The Rudolf Steiner Archive

14. On Life Between Death and Rebirth: The Connections Between the Sensible and the Supersensible Worlds

[ 1 ] In circles where materialistic thinking prevails, a phrase is very often used which, at first glance—at least from an external perspective—seems, on the face of it, to be quite reasonable, but which appears quite different when viewed in the light of the insights of Spiritual Science. In particular, this saying was heard very frequently during the period when theoretical materialism flourished and dominated broad segments of the population; but even today, one still hears this saying from time to time. It goes like this: Even if one were to assume that there is a life beyond the gate of death, a person need not concern themselves with that life before approaching this gate of death; for once they have passed through this gate of death, they will see what lies ahead; and as for here, for the physical world, it is perfectly sufficient to immerse oneself in this physical existence, and one may hope that, if one has only fully immersed oneself in this physical existence, one will then already be suited, should such a life beyond the gate of death exist, to allow it to approach oneself in a fitting manner.

[ 2 ] However, from the perspective of clairvoyance—which must look upon the realm that a human being experiences between death and a new birth—this saying proves to be entirely impossible. For when a person has passed through the gate of death—as we have already pointed out in the reflections we made during my last visit here—they are initially occupied with processing what remains to them in terms of remnants, memories, and connections to their last earthly life. One might say: In the early days after death, for years, even decades, the human being looks back in a certain way on their last earthly life; they are still occupied with the things that have remained in the astral body as forces from the last earthly life. But more and more he enters the region that we described last time, so to speak, from a cosmic point of view; more and more he enters the region where he comes into contact with the beings of the higher hierarchies. And between death and a new birth, the human being must come into contact with these beings of the higher hierarchies; for they must gather those forces which they will then need again when they enter a physical existence anew through birth. The human being must, after all, bring two things with them into this physical existence: what has, so to speak, been formed and strengthened within them between death and birth. He must bring in those forces that enable him, once he has connected with what lies in the stream of heredity and is handed over to him, so to speak, as a substance derived from that stream, to possess within what connects with this stream of heredity the forces that, from the earliest years and then long thereafter throughout life, plastically shape the physical body from within; so that the physical form is thoroughly adapted to the individuality that the human being brings over from the previous earthly life. What is given to the human being by their ancestors in the physical hereditary line corresponds, so to speak, to human individuality only in that the human being is attracted by certain—one might say—proportions of mixture in the physical hereditary line, which is generated by the way the father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, and so on up were. A person is drawn to what can arise in the physical hereditary line. But what the human being receives as his outer shell by passing through birth must first be shaped in a more subtle way. And this is shaped with the help of an immensely complex arrangement of forces that the human being brings with him from the spiritual world and receives in such a way that he receives these forces from one order of hierarchies and those forces from another order of hierarchies. If we wish to use a figurative expression, we can say: Between death and a new birth, the gifts of the beings of higher hierarchies are bestowed upon the human being, and these gifts are the forces the human being needs to adapt what is handed down to him through heredity to his own individuality.

[ 3 ] If this is the one thing we must take into account regarding the incarnating human being, then the other is that the human being, even if not consciously aware of it, is actively shaping and forming his or her destiny. Many things that seem to happen by chance in human life are brought about by the human being through having appropriated the forces between death and birth that enable him to approach, in his earthly life, precisely what may lie within his karma. All of this points to how, between death and a new birth, a person must receive gifts from the beings of the higher hierarchies with whom they come into contact.

[ 4 ] Now, as the clairvoyant eye can attest, two possibilities exist when the human soul passes through this realm between death and a new birth. It is possible that this human soul, lacking spiritual light and groping in the dark, as it were, must wind its way through the beings of the higher hierarchies in such a way that it finds nowhere the actual opportunity to receive the corresponding gifts of the higher hierarchies in accordance with its inner tendencies. On the path between death and a new birth, one must have the opportunity—if one wishes to receive the gifts of the beings of the higher hierarchies—to behold these beings, to truly encounter them with full awareness. Figuratively speaking: One may have to make one’s way through the darkness without light—spiritual light, of course—through what one is meant to experience, through communion with the beings of the higher hierarchies. But one can also pass through in such a way that, depending on one’s karma, these gifts are illuminated for one and one receives them in the proper manner. Now, the light that is meant to shine upon us so that we do not pass through the darkness of the beings of the higher hierarchies, can never be given to us once we have passed through the gate of death, unless we have already brought it with us through the feelings, sensations, and thoughts we develop in the life between birth and death that are directed toward the higher worlds. It is therefore something we must prepare for ourselves in this life before physical death. By directing our thoughts, sensations, and feelings—perhaps only intuitively, but directing them nonetheless—toward the supersensible worlds, we prepare this light for ourselves; for this light can shine forth only from within ourselves: the light through which we pass through the beings of the higher hierarchies in such a way that they can truly bestow their gifts upon us, so that we do not, so to speak, miss the mark when we are to receive them. Thus we see that the saying is entirely false which claims that we can wait and need not concern ourselves with the supersensible worlds until death occurs. This is entirely incorrect; for how they approach us—whether they approach us in such a way that we can receive from them the forces we need for the next life—depends on how we ourselves can illuminate the field between death and a new birth, particularly over a certain stretch. And we remain in darkness if we have lived our lives up to physical death in complete denial or rejection of the idea of the supersensible worlds. Something may indeed appear quite plausible and acceptable to the ordinary human understanding; yet, measured against the facts of the higher worlds, it ceases to be true. Thus it often becomes apparent to the clairvoyant eye that a person who has not concerned themselves with the supersensible worlds, who has wanted to know nothing of them, who has lived by the principle that here in the physical world all thinking, feeling, and sensing should be directed solely toward this world, who told themselves that the other will approach me when the time is right — the clairvoyant eye can discover that such a soul, passing through the gate of death, passes through in darkness, and that because it passes through in darkness, it must fail to receive the gifts that are to be bestowed upon it by the beings of the higher hierarchies. And when such a soul then enters a new earthly existence through birth, it lacks the powers that could shape the physical body in such a way that this inner formation might be molded so vividly that the human being, in accordance with his karma, is truly adequate in life. If, in the manner just indicated, a human being has shown himself to be insensitive to the supersensible worlds in a previous life, then, once this insensitivity has passed through the darkness, he must enter a new life unequipped and inadequate.

[ 5 ] He has not developed certain physical faculties that he should have developed in his next earthly life; certain inner formations do not take shape; in a certain sense, the person falls short of what he could have become, and of what he should have become. He was arbitrarily dull in his previous life and will necessarily become more dull than he could and should have become in his next earthly life; he cannot comprehend as much as he otherwise could have; he cannot participate in the world as much as he otherwise could have; he remains uninterested in what he otherwise would have been interested in.

[ 6 ] All of this can arise as a karmic consequence of having remained willfully dull in a previous life. And so, when a person once again passes through the gate of death, they may pass through that gate with a spiritual heritage that has fallen far short of what it should have become. When the human being then re-enters the spiritual world and once again passes through the realm between death and a new birth, one might at first believe—since their inner powers have been significantly diminished and they have become inadequate—that they must now grope even more in the darkness, and one might, so to speak, despair that such a person could ever rise again. This is not the case; but something else comes into play in this life between death and a new birth, which is to stand before the soul as a second point of consideration. In this life, which follows the involuntarily dull life, because it was as it was, Lucifer, with his forces, has a special power over the human being, and he now illuminates the field between death and a new birth for him. The human being must now receive the gifts, illuminated by the Luciferic forces, from the higher beings. Through this, all these gifts take on a very special character. However, because the human being has not now passed through the darkness, nor has he independently illuminated the corresponding field from within himself, he enters the next existence in such a way that, while he can indeed shape what is given to him through heredity, everything he shapes is imbued with a Luciferic character. And when one then observes such a person in the next life, they are often of the sort we encounter in great numbers, especially in our present time: people with a sober, dry—and not only that, but egoistic—judgment, with an egoistic intelligence that, wherever it appears in life, has only their own advantage in mind. This is what emerges regarding the qualities of the soul from all that has been described above. The self-centered individuals who are clever but are only capable of using their cleverness in the service of their selfishness, who make all their arrangements so that their selfishness is served, who are shrewd but only shrewd for their own benefit—these are mostly souls who have previously gone through the path just described. And it then depends on the fact that, since these souls do not remain dull-witted, but rather, due to various powers within them from even earlier earthly incarnations, they are nevertheless able to approach that which can once again bring a ray of truly supersensory existence into their physical life on Earth.

[ 7 ] This opens up the possibility of being, so to speak, inspired by insights from the higher worlds during a new earthly existence. Such a soul, therefore, need not be cut off from any further penetration into the spiritual worlds; it will rise again; but what has been described will come to pass. And here we have a very remarkable, significant connection between three earthly lives and the two intervening lives between death and a new birth. The clairvoyant gaze actually discovers quite often—especially when it turns to those people who are regarded in the present as clever and intelligent, but who in all their actions are souls concerned only with their own advantage—that what has been described serves as a preceding event for these souls: first, a life that arbitrarily turned away from all interest in the supersensible worlds; then a life that was not at all capable, because it lacked the inner physical organs, of taking an interest in anything in the physical world that might be close to it, were it not for such preconditions; then a subsequent life that serves only the selfish intellect, the selfish cleverness. Given the widespread prevalence of selfish cleverness in our present time, it is possible, so to speak, to trace precisely this path of human souls; for we are returning to times in which we find many, many people in previous incarnations who, because of their undeveloped organs, had only a very dull interest, even in the ordinary sensory world, not just in the supersensible world. And then we come to a third incarnation, which for these souls often lies within what we call the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, where, more than is believed today, arbitrary atheism and arbitrary indifference toward the supersensible worlds prevailed in the most diverse regions of the earth. Because circumstances are as they are, it is precisely possible today to study the described path of the soul’s development in relation to the events indicated. But the study of this path of the soul’s development shows us quite clearly what must come to pass for a soul that, in our time, once again arbitrarily closes itself off from the supersensible worlds.

[ 8 ] Life can unfold in yet another way over the course of three successive incarnations. For example, the following may occur: We observe a soul who, in essence, let us say, satisfies its spiritual needs with a certain fanaticism and a certain narrow-mindedness through whatever first presents itself. One observes, one might say, a religiously egoistic soul. We find such souls today. They have always existed in the course of humanity’s development on Earth—souls who are, so to speak, believers, instinctively believing for the reason that, out of a certain spiritual egoism, they wish to expect a kind of reward or compensation for physical earthly life in an afterlife. This expectation can certainly be egoistic and can be linked to a fanatical narrow-mindedness toward what, let us say, as Spiritual Science or from the Mysteries, approaches people regarding the higher worlds. How many people do we see today who, while certainly holding fast to the prospect of a spiritual world, fanatically and narrow-mindedly reject everything that does not align with the creed into which they were born and in which they were raised? Such souls are often simply too comfortable to want to learn anything at all about the spiritual worlds. A deeper form of selfishness can take root in these souls, even though they are souls who believe in the afterlife. Everything connected with belief in the afterlife in this manner points, in a certain way, to the fact that the human being does not find the right path between death and a new birth, that he cannot receive the gifts of the beings of higher hierarchies in the right way, that these gifts approach him in such a way that, when he enters earthly life again through a subsequent birth, he can indeed work on his physicality, and in a certain sense he also works on weaving together his karma, but he shapes and weaves everything together in an incorrect way, working on his physicality in such a way that he becomes, for example, a hypochondriac, an oversensitive person who, by virtue of his physical predispositions, is already destined to be affected by the external world in such a way that he goes through life grumpy, dissatisfied, and unfulfilled as he goes through life, and is always so affected by this existence that he always feels hurt by it. A certain hypochondriacal, pathologically melancholic nature can arise—prepared and conditioned by the physical body—from the causes just described. Thus, a fanatical clinging—in an egoistic sense—to certain forms of belief in the afterlife can likewise lead a person to pass through the field between death and a new birth in an incorrect manner, and to render their physicality falsely sensitive in a subsequent earthly life. If such a person then enters spiritual life through the gate of death, everything Ahrimanic exerts a profound influence on such a soul, as is revealed to the clairvoyant eye. And this Ahrimanic element imparts such a coloring to all the forces that the person gathers between death and a new birth a certain character that the human being brings these forces into existence through the next birth in such a way that he then, without being able to do anything about it, becomes narrow-minded in his mental image and feeling through his mere disposition, so that he becomes incapable of viewing the world impartially. Numerous souls among us who possess a certain narrow-mindedness, who are unable to step beyond certain boundaries with their thoughts, who are, in a sense, afflicted with blinders, and who, even when they make an effort, remain narrow-minded in a certain way, owe this karma to the circumstances described.

[ 9 ] To make the point even clearer, let’s look at the following example: There is a very, very sincere person—who is likely also absolutely convinced of the truth of what he claims—who wrote about the religious upbringing of children in the first Freidenker calendar, published last year. He developed the following line of reasoning. He says: Children should not be raised religiously, because it is unnatural. For if one allows children to grow up without introducing them to religious concepts and ideas, without instilling religious sentiments in them, then one sees that they do not arrive at these on their own; it would follow from this that it is unnatural to impose such concepts and ideas on the human soul, since they are only imprinted from the outside. — It is quite certain that those who call themselves freethinkers today embrace such a thought with enthusiasm and even find it profound; but one need only consider the following: It is well known that a human child who, before learning to speak, were to be transported to a desert island and forced to grow up there without ever hearing a human sound, would never learn to speak! This shows that humans do not develop speech on their own if it is not introduced to them from the outside. The good, liberal-minded preacher would also have to forbid his followers from teaching children to speak, since they do not develop their language on their own. We see, then, that something which looks very logical and which, under certain circumstances, a very large congregation may perceive as profound, is nothing other than logical nonsense; for the moment one thinks beyond it, it immediately proves to be logically quite fragile. Here we have a person afflicted with a false sense of self. We find such examples at every turn in life today. Especially today, there are an enormous number of people afflicted with such blind spots, who seemingly develop all their spiritual activities to an extraordinary degree, but the moment they are to step outside a certain circle they have drawn for themselves, everything fails; they simply do not see what lies outside this circle. If we trace such people back, we find that their two preceding incarnations were shaped as has been mentioned. From this, in turn, we can deduce what lies ahead for a human soul in the future, a soul that today—as is the case with so many souls—encloses itself, out of convenience and selfishness, within a positive creed without further inquiring into its basis. Is it not the case that many people live among us today who simply count themselves among the adherents of a faith because they were born into it and because they are later too comfortable to leave it, yet cling to this faith with selfish fanaticism? They are—though it may be an impossible thought—just as good Protestants or good Catholics for the same reason that they would be good average Turks if, by the decree of their karma, they had been born right into the midst of Islam. But the time has now come in human evolution when souls, in a certain sense, fall behind and become inadequate in subsequent incarnations if they refuse to open their eyes to what can approach human souls today from the spiritual worlds in manifold ways.

[ 10 ] Yes, karmic connections are complicated; but they become clearer to us when we consider some of the examples that have just presented themselves to our soul in various ways. In many different ways, life between death and a new birth—and thereby, in turn, the next earthly life—is dependent on the previous one. With the clairvoyant gaze in the spiritual world, we can follow souls who have, so to speak, been assigned a special task between death and a new birth. After all, everything that meets us in the physical world is actually brought about from the spiritual worlds. It is just that in the physical world, human beings do not see how the supersensible forces play a part in the processes of the physical plane everywhere. The most short-sighted perspective in this regard is precisely the materialistic one. For example, everything that comes to meet the human being—be it healing factors in the air, healing factors in water, or other healing factors in our environment—is explained only one-sidedly, only partially, if we seek to explain it in terms of current hygienic theories, that is, purely materialistically. The entire way in which healing factors, health factors, and the sprouting, growing life that fosters the flourishing of the human world interplay with physical existence depends on how the beings of the higher hierarchies send their healing factors, their health factors, and their forces—which make human life great, beautiful, and growing—from the supersensible world into the sensible one. All growth and flourishing—one can observe this with the supersensible gaze—every healing breeze is ordered by supersensible forces that are guided and directed by the beings of the higher hierarchies. Then the seer can see how, for a certain time between death and a new birth, the human soul becomes a servant of those spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies who send the healing factors, the health factors, and the growth factors from the supersensible worlds into this sensory world. There we see many souls, for a certain period of their lives between death and a new birth, devoted to work in the service of the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies just described. Such human souls, who are permitted to be servants of the beings of the higher hierarchies just described, then experience bliss.

[ 11 ] Whether the human soul is permitted, for a certain time after its death, to serve as a servant to beings of the higher hierarchies—who, in the best possible sense, foster the flourishing and advancement of human life—depends on whether that same human soul — one can trace this by looking back at such serving human souls to their last earthly life — whether such a human soul has performed certain tasks in a very specific way during its physical incarnation. For a person here in the physical world may carry out what they have to do in such a way that they grumble at every opportunity, that they find what they are doing distasteful, yet still perform their duty as if under a yoke. We often see very conscientious people, but we often see them performing their work without devotion, without enthusiasm, without love for the task; we see others who perform their work with love for the task, with devotion, with enthusiasm, with the thought that through it, whether in a social or other context, they are rendering a service to humanity.

[ 12 ] There is something else connected to what has just been discussed, and it is important to consider this, especially in our time. Compared to what human life was like in many respects in ancient times, it has changed quite a great deal today. The kinds of occupations that no longer inspire any enthusiasm, so to speak, are increasing more and more and must inevitably increase as a result of human progress. Who would deny that there are already numerous types of work on the physical plane today toward which a person would simply be untruthful if they feigned enthusiasm in performing them, when they must carry them out merely out of a sense of duty? Certainly, a person must not allow anything to deter them from fulfilling their duty if their karma has placed them in a certain position, even if they do so with reluctance; but every person is capable, if they truly wish to, or at least if given the opportunity to wish to, of doing something in the course of their life—provided their karma does not speak too strongly against it—that can also be performed with devotion. One should bear this in mind and consider how important it is for the overall context of our human life that those who can see this do everything in their power, especially in our current socially difficult times, to help the people who often gasp under the burden and yoke of a life that truly does not lead to enthusiasm or a willingness to sacrifice, but only to a life that is lived out in hardship and with reluctance—those who can see such things should feel deeply committed to devoting themselves to social work that offers precisely those souls who, as if cast into a certain social darkness, remain dull today—these people should give such souls, who remain dull, at least for brief moments the opportunity to feel and think something that can fill them with enthusiasm, even if these are merely mental activities performed with enthusiasm. For this reason alone, the idea should become ever dearer to us—and to our friends as well—that this anthroposophical movement should expand more and more, that it should develop social activity here and there, calling out, so to speak, to people on the street who otherwise live their lives in a numb state, knowing nothing of the fact that one can think and feel in such a way that it lifts the heart and fills the feelings with a certain enthusiasm. These people should be drawn into such enthusiasm.

[ 13 ] In this regard, our work will certainly become increasingly effective; for it is precisely the connection between this earthly life and the life between death and a new birth that reveals something of the utmost significance for this idea. Everything we are permitted to do here on Earth with devotion, with love for our work, so that we are fully present in our work, so that we are conscious that: it is worthy of a human being, it is a human task—all of this makes us, after death, serving spirits of the beings of the higher hierarchies who send the healing, growth-promoting forces from the supersensible worlds into this sensory world. We see how significant it is that there is enthusiasm in human action here in the physical world; for if enthusiasm were to die out in the physical world, if love were to die out in the physical world, then in the future human beings would enter an earthly existence that, in physical terms, would be able to receive few healing forces from the supersensible worlds that promote growth and flourishing. However, souls who today turn away from the supersensible worlds out of fear—an unconscious fear within them—overlook such connections between the sensory and supersensible worlds; yet this connection between the moral and physical orders of the world does exist.

[ 14 ] We can also consider its opposite. We find souls who, for a certain time between death and a new birth, become servants of those spiritual beings who, conversely, must send the elements that promote illness and misfortune from the supersensible into the sensible worlds. And it is a harrowing, a terrible sight to observe those human souls between death and a new birth who must serve as servants of the evil spirits of illness and premature death, the evil spirits of what is often a cruel human fate, which is indeed conditioned by karma, but which must be composed of external events. That we suffer this fate lies in karma; that the external circumstances are brought about in the physical world so that we may suffer this fate is effected by the forces directed in from the supersensible worlds. What is meant here, when speaking of this, are illnesses and epidemics that sweep through the world and are also directed by supersensible forces with regard to external conditions; what is meant are the premature deaths that occur in human life. We have, after all, often considered death from old age, which must occur in normal life with the same necessity as the withering of plant leaves when the seed for the next plant has ripened. This death befalls a life that has run its course; but death also approaches human beings in the prime of life. And when death approaches a person in the prime of life, the conditions for this death are brought about by certain spirits of the higher hierarchies, who initially serve the retrograde movement, but who must send into this world the forces that bring about this very premature death, as well as illness and karmic misfortune. And it is, as I said, heart-wrenching to see the souls who have passed through death and for a certain time become beings who serve illness and death, and evil karma in human life. Yet precisely then, when we engage in such contemplation and a gloomy feeling overtakes us as we see souls passing through death to become servants of the evil spirits of illness and death—even as this is painful to us— we do feel a sense of balance when we then trace these souls back and seek the causes in their physical life that led them to become this way. There we find that such souls were, in a certain sense, unscrupulous in their previous life. Unscrupulous souls, souls who did not take the truth seriously either—these are the souls who thus become servants of illness and premature death and so on. That is the compensation on the one hand; but it is a gloomy, a dark compensation.

[ 15 ] But there is another form of balance that exists in a different way and shows us how even the gloomy and the dark, which we see interwoven into human existence, are nevertheless grounded in the universal wisdom of the world. And even when we are confronted with a phenomenon that initially makes us feel oppressed, we can still rise above it if we, so to speak, consider its equivalent within the overall context of existence. If we turn our gaze, for example, to people who have left the physical plane in the prime of their lives due to misfortune or illness, then we see how such souls, who have thus shed their physical body as a shell before it was actually exhausted, still possess within themselves the forces that would otherwise have served, had they been able to live on, to shape the experience of the physical body and physical existence. They carry these forces through the gate of death into a higher spiritual world. Such souls arrive in the supersensible worlds in a different way than the souls who have, so to speak, lived out their lives in earthly existence.

[ 16 ] It is particularly significant to observe, after they have passed through the gate of death, those souls who died in the prime of life, who lost their physical bodies through misfortune, and to find that they continue to live on. They carry up into the higher worlds forces that would normally have served physical life on Earth. What happens to these forces?

[ 17 ] These powers have one of the most beautiful applications in the supersensible world. For when we observe the beings of the higher hierarchies, who direct and guide the ongoing course of evolution, we find that these beings of the higher hierarchies are endowed with the powers that are precisely necessary for progressive evolution. But—this is not an imperfection of the world, but is connected with other perfections—all forces, even those of the higher hierarchies, are limited in a certain way; do not extend into the infinite, and we find that there are already quite a number of people on Earth today who, upon passing through the gate of death, arrive in the spiritual world as souls in such a way that the spirits of the higher hierarchies—who promote all progress, including that between death and a new birth—do not know what to do with them. It is quite true, as I have often emphasized, that we need not despair today when we encounter certain souls who are utterly unwilling to grasp the contemporary mental images that humanity is expected to hold regarding the supersensible world—souls who are thoroughly materialistic and completely closed off to the spiritual world. However, when these souls arrive after passing through the gate of death, it is in a certain sense difficult for the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies to know what to do with them; for these spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies possess the forces for the progressive course of human development—but these forces are precisely for that progressive course. If souls now close themselves off completely from this progressive course, then they are, as it were, too heavy for the spirits of the higher hierarchies to overcome this heaviness. As I said, it is true that we need not yet despair regarding such souls; for it is only in the sixth post-Atlantean period that it becomes dangerous for such souls, and only in the Venusian epoch can they, so to speak, be completely cast out of the progressive development. But if nothing else were to occur in evolution other than that the beings of the higher hierarchies, who promote progress, were endowed with their powers, then such souls would have to fall out of the progressive evolution much earlier; then the beings of the higher hierarchies could do nothing with them.

[ 18 ] And so it is that difficulties arise in relation to what is now being demanded of humanity as part of its ongoing evolution. The fact is that, for a large number of people on Earth today, the Christ impulse is still something for which they cannot feel a truly deep connection. Yet the Earth is now at a stage of development where the human soul needs the Christ impulse if it is to pass through the life between death and a new birth in the right way; and it is, in a sense, dangerous for souls to pass through the gate of death without any connection to the Christ impulse; for the forces of the beings of the higher hierarchies, who guide progress, fail in the case of such human souls who have, as it were, torn themselves away from evolution and, through their peculiar way of life, have doomed themselves to ruin. The beings of the higher hierarchies can only begin to work with these souls by drawing upon the forces of those souls who have shed their earthly bodies prematurely in the manner just described. Through this, unused forces ascend into the supersensible worlds that could still have been utilized here on Earth; but because the body was shed prematurely, they were not used for this earthly body. Let us consider how many souls have ascended into the supersensible world because they lost their lives before it was completed—for example, in the Titanic disaster, the Messina earthquake, or the numerous deaths that have occurred throughout the world in recent times. Let us consider how many forces that could have been used on Earth for the continuation of life have instead ascended into the higher worlds! These forces accrue to the powers of the beings of the higher hierarchies, and with these forces the beings of the higher hierarchies strengthen what is otherwise inherent in them, but which would not be sufficient to lead the souls who have cast themselves out of the ongoing evolution of humanity back into that progressive evolution. We must, of course, live out our karma; and when a matter such as the one described is discussed, we must not fail to point out that we must live out our karma. It would be a terrible transgression against the wise laws of the world if a human being were to do anything to become a servant—by using unused powers—in the progress of humanity described above, toward the souls who are, so to speak, in danger of being cast out—the human being must do nothing; but when his karma is fulfilled, when he dies in the prime of life, he becomes a helper in the most beautiful, the most blissful way, in that the forces he could no longer use here ascend into the higher worlds and join the higher hierarchies, which thereby do not allow souls to be lost that would otherwise be lost. This is the beautiful destiny of those souls who pass away in the prime of life; this is what can comfort us in the hours when, despite perhaps some sorrow that overwhelms us at the thought of people dying in the prime of life, we gain an overview of the wise guidance of the world.

[ 19 ] How strange the cycle of existence appears in our mental image! On the one hand, we see unscrupulous souls who, through their lack of conscience, are preparing to bring illness, premature death, and misfortune into our world through their actions; and we see people afflicted by illness, premature death, and misfortune; thus we see the possibility arising for the karma of unscrupulousness to play out. Already our soul wants to be oppressed, weighed down; for such an observation indeed belongs to those often quite gruesome observations that the seer can make when he penetrates the deeper connections and mysteries of existence. — One often imagines looking into the spiritual worlds as something blissful. Certain realms of higher existence do have something blissful about them, but especially when one penetrates into higher realms of mystery, there is much, much in the observation that can also fill one with a certain horror. In particular, when it comes to the karmic connections of human beings, for the clairvoyant observer—if this is done conscientiously, if everything that needs to be said is truly gleaned from the higher worlds, if speculation and other factors do not come into play—there is something about it that absorbs the seer in the most intense way, which in a certain sense places great demands on his powers. But then there are also those things that in turn make us realize—even if the most horrifying, the most terrible things were to be considered—how wise the entire guidance is. Even as we witness the fate of unscrupulous souls unfolding, and see this very unfolding in the form of illness and premature death brought about from the beyond into the physical world, we nevertheless see, on the other hand, how what such people endure—those who meet an early death— is an increase in strength, for the salvation and redemption of humanity, which could not be brought about by any other forces. This is what constitutes the miraculous, the reconciling aspect: On the one hand, there must be the possibility that human beings can err and, in their error, can also, so to speak, approach the danger of being detached from evolution—if this were not possible, if human beings could not err, could not fall prey to evil, then human beings could not fulfill their earthly mission. But if that is possible, then everything else that has been spoken of today must also be possible; yet it must also be connected to the development of the Earth that certain people die in the prime of their lives. The clairvoyant gaze, directed toward them, sees how they are the ones upon whom the beings of the higher hierarchies depend to receive forces for human salvation and redemption that would otherwise not exist at all. This is the great reconciling factor, this is the wonder that overwhelms us when, on the one hand, we sharpen our gaze through the horrific, and then must turn it back to a wise guidance of the world that needs the horrific precisely in order to realize higher wisdom. In the face of these things, it becomes nonsense to raise the question merely in an abstract way as to whether it might not be the case that the spiritual powers could have granted a harmonious existence for all human beings and creatures without taking such a detour. Whoever demands this is demanding roughly the same thing as the one who says it is rather imperfect that the gods have made it a necessity that no circle can be square. Certainly, one does not immediately recognize that the other question is of the same value, but it is of the same value. Just as there can be no light without darkness, so too could that which readily appears as something great and mighty in the existence of the world—the upward directing of the unused forces of the earthly mission into the supersensible worlds—could not exist if, on the other hand, the karma of souls who have become unscrupulous in certain incarnations were not being fulfilled. All these things are, after all, suited to suggest to us—whenever we are tempted to find this or that imperfect in worldly existence, in our human surroundings—that the perception of imperfection likely stems from the fact that our insight has not yet advanced far enough to recognize all the connections. And one always makes progress when one considers oneself inadequate in those instances where one is tempted to criticize the imperfection of existence; when one perhaps feels pain, but nevertheless tries, even in pain, never to criticize the wisdom of the world, but rather, where this wisdom of the world seems to contain shortcomings, to say that such shortcomings appear to us in maya, in the great illusion, because we are not capable of fully seeing through things. We see how turning our gaze to the realm that the human being must traverse between death and a new birth can enlighten us about physical earthly existence. For what constitutes physical existence is generally not permeated solely by the supersensible worlds; rather, the deeds that the human being himself performs between death and a new birth also flow into it. All these deeds flow into the physical world, and what happens in the physical world, what comes to meet the human being, is in many ways brought about by the forces of the human beings themselves, which are unfolded between death and a new birth. However, what we have just come to know as the activity, as the work of the souls that pass through the gate of death with certain unspent forces, belongs to the most beautiful activities of these human souls.