The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] In this, my final lecture, I would like to pick up where we left off yesterday. We ended with what I took the liberty of calling “the great midnight hour of spiritual existence between death and a new birth,” that midnight hour when human inner experience becomes most intense and what we might call spiritual sociability—our connection with the spiritual outer world—has reached its lowest point, so that in a certain sense, during this midnight hour of spiritual existence, spiritual darkness surrounds us. But it has been said that the longing for the outer world works within us once more, and that this longing is activated by the spirit that works in spiritual worlds, and that this longing generates a new light of the soul within us, so that it becomes possible for us to now perceive an outer world of a very special kind. This outer world that we then behold is our own past, as it has unfolded through earlier incarnations and the intervals between deaths and new births, and which we now survey as an outer world by looking back upon what we have had and enjoyed from our earthly existence, and upon what we have failed to fulfill in this earthly existence. In particular, when we look back on our earlier experiences, two things confront us with great intensity. We have—as it were, through a spiritual vision—enjoyed this and that; this and that has been bestowed upon us in joy, in the pleasure of existence. We can survey all that has ever come to us in joy, in the pleasure of existence. But we overlook it in such a way that it appears to us, as it were, in its spiritual value, that it appears to us in relation to what it has made of us.

[ 2 ] Let us consider a specific example. We look back on something that brought us pleasure or satisfaction in the past, at some point in our lives. Then we feel: This is not something of the past; although the time when you experienced that pleasure lies behind us, it is not something that is absolutely gone. It is something that continues to have an effect throughout all time, continuing in such a way that it awaits what we make of it.

[ 3 ] When we have experienced satisfaction or pleasure, we feel within ourselves—we experience it directly in our soul life as we look back—that this must become a power within you, a power of your soul; and you can allow this power of your soul to work within you in two different ways. Now, in this spiritual existence after the midnight of the world in which you stand, you have this twofold possibility. The spiritual world simply gives you the ability to make one of these possibilities a reality. You can transform this past enjoyment, this past satisfaction, within yourself into an ability, so that through the past enjoyment you develop a certain power in your soul that enables you to do this or that, through which you create something in the world—be it the smallest or the greatest—that has value for the world. That is one way. The other is that we can say to ourselves: Well, I have had that pleasure; I want to be content with that pleasure; I want to take that pleasure into my soul and find refreshment in the fact that I have had this pleasure in the past. If we bring about such a possibility with much of what we have enjoyed, what has satisfied us, then it comes to pass that we create within ourselves a force through which we gradually degenerate spiritually, suffocate. And this is among the most important things we can learn in the spiritual world: that through pleasure, through that which satisfies us, we become debtors to worldly existence. The prospect arises before our spiritual eye of suffocating in the aftereffects of satisfactions and pleasures if we do not resolve at the right moment to transform past satisfactions and past pleasures into abilities that can bring forth something valuable in life. From this, you can see once again how the spiritual and what happens on the physical plane interact.

[ 4 ] For those who, in the spirit of yesterday’s lecture, immerse themselves more and more in the insights of Spiritual Science, this Spiritual Science will become part of the instinctive life of their soul, and they will, as it were, develop a mood—like the stirring of an inner conscience—even toward the pleasures and satisfactions they experience on the physical plane: You must not accept any pleasure, joy, or delight merely for your own sake—but this delight will be permeated by a sense of gratitude toward the universe, toward the spiritual powers of the universe. For they will know that through every pleasure, through every satisfaction, they become a debtor to the universe. The easiest and surest way for us to cope is through the transformation of those pleasures and joys that are of a spiritual nature, Such pleasures and delights, which can only be satisfied through the physical instruments or, indeed, only because the human being bears a body on the physical plane, do indeed stand before us in the aforementioned time between 'death and a new birth as something that must be transformed if we do not wish to, so to speak, gradually “suffocate” in them. We feel the necessity of this transformation, but we also realize that many incarnations will be necessary so that we may be in the spiritual world again and again between these incarnations and finally bring about the transformation.

[ 5 ] Then we find something else in the spiritual world. We find that in our present human cycle, with such pleasures, with such joys in which, on the physical plane, our soul-spiritual nature is, as it were, completely submerged, and the pleasure, the satisfaction, takes on a subhuman, I do not wish to say animalistic character—for joy and pleasure can take on a subhuman character—that we in fact cause infinite pain to certain beings of the spiritual world through such pleasures, beings who confront us only when we enter this spiritual world. And the sight of this pain that we inflict upon certain beings in the spiritual world is so immensely distressing, so oppressive, and so deeply permeates our soul with such forces that we are by no means able to cope with the harmonious development of the connections for the next incarnation.

[ 6 ] In contrast to this, to discuss the other aspect—the pain and suffering we experience on Earth—it becomes evident on the spiritual plane that the pain and suffering endured on the physical plane continue to have an effect and permeate our soul on the spiritual plane with such forces that these forces become powers of will, so that we thereby become stronger in our soul and have the opportunity to transform this strength into moral power, which we can then bring back to the physical plane—not only to possess certain abilities through which we can create something valuable for our surroundings, but also to have the moral strength to live out these abilities with character.

[ 7 ] We have these and many other experiences immediately after the spiritual midnight hour of existence. We sense and experience what we have become through our past lives; we sense and experience the abilities we may attain in the future. After we have lived on for a while in the spiritual world, a clear vision emerges from the twilight of the spiritual surroundings—now not only of our own past lives, but specifically of everything human that was connected to these lives, and indeed of all that was most closely connected to them. People enter into spiritual relationships with us with whom we had this or that connection in earlier stages of existence. Not as though there had been no common bond with these people before—we always experience ourselves together with the people who were close to us in life, for the vast majority of the time between death and a new birth— but now, as we meet these people again after the midnight hour of spiritual existence, what we have become indebted to them, or what they have become indebted to us, emerges clearly and distinctly in these people. We now experience not merely a vision: this is how you stood with these people between this and that time—we had that before as well—but these people become for us the expression of what constitutes a balance for our earlier experiences. We can see it in the people as they come before us: through which new experiences on the physical plane we can create a balance for what we owe them from the past, or the like. When we face the souls of these people, we observe, so to speak, the effects that will be the consequences in the future of relationships we had with them in the past. Of course, this is best understood by taking a specific individual case as a starting point.

[ 8 ] So let us suppose once again that we have lied to someone. Now is the time when the spiritual world offers us the possibility of being tormented by the truth that is the opposite of our lie. But we are tormented by the fact that, during the period just described, our relationship with the person we lied to changes so much—whenever we see that person—and we will see them often enough with the spiritual eye—that they become the cause of the truth opposite to the lie we told, which torments us, rising up within us. Through this, a tendency rises from our depths: You must meet this person again down on Earth, and you must do something to make amends for the wrong you have committed through the lie you told. For here in the spiritual world, what has been created by your lie cannot be made amends for; in the cosmos, you can only gain complete clarity about the effect of a lie. Whatever of this nature has been created on Earth must also be balanced out on Earth. One knows that, in order to achieve this balance, one needs inner forces that can only be attained by taking on an earthly body once more. This gives rise to a tendency in our soul: You must take on an earthly body that offers the possibility of performing such an act, through which the imperfections you have caused on Earth are balanced; otherwise, once you have passed through the next death, this person will appear to you again and evoke the torment of the truth. You see the entire spiritual mechanism of how, in the spiritual world, the impulse is created within us to establish a karmic balance for this or that.

[ 9 ] These balances are also achieved through other conditions; but I would, of course, have to list thousands upon thousands of specific cases if I wanted to bring to light everything that is relevant to this significant karmic question. Let us take the following case, for example. Suppose we are in the time following the midnight hour of existence, in the spiritual world, looking back on certain joys we have experienced and saying: We can transform the effects of these experiences into abilities that we can then express when we are incarnated again. Yes, but then the following can happen. We may notice: As you now, in your present situation, transform these past experiences into abilities, certain elemental beings disturb you. That can be the case. These elemental beings will not allow you to truly acquire these abilities. Now one might ask: What is to be done? If I yield to these elemental beings who are approaching and who cannot bear the development of these abilities within me, then I will not be able to develop these abilities. But I must develop these abilities. I know that only by doing so will I truly be able to render services in the next incarnation to certain people whom I can serve, provided I possess these abilities. In such a case, one will generally decide to acquire these abilities. But in doing so, one offends these elemental beings that are all around us. They feel, in a certain way, attacked by us. Specifically, when what has just been said happens—that we acquire certain abilities—they feel their existence darkened as if something had been taken from their own wisdom. One of the consequences that often occurs is that, when we are reborn, we find one or more people on Earth possessed by these elemental beings and find that they have been instilled with particularly hostile intentions toward us.

[ 10 ] Just imagine how deeply this allows us to look into the human experience, and how thoroughly it teaches us to understand human life, to truly acquire the right instinct, and to behave correctly on the physical plane. But that does not mean that whenever we are on the physical plane, we should say: Well, I had to protect myself back then. By doing so, I have provoked these enemies against me, so I must now let them have their way. It may indeed be the case that it is good to let them be, but the opposite may also occur: that if we let them be, these hostile elemental beings, who act through this or that person, will, through what they now achieve on the physical plane, create ample compensation for what has been taken from them, so to speak, through our own protection; they go beyond what has been taken from them. And the consequence of this would be that one cannot save oneself from them when, in due time, one enters the stream of time between death and a new birth, for they would, in a certain sense, kill one there for certain abilities.

[ 11 ] The world becomes more and more complicated the more we truly come to understand it. But that should not really surprise us at all. I would like to highlight just a few specific cases from the karmic connection between life on Earth and the life between death and a new birth. Take, for example, the case of a person who, let us say, due to an illness, dies earlier than they would have after a normal human life. In such a case, the person passes through the gate of death in such a way that they have been led to death by the illness, yet they actually retain certain forces that they would have lived out had they reached a normal human lifespan. These forces, which in this way remain with the person, as it were, as residual forces that they could still have utilized had they not perished prematurely, remain. And it becomes evident to spiritual research, when one investigates life after death, that these forces are added to the person’s powers of will and feeling, that they strengthen and invigorate them. So that such a person is able to use what is supplied to him through these forces before the midnight hour of existence, after the midnight hour of existence, in such a way that he enters earthly life as a stronger person, one of greater character and power in his will, than he would have been had he not met such an early death. But that this must be so is connected with past karma, and it would of course be the greatest folly if anyone were to believe that by artificially bringing about an early death they would achieve what has been described; then they would not achieve it. What is achieved through this artificial bringing about of an early death is described in my Theosophy, to the extent that it is necessary to gain insight into it. I have also alluded to the case where a person meets an early death through an accident. If he is torn away from the experience of the physical plane by an accident, for which his forces would still have sufficed to reach a greater age, then a remnant of these forces remains with him, which is now bestowed upon him in such a way that, once the midnight hour of his existence has passed, he can use what flows to him to enhance his intellectual powers and his powers of cognition. Spiritual research reveals that great inventors are often precisely those individuals who perished in earlier incarnations due to an accident.

[ 12 ] We see from such cases that, if we truly wish to gain an understanding of these matters, we must first come to terms with the fact that the perspective in the spiritual world is indeed different from what it can be in the physical world. It will become increasingly clear to you that, in order to understand the spiritual world, one must bring new mental images and concepts to bear, because the spiritual worlds are simply something entirely different from the physical world. Therefore, no one should be surprised if, at first, something described from the spiritual worlds appears such that, when one applies the concepts of the physical world to what is described, one finds the matter unsatisfying. For example, it is a fact confirmed by spiritual research in many cases that someone who dies with a materialistic mindset and leaves behind relatives who are also materialistic initially suffers a certain deprivation in the spiritual world. When they have passed through the gate of death without a spiritual outlook and wish to look back upon their loved ones on Earth, they cannot immediately see them if there is not a single spiritual thought in those souls; they know of them only up to the point at which they passed through death. What they are now experiencing down on Earth, his spiritual eye cannot see, because there is no spiritual life in their souls; for only spiritual life casts light upward into the spiritual worlds. Such a person must then wait until the powers within him in the spiritual world have grown sufficiently to see the matter quite clearly. For to see: these souls he has left behind down there are materialistically minded because they are afflicted by Ahriman. If one were to experience this immediately after death, one would not be able to bear it. One must first grow into this Ahriman-possessed state of materialistically minded souls; only then can a vision of these souls begin, until they too have passed through the gate of death and then free themselves in the spiritual world from their materialistic mindset. Only later does one experience the connection with them.

[ 13 ] Someone might say: Yes, but the circumstances you describe as occurring after death are hardly comforting at all. Yes, my dear friends, that is precisely a mental image derived from the physical plane, so to speak. It is not a mental image already imbued with an understanding of the spiritual worlds. Between death and a new birth, the deceased reaches a point where they say to themselves: Oh, how desolate it must be to see these souls immediately after ‘death’ if one is of a materialistic disposition! How much better it is for all these souls that they first go through this time of trial! They would lose themselves; they would not be able to achieve what is to be achieved if it were not so. — The perspective becomes quite different when one views the things of the world from the spiritual side, and a time will come when people will need to gain a genuine understanding of the truths of Spiritual Science even on the physical plane.

[ 14 ] This is why the Spiritual Science is now emerging in the world: because the development of humanity makes it necessary for this penetration of the spiritual worlds and their conditions of existence to take root more and more deeply in people’s souls—first instinctively, and then consciously. I want to share with you a purely external observation so that you may see how we will increasingly come to be able to assess life on the physical plane in its true essence only by understanding the laws of spiritual existence—a purely external observation, yet one that is immensely important. When we look at nature, we see the remarkable spectacle that everywhere only a small number of seeds are used to propagate life of the same kind, while an immense number of seeds perish. We look at the vast multitude of fish eggs present in the sea. Only a few of them become fish; the rest perish. We look out onto the field and see the immense number of grain seeds. Only a few become grain plants again; the others perish as grains of wheat, being used for human food and other purposes. An immense amount more must be produced in nature than what, so to speak, actually bears fruit and sprouts again in the steadily flowing stream of existence. This is how it is in nature, for out there in nature there is an order and necessity that what flows away from its own, self-contained stream of existence and fruition is used—is used in such a way that it serves the other continuing stream of existence. Beings could not live if all seeds truly bore fruit and reached the stage of development inherent in them. There must be seeds that are used, so to speak, to establish the ground from which beings can grow. Only seemingly, according to maya, is something lost; in reality, nothing is lost within the creative process of nature. The Spirit reigns in this nature, and the fact that something appears to be lost from the continuous stream of development is grounded in the wisdom of the Spirit; it is a spiritual law, and we must view this matter from the standpoint of the Spirit. Then we will come to realize to what extent even that which is seemingly swept away by the continuous flow of world events has its own valid reason for existence. This is rooted in the Spirit; therefore, insofar as we lead a spiritual life, it can also have validity on the physical plane.

[ 15 ] My dear friends, consider this very concrete example that is close to home: public lectures must be given on our Spiritual Science. These are delivered to an audience that is simply drawn together through our publications. Something similar happens here as with the grains of wheat, only a portion of which is used in the continuous flow of existence. One must not shy away from the fact that, under certain circumstances, one must bring the currents of spiritual life to many, many people seemingly without their choosing, and that only a few will then stand out and truly enter into this spiritual life, become anthroposophists, and go along with the continuous stream. In this realm, it is still the case that these scattered seeds reach many who, for example, leave after a public lecture and say: What kind of crazy nonsense did that guy spout! Viewed directly in relation to outer life, this is like, say, the seeds that are lost in the sea as fish eggs; but from the standpoint of deeper research, it is not so. The souls who have come there through their karma, who then leave and say, “What kind of crazy nonsense was that guy spouting!”—they are not yet ripe to receive the truth of the spirit, but it is necessary for their souls in this present incarnation to feel drawn to that which lies as a force within the Spiritual Science. And this remains in their souls; no matter how much they may rail against it, it remains as a force in their souls for their next incarnation, and then the seeds are not lost—they find their way. Existence is subject to the same laws in relation to the spiritual, whether we trace this spiritual aspect within the natural order or in the case we have cited as our own.

[ 16 ] But let us now suppose we wanted to apply this to external, material life as well, and someone were to say: Well, we do the same thing in external life. Yes, my dear friends, that is precisely the point—that we are doing what I am about to describe, that we are living toward a future where this is becoming increasingly evident! People are producing more and more, setting up factories, without asking: How much is needed? — as was once the case when there were tailors in the village who only made a suit when it was ordered. Back then, it was the consumer who specified how much should be produced; now, production is geared toward the market, and goods are piled up in as large quantities as possible. Production operates entirely according to the principle by which nature creates. Nature is carried over into the social order. At first, this will get increasingly out of hand. But here we are entering the realm of the material. In external life, the spiritual law—precisely because it applies to the spiritual world—has no application, and something very strange arises. Since we are among ourselves, we can, of course, say such things. The world, of course, will show us no understanding in this regard today.

[ 17 ] So today, production for the market takes place without regard for consumption—not in the sense described in my essay “Spiritual Science and the Social Question”—but rather, everything that is produced is piled up in warehouses and dumped onto the money markets, and then one waits to see how much is bought. This tendency will continue to grow until—when I say what follows, you will see why—it destroys itself. The fact that this type of production enters social life, into the social context of human beings on Earth, gives rise to exactly the same thing that occurs in an organism when a carcinoma develops. Exactly the same thing: a cancerous growth, a carcinoma, a cultural cancer, a cultural carcinoma! This is the cancerous growth seen by those who spiritually perceive social life; they see how terrible predispositions to social ulcerations are sprouting up everywhere. This is the great cultural concern that arises for those who perceive existence. This is the terrible thing that has such a depressing effect, and which, even if one could otherwise suppress all enthusiasm for Spiritual Science—even if one could suppress that which might open one’s mouth to speak of Spiritual Science—drives one to cry out, as it were, for the world’s remedy against what is already so strongly on the rise and will become ever stronger and stronger. What must exist in its own sphere in the dissemination of spiritual truths—in a sphere that creates like nature—becomes a cancerous growth when it enters culture in the manner described.

[ 18 ] It will only be possible to see through this and then remedy it when Spiritual Science captures the hearts and penetrates the souls. And once one sees through these things, one would like to have the most intense fire to put into one’s words, to make our contemporaries—as many as can understand—aware of the times we are heading toward! One can only grasp these things by becoming acquainted with the various perspectives that exist, sometimes for one sphere of existence, sometimes for another. For those who stand in the experience between the hour of midnight and a new birth, these other perspectives confront them, for it is from these other perspectives that they must themselves become creative.

[ 19 ] Once a person has developed the tendencies to fulfill their karma in relation to the experiences closest to them, further experiences—those that are more distant—then present themselves to the soul. Religious communities and other groups to which one has belonged are then experienced in such a way that they reveal: ‘You must now, so that you do not become one-sided, do this or that in the next incarnation.’ — In short, this life then unfolds in such a way that, although it still alternates between spiritual sociability and spiritual solitude, it essentially leads to the soul building up the archetype for a new earthly life, initially in a purely spiritual sense.

[ 20 ] Long before one descends into this earthly life, one has formed a spiritual-etheric archetype from the spiritual world that contains within it forces that could be called spiritual-magnetic forces, which draw one down to a pair of parents from whom one senses: They give us the hereditary traits so that we can appear in a new earthly life. I have already indicated that the normal point in time is when we have the feeling: We unite with that which has departed as the fruit of our last earthly life. But the human being does not always reach this point. Our life then unfolds in such a way that we would fully feel the connection between the physical and the spiritual if we reached this point, but human beings usually enter existence earlier. Most people are spiritual premature births, and this is only balanced out later through experiences in which we flow back together in complete harmony with the fruits of our previous earthly lives.

[ 21 ] One thing, however, is of particular importance. I described it yesterday: Where our longing for the outer world must be greatest—because we have entered most deeply into solitude, at the midnight hour of spiritual existence—there is that which actually surges, swells, and lives only in the spiritual worlds; there is the Spirit that approaches us and transforms our longing into a kind of soul light. Until that moment, we must maintain the connection with our ego. We must, as it were, preserve this one memory: You were this ego on Earth. This ego must remain with us as a memory. That we can do this in our present age depends on the fact that Christ has brought into the Earth’s aura a power that would otherwise not be brought with us from earthly life—the power that enables us to preserve this memory until the midnight hour. It would be a rift, so to speak, that would make our existence disharmonious, caught between death and a new birth, if the Christ impulse did not flow through the earthly world. Long before midnight arrives, we would forget that we were an “I” in our last life. We would feel the connection with the spiritual world, but we would forget it. And this is brought about by the fact that we truly develop our “I” so strongly on Earth. That we are coming more and more to this “I”-consciousness has become necessary since the Mystery of Golgotha. But as we come more and more into our sense of self on earth, we consume the forces we need after death so that we do not truly forget ourselves until the midnight hour of existence. In order to preserve this memory, we must die into Christ. Thus the Christ impulse had to be present: it preserves for us, until the midnight hour of existence, the possibility of not forgetting our ego.

[ 22 ] Then, at the midnight hour of existence, the Spirit approaches us. Now we have preserved the memory of our self. If we carry it with us to the midnight hour of existence, to the point where the Holy Spirit approaches us and grants us the ability to look back and perceive the connection between our own inner world and the outer world—if we have preserved this connection—then the Spirit can now guide us until our reincarnation, which we bring about by forming our archetype in the spiritual world. But in reality, things do not happen in such a way that one does, so to speak, only what is absolutely necessary. For just as the pendulum is not at rest but swings out to swing back again to the other side, and just as it is right that this should happen, so it is with the spiritual life. The Christ impulse does not merely endow us with just enough strength to barely make the connection; rather, it may give us so much that, were the spirit not to approach us, the Christ impulse might carry us over. With memory alone, however, we would not be able to make the connection, but the Christ impulse would carry us over. This has great significance, and the fact that we receive such an impulse from the Christ—one that exceeds the most necessary measure—will become increasingly necessary for humanity as it develops into the future. Even now it is necessary that, during their earthly life, human beings not only learn the very essentials about the Christ, but that the Christ impulse take root in their soul as a powerful impulse, so that it carries them across the midnight hour of existence. For in this way the impulse of the Spirit is strengthened by the impulse of Christ, and we carry the impulse of the Spirit more powerfully through the second half of life—between death and a new birth—than we would otherwise carry it were it not for the Christ impulse.

[ 23 ] What remains to us of the Christ impulse strengthens the impulse of the Spirit; otherwise, the Spirit would exist only for the Spirit, and it would cease to act the moment we are born. As we allow ourselves to be permeated by the Christ impulse, the Christ impulse strengthens the impulse of the Holy Spirit. And through this, such an impulse of the Spirit can also be brought into our soul, which, when we enter earthly incarnation, is a force that we do not consume—unlike the forces we bring with us through birth into earthly incarnation. I have emphasized that we transform the forces we bring from the spiritual world into our inner organization. But what we gain in this way as a bonus, as something extra, through the Christ impulse strengthening the spiritual impulse—we bring that into our existence; it does not need to be transformed during our earthly experience. More and more people will be necessary for the development of the Earth as we move toward the future, people who bring something of the interpenetration of the Christ impulse and the spiritual impulse into earthly life through their birth in a new incarnation. The spirit must act more strongly so that it does not merely act up to the point of birth, and everything from spiritual life is transformed into inner organizing forces, leaving us with only that little bit of consciousness that teaches us knowledge about our physical surroundings and about what the intellect—bound to the brain—can grasp. If we, as human beings, were not to gradually bring with us—as we develop toward the future—a surplus of spirit arising in the manner described, then humanity on Earth would increasingly come to have no inkling whatsoever during earthly life that a spirit exists. Then, during earthly life, only the unspiritual spirit, Ahriman, would reign, and human beings would be able to know only the sensory-physical world perceived by the senses and that which can be grasped by the intellect bound to the brain. All such things are, in a certain sense, undergoing a development in the evolution of humanity precisely now, when humanity faces the danger of losing the Holy Spirit.

[ 24 ] But it will not lose him. Spiritual Science aims to be the guardian ensuring that humanity does not lose this spirit—this spirit that approaches the soul at the midnight hour of existence to awaken within it the longing to see itself in its past in all its worth. No, Spiritual Science will have to speak ever more, ever more urgently of the Christ impulse, so that more and more spirit may enter physical existence through birth in more and more people, and so that in this physical existence more and more people may arise who feel: I do indeed have within me the forces that must be transformed into organizing forces, but there is something in my soul that shines forth and does not need to be transformed. The spirit that belongs solely to the spiritual worlds—I have brought something of it with me into this physical world, even though I live in my physical body. It will be the Spirit that leads people to see what is said in my Mystery Drama The Portal of Initiation by Theodora: that people will see the etheric form of Christ. The power of the Spirit that thus enters into the bodies will bestow the spiritual eye to see and understand the spiritual worlds. First one will have to understand them; then one will begin to see them with understanding. For the seeing will come about because the Spirit seizes the souls in such a way that they will bring this Spirit into their bodies, and even in their earthly incarnations the Spirit will shine forth: first in a few, then in many, the Spirit will shine forth. And while we can say on the one hand: Through the Spirit, through the Holy Spirit, we are awakened in the great midnight hour of existence, we must say on the other hand, looking to what the Spirit will accomplish in the future of earthly development: Even in the physical body, the best of the soul—that which provides a glimpse into the spiritual worlds—will be increasingly awakened by the Holy Spirit. Awakened by the Holy Spirit in the midnight hour of existence, the human being will also be awakened when living in their physical body, when they immerse themselves in physical existence. They will awaken inwardly as the Spirit rouses them from the sleep in which they would otherwise be ensnared by mere sensory perception and by the intellect bound to the brain. Human beings would always be asleep through mere sensory perception and through the intellect bound to the brain. But the Spirit within the human being will shine into this human sleep—which would otherwise increasingly overshadow humanity as it moves toward the future—the Spirit will shine into this sleep even during physical existence. In the midst of the dying spiritual life, in the midst of the spiritual life on the physical plane that is dying through mere sensory perception and the world of the intellect, human souls will be awakened even in physical existence by the Holy Spirit.

[ 25 ] Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus.