessed a consciousness during this third epoch stemmed from the fact that, at the dawn of the Earth, certain spiritual powers had been bestowed upon humanity, which were able to preserve precisely this consciousness in the soul during this third epoch after death. These heirlooms, which people still possessed from the dawn of the Earth, were preserved through the wise measures taken by the initiated leaders. For we must certainly note that in pre-Christian times, all the various peoples of the Earth received the influences of the places of initiation. There were hundreds of ways in which spiritual life flowed from the mysteries into the life of the people.

[ 13 ] These impulses grew weaker and weaker as the cycles of human development drew closer to the Mystery of Golgotha. An external proof that these impulses grew ever weaker can be found, for example, in the appearance of the great Buddha in pre-Christian times. If you seriously consider the teachings of the Buddha, you will find nowhere any real hints regarding the nature of the spiritual world. Therefore, the term for the spiritual world in the doctrine of Nirvana is truly negative. Buddha did indeed require that whoever wishes to ascend into the spiritual world free themselves from attachment to the physical world; but in the entire Buddha-teaching you will find no description of the spiritual world that stands out in any way, as was previously given, for example, in the Brahmanic teaching, which still bore the hallmarks of ancient times. It must be pointed out again and again that the facts now cited are reflected among the various peoples up to the time when the Greeks grasped the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha. Because during the preceding Greek period of human development consciousness had dimmed between death and new birth, the Greek who knew this perceived the sojourn in the spiritual world only as something shadowy. To him, the spiritual world was merely a world of shadows. Human beings could provide themselves with all beauty, all artistry, and even harmonious arrangements in the outer world through their own efforts, but they could not acquire in the physical world that which gave them light in the third epoch between death and new birth.

[ 14 ] This is certainly connected with the fact that, with the Greek era, the cycle of human history had arrived in which the old spiritual heritage had faded away, and human beings, through their own powers, could not acquire in the physical world what might have remained to them after death, so that they could have entered the spiritual world with the consciousness described. Therefore, at precisely this point in the world’s development, something quite special had to take place: an impulse had to come to humanity from outside, giving it the consciousness in the period after death of which we have just spoken. Human beings had lost their own ability to possess consciousness in the interval between death and new birth through inherited legacies. They were able to regain the power of consciousness by looking to what took place in the Mystery of Golgotha. It is certainly the case that what could be experienced in the Greek period through the Mystery of Golgotha illuminated consciousness for human beings at the corresponding point in time between death and new birth. Understanding the Mystery of Golgotha is the impulse for consciousness in the third period after death.

[ 15 ] If we look at this point in the so-called Greco-Latin epoch of human development, we can say: For the first period after death, the moral constitution of the soul is the determining factor; for the second, the religious constitution of the soul is the determining factor; but for the third, the determining factor was an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. For those who lacked this, consciousness ceased in the third epoch after death, just as it had previously been lacking among the Greeks. The Mystery of Golgotha does indeed signify the revitalization of human consciousness precisely in the middle period between death and the new birth. What humanity had lost of its ancient spiritual heritage was restored to them through this event. — Thus, the advent of the Christ event became necessary out of human conditions and circumstances. As things progressed, people were endowed with ever-new abilities. In the early period of Christian development, it was essentially the real connection to the Mystery of Golgotha, as it was handed down by those who had witnessed it and who passed on what emerged as the power of consciousness in the third epoch after death, as I have described. With the further development of human abilities, however, a new relationship to the Mystery of Golgotha and to the Christ is once again necessary today.

[ 16 ] If one wishes to grasp the deepest essence of the human soul, particularly in our present age, one must say: This deepest essence consists in the fact that human beings today are able to attain a certain knowledge of their ego. Such an approach to the ego, as is possible today, was not possible in earlier times. Among people in the outer world, this approach to the ego manifests itself in the form of the most blatant egoism; then one finds all manner of gradations up to that which we might call the level of the philosophers. If you study today’s philosophers, you will find that they have a certain point of rest only when they come to speak of the human ego. In pre-Christian times, when people sought to understand the world, they turned to the external phenomena that presented themselves to them; that is, they turned outward when they wished to philosophize. Today, people turn inward and find a firm point of reference only when they approach the “I.” I will cite here as an example only the great philosopher Fichte and the contemporary philosopher Bergson, and mention that a certain peace comes to these people only when they find the human ego. If we seek the reason for this phenomenon, we come to the conclusion that people in the past could not arrive at a knowledge of the ego from within themselves. It was given in the Greco-Roman era through the event of Golgotha. Christ gave people the certainty that a spark of the divine lives in the soul. It lives on in the human being who has not only become flesh in a physical sense, but who has become flesh in the Christian sense. And that means: to have become an “I.” This ability to perceive the divine in a human individual—namely, in Christ—is increasingly obscured for people today on the physical plane because they are delving ever deeper into their personal “I.” The ability to see the Christ is obscured by the fact that human beings seek this spark within themselves. And we have indeed witnessed that, in the course of the nineteenth century, this view of the “I” has solidified to the point where the figure of the Christ has been de-divinized and the divine is conceived as the abstract that expresses itself throughout all of humanity. The German philosopher David Friedrich Strauss, for example, argued that one should not look to a single historical Christ, but rather to that which runs through all of humanity as the divine; that, for example, the Resurrection scene is nothing other than what is revealed in all of humanity: the Resurrection of the divine spirit in all of humanity.

[ 17 ] This is why a deeper understanding of the mystery of Golgotha is increasingly lost the more people seek the divine within themselves. The entire tendency of modern thinking is to reflect the divine solely within the human being. This makes it increasingly impossible to recognize that the divine was embodied in a personality.

[ 18 ] This has an incredibly real consequence for life between death and rebirth. If it was already the case during the Greco-Roman era that human beings could not sustain consciousness through their own powers in the third epoch after death, this will be even more difficult in our time due to general human and also philosophical egoism. In our time, human beings create even more obstacles for themselves within the cloud of visions—the cloud of mist—in the third epoch between death and rebirth than they did in the Greco-Roman era.

[ 19 ] If one looks unflinchingly at the development of humanity in recent times, one must say: Paul spoke the words, “Not I, but Christ in me.” People today say: I in me, and Christ only to the extent that I can acknowledge him. — Christ is to be accepted only to the extent that He can be acknowledged by the ego-reason, by the ego-intellect. Now there is only one means in our present age to truly keep consciousness in the spiritual world bright and upright during the third period after death, and that is: that we retain a certain memory, a certain recollection from our present life after death. For during this period we would have to forget everything we have experienced on Earth if we could not remember one very specific thing: if we have experienced an understanding on our Earth and found a relationship to Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha, this plants within us thoughts and forces that sustain our consciousness during this time after death. — The facts thus show that it is possible, at the specified point in time after death, to remember what one has learned and understood here about the Mystery of Golgotha. If we have acquired such mental images, feelings, and sensations that connect to the Mystery of Golgotha, then after death we can remember these sensations and also the other things connected to such mental images, feelings, and sensations. This means: By acquiring an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha on earth, our consciousness must be led across a certain abyss after death. If we have acquired this understanding, then from that point onward in this third period we will be able to participate in correcting, from our memory, the errors we have in our soul arising from our karma. But if we have not acquired an understanding of Christ and the Mystery of Golgotha, no understanding of the full depth of the saying: “Not I, but Christ in me,” then consciousness within us fades away, and with it the possibility of correcting our karma; and the work on our faults—which we now have to correct from our karma—must be taken over by other powers.

[ 20 ] Of course, every human being comes into existence through a new birth, but what is essential is whether consciousness has been severed or whether it has been preserved across this chasm. If we arrive at this point after death with an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, then we can look back and remember that we come from the Divine with all that is human. But then we also feel that we have carried our consciousness over by having gained an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, and we continue to develop our consciousness by being able to see this Spirit that approaches us. Once we have gained an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha here, we arrive at the moment of that third period after death in such a way that we can remember and say: We are born of the Spirit — ex Deo nascimur. And I can tell you: Never does one who has advanced to any degree of initiation perceive the truth of the words: ‘I am born of the divine Spirit’ as strongly as when he places himself in the moment just described. At that moment, every soul that has penetrated through the Mystery of Golgotha with understanding says this to itself. And one only truly grasps the significance of this saying: Ex Deo nascimur, when one knows that it can be felt in its deepest meaning, at its highest peak, at the moment when the human being arrives at the midpoint between death and a new birth.

[ 21 ] And when one objectively recognizes these facts, one might wish for our age that more and more people come to understand how, fundamentally, the saying just mentioned can be recognized today in its highest dignity only in the manner that has just been described. And if, through the Rosicrucian spiritual movement, this saying has been made a kind of motto in our circle, it is done so as to inspire the souls toward what should live within them between death and new birth.

[ 22 ] It is easy, my dear friends, to interpret a statement such as the one just made as a bias in favor of the Christian worldview. If such a prejudice in favor of the Christian creed were present in this sense, it would indeed be un-theosophical. On the basis of Spiritual Science, we approach religions objectively and study them with completely equal sympathy. And the fact that has just been asserted regarding the Mystery of Golgotha has nothing to do with any denominational Christ, but is an objective occult fact. It has indeed been alleged that within our Western spiritual movement, such things as have just been said have arisen from a certain bias toward Christianity over other religions. Yet the position accorded to the Mystery of Golgotha here is granted to it in the same sense as any verifiable fact is in external science. And when it is said that one should not present the Mystery of Golgotha in its uniqueness for human development because other religions cannot recognize it in this way, this is an absolute misunderstanding for the following reasons. For let us take the fact that we have religious texts of the ancient Indian religion and that we have a Western worldview. Today we teach the Copernican worldview in the West. No one will make the accusation that this Copernican worldview should not be taught because it is not contained in the ancient Indian religious texts. Just as no one can forbid the teaching of this worldview because it is not found in the ancient Indian religious texts, so too can no one forbid the teaching of the fact of the Mystery of Golgotha on the grounds that it is not contained in the religious texts of the ancient Indians.

[ 23 ] This should suffice to show you how unfounded the accusation is that the characterization of the Mystery of Golgotha, as presented here, stems from a preference for Christianity. It merely reflects the statement of an objective fact. And if you ask me why I will never back down from emphasizing this fact of the Mystery of Golgotha, today’s discussion can provide you with an answer.

[ 24 ] We do not pursue Spiritual Science out of curiosity or merely out of an abstract thirst for knowledge, but rather we pursue it in order to provide the soul with the nourishment it needs. And through the knowledge of the Mystery of Golgotha, we give the human soul the opportunity to develop within itself the inner feeling and emotional disposition it needs to cross the abyss described between death and new birth. ‘Whoever realizes that between death and new birth the soul would have to suffer the loss of consciousness—so difficult to bear for all humanity’s future—in the third epoch described, should take every opportunity to bring the Mystery of Golgotha to humanity’s attention.

[ 25 ] And for this reason, one of the most important things we must learn to understand in the field of Spiritual Science is precisely the mystery of Golgotha.

[ 26 ] The further we advance in our age, the more the various religions of the world will be compelled to accept the fact that has just been discussed today. A time will come when those who follow the Chinese, Buddhist, or Brahmanic religions will find it no more contrary to their religion to accept the mystery of Golgotha than they find it contrary to their religion to accept the Copernican system of the world. And it will be regarded as a kind of religious egotism if adherents of non-Christian religions resist accepting this fact.

[ 27 ] As you can see, my dear friends, we have arrived at the Mystery of Golgotha by seeking to examine the conditions between death and new birth. In a single lecture, one can only ever offer hints about a field such as the one we have sought to enter today. But I wanted at least to point out to you some findings that have become clear to me through my most recent research.

[ 28 ] Since the next lecture will be related to today’s, we will likely be able to briefly review what has been said and then move on to the further remarks we have planned.