The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. Between Death and Rebirth

[ 1 ] Lecture notes

[ 2 ] The last time I had the opportunity to speak before you here, I briefly touched upon that significant phase of human life that lies between death and new birth. It is not acceptable to treat this phase of human life as if it were irrelevant to physical life. We must be clear that the forces of our life do not come solely from the world in which we find ourselves with our physical bodies, but that the forces of our life come essentially from the supersensible worlds to which we alone belong between death and birth. And we can, in essence, only know how things stand here if we are able to form mental images about life between death and birth.

[ 3 ] In fact, human beings are generally caught up in a kind of dreamlike or slumbering existence. Those people who go through physical existence, leading their everyday lives without thinking about anything, are in fact like sleepers in life; and those who concern themselves with what lies beyond physical life, with what influences physical life—these are people who also awaken to physical existence. We can build upon the reflections of that time, which can show us how Spiritual Science, when understood in the right sense, is capable of intervening in the entirety of human existence. We shall see that, as Spiritual Science gradually penetrates more and more, all of humanity will also experience something like an awakening from a kind of life-sleep. Many things come to people that at first seem unknown and mysterious—mysterious far more to the feelings than to the dry intellect. Mysterious in a certain sense is the moment when a mother stands at her child’s coffin, or vice versa. If one engages a little more deeply with human life, one becomes aware of how the mysterious aspects of life reveal themselves to people. People often come to me whose sister, husband, or wife has died. They say: I did not used to think about death, nor did I concern myself with what follows, but since this close relative has been taken from me, it is as if he or she is still here, and this has driven me to contemplate Spiritual Science. — Life leads people to Spiritual Science, and it richly rewards what happens through it, for Spiritual Science can permeate life with forces that come only from it.

[ 4 ] When a person is no longer present for the physical senses, the first question that arises is: What happens to a person after death? External science cannot provide an answer, because it merely states what the eyes see—and the eyes, after all, decay. The physical brain, too, decays; and it is clear that it can be of no use for what a person experiences without a physical body. And yet the questions regarding the afterlife loom large. Ultimately, general considerations are not nearly as helpful in clarifying these questions as specific, concrete cases that describe what this or that might look like. This can have a direct impact on life.

[ 5 ] We can take life here as our starting point. You may have encountered cases here and there where one person is drawn to Spiritual Science by an inner longing or the state of their soul, while another grows increasingly hostile toward it. One person will delve deeper and deeper into it, while their friend will become increasingly hostile toward Spiritual Science. But life offers maya not only in nature, but also where it directly touches our soul in our relationships with other people. Precisely what has just been mentioned can be a complete delusion: the person who has convinced themselves that all of this is nonsense—in those depths of the soul to which they do not descend with their consciousness—develops a secret love for it. In the depths of the soul, love can be what surfaces as hatred. Such things can be found in physical human life. Once a person has passed through the gate of death, all secret soul forces and longings continue to work; what they suppressed in physical life emerges as the content of the period of purification. We see people pass through the gate of death who were enemies of Spiritual Science here; after death, they develop the most intense longing for it. Such haters then strive for Spiritual Science. Then the following happens: If we had approached them in life with a book on Spiritual Science, they would have lashed out at us; after death, we can do them no better service than by reading to them. One reads to the dead in thought; this can have the most beneficial effect for the deceased. We have many examples within our spiritual movement where loved ones have passed away and those left behind have read to them and supported them. And the dead accept what is offered to them with the deepest gratitude, and a beautiful coexistence can develop. There one realizes what Spiritual Science can mean in practice. Spiritual Science is not mere theory; it is meant to intervene in life, to remove what stands like a wall between the living and the dead; the gulf is bridged. If one brings Spiritual Science into life with the right attitude, one can be of great benefit. There is no better advice than to read aloud to the dead. For it is a peculiarity that immediately after death we cannot form new relationships; we must continue the old ones.

[ 6 ] The question arises: Couldn’t the so-called dead person find spiritual beings over there who could instruct him? That is not possible! To begin with, one can only have relationships with beings with whom one was connected before passing through the gate of death. If one encounters a spirit whom one did not know on Earth, one passes right by them. If one encounters a great genius here who is dressed as a cart driver, one does not recognize them either. One has a relationship with the beings whom one knew here as human beings. Even if one were to encounter countless beings who could help one, but with whom one has no relationship, they would be of no use to one.

[ 7 ] Since Spiritual Science is still in the early stages of its development, and people are only just beginning to allow it to take effect within them, the living can render a great service to the dead by extending this help to them. Here we have an example of how our world can influence the other world. But the reverse is also possible: the dead can also influence the physical world. As Spiritual Science increasingly takes hold of the world, there will be a reciprocal influence from both worlds. The dead can also influence the living. After all, human beings know very little about the world; they know only what happens here in the course of time. Many believe that the other world has no significance. What happens here is actually only the very smallest part of what is worth knowing, and one remains, in fact, a know-nothing in life if one knows only what happens here. We go about our business in the morning; we may consider everything that comes our way to be the most important thing worth knowing. Once we leave three minutes later than usual; perhaps unexpected events are unfolding: it could be that, had we left at the right time, we would have been run over; now we have been spared that. Perhaps we had to take a trip and missed the train: it was precisely that train that was struck by a great misfortune. What do we learn from such a reflection?

[ 8 ] There is much in life that does not happen, yet we must count it among life’s possibilities. Does man even know how many such possibilities he misses out on every day? What might all happen if we did not miss them! We overlook them because they hold no significance for a dry view of life. Let us try to look into the soul that has escaped such dangers through apparent chance, and see how it feels! — A man from Berlin, for example, wanted to travel to America; he already had his ticket. A friend told him: “Don’t go on the Titanic!” — Imagine the feelings of the one who stayed behind when he learned of the sinking of the Titanic! It had a shattering effect on his emotions. What emotional impressions might we have if we were able to observe all day long what we are spared from, what all might have happened! Once people begin to concern themselves with spiritual matters, they become much more receptive to the complexity of life, to what takes place between the hours of the day. It may happen that if we had left three minutes earlier, we would have been run over: if we have spiritual receptivity, if we are spiritually prepared, then in such a moment we may receive, by grace, an impression from the spiritual world—a message from a deceased person. Then the gates are broken through by the dead; then it becomes clear that the dead can speak to people who have cultivated receptivity. Important things can reach us: for example, that the deceased gives a command to carry out something he did not do. Thus the gulf is bridged. Thus, when Spiritual Science becomes practical, we will communicate with the dead back and forth. Thus Spiritual Science can become practical for life; it will bring the supersensible world into the immediate present.

[ 9 ] The following question may now arise: When we pick up a book on Spiritual Science, we read it in a specific language. Do the dead understand this language? — During the period of purification, the dead understand the language they spoke here; it is only upon entering Devachan that the language ceases, and communication then takes place through thought. After a certain number of years, a change occurs in communication with the dead. If the bereaved person is receptive, they sense: The dead person is with you; you think of them just as they think of you. This can last for years and years, then the moment comes when the connection is lost; that is the moment when the dead person passes into Devachan. During the period of purification, one still has memories of earthly life; the person is still attached to these memories,

[ 10 ] What is an earthly language? Every earthly language has meaning only for earthly life; and it is intimately connected with the human constitution, with the climate, and also with the fact that the larynx is structured differently. What is spoken in Europe is not spoken in India. Thoughts, however, are not bound to the physical constitution; thoughts are not shaped by earthly conditions. The dead can understand the language only as long as they are in the Kamaloka. When messages come through a medium and are expressed in a specific language, these communications can be conveyed directly only by people who have died recently.

[ 11 ] We are, in essence, always already within the higher world; we enter it unconsciously while we sleep; while we sleep, we live in the same world as we do after death. I would now like to ask the question: Can someone who is not yet able to see with clairvoyant vision, someone who is not yet able to observe as a seer, can such a person nevertheless know how things really are?

[ 12 ] A sleeping person is still alive; he is something like a plant. You will recall that a representative of science, Raoul France, writes that plants have feelings and can consume things; yet there is no soul in the plant.* The sleeping human organism is of the same value as the plant. For it to live, it is absolutely necessary that the sun’s rays fall upon the plant. We see the earth covered with plants because the sun brings them forth; the earth would not be overgrown without the sun: during the winter, plants cannot sprout. When a person sleeps, where is their sun? Nor can we conceive of what lies in bed without the sun: this sun is in what is outside as the human ego; the ego must work there on the sleeping organism just as the sun works on the plant.

[ 13 ] It is not only the sun that plays a role in the creation and existence of plants, but also the moon; without the moon’s influence, plant growth would not exist. Yet the moon’s influence is something scholars do not take into account at all.

[ 14 ] Moonlight affects the plant. The influence of the moon relates to the plant’s width; a plant that grows slenderly upward is subject to little lunar influence. The entire cosmos is involved in plant growth. And the ego is involved in the physical and etheric bodies just as the sun is in plant growth—the astral body just as the moon: it is the same relationship. The ego is the sun for the physical body; the astral body is its moon, but a spiritual one. We see our ego as the substitute for the sun’s influence, our astral body for that of the moon. Herein lies the justification for what the seer means when he says: Human beings have emerged as an extract from the forces of the cosmos. Just as the sun is at the center of the plant system and spreads its light so that there is light everywhere, so the light of the I is meant to illuminate the physical and etheric bodies. Sunlight is not only physical; it is also psychically and spiritually active; as the latter, it detached itself from the cosmic and became the ego. The human astral body is an extract of moonlight. It is all very wisely arranged. If the human ego were still bound to the sun, humans could only alternate between sleeping and waking just as plants do. Under the influence of the sun, we would never be able to sleep during the day and would always have to sleep at night; but the whole of cultural life is based on this emancipation. We carry our own sun within us: the ego is an extract of the sun’s influence; that which lives in the human being as the astral body is an extract of the moon’s influence. Thus, in sleep, we are not dependent on the cosmic influence of the sun in the spiritual world; our ego performs what the sun would otherwise do; we are illuminated by our own ego and astral body. Only old occult views occasionally find their way into this understanding. Spiritual Science gives us this image of the sleeping human being: above him shines the sun, his ego—and without it, he could not be like a plant while sleeping. Above him shines the moon: his own astral body.

[ 15 ] Now let us create a mental image of the situation in which, with the arrival of autumn, the sun loses its power and plant growth comes to an end. In the waking human being, the astral body and the ego are within the physical and etheric bodies; in a sense, entering the body is like the setting of the sun and moon: there, too, true plant life ceases. As active as plant life is during sleep in restoring strength, so inactive is it upon awakening. The plant-like aspect of growth withers when a person wakes up; like a plant, we die off in the morning. This explains a great deal of what takes place between the human soul and body. Some people feel very stimulated soon after waking; these are those who are able to live more in the soul. Those who live more in the physical realm easily feel a certain tiredness in the morning. The less one feels weary in the morning, the more capable one is. Yet our waking life is like the dying of the plant in winter. Every day we bring forces of decay into our organism; these accumulate, and because this is so, we die. The cause of death lies in consciousness. From this we can see how the conscious, ego-permeated daily life of the human being consumes the physical and etheric bodies. We die because we live consciously.

[ 16 ] People go to great lengths to explain sleep. They say sleep is a state of fatigue, that it exists to dispel fatigue. But sleep is not a state of fatigue, for a small child sleeps the most. Sleep is something that is integrated into the whole of life, into the rhythm of falling asleep and waking up. Just as we see nature dying off in winter, so something dies within us while we live and are awake. — When we have passed through the gate of death, we leave our physical and etheric bodies behind: there, the ego and the astral body might appear to us like the sun and the moon, which have nothing to illuminate. In fact, however, it is possible for the ego and the astral body to continue to live on, even if they have nothing to illuminate. When they enter the body, consciousness is brought forth; in the spiritual world, a person must also enter into something in order to become conscious, otherwise they would be without conscious life.

[ 17 ] Into what does a human being sink after death? They sink into a spiritual substance that existed without any earthly intervention. According to the Mystery of Golgotha, human beings must always immerse themselves in what came through the Mystery of Golgotha as the Christ substance of the Earth. We have come to know the Christ as the Sun Spirit. The ego once emancipated itself from the sunlight. Then the great Sun Spirit descended to Earth: through this, the human ego immerses itself in the substance of the Sun Spirit. Human beings experience this immersion into the Christ substance when they have passed through the gate of death, and through this, human beings are able to develop consciousness after death. In the physical realm, this stage is reached when the Earth has reached the volcanic stage. If the sun shines down upon the Earth from above, we can say: the sun conjures up plant growth. But if the sun were to shine upon the Earth with its power to produce plant growth, and the Earth were unable to bring forth plants, yet could reflect the sunlight back, then the sunlight would not be lost, but would go out into the heavens and stimulate supersensible plant growth. This now takes place, not physically, but spiritually. Through the fact that Christ has united with the Earth, he works in such a way that the human being who unites with him experiences, after death, the repercussions of what he has grasped here in terms of consciousness. Thus we understand how human beings must acquire, precisely on Earth, the ability to develop consciousness even after death, and how they must bring with them from the physical body the forces that develop consciousness. In the Greco-Roman era, physical corporeality was most highly valued. There the saying held true: Better to be a beggar here than a king in the realm of shadows. — At that time, life in the underworld was a miserable existence. Life after death was little developed before the birth of Christ. We, on the other hand, belong to an age that is remarkable in that such an emphasis is no longer placed on physicality. What the sleeping human being is is, in fact, gradually heading toward decline. Since Christ, human physicality has been heading toward decline. The vegetative aspect was most highly developed in the Greek era; physicality will be at its most meager at the end of human development. In the beginning, people were clairvoyant, the soul was highly developed; through the spiritual and soul-related decline, physicality rose to the heights of Greek beauty. But all striving for beauty has a catch when it comes to the future: external beauty has no future; beauty must be an inner one; in it, the characteristic must become visible. In the same sense that it is heading toward withering away, the inner nature of the sun and moon will become ever more glorious. Those who cultivate spirit and soul through Spiritual Science understand more of the future than those who wish to revive the Greek combat games. The more a person leaves their spiritual and soul life in unconsciousness, the more wretched a fate they face between death and rebirth. The fact that the body withers away has nothing to do with life after death; but if a person has developed nothing spiritual or soul-related, then they have nothing to bring into the spiritual world. The more they have allowed themselves to be permeated by spiritual content, the better off they will be after death. People will learn more and more to become independent of what is bound to the body.

[ 18 ] Spiritual Science will not always retain the form it has today. Language can, after all, express what it intends only in an extremely limited way. In Spiritual Science, it will matter more how one says something than what one says. This will be international; it can exist in any language. People will get used to listening to how something is said; through this, one enters into a relationship with the inhabitants of Devachan.

[ 19 ] Today we are sitting together and talking about Spiritual Science. We will pass through the gate of death and continue to develop through several incarnations: then we will have thoughts independent of today’s earthly language; spiritual life will permeate our lives, and we will be able to converse with the dead. — Earthly cultural life is heading toward its decline. One day the entire air will be filled with aircraft, and life on Earth will become desolate. But the human soul will grow into the spiritual world. At the end of Earth’s development, humanity will have reached a point where there will no longer be a complete distinction between the living and the dead: the living and the dead will live in a very similar way. The Earth will once again transition into a spiritual realm, because humanity will have become spiritualized. Such a consideration can provide you with a guide to the correct answer when people ask: There is death and birth and so on—is this to last forever? — There is then no great difference at all between life and death; everything becomes spiritualized for human consciousness; this ascent of all humanity brings about the state that is experienced on Jupiter.

[ 20 ] We are entering a vast realm when we speak of life between death and a new birth. Everything there is also subject to change and transformation—including the interaction between the dead and the living. We will gradually delve even deeper into the way in which human beings lead this life of transition within the physical and spiritual realms.