The Mystery of Death
GA 159
19 June 1915, Cologne
15. Overcoming Death Through Knowledge—Pre-birth and Post-mortal Experiences of the Soul—Our Connection With the Dead
At our Düsseldorf branch consideration the day before yesterday we looked a little at that which one calls the passage through the gate of death by the human being. It is that which matters that the Western mental development is penetrated with a knowledge which overcomes death, as it were, through knowledge, overcomes it because it recognises death as a transformation of life.
It is a matter of course that just in our time, penetrated with materialistic views, death must appear more and more like a border of the world which the human being experiences. We can easily imagine that this was substantially different in ancient times; because, as we know, the human beings had leftovers of an old dreamy clairvoyance in these times. This dreamy clairvoyance was connected with an existence in the spiritual worlds. Because in those times in which our souls were embodied in such bodies in which still a clairvoyant existence was possible in the spiritual worlds, our souls were connected with the spiritual world. Death was to them at that time not a significant, not a final phenomenon as it is in our times. But this would become stronger and stronger if that knowledge did not come bit by bit into our time which should be opened by spiritual science. Hence, do not believe that this spiritual science which we acquire does not have the greatest significance already as spiritual science itself for the whole experience of the human being.
Indeed, many of us will say: we strive for two things on our way through the spiritual-scientific movement. First: to penetrate that reasonably which spiritual science gives us. Secondly: because we apply to our souls the spiritual-scientific methods, as they are outlined to us, for example, in the book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?, we strive for getting the perception of the spiritual world already during our physical incarnation. But some will say: definitely only to some, only to few it is allotted by their karma to reach the spiritual world consciously in this incarnation. Indeed, everybody would and does come into the spiritual world in certain sense who only applies these rules; but noticing that he is in it; taking notice on it is more difficult than entering it. Some people are prevented from being aware in which way they are in the spiritual world even if they are really in it. Because they are unable to apply that fine, intimate attention on their experience. One would like to say, everybody who applies the instructions given in the book How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds? enters the spiritual world with his self after a relatively short time, but—he does not notice it. Just concerning such a consideration I have to stress repeatedly that the reasonable understanding of that which is given in spiritual science does not depend at all whether anybody himself beholds in the spiritual world.
We have often said: the spiritual-scientific view is necessary, of course, to get the facts of the spiritual world. If, however, the facts are given, everybody can understand them if he uses his unbiased healthy reason not clouded by prejudices of the external materialistic world. We have to realise that it does not suffice if we intend or persuade ourselves that we are beyond the prejudices which the materialistic age gives. Indeed, concerning our will, concerning our longing we are beyond these prejudices of the materialistic time if we devote us seriously to the spiritual-scientific movement. Since basically nobody will confess honestly and sincerely to this spiritual-scientific movement who is not penetrated in the deepest inside by the longing for overcoming the materialistic prejudices. But they stick in our ways of thinking firmly, and that sticks especially firmly which is not directly a materialistic prejudice but which is connected with the materialistic prejudice. It is connected with the materialistic prejudice, with the whole materialistic world view that the human being cannot develop a comprehensive power of thinking in a certain way. Our time strives for intelligence and logic, but those who want to be at the head of the scientific or cultural efforts of our time do not possess a lot of keen mind and logic.
One does not aim at the whole clearness of thinking in our time at all. If one fully aimed at the clearness of thinking, one would also be able to understand spiritual science completely. Who thinks clearly cannot argue anything against that which spiritual science has to bring forward—of course on the whole; since the spiritual scientist can be mistaken as the human being can generally be mistaken. Countless examples could be given which show us that just our time is little inclined to apply clear, keen thinking.
I would like to give you an example only of our days. One could read it always as a very common judgment of a really great man,1the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831) in his unfinished work On War (1832) a very significant person. This judgment has been repeated, and one of the German commentators on politics showed off particularly presenting this judgment time and again. A great man said once that war is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with the admixture of different means. This appears to some thinkers, who think just in the sense of our time, to be infinitely logic: war is a continuation of politics with different means. Of course, nothing should be argued against the significance of the man who said this. He means with it that the peoples have political intercourse with each other in a certain way, thereby they order their problems together; if this politics has arrived at a point where it cannot be continued, then—well, what then?—Then just war continues politics. In this sense, the judgment of all human beings can be justified and accepted immediately.
But if one thinks a little, one finds out how one-sided such a judgment is in most cases. Since this judgment is the same as one says, for example: there are two human beings who are friends or are in another relationship who always have got on well, maybe, have loved each other endlessly, and start then quarrelling. You could also say: quarrel is the continuation of love. The quarrel is externally considered the continuation of love. But about the nature of the quarrel one will have said nothing particular if one knows that this quarrel is the continuation of love. One has achieved nothing with it; of course, one has not stated the least about war if one looks at it, so that one says: war is the continuation of politics. It is really that way that judgments which are, nevertheless, rather one-sided judgments can appear tremendously significant in this time.
Today a judgment is appreciated that expresses nothing particular about the nature of the matter in question. However, such a judgment not always needs to be futile. It can even be very fruitful. But those who bear witness of our world view should penetrate the veil of maya a little also concerning the external life. Of course, one should not argue anyhow against the judgment which one reads in every third newspaper column, because it is a fruitful judgment. However, one would experience something peculiar with the correctness of the judgment if one wanted to examine it with a clear thinking. This also holds true if one can read almost in every newspaper column: we shall be victorious, because we must be victorious.—One can argue nothing against the justification of this judgment, against the fertility and the value of this judgment; but if anybody who stands before a river and has to cross over it says: I shall swim, because I must swim,—the correctness of the judgment depends whether he is able to swim. You can testify the correctness of the judgment of a non-swimmer in this case with a clear thinking: I want to swim, because I must swim. Which value does such a judgment have? It has a high value, because there are forces, there is courage and confidence, they penetrate the will. It is a judgment motivating the will. It is not a judgment which recognises anything, but it strengthens the will. That is why the judgment is significant and important. Do not misunderstand such matters. They are stated to show that a clear thinking understanding the matters is something different than that which is asserted so often. In our time, the materialistic ways of thinking are exceptionally developed.
However, our judgment is mostly obscured if we have to examine what the spiritual scientist says. It is true that everything can be seen that the spiritual scientist says, even if one has never looked into the spiritual world, if one applies a really healthy, correct thinking. There is nobody who, also without being clairvoyant, if he only had a healthy judgment, would have to be an adversary of spiritual science. There are other reasons in the nature of the human being, in the soul of the human being to be an adversary of spiritual science. One of these reasons is the following above all.
If the human being perceives in the physical world, his physical percipience is always supported by his physical, etheric, and astral bodies. These human members were created in the course of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions, and were added to the human being through the forces of the divine hierarchies. Today, they are that which they have become in the past. The human being is put in that which was prepared for him for long times, when he enters his physical existence. All that supports him when he perceives in the physical world. Whenever we perceive, whenever we form a mental picture, an impression is made in our physical body. We know nothing about it, but this impression does take place in the physical body. That is why we have a memory during the physical life. You have to imagine this matter only correctly. If we put the question: why do we have a memory in the physical life?—We must say: whenever we form a mental picture, an impression on the physical body is made.
This impression is even more or less humanlike. Any mental picture which we form makes not only—like the materialist-fantastically thinking human being means—an impression here or there in the brain, but any mental picture makes an impression on the whole human being. Any mental picture which we form really delivers an impression reproducing a kind of the human head and upper parts of the chest. It is really true: if I now speak hundred syllables per minute to you, you have formed about fifty human beings within yourselves in these minutes, however, you have got rid of fifty human pictures quickly, and it alternates quickly between these two processes. You can imagine how many such human pictures you have formed in yourselves when the hour of this consideration is over. These human pictures are more or less identical in their external figure, but incomparable on the other hand; no picture is completely identical to the other. Any picture is different from the other, even if just a little. It is a childish idea if anybody believes if he has an impression of his outside world and remembers it tomorrow that this impression has sat in any form in him. It has not sat at all in him, but a picture which is humanlike has remained in the human being. Really, a humanlike picture remains of every impression of the outside world.
If you remember the impression again tomorrow, you transport your soul into this human picture which is in you. The reason why you see not this human picture, but remember the impression, is that you read in your astral body. It is really a reading activity, a subconscious reading activity. Exactly the same way as if you want to write down something and read it later, you describe not the letters, but that which the letters mean tomorrow if you remember the experiences of today. You do not look at the picture which originated in you, the human phantom which lives there in you, but you interpret it. You transport yourself into this human phantom in your soul, and your soul experiences something different than this human phantom. It experiences that which it experienced yesterday once again.
The human being needs not to be very surprised about that, because if you read Goethe's Faust—what do you deal with it? With a lot of paper and printer's ink of any shape. This is materially the complete Faust. You would never have the Goethean Faust if your soul were not able to work anything on that you have in paper and printer's ink before yourself. If you were not able to decipher this, it would just be paper and printer's ink. With regard to the external world the materialists debate perpetually that that does not exist which the spiritual scientist speaks about. But these materialists are as clever as a human being would be clever who says: what do you tell about the Goethean Faust, it does not exist at all, and there is only paper and printer's ink!—This judgment about Faust is completely identical to the judgment which today the materialists pronounce on the world. But that applies also to our memories. Tomorrow, nothing of an impression of today is there in our human being but the phantom, the image, and the soul has to cope with all the remaining matters working on this phantom. As well as from the paper and the printer's ink in our soul the whole Goethean Faust appears, something appears from that which has remained as a phantom in us. It is like a reanimation of the today's impression if we remember it tomorrow.
But this activity which must be carried out, so that we can remember, is carried out for us by means of our wonderfully formed physical body and our etheric body which were prepared through the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions. They arrange that, they act for us. The materialistically thinking human being feels that. Now take into consideration that the spiritual truth, which is gained, is gained without this help, that the help of the external physical body is not enlisted. The forces which work, otherwise, in the external body must come from the inside of the soul; there must be worked from the soul. If one has a spiritual view which is not managed by the external world, we cannot transport ourselves into an internal phantom which has remained if we want to remember it; for this is in the body. There we must work for the whole matter with a much bigger strength, without this support. This is nothing especially miraculous. Imagine only how the difference, which I mean, mirrors the matter in small details. Let us assume that today somebody reads a poem, and he keeps this poem till tomorrow, which he has read today. Then he can read it tomorrow again, the day after tomorrow again. However, we suppose that he does not keep it, and then he must say it by heart. You see the difference: once we do something, as it were, that has nothing to do with us; the external paper carries what we would have to do, otherwise, from one time to the other; the paper is a support to us. We must exert ourselves more if we reconstruct the poem by heart. Thus somebody who lives in the spiritual world has to exert his will more than somebody who relies on the support of his body. However, this is connected with the fact that everything that is gained in the spiritual-scientific field, even what should be only understood generally, demands big mental efforts. A materialist may be much more sluggish, lazier than a spiritual scientist. This is the reason or at least one of the reasons why the human beings are materialists. They are not materialists, because they are forced by means of a logic, but they are materialists from fear, but also from sluggishness, because they want that anything that takes place in the soul does not come into being by the internal forces of the soul, but that it happens by that which is imprinted in their bodies, which is recorded there.
These are matters which we have to consider if we want to see the reasons why many people are adversaries of spiritual science. Above all, however, it is difficult to manage with the thinking completely if anything is to be reached that the human being must still reach if he goes through the gate of death.
The day before yesterday, I have already pointed to that which is essential if one goes through the gate of death crossing: this is self-knowledge. Of course, this self-knowledge is not anything easy at all. Some of you have already heard as I have spoken about that that with regard to the external figures the human beings make the biggest mistakes very often. There is an often mentioned philosopher, who lived in Vienna; I do not mean the Hamburg Maack who grumbles about theosophy, but Ernst Mach, the philosopher to be taken seriously. He wrote an Analysis of Sensations. Therein he tells the following very naively: I walked once in the street; suddenly I had to stop, because a person met me, and I thought: this is a person with a very unpleasant face, even with an intolerable face. Lo and behold, I found out that I had passed a mirror, and the mirror was hanging in such a way that I had seen myself. There I took notice how little I was familiar with my own figure.—When he saw himself, he took himself for a disagreeable human being with an intolerable face. This is a philosophy professor, a famous professor of the present. And to confirm that which he had experienced he adds something else. When he was a professor already for a long time, one day he went by train, arrived very tired at a city and got in a bus. There he saw a man on the other side getting in, and he thought: what a down-and-out school master gets in!—Then, however, he saw on the opposite side a mirror hanging, and he found out that he had called himself a down-and-out school master. He draws attention to the fact that he, as he says, knew the type more exactly than his special figure.
It is already hard to recognise oneself concerning the appearance of the human being—with ladies it is perhaps easier, because they more often look in the mirror,—but it is still completely different if it matters the soul. There is almost no other possibility of self-knowledge in our time than to sharpen the knowledge forces we can take up from spiritual science. The concepts, the mental pictures we take up from spiritual science are suitable just in the best sense to sharpen our self-knowledge. Everything is founded on self-cognition generally speaking that we take up from the book Occult Science in Outline. Any mental picture we take up from this book means, actually, to recognise ourselves, to know what the human being is real. While we study how the human physical, etheric and astral bodies were gradually created during the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions, we get to know what is in us. While we get to know what is in us, our powers of imagination are sharpened to recognise ourselves much better than it is possible otherwise.
To which extent does this self-knowledge have significance for the moment of death? As long as we stay here in the physical body, self-knowledge is just knowledge. If we go, however, through the gate of death, everything changes to willpower that we have learnt as self-knowledge. The better we recognise ourselves, the stronger a kind of willpower comes into being just when we have taken off the physical body. Let us suppose for example, that we have realised here that we were, we say, a choleric person concerning certain things. You know that it is hard to transform us completely in the physical life to take off the violence even if we understand it. But at the moment when we take off the physical body when we only know: you were choleric—that becomes will. This will is directed to eliminate the violence from our being. Any knowledge judgment becomes, while we go through the gate of death, a will judgment; it becomes willpower. Then something very significant takes place that we can call—in certain sense—the reversal of something that is experienced before the birth of the human being that is forgotten, however, because the human being cannot look back to the times which he went through before his birth.
Let us imagine, however, the human being would already be able to do that which he develops in the Jupiter existence: if he were about to gradually return from the spiritual world to an incarnation, he would experience something in extremely strange way like looking at his future figure, his future life. He would also behold something of his physical figure. But he would never penetrate that in this physical figure which would appear to him in it like two points. Imagine that we would have our physical figure like in a fog when we walk to birth. We would see it as light, but there we would see impenetrable, dark points, dark balls, still some other things, but just these dark balls. Long before his physical birth, the human being sees—in time, not in space—before himself: you become this. He already sees how his physical constitution is formed out of the nature of the spirits of form. This appears to him as a light figure more or less, but in it two dark balls are floating. When the human being lives toward the physical life—he does this partially already in the body of his mother—there he absorbs certain forces from these surroundings which the mother forms then. He feels being gradually linked with this light figure, and then he senses, as if he were in these two balls inparticular. They have appeared to him as impenetrable before, now he himself is in it and feels the forces which come to him from all sides, they flow into him. Then he pierces these two balls, the space of the balls; the space loses its impenetrability.
These are the places where later the eyes are. If one approaches the physical-earthly incarnation that way, it is the eyes we cannot see but we can see by means of the eyes. They are like impenetrable balls toward which we live. Then one penetrates them in the last phase, before one enters the physical world. If anybody consciously lived through this, that would be, actually, a miraculous phenomenon. Imagine that the human being says to himself, leaving the spiritual world and entering the physical world: now you go with your soul toward this physical figure. You find two dark balls there. You cannot see through them with your present soul; this is full of spiritual substance.—Then one gets the strength to make transparent what was spiritually non-transparent first. If one “sees first the light of day” as one says, these spaces which were non-transparent are just the reason why one sees. You yourselves cannot see the eyes; if you saw them, you would not see the world.
When the human being goes through the gate of death, the sight of death is such a miraculous phenomenon in the spiritual human life after death, because he experiences something similar that took place here with his eyes. Only that the whole human being experiences it consciously. He has to get the feeling after death: there you left behind the world. Up to now he had the physical world in the eye as a physical experience, even that which the etheric body still shows as a tableau at the end. Now he goes through the gate of death with his self-knowledge, which then becomes willpower.—Imagine now that the dead would be here. He leaves behind his physical experiences. He radiates his willpower, which he has acquired from his self-knowledge. This radiating willpower which is acquired through self-knowledge gets rid of that which prevents us from looking into the spiritual environment.

(Aetherleib = etheric body, toter Mensch = dead soul, Willenskraft = willpower)
As well as we get rid of the clouding of the eye while going into birth, so to speak, we get rid of that which prevents us from looking into the spiritual world by means of this willpower. We make ourselves transparent after death. This is the significant event.
If the human being goes through the gate of death, he has an overview of his whole life like of a great tableau, as long as he has the etheric body in himself. This stands before him. But now he also gets the feeling: you see yourself. You are that while you lived between birth and death, you yourself are everything.—Now the complete strength of self-knowledge stirs in him, which he has gained to himself, and pierces it as I have described; the etheric body thereby leaves. Then it is, as if a veil fell, and the spiritual world behind it comes to the fore. It is this tremendous experience to go through the gate of death and to have the complete last life before oneself, because the etheric body has become free. Then the soul gets the feeling: this last life is a veil which covers a tremendous world to you which you could not see during life. Now the willpower, coming from self-knowledge, fights against this veil and removes it. While the veil tears, the spiritual world behind it comes to the fore.
One does not need to be anxious, because somebody could say to himself: in our present time many people have done nothing at all to get some self-knowledge. According to the judgment of many people one can hardly be cleverer and more intelligent than a present university professor of philosophy; this is the ideal of the present intelligence. However, somebody can be predisposed to such a small self-knowledge like that famous man, even a philosopher, who is really a significant person. Somebody could become faint-hearted and say: self-knowledge is in a bad way.—Of course, if the matters were that way that the human beings depend whether they only have that willpower from self-knowledge which results from the life of present time, then the human beings would be in a rather bad way. In certain respects, the human beings of the present are rightly very proud of the tremendous progress of knowledge, which has been achieved. Think only how a doctor of present time who knows any current trend of medicine proudly looks down on those who were doctors not yet long ago. These all were fools, he thinks, of course. With regard to the external knowledge, people have achieved a lot of things in the course of the last centuries and found out about the external world how the external phenomena are connected and so on. Big progress has been done. But with regard to self-knowledge, the ancient times which we have gone through in former incarnations were far ahead; so far ahead, actually, that the present human being if he thinks materialistically has no idea what he should do with that which comes from ancient times. Since everything that the human beings today regard as old prejudices was basically self-knowledge, while the souls of ancient times experienced it. Only the last left-overs of self-knowledge are reported.
The human being living on earth knows nothing of his former incarnations with the usual external consciousness. Indeed, we know that there are people among the theosophists who after a relatively short time know a lot of their former incarnations. Once I got to know a group of people in a European city where Seneca,2Seneca (~1–65 A. D.), Roman philosopher Frederic II of Prussia,3Frederic II of Prussia (1712–1786) the German Emperor Joseph II,4German Emperor Joseph II (1741–1790) the Duke of Reichstadt,5Duke of Reichstadt (1811–1831), Napoleon Franz Bonaparte von Reichstadt, son of Napoleon I. Madame Pompadour,6Madame Pompadour (Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson) (1721–1764) Marie-Antoinette7Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France (1755–1793) and still some other people were sitting together at a coffee table. But apart from those who know so much about their former incarnation, after they have learnt a little theosophy, people do not know a lot, as everybody knows, or nothing at all about their former incarnations with their everyday external knowledge. Since, as true as it is that the human being knows nothing of his previous incarnations by that which just the present human cycle gives him, it is true that he has everything for his will development after death that remained to him from previous lives. There it is different between death and a new birth. Whereas people know nothing about their previous incarnations between birth and death here, they have all the forces of their previous incarnations in themselves in the life between death and a new birth, but also that which has always been experienced between death and a new birth.
When the human being goes through the gate of death, so he has not only that willpower which comes from self-knowledge that the human beings mostly do not have today, but all the willpower which do not come from the self-knowledge of this life but from the self-knowledge, which he got in former times. So that the human being when he goes through the gate of death just is not lacking willpower which gets rid of this veil that is woven by the own life. However, if the human being wanted to gain new willpower in the course of the next millennia, this self-knowledge of ancient times would be more and more appreciated in the present era. That is why spiritual science had to appear for the further human development. Since it is the course of humankind that the human willpower still suffices today that, however, now also the time begins when during the earth development this willpower can be invigorated while the human being familiarises himself with the spiritual world.
The earth development of humankind would be exposed to a risk if the human beings resisted up to the end of the earth development from now on in every respect to take up anything of spiritual science. Then, however, the human being would be less and less able to perceive anything of the spiritual matters and events over there in the spiritual world. He would be able to do this less and less. He would be less and less able to penetrate the veil of which I spoke. Thus you see which significance self-knowledge transformed to willpower has. Here this knowledge is a self-observation; over there it is self-will which is pulling off the veil from the spiritual world. Just in those who go through the gate of death one perceives how important it is for them that they themselves invigorate their willpower as I have explained now, the willpower that comes from self-knowledge. That is why it is rather significant that the human being, while he goes through the gate of death, through these different stages, occupies himself with that which is in him what is in his self what he was during his earth-life.
If anybody has community with a dead, then it is of big significance to make this community especially fruitful that one helps the dead to strengthen and fulfill his self-consciousness. This is definitely meant that way: suppose that anybody, who was here in the physical life with us, would go through the gate of death. While we have lived with him, we know how he was; we know what he has especially liked to do. When he has gone through the gate of death, he is in urgent need to summon up strong internal forces for everything that he wills. These must flow out of his retrospect. We can help him if we think of him how he appeared to us in life; if we pay attention to that, if we send thoughts to him which characterise him. Beside the different things which have already been said about our occupation with the dead who have passed from us, we can also help the dead showing them, as it were, the image of their nature. Thus we take a certain strain away from them developing that willpower which has to tear up the characterised veil.
That is why it happened to me that the other phenomenon has resulted of which I have already spoken to you the day before yesterday. It has resulted to me when I had to speak at the funeral of friends before short time that I felt it necessary to express that which lives in the friends as their nature, just at the funeral. There I spoke not out of memory, but I spoke while my soul was transported completely into the other soul, after this had already gone through the gate of death.
If you deal with a soul which has already gone through the gate of death, then it is about that you transport yourself into this soul. Here in the physical world, the object is there, you look at it from without. In the spiritual world, you are with your whole being in this psycho-spiritual element. In the individual case of which I spoke the day before yesterday, it was just possible to put myself in the soul of this person who had gone through the gate of death and was characterised by me as a person who for long years before her death occupied herself with our world view who lived completely in it, so that she was able to put into words her own contents, her nature, living in spiritual science and taking up certain forces, as long as she was in her etheric body. I managed to catch this from the dead and I had to speak this at the funeral.
It was different in another case. When I had to speak at the funeral of our dear Fritz Mitscher who is especially dear to the members of our branch here, I felt the necessity also to transport myself in this soul who had gone through the gate of death. But now the necessity arose to put into words that which this soul was during life for his friends and fellowmen, who were also members of our anthroposophical movement, to think this together with this soul after death and to experience together what motivates and increases that will which results from self-knowledge. I had to say some things just at this funeral which harmonise with that which our dear friend Fritz Mitscher experienced in the times of his development, after he had come to our spiritual-scientific movement, what he had learnt, how his internal karma had driven him. The words which I had to speak there are not my words, as I have said, they came from the forces of his own soul, but formed so that they expressed the essential part of the years which preceded his death.
I had to say that—not: I wanted to say what I had to say there. Of course, these words were not his own words directly; the concerning soul would never have said this from himself in life. It is that which the other soul felt, nevertheless, who is connected with the soul of the deceased, as well as one can feel only with a soul who is already disembodied. I want to inform you of these words which I had to speak at the funeral:
A hope, filling us with happiness:
You entered the field
Where, through the power of soul being,
Earth's spirit blossoms
Reveal themselves to investigation.
Your longing was bound from the beginning
To pure truth-loving being;
To create out of spirit-light
Was the earnest life goal
For which you strove without rest.
You nurtured your beautiful gifts
To tread with steady steps
Bright paths of spirit-knowledge
As truth's true servant
Unperturbed by worldly contradiction
You trained your spirit-organs
That, with courage and persistence,
On both sides of the path
Repelled error for you
And made a space for truth for you.
For you, to form your Self
For the revelation of pure light
So the soul's sun-power
Might shine mightily within you
Was your life's concern and joy.
Other cares, other joys
Barely touched your soul,
For knowledge seemed to you to be
The light that gives existence meaning,
Seemed to your life's true value.
A hope, filling us with happiness:
You entered the field
Where, through the power of soul being,
Earth's spirit blossoms
Reveal themselves to investigation.
A loss that pains us deeply,
You disappeared from the field
Where the Spirit's earthly kernels
In the womb of soul being
Ripened your senses for the spheres.
Feel how we lovingly gaze
Into the heights that now
Call you to other works.
Give to the friends left behind
Your power from spirit-realms,
Hear our souls' entreaties
Sent to you in confidence and trust:
For our earthly work here we need
Strong forces from spirit-lands,
For which we thank dead friends.
A hope, filling us with happiness,
A loss that pains us deeply:
Allow us to hope, that you, far-near,
Unlost, light our life
As a soul-star in spirit-realm.
If these words must not be taken so that they are spoken by the soul, however, they were spoken in such a community with the soul that after relatively short time this soul revealed something that came now only from the soul; not at all from my soul, but only from the soul who had gone through the gate of death. Then this sounded in that way, and since that time these words sound to me always:
For me, to form my Self
For the revelation of pure light
So the soul's sun-power
Might shine mightily within me
Was my life's concern and joy.
Other cares, other joys
Barely touched my soul,
For knowledge seemed to me to be
The light that gives existence meaning,
Seemed to my life's true value.
When I heard these words for the first time—since that time it has happened several times—from this deceased soul, there I got on only—for that which I read out there, is so written really word by word as it was heard in connection with the other soul—there I only got on that a dialog could come into being. At the cremation I had said:
For you, to form your Self
For the revelation of pure light
So the soul's sun-power
Might shine mightily within you
Was your life's concern and joy.
“You” and “yours” appear in these stanzas. But it was not done by me anyhow. I noticed only, when the words came back from the deceased soul that these words were so formed that one may quote them just also in the first person:
For me, to form my Self
For the revelation of pure light
You see a dialog reaching beyond the grave, a kind of communication.
With respect to this I would like to speak about something that is often mentioned in our spiritual-scientific movement which one cannot repeat enough. In the stanzas, which have been spoken to a deceased soul, you find something that reminds you of that which is expressed most significantly where it is said:
Hear our souls' entreaties
Sent to you in confidence and trust:
For our earthly work here we need
Strong forces from spirit-lands,
For which we thank dead friends.
Take such a thing not as bare words. This speaks of something that is connected in the deepest sense significantly with the whole being of our spiritual-scientific movement.
If a soul has so striven like that about whom I speak here, so that he wanted to penetrate that which he could learn of knowledge, of experiences with the spiritual-scientific impulses, and goes so early through the gate of death, then such a soul can remain a loyal co-worker. Thus it was a little bit like an entreaty when I called these words to this soul that he may help us in our efforts for the future of earth. For you can consider this as something sure: the abyss between the living and the dead human beings must be bridged vividly through our spiritual science in the course of the earth development. We have to learn, just as we are together with human beings living in physical bodies, to look at the dead human beings not as dead, but as living among us, as living and creating. Those who are the so-called dead are working with us with forces available to them.
We have to seize that vividly and not theoretically which impulses spiritual science has to create and convert in us into the vivid life which we want to insert to the cultural development out of spirit. I have to say: concerning our external civilisation one needs the assistance of those in future who are in the spiritual worlds up there. Those who get entrance for the spiritual-scientific movement here on earth need the dead souls. That is why I said that we need the strength for our work on earth from spiritual realms for which we thank the dead friends. We make an entreaty, as it were, to the souls to work with us on earth. I mean such souls who go on working with the forces which are strengthened by that which they took up here and penetrated themselves with that which they have taken up in the spiritual worlds.
Sometimes it appears so symptomatically which difficulties and obstacles our anthroposophical earth work does find. Among various things you can observe time and again, I want to emphasise one thing only. In a South German magazine, an article appeared some years ago which caused a sensation, because it was rumoured that a very significant philosopher had written it. The editor of the magazine is called Karl Muth. That Karl Muth has accepted an article of many pages in those days. When my Occult Science in Outline was published, he has brought this article, just resuming this book Occult Science. It would not have been so especially difficult to me to eradicate the worst things of the article, the most foolish assertions. Since with the truth of that great philosopher it is as follows: many people regard him really as a great philosopher. But he appears to some whom he approached in life—he does not need to have approached them especially near, to have sat opposite to them only once,—clinging to them like a limpet. He appeared to me that way, and I had to fight off him. But after he had written postcard after postcard, letter after letter to me, he also sent me this article as a manuscript. I could not resolve to read the article, because it began already too foolishly. There the author said, for example: Steiner calls that occult science which he wrote there in his book. But there cannot be an occult science at all, because this is the nature of science that it is not secret, but is public.—So, an occult science is contradictory to the nature of science itself. Thus it started. Where one turned over a few pages, one got on such impertinent follies that it was fatal to me to read on, to read the manuscript. It still lies there somewhere. It is a folly, because one needs only to be able to speak German to feel this folly. This is just, as if anybody says: there are no natural sciences. However, there are natural sciences. There is not a secret science, of course, but there is an occult science. It was too foolish, but the editor of the magazine thought that it was an especially significant article. Many people read the article, and regarded it as something very clever that was written about spiritual science where it was criticised thoroughly.
Now the war came. That philosopher is no German, but now he counts himself to the worst enemies of Germany. Now he writes a number of letters to the same Karl Muth who in those days—you forgive the trivial expression—licked his fingers that he got the article of the famous philosopher. A lot of venom has already been emptied over Germany and the German nation, but anything more toxic, more dreadful has not been written, actually, than that which this famous philosopher wrote in letters to Karl Muth. The most horrible judgments and reviews about Germanness and German nature are found there. Now the following can be considered still as a good sign. The philosopher concerned wrote, after he had spit venom, unfortunately not with “occult science,” because the censorship did not stop it crossing the border, so that it arrived even in Munich, and Muth (Muth = courage) found the courage to print this venom again; now, however, not to print the “significant article of a significant man” but—after years the same Karl Muth prints this writing about the Germans and writes: of course, a man who writes that way should be in the lunatic asylum!—You see, Karl Muth needed this writing about the German nature to get on that the man is a fool. Some years ago, however, he let the same fool loose on our spiritual science. A reasonable person could know this already in those days, but fools are often regarded also as famous philosophers; it does not depend on it. But you see which unfavourable conditions spiritual science is exposed to. If the war had not come and Karl Muth had not been taught that, actually, the dear man, this professor Wincenty Lutoslawski, is a fool, he would have again accepted an article annihilating spiritual science from the feather of this “famous philosopher” at the next opportunity.
You also see that in our time human beings are not often inclined to get on with their judgment which point of view they have to take concerning spiritual science. I give this example only to show—one could give many such examples—which obstacles our spiritual-scientific movement is exposed to, that even those who must be regarded later as fools are let loose on it. Then the judgment may also be justified that some other things which are said against this spiritual science are not cleverer. Since where it could be proved once rather strikingly, there it has been proved.
We have to realise that we also need the forces of those who went through the gate of death, and who, before they went through this gate, took up that which is contained in the light of spiritual science. We need them to enliven the spiritual-scientific impulses. The abyss between the living and the dead must be cleared away first on our spiritual-scientific field above all. This is why something like an admonition must appear time and again: We want to keep the consciousness that we had souls being closer to us, as long as they walked in their physical bodies among us, as it was before, only just according to their other condition of life. We want to keep this, even if the souls concerned have gone through the gate of death. For it belongs to the nicest, to the most significant what we can gain from spiritual science if we can look at those who went through the gate of death as human beings living among us, meeting us; as those meet us who live in their physical bodies. This becomes an essential support, because now so many souls go through the gate of death as young people on the fields where something new prepares itself out of blood and death, and deliver their unused etheric bodies to the spiritual world.
The human etheric body is prepared in such a way that it can supply the human being with vital forces up to the highest age. If the human being goes now through the gate of death in his youth, the forces remain unused which could still have been used here if the human being grew up to a higher age. Now we can look up to the spiritual etheric world where the human being still stays some time after he has left the physical plane. There are just many youthful etheric bodies of those available who were killed in action and went through the gate of death. These etheric bodies do not dissolve immediately but keep holding together and containing the forces which could have supplied life for a long time.
These etheric bodies will be there, they will be forces which can help the human beings when these look up longing with the consciousness of spiritual science where that is contained in unused etheric bodies. From above these forces join with those who join consciously with these forces of the spiritual-scientific consciousness. Feeling and sensing that, we should turn to them. We have to lively bear witness to the spiritual world. We should be able to say to ourselves: there have to be human beings just in future, in the time which follows this war, here on our earth who carry souls in themselves which can look up at the spiritual world, so that these unused etheric bodies are realities to them; that it becomes reality to them through their knowledge of the spiritual world. Then spiritual science will be up to that which is not only knowledge, but real life; real life also because of the destiny-burdened events of our time. Then somebody can say: there are souls in the world who look up to the etheric bodies above there which develop their unused forces, and that is why they are able to take up these forces and to work even stronger. These unused forces of the etheric bodies of those who sacrificed themselves on the fields of blood and death are fruitful for the souls on earth in future.
For this reason, we also want to think again of that cooperation which can come into being between the human beings who are inspired and spiritualised with spiritual-scientific knowledge and look at that which remains of the etheric bodies from this war, what can come into being from this internal interaction of souls. We also want to write those words in our souls again which I would like to speak now at the end of our branch considerations, out of the whole interrelation of the events:
From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the grief of the bereaved,
From the nation's sacrifices
Will grow up the fruits of spirit
If souls aware of spirit turn
Their senses to the spirit-land.
Die Erkenntnisgemässe Überwindung Des Todes Vorgeburtliche Und Nachtodliche Seelenerlebnisse Unsere Verbindung Mit Den Toten
Vorgestern haben wir durch unsere Düsseldorfer Zweigbetrachtung ein wenig hingesehen auf dasjenige, was man im Zusammenhang des Lebens nennt den Durchgang des Menschen durch die Todespforte. Das ist es ja, worauf es ankommt, daß die abendländische Geistesentwickelung nach und nach mit einer Erkenntnis durchdringe, die gewissermaßen erkenntnisgemäß den Tod überwindet, überwindet dadurch, daß sie ihn als eine Verwandlung des Lebens selber erkennt.
Es ist selbstverständlich, daß gerade in unserer von materialistischen Anschauungen durchzogenen Zeit der Tod immer mehr und mehr wie eine Grenze der Welt, die der Mensch durchlebt, erscheinen muß. Wir können uns leicht vorstellen, daß dies in älteren Zeiten wesentlich anders war; selbstverständlich anders war deshalb, weil, wie wir wissen, die Menschen in diesen älteren Zeiten durchaus noch eine Art von Überbleibsel von altem traumhaftem Hellsehen hatten. Dieses traumhafte Hellsehen war verbunden mit einem Darinstehen in der geistigen Welt. Und da in jenen Zeiten, in denen unsere Seelen in solchen Leibern verkörpert waren, dutch die noch ein hellsichtiges Darinstehen in den geistigen Welten möglich war, unsere Seelen mit der geistigen Welt zusammenhingen, so war ihnen damals der Tod kein bedeutungsvolles, kein so abschließendes Phänomen, wie er in unseren Zeiten ist. Aber das würde immer stärker werden, wenn in unsere Zeit nicht nach und nach diejenige Erkenntnis hereinkommen würde, die durch die Geisteswissenschaft erschlossen werden soll. Denn man soll nur ja nicht glauben, daß diese Geisteswissenschaft, die wir uns aneignen, nicht schon als Geisteswissenschaft selbst für das ganze Erleben des Menschen die allergrößte Bedeutung hat.
Gewiß, viele von uns werden sagen: Wir erstreben auf unserem Wege durch die geisteswissenschaftliche Bewegung zweierlei. Erstens: Dasjenige vernunftgemäß, verständig zu durchdringen, was uns die Geisteswissenschaft gibt. Zweitens: Dadurch, daß wir die geisteswissenschaftlichen Methoden auf unsere Seele anwenden, wie sie uns skizziert sind zum Beispiel in dem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?», streben wir selber ein Hereinkommen in die Wahrnehmung der geistigen Welt schon während unserer physischen Verkörperung an. Aber es werden manche sagen: Ganz sicher nur einigen, nur ganz wenigen wird durch ihr Karma zugeteilt, in dieser Inkarnation vollbewußt in die geistige Welt hineinzukommen. Zwar käme in gewissem Sinne jeder und kommt auch jeder hinein, der diese Regeln nur anwendet; aber das zu bemerken, daß man darinnensteht, das Aufmerksamsein darauf ist schwieriger als das Hineinkommen selbst. Und da hindert gar manchen, wenn er auch schon wirklich darinsteht in der geistigen Welt, die Unmöglichkeit, jene feine, intime Aufmerksamkeit anzuwenden auf das, was er nun erlebt, um sich wirklich bewußt zu sein, wie er darinsteht. Man möchte sagen, für jeden, der die Regeln anwendet, die in dem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» gegeben sind, tritt nach verhältnismäßig kurzer Zeit das ein, daß er in der geistigen Welt mit seinem Selbst darinsteht, aber — er bemerkt es nicht. Gerade einer solchen Erwägung gegenüber muß immer wieder und wiederum betont werden, daß das vernünftige Verständnis desjenigen, was in der Geisteswissenschaft gegeben wird, gar nicht davon abhängt, ob man selber in die geistige Welt hineinschaut. Wir haben oft gesagt: Zum Hinstellen der Tatsachen der geistigen Welt gehört natürlich die geisteswissenschaftliche Anschauung. Wenn das Gefundene aber gegeben wird, kann es jeder verstehen, wenn er nur wirklich in unbefangener Weise seinen gesunden, nicht durch Vorurteile der äußeren materialistischen Welt getrübten Verstand anwendet. Wir müssen uns klar sein, daß es nicht schon genügt, wenn wir uns vornehmen oder einreden, wit seien ganz hinaus über die Vorurteile, welche das materialistische Zeitalter gibt. Gewiß, unserem Willen nach, unserer Sehnsucht nach werden wir über diese Vorurteile der materialistischen Zeit hinaus sein, wenn wir uns überhaupt im Ernst in die geisteswissenschaftliche Bewegung hineinbegeben. Denn im Grunde genommen wird sich niemand ehrlich und aufrichtig zu dieser geisteswissenschaftlichen Bewegung bekennen, der nicht im tiefsten Inneren von der Sehnsucht durchdrungen ist, über die materialistischen Vorurteile hinauszukommen. Aber in unseren Denkgewohnheiten haften sie ja so gründlich, diese materialistischen Vorurteile, und haftet besonders gründlich dasjenige, was nun nicht direkt materialistisches Vorurteil ist, was mit dem materialistischen Vorurteil aber zusammenhängt. Es hängt mit dem materialistischen Vorurteil, mit der ganzen materialistischen Weltanschauung zusammen, daß der Mensch in einer gewissen Weise kein umfassendes Denkvermögen entwickeln kann. So sehr unsere Zeit auch auf den Verstand und die Logik aus ist, so wenig ist eigentlich in unserer Zeit ein scharfer Verstand, eine scharfe Logik gerade das Eigentum derjenigen, die vielleicht an der Spitze der wissenschaftlichen oder sonst kulturellen Bestrebungen unserer Zeit gehen wollen.
Die ganze Klarheit des Denkens strebt man in unserer Zeit gar nicht an, Würde man nämlich die Klarheit des Denkens voll anstreben, dann würde man auch schon die Geisteswissenschaft wirklich voll verstehen können. Wer ganz klar denkt, findet nirgend etwas einzuwenden gegen das, was Geisteswissenschaft vorzubringen hat — natürlich im großen und ganzen; denn in den Einzelheiten kann der Geisteswissenschafter ja irren, wie der Mensch überhaupt irren kann. Es könnten unzählige Beispiele vorgebracht werden, welche uns zeigen, wie wenig gerade unsere Zeit geneigt ist, klares, scharfes Denken anzuwenden.
Ich möchte Ihnen nur ein Beispiel aus unseren Tagen angeben. Man hat es immer wiederum lesen können als ein sehr gebräuchliches Urteil eines wirklich großen Mannes, eines sehr bedeutenden Menschen. Dieses Urteil ist nachgesprochen worden, und einer der deutschen Publizisten hat sich ganz besonders groß damit getan, daß er dieses Urteil immer wieder vorgebracht hat. Ein großer Mann hat also einmal gesagt, der Krieg sei die Fortsetzung der Politik mit andern Mitteln. Und das kommt manchem Denker, der gerade so recht im Sinne unserer Zeit denkt, so unendlich logisch vor: Der Krieg ist eine Fortsetzung der Politik. Selbstverständlich soll gegen die Größe des Mannes, der den Ausspruch getan hat, nichts eingewendet werden. Er meint damit, die Völker untereinander führen eine gewisse Politik, dadurch ordnen sie ihre Angelegenheiten untereinander; wenn diese Politik nun an einem Punkte angekommen ist, wo sie sozusagen nicht mehr weiter kann, dann — nun ja, was dann? — dann setzt eben der Krieg die Politik fort. In diesem Sinne kann das Urteil aller Menschen berechtigt sein und unmittelbar anerkannt werden. Aber wenn man ein wenig denkt, so kommt man darauf, wie einseitig zumeist ein solches Urteil ist. Denn dieses Urteil ist ja ganz gleichlautend damit, daß man zum Beispiel sagt: Da sind zwei Leute, die befreundet sind oder in einem andern Verhältnis sind, die sich immer gut vertragen haben, sich vielleicht unendlich geliebt haben, und die dann anfangen, sich zu zanken. Dann könnte man auch sagen: Der Zank ist die Fortsetzung der Liebe. Äußerlich betrachtet ist der Zank die Fortsetzung der Liebe. Aber über das Wesen des Zankes wird man nichts Besonderes ausgemacht haben, wenn man das weiß, daß dieser Zank die Fortsetzung der Liebe ist. So hat man selbstverständlich nichts ausgerichtet, man hat nicht das Allergeringste ausgesagt über den Krieg, wenn man ihn so ansieht, daß man sagt: Der Krieg ist die Fortsetzung der Politik. Es ist tatsächlich so, daß unserer heutigen Zeit Urteile ungeheuer bedeutsam erscheinen können, die doch eigentlich recht einseitige Urteile sind. Manches Urteil wird heute sehr geschätzt, das über das Wesen der betreffenden Sache nichts Besonderes ausmacht. Trotzdem braucht ein solches Urteil aber nicht immer fruchtlos zu sein. Es kann sogar eine sehr fruchtbare Bedeutung haben. Aber diejenigen, die sich zu unserer Weltanschauung bekennen, sollen ein wenig den Schleier der Maja auch mit Bezug auf das äußere Leben durchdringen. Selbstverständlich soll nicht im geringsten irgendwie gegen das Urteil, das nun heute in jeder dritten Zeitungsspalte steht, etwas eingewendet werden, denn es ist ein fruchtbares Urteil, aber mit der Richtigkeit des Urteils würde man doch sonderbare innere Erfahrungen machen, wenn man ihn mit einem klaren Denken prüfen wollte. So ist es auch, wenn heute fast in jeder Zeitungsspalte steht: Wir werden siegen, weil wir siegen müssen! — Wie gesagt, gegen die Berechtigung dieses Urteils, gegen die Fruchtbarkeit und den Wert dieses Urteils soll nichts eingewendet werden; aber wenn jemand, der vor einem Strom steht und über den Strom hinüber muß, sagt: Ich werde schwimmen, weil ich schwimmen muß -, so hängt die Richtigkeit des Urteils davon ab, daß er schwimmen kann. Und man kann in diesem Falle durchaus mit einem klaren Denken die Richtigkeit des Urteils eines Nichtschwimmers bezeugen: Ich will hinüberschwimmen, weil ich schwimmen muß. Was hat solch ein Urteil für einen Wert? O es hat einen großen Wert, denn es gibt Kräfte, es gibt Mut und Zuversicht, es durchdringt den Willen; es ist ein den Willen anspornendes Urteil. Es ist nicht ein Urteil, das etwas erkennt, sondern wodurch der Wille gestählt wird. Dadurch ist das Urteil bedeutsam und wichtig. Mißverstehen Sie solche Dinge nicht. Sie sollen angeführt werden, um zu zeigen, daß ein klares, die Dinge durchschauendes Denken doch noch etwas anderes ist als dasjenige, was so oft geltend gemacht wird dafür. In unserer Zeit sind die materialistischen Denkgewohnheiten einmal außerordentlich groß und stark.
Am meisten aber wird unser Urteil dann getrübt, wenn wir uns darauf einlassen sollten, dasjenige zu prüfen in unserem Urteil, was der Geisteswissenschafter sagt. Es ist einmal so, daß alles dasjenige, was der Geisteswissenschafter sagt, auch wenn man nie einen Blick in die geistige Welt gemacht hat, eingesehen werden kann, wenn man ein wirklich gesundes, richtiges Denken anwendet. Es gibt keinen Menschen, der, auch ohne hellsichtig zu sein, wenn er nur ein gesundes Urteil hat, Gegner der Geisteswissenschaft sein müßte. Gegner der Geisteswissenschaft zu sein, dafür gibt es tatsächlich ganz andere Gründe in der Natur des Menschen, der Seele des Menschen. Einer dieser Gründe ist vor allen Dingen der folgende.
Wenn der Mensch in der physischen Welt mit seinem Wahrnehmen darinsteht, dann kommt ihm zu diesem Wahrnehmen in der physischen Welt immer zu Hilfe die Unterstützung seines physischen Leibes, seines Ätherleibes, auch seines astralischen Leibes. Diese - der physische Leib, der Ätherleib, der Astralleib - sind lange im Weltengang darinnen gewesen, durch die Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondenzeit, und sind aus den Kräften der göttlichen Hierarchien dem Menschen auferbaut worden. Sie sind heute das, was sie in der Vergangenheit geworden sind. Der Mensch wird hineinversetzt, wenn er sein physisches Dasein in der Welt betritt, in dasjenige, was ihm durch lange Zeiten hindurch vorbereitet worden ist. Das alles unterstützt ihn, wenn er in der physischen Wahrnehmung darinsteht. Jedesmal, wenn wir eine Wahrnehmung machen, eine Vorstellung uns bilden, wird nämlich ein Abdruck in unseren physischen Leib gemacht. Wir wissen nichts davon, aber dieser Abdruck im physischen Leibe geschieht. Und daß er geschieht, das ist der Grund, warum wir während des physischen Lebens ein Gedächtnis haben. Man muß sich diese Sache nur richtig vorstellen. Stellen wir die Frage: Warum haben wir ein Gedächtnis im physischen Leben? — da müssen wir sagen: Jedesmal, wenn wir eine Vorstellung bilden, wird ein Eindruck auf den physischen Leib gemacht. Dieser Eindruck ist sogar mehr oder weniger menschenähnlich. Jede Vorstellung, die wir uns bilden, macht nicht nur, wie der materialistisch-phantastisch Denkende meint, da oder dort im Gehirn einen Eindruck, sondern auf den ganzen Menschen macht jede Vorstellung einen Eindruck. Und mit Bezug auf eine Art Nachformung des Kopfes und noch sogar des oberen Teiles der Brust des Menschen, liefert wirklich jede Vorstellung, die wir uns bilden, einen Abdruck. Es ist wirklich war: Wenn ich jetzt zu Ihnen spreche, in der Minute vielleicht hundert Silben, so haben Sie während dieser Minuten rasch hintereinander fünfzig Menschen in sich gebildet, jedoch fünfzig Menschenbilder rasch weggeschafft, das eine wechselt rasch mit dem andern ab. Nun, Sie können sich denken, wie viele solche Menschenbilder Sie in sich gebildet haben, wenn die Stunde der Betrachtung vorüber ist. Diese Menschenbilder sind mehr oder weniger gleich in ihrer äußeren Gestalt, aber doch wiederum ungleich; keines ist dem andern vollständig gleich. Jedes ist von dem andern verschieden, wenn auch eben nur etwas verschieden. Es ist eine kindliche Vorstellung, wenn etwa jemand glauben wollte, daß, wenn er jetzt einen Eindruck der Außenwelt hat und sich morgen daran erinnert, dieser Eindruck in irgendeiner Form in ihm gesessen habe. Er hat gar nicht gesessen, sondern ein Bild, das menschenähnlich ist, ist in dem Menschen geblieben. Wirklich, von jedem Eindruck der Außenwelt bleibt ein Bild, das menschenähnlich ist. Und wenn Sie sich morgen wieder an den Eindruck erinnern, dann versetzen Sie Ihre Seele in dieses Menschenbild, das in Ihnen ist. Und der Grund, warum Sie morgen nicht dieses Menschenbild sehen, sondern sich an den Eindruck erinnern, ist der, daß Sie in Ihrem Astralleib lesen. Es ist eine richtige Lesetätigkeit, eine unterbewußte Lesetätigkeit; geradeso wie wenn Sie irgend etwas aufschreiben und später lesen wollen, Sie nicht die Buchstaben beschreiben, sondern das, was die Buchstaben bedeuten, so ist es morgen, wenn Sie sich an das heute Erlebte erinnern. Sie schauen nicht das Bild an, das in Ihnen entstanden ist, das Menschenphantom, das da in Ihnen lebt, sondern Sie deuten es. Sie versetzen sich in der Seele in dieses Menschenphantom, und Ihre Seele erlebt etwas ganz anderes als dieses Menschenphantom. Sie erlebt dasjenige, was sie gestern erlebt hat, noch einmal. Gar so sehr zu wundern braucht sich der Mensch darüber nicht, denn wenn Sie heute Goethes «Faust» lesen — was haben Sie in ihm vor sich? So und so viel bloßes Papier und Druckerschwärze in einer beliebigen Form. Das ist äußerlich materiell der ganze «Faust». Und Sie würden niemals den Goetheschen «Faust» haben, wenn Sie nicht seelenhaft irgend etwas hantieren könnten mit dem, was Sie an Papier und Druckerschwärze vor sich haben. Wenn Sie das nicht entziffern könnten, so wäre es eben Papier und Druckerschwärze. Mit Bezug auf die äußere Welt debattieren fortwährend die Materialisten, daß dasjenige, wovon der Geisteswissenschafter sagt, daß es auch da ist, eben nicht da sei.
Aber diese Materialisten sind so gescheit, wie ein Mensch gescheit wäre, der sagen würde: Was redest du uns da vor von dem Goetheschen «Faust», er ist gar nicht da, da ist ja nur Papier und Druckerschwärze! — Dieses Urteil über den «Faust» ist ganz das gleiche wie das Urteil, das heute die Materialisten über die Welt fällen. Aber so ist es auch mit unseren Erinnerungen. Morgen ist nichts da in unseren Menschenwesen von einem Eindruck von heute als das Phantom, das Abbild, und alles übrige muß die Arbeit der Seele an diesem Phantom besorgen. Und so wie aus dem Papier und der Druckerschwärze in unserer Seele das ganze Gewebe des Goetheschen «Faust» herauftaucht, so taucht aus dem, was als Phantom in uns geblieben ist, dasjenige herauf, was eine Wiederbelebung des heutigen Eindrucks ist, wenn wir uns morgen daran erinnern. Aber diese Tätigkeit, die ausgeführt werden muß, damit wir uns erinnern können, führt für uns dasjenige aus, was durch Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondenzeit vorbereitet ist, die führt unser so wunderbar gestalteter physischer Leib, dann unser ätherischer Leib aus. Sie gestalten, sie tun das für uns. Und das verspürt, das empfindet: der materialistisch denkende Mensch. Nun denken Sie, die geistigen Wahrheiten, die gewonnen werden, werden ja ohne diese Hilfe so gewonnen, daß die Hilfe des äußeren physischen Leibes nicht in Anspruch genommen wird. Da müssen die Kräfte, die sonst im äußeren Leibe arbeiten, vom Inneren der Seele herkommen; da muß aus dem Seelischen heraus gearbeitet werden. Wenn man eine geistige Anschauung hat, die nicht durch die äußere Welt zustande gebracht ist, dann können wir nicht, wenn wir uns an sie erinnern wollen, uns in ein inneres Phantom versetzen, das geblieben ist; das ist ja im Leibe. Da müssen wir durch eine viel stärkere Kraft, ohne diese Unterstützung, die ganze Sache vom Inneren heraus wiederum erarbeiten, richtig erarbeiten. Also auch das ist nichts besonders Wunderbares. Denn denken Sie einmal bloß an den Unterschied, wie er die Sache, die ich jetzt meine, im Kleinen abspiegelt. Nehmen Sie an, jemand liest heute ein Gedicht, und dieses Gedicht, das er heute gelesen hat, hebt er sich gedruckt bis morgen auf. Dann kann er es morgen wieder ablesen, übermorgen wieder. Aber nehmen wir an, er hebt es sich nicht auf, dann muß er es aus dem Gedächtnis wiederum sagen. Sie sehen den Unterschied: Das eine Mal tun wir gewissermaßen etwas, womit wir nichts zu tun haben; was wir sonst tun müßten, trägt von der einen Zeit in die andere das äußere Papier herüber; wir haben eine Stütze an dem Papier. Wir müssen uns mehr anstrengen, wenn wir das Gedicht aus der Seele wieder konstruieren. So muß sich derjenige, der in der geistigen Welt lebt, innerlich mit seinem Willen mehr anstrengen als der, welcher sich auf die Unterstützung seines Leibes verläßt. Das aber hängt damit zusammen, daß alles dasjenige, was im Geisteswissenschaftlichen errungen wird, ja, was nur verstanden werden soll, überhaupt ein großes seelisches Anstrengen fordert. Man kann viel träger, fauler sein, wenn man Materialist ist, als wenn man Geisteswissenschafter ist. Und dieses ist der Grund, warum die Menschen Materialisten sind, oder wenigstens einer der Gründe. Sie sind nicht Materialisten aus dem Grunde, weil sie ihrerseits durch eine Logik dazu gezwungen werden, sondern sie sind Materialisten aus Furcht, aber auch aus Trägheit, weil sie wollen, daß alles dasjenige, was da sich abspielt in der Seele, sich nicht durch die inneren Kräfte der Seele abspielt, sondern sich abspielt durch das, was im Leibe geschrieben ist, was da aufgezeichnet wird. Das sind Dinge, die wir durchaus bedenken müssen, wenn wir die Gründe einsehen wollen, warum so mancher ein Gegner der Geisteswissenschaft ist. Vor allen Dingen aber ist es schwierig, mit dem Denken dann ganz zurechtzukommen, wenn etwas erreicht werden soll, was der Mensch dennoch erreichen muß, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes schreitet.
Ich habe schon vorgestern darauf hingedeutet, was das Wesentliche für das Durchschreiten der Todespforte ist: Das ist die Selbsterkenntnis. Nun ist selbstverständlich diese Selbsterkenntnis keineswegs etwas so ganz Leichtes. Einige von Ihnen haben ja schon gehört, wie ich darüber gesprochen habe, wie selbst mit Bezug auf die äußere Gestalt die Menschen sehr häufig dem größten Irrtum unterliegen. Da ist ein jetzt oftmals genannter Philosoph, der in Wien gelebt hat, Mach, ich meine nicht den Hamburger Theosophiebeschimpfer Maack, sondern Ernst Mach, den ernst zu nehmenden Philosophen. Der hat eine «Analyse der Empfindungen» geschrieben. Darin sagt er mit großer Naivität das Folgende: Ich ging einmal auf der Straße; plötzlich mußte ich einhalten, denn es begegnete mir ein Mensch, und ich dachte: Das ist aber ein Mensch mit einem sehr unsympathischen Gesicht, ja, mit einem unerträglichen Gesicht. Und siehe da, ich entdecke, daß ich an einer Spiegelscheibe vorübergegangen war, und die Spiegel hingen so, daß ich mich selbst gesehen hatte. Da wurde ich darauf aufmerksam, wie wenig ich mit meiner eigenen Gestalt bekannt war. — Als er sich selbst sah, hielt er sich also für einen unsympathischen Menschen mit einem unerträglichen Gesicht. Das ist ein Philosophieprofessor, ein berühmter Professor der Gegenwart. Und um dasjenige, was ihm so passiert ist, noch zu bekräftigen, fügt er noch etwas anderes hinzu: Als er schon lange Professor war, fuhr er eines Tages mit der Eisenbahn, kam sehr müde in einer Stadt an und bestieg dort einen Omnibus. Da sah er auf der andern Seite auch einen Mann einsteigen, und er dachte: Da steigt aber ein herabgekommener Schulmeister ein! - Dann sah er aber, daß auf der Gegenseite wieder ein Spiegel hing, und er entdeckte, daß er sich selbst als herabgekommenen Schulmeister bezeichnet hatte. Er macht darauf aufmerksam, daß er, wie er sagt, den Gattungstypus genauer kannte als seine Spezialgestalt.
Nun, ist es schon so schwierig, sich selber zu erkennen in bezug auf das Äußere des Menschen — bei Damen ist es vielleicht leichter, weil sie öfter in den Spiegel schauen -, so ist es noch ganz anders, wenn es auf das Seelische ankommt. Da gibt es kaum eine andere Möglichkeit für unseren Zeitenzyklus, sich selbst zu erkennen, als sich die Erkenntniskräfte durch dasjenige zu schärfen, was wir in der Geisteswissenschaft aufnehmen können. Die Begriffe, die Vorstellungen, die wir durch die Geisteswissenschaft aufnehmen, sind gerade im besten Sinne geeignet, unsere Selbsterkenntnis zu schärfen. Auf das Selbsterkennen im allgemeinen ist ja im Grunde genommen alles veranlagt, was wir durch das Buch «Die Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» in uns aufnehmen. Alle die Vorstellungen, die wir durch dieses Buch aufnehmen, laufen eigentlich darauf hinaus, uns selber zu erkennen, zu wissen, was der Mensch eigentlich ist. Indem wir studieren, wie der menschliche physische Leib, der Ätherleib, der Astralleib nach und nach durch Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondenentwickelung geworden sind, lernen wir das kennen, was in uns ist. Und dadurch, daß wir so im allgemeinen kennenlernen, was in uns ist, werden unsere Vorstellungskräfte geschärft, um uns auch im Speziellen viel bessert, als es sonst irgend möglich ist, zu erkennen.
Inwiefern hat nun diese Selbsterkenntnis eine Bedeutung für den Moment des Todes? Solange wir hier im physischen Leibe verweilen, ist Selbsterkenntnis eben Erkenntnis. Wenn wir aber durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, verwandelt sich alles, was wir uns als Selbsterkenntnis angeeignet haben, in Willenskräfte. Je besser wir uns selbst erkennen, desto stärker wird eine Art von Willenskraft gerade dann, wenn wir den physischen Leib abgelegt haben. Nehmen wir zum Beispiel einmal an, wir haben hier eingesehen, wir waren in bezug auf gewisse Dinge, sagen wir, ein heftiger Mensch. Nun, Sie wissen, wie schwierig es ist, uns im physischen Leben ganz und gar umzuformen, etwa die Heftigkeit, wenn wir sie auch einsehen, wirklich abzulegen. Aber in dem Augenblick, wo wir den physischen Leib ablegen, wo wir nur wissen: Du warst heftig —, wird das zum Willen. Und dieser Wille richtet sich darauf, aus unserem Wesen die Heftigkeit auszuschalten. Jedes Erkenntnisurteil wird, indem wir durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, ein Willensurteil; es wird eine Willenskraft. Und da tritt dann etwas sehr Bedeutsames ein, das wir in gewissem Sinne nennen können die Umkehrung von etwas, was vor der Geburt des Menschen erlebt wird, was aber vergessen wird, weil der Mensch nicht zurückschauen kann in die Zeiten, die er vor seiner Geburt durchgemacht hat. Denken wir uns aber, der Mensch könnte jetzt schon dasjenige, was er im Jupiterdasein entwickeln wird: Wenn er sich aus der geistigen Welt heraus allmählich anschickt, wiederum zu einer Inkarnation zu kommen, so würde er in höchst merkwürdiger Weise etwas erleben wie ein Hinblicken auf seine künftige Gestalt, sein künftiges Leben. Er würde wirklich auch etwas von seiner physischen Gestalt schauen. Aber gerade das eine würde er niemals durchdringen in dieser physischen Gestalt, was ihm darin wie zwei Punkte vorkommen würde. Denken wir uns, wir würden, wenn wir zur Geburt schreiten, gleichsam wie in einem Nebel unsere physische Gestalt vor uns schwindend haben. Wir würden es wie Licht sehen, aber da darin würden wir undurchdringliche, finstere Punkte, finstere Kugeln sehen, auch noch manches andere, aber eben auch diese finsteren Kugeln. Lange bevor der Mensch seiner physischen Geburt zuschtreitet, sieht er — gleichsam in der Zeit, nicht im Raume - vor sich: Das wirst du! Und er sieht gewissermaßen schon, wie aus dem Wesen der Geister der Form heraus sich seine Physis formt. Diese erscheint ihm mehr oder weniger als eine Lichtgestalt, aber darin wie schwebend zwei finstere Kugeln. Wenn der Mensch nun entgegenlebt dem physischen Leben, dann tut er dies teilweise schon im Leibe der Mutter; da nimmt er gewisse Kräfte aus dieser Umgebung auf, die dann die Mutter bildet. Er fühlt sich allmählich verbunden mit dieser Lichtgestalt, und dann fühlt er, als ob er insbesondere in diesen zwei Kugeln darinstecken würde. Vorher sind sie ihm wie undurchdringlich erschienen, jetzt ist er selbst darin und fühlt dann die Kräfte, die ihm von allen Seiten her kommen, die gehen in ihn hinein. Dann durchsticht er diese zwei Kugeln, den Raum der Kugeln; der Raum verliert seine Undurchdringlichkeit. Und das sind die Stellen, wo dann später die Augen sind. Wenn man sich so der physisch-irdischen Inkarnation nähert, so ist dasjenige, was man gerade nicht sieht, was aber bewirkt, daß wir sehen, die Augen. Sie sind wie undurchdringliche Kugeln, denen wir entgegenleben. Dann durchdringt man sie in der letzten Phase, bevor man die physische Welt betritt. Würde man das bewußt durchleben, so wäre das eigentlich ein wunderbares Phänomen. Denken Sie sich, wie man sich, herauswandelnd aus der geistigen Welt in die physische Welt hinein, sagt: Jetzt gehst du mit deiner Seele dieser physischen Gestalt entgegen. Du wirst da zwei finstere Kugeln finden. Die kannst du mit deinem jetzigen Seelensehen nicht durchschauen; das ist ganz voll von geistiger Substanz! - Dann bekommt man die Kraft, das zuerst geistig Undurchsichtige durchsichtig zu machen. Und wenn man dann, wie man sagt, «das Licht der Welt erblickt», dann sind diese Räume, die undurchsichtig waren, gerade der Grund, warum man sieht. Die Augen kann man nicht selber sehen; würde man sie sehen, so würde man die Welt nicht sehen.
Wenn man nun durch die Pforte des Todes schreitet, dann ist hinterher der Anblick des Todes auch deshalb eine so wunderbare Erscheinung im geistigen Menschenleben nach dem Tode, weil mit dem ganzen Menschen etwas Ähnliches vorgeht, was hier mit den Augen vorging. Nur wird dasjenige, was jetzt mit dem ganzen Menschen vorgeht, bewußt durchgemacht. Man muß nach dem Tode im innerlichen Erlebnis das Gefühl bekommen: Da bist du herausgegangen aus der Welt. Bisher hatte man im Auge die physische Welt als ein physisches Erlebnis, dasjenige, was gerade als Tableau der ätherische Leib zuletzt noch zeigt. Nun kommt man mit dem, was man als Selbsterkenntnis erworben hat, durch die Pforte des Todes, und das wird dann Willenskraft. - Nun denken Sie, hier wäre der Tote. Er läßt zurück seine physischen Erlebnisse. Er strahlt seine Willenskraft aus, diese Willenskraft, die er sich durch Selbsterkenntnis erworben hat. Diese strahlende Willenskraft, die durch Selbsterkenntnis erworben ist, schafft dasjenige weg, was uns hindert, in die geistige Umwelt hineinzuschauen. Wie wir beim Hineingehen in die Geburt sozusagen die Durchtrübung des Auges fortschaffen, so schaffen wir das, was uns hindert, in die geistige Welt hineinzuschauen, durch diese Willenskraft weg. Wir machen uns nach dem Tode durchsichtig. Das ist das bedeutsame Ereignis.

Wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes tritt, dann ist es ja, solange er den Ätherleib noch an sich hat, so, daß er wie in einem mächtigen Tableau übersieht sein ganzes Leben. Das steht vor ihm. Aber jetzt bekommt er auch das Gefühl: Du siehst dich! Das bist du, als du zwischen Geburt und Tod lebtest, das bist du alles selbst! — Nun regt sich in ihm alle Kraft der Selbsterkenntnis, die er sich erworben hat, und durchsticht es gleichsam so, wie ich es geschildert habe; dadurch geht der Ätherleib weg. Dann ist es, wie wenn ein Schleier fiele, und das, was dahinter ist, kommt erst zum Vorschein, und das ist die geistige Welt. Es ist das ein ungeheures Erlebnis, durch die Pforte des Todes zu gehen und dadurch, daß der Ätherleib frei geworden ist, das ganze letzte Leben vor sich zu haben und das Gefühl zu bekommen: Dieses letzte Leben ist ein Schleier, der dir eine ungeheure Welt zudeckt, die du während des Lebens nicht hast schen können. Nun kämpft gegen diesen Schleier, ihn beseitigend, die aus der Selbsterkenntnis hervorgegangene Willenskraft an. Und indem der Schleier zerreißt, erscheint die geistige Welt dahinter.
Man braucht nicht ängstlich zu sein etwa aus dem Grunde, weil sich jemand sagen könnte: In unserer gegenwärtigen Zeit haben doch so viele Menschen gar nichts getan, um zu einiger Selbsterkenntnis zu kommen. Man kann ja nach dem Urteil vieler Leute schon kaum gescheiter und intelligenter sein als ein gegenwärtiger Universitätsprofessor der Philosophie; das ist doch das Ideal der Intelligenz in der Gegenwart. Und man kann doch so wenig veranlagt sein zur Selbsterkenntnis wie ein so berühmter Mann, noch sogar ein Philosoph, Ernst Mach, der wirklich ein bedeutender Mensch ist! Es könnte also jemand kleinmütig werden und sagen: Um die Selbsterkenntnis steht es doch schlecht. - Freilich, wenn die Sache so läge, daß die Menschen darauf angewiesen wären, nur diejenige Willenskraft aus der Selbsterkenntnis zu haben, welche aus dem Leben der Gegenwart folgt, dann stünde es recht schlimm um die Menschen! Die Menschen in der Gegenwart sind ja sehr stolz auf die ungeheuren Erkenntnisfortschritte, die erreicht worden sind, von einer gewissen Seite her auch mit Recht. Denken Sie nur, wie ein Arzt der Gegenwart, der alles das kennt, was jetzt Arzneimode ist, stolz herabblickt auf diejenigen, die noch vor gar nicht langer Zeit Ärzte waren. Das waren ja alles Toren, denkt er selbstverständlich. Mit Bezug auf die äußeren Erkenntnisse haben die Menschen im Laufe der letzten Jahrhunderte Mannigfaltiges gewonnen und erfahren über die äußere Welt, wie die äußerlichen Erscheinungen zusammenhängen und so weiter. Darin sind große Fortschritte gemacht worden. Aber mit Bezug auf Selbsterkenntnis waren die älteren Zeiten, die wir in früheren Inkarnationen durchgemacht haben, der Gegenwart weit voran; so weit voran eigentlich, daß der gegenwärtige Mensch, wenn er materialistisch denkt, gar keine Vorstellung hat, was er mit dem, was aus alten Zeiten stammt, anfangen soll. Denn, was die Menschen heute als alte Vorurteile ansehen, war im Grunde alles, indem es von den Seelen älterer Zeiten erlebt wurde, Selbsterkenntnis. Und was aufgezeichnet ist, das sind nur die letzten Reste der Selbsterkenntnis.
Nun ist es ja für das Erdenleben so, daß der Mensch mit dem gewöhnlichen äußeren Bewußtsein von seinen früheren Inkarnationen nichts weiß. Wir wissen zwar, daß es unter den Theosophen Menschen gibt, die nach verhältnismäßig kurzer Zeit anfangen, furchtbar viel von ihren früheren Inkarnationen zu wissen. Ich lernte einmal in einer Stadt Europas eine Gesellschaft kennen, da saßen an einem Kaffeetisch zusammen Seneca, Friedrich der Große, Kaiser Joseph, der Herzog von Reichstadt, Madame Pompadour, Marie-Antoinette und noch einige. Aber abgesehen von denen, die über ihre frühere Inkarnation so viel wissen, nachdem sie ein wenig Theosophie gelernt haben, wissen die Menschen bekanntlich durch die gewöhnliche äußere Erkenntnis nicht sehr viel oder gar nichts von ihrer früheren Inkarnation. Denn, so wahr es ist, daß der Mensch durch das, was ihm eben der gegenwärtige Menschheitszyklus gibt, nichts von der vorhergehenden Inkarnation weiß, so wahr ist es, daß er für seine Willensentfaltung nach dem Tode alles hat, was ihm aus früheren Leben geblieben ist. Da ist es nämlich anders, zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Während zwischen der Geburt und dem Tod hier die Menschen nichts wissen von ihren früheren Inkarnationen, haben sie im Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt alle Kräfte ihrer früheren Inkarnationen in sich, aber auch dasjenige, was immer durchlebt worden ist zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Wenn der Mensch also durch die Pforte des "Todes geht, hat er nicht nur jene Willenskraft, die aus der Selbsterkenntnis kommt, welche die Menschen heute meistens nicht haben, sondern alle Willenskräfte, die nicht aus der Selbsterkenntnis in diesem Leben kommen, sie kommen aus der Selbsterkenntnis, die der Mensch in früheren Zeiten durchgemacht hat. So daß es dem Menschen, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes geht, eben an der Willenskraft nicht fehlt, die dieses Gewebe wegschafft, das durch das eigene Leben geflochten ist. Wenn der Mensch aber im Laufe der nächsten Jahrtausende sich neue Willenskräfte erwerben will, würde in dem gegenwärtigen Zeitenzyklus auch diese Selbsterkenntnis aus alten Zeiten immer mehr geschätzt werden. Daher muß eben für die weitere Menschheitsentwickelung die Geisteswissenschaft auftreten. Denn es ist der Gang der Menschheit so, daß die Willenskraft des Menschen zwar heute noch ausreicht, daß aber jetzt auch die Zeit beginnt, wo während der Erdenentwickelung diese Willenskraft dadurch gestärkt werden kann, daß der Mensch sich mit der geistigen Welt bekanntmacht.
Einer Gefahr würde die Erdenentwickelung der Menschheit ausgesetzt sein, wenn die Menschen sich etwa bis zum Ende der Erdenentwickelung von jetzt ab selber in jeder Beziehung sträuben würden, etwas von Geisteswissenschaft aufzunehmen. Dann würde der Mensch allerdings immer mehr und mehr dazukommen, drüben in der geistigen Welt wenig wahrnehmen zu können von den geistigen Dingen und Ereignissen. Er würde dies weniger und weniger können. Er würde immer weniger den Schleier, von dem ich sprach, durchdringen können. So sehen Sie, welche Bedeutung die zur Willenskraft umgewandelte Selbsterkenntnis hat. Hier ist diese Erkenntnis Selbstanschauung, drüben ist sie Selbstwillen, der darauf gerichtet ist, den Schleier von der geistigen Welt hinwegzuziehen. Gerade an denjenigen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, nimmt man wahr, wie wichtig es für sie ist, daß sie sich selber stärken in der Willenskraft, wie sie jetzt gekennzeichnet worden ist, in der Willenskraft, die aus der Selbsterkenntnis kommt. Daher ist es recht bedeutsam, daß der Mensch, indem er dutch die Pforte des Todes geht, durch diese verschiedenen Stadien sich beschäftigt mit demjenigen, was in ihm ist, was in seinem Selbst ist, was er war während des irdischen Lebens. Und wenn jemand Gemeinschaft hat mit einem Toten, dann ist von einer großen, einer wesentlichen Bedeutung, diese Gemeinschaft auch dadurch noch besonders fruchtbar zu machen, daß man dem Toten, der hinwegging, zu Hilfe kommt in der Stärkung seines Selbstbewußtseins, in der Erfüllung dieses Selbstbewußtseins. Das ist konkret so gemeint: Denken wir etwa, irgend jemand, der hier im physischen Leben mit uns war, ginge durch die Pforte des Todes. Indem wir mit ihm gelebt haben, wissen wir, wie er war, wissen wir, was er besonders gern getan hat und so weiter. Wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, dann hat er notwendig, dringend notwendig, gewissermaßen alles dasjenige, was et will, durch starke innere Kräfte aufzubringen. Das muß ja herausfließen aus seiner Rückschau. Und wir können ihm zu Hilfe kommen, wenn wir so an ihn denken, wie er uns im Leben erschienen ist; wenn wir uns damit beschäftigen, ihm die Gedanken zuschicken, welche ihn selber charakterisieren. Neben den verschiedenen Dingen, die schon gesagt worden sind über unsere Beschäftigung mit den Toten, die von uns hinweggegangen sind, können wir den Toten auch dadurch zu Hilfe kommen, daß wir ihnen gleichsam das Bild von ihrem Wesen entgegenbringen. Damit nehmen wir ihnen eine gewisse Anstrengung ab in der Entfaltung jenes Willens, der den charakterisierten Schleier zerreißen muß. Daher kam es, daß sich mir nun das andere ergeben hat, von dem ich schon vorgestern zu Ihnen gesprochen habe. Ergeben hat sich mir, als ich bei der Bestattung von Freunden vor kurzer Zeit zu sprechen hatte, daß ich mich in die Notwendigkeit versetzt fühlte, dasjenige, was in den Freunden lebt als ihr Wesen, gerade bei der Bestattung auszusprechen. Da ist nicht aus der Erinnerung heraus gesprochen worden, sondern es ist so heraus gesprochen worden aus meiner eigenen Seele, daß diese Seele sich ganz in die andere Seele versetzt hat, nachdem diese schon durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten war.
Wenn man es mit einer Seele zu tun hat, die schon durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist, dann handelt es sich darum, daß man sich in diese Seele versetzt. Hier in der physischen Welt ist der Gegenstand da, man schaut ihn von außen an. Im Geistigen ist es so, daß man mit seinem ganzen Wesen in diesem Geistig-Seelischen selber darin ist. Und da verhält es sich in dem einzelnen Falle, von dem ich vorgestern sprach, so, daß es eben möglich war, sich hineinzuversetzen in die Seele dieser Persönlichkeit, die da durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen war und die von mir also charakterisiert worden ist als eine Persönlichkeit, die sich durch lange Jahre vor ihrem Tode viel mit dieser unserer Weltanschauung beschäftigt hat, die ganz darin lebte, so daß sie ihren eigenen Inhalt, das, was sie als Wesen dadurch war, daß sie sich in Geisteswissenschaft eingelebt und gewisse Kräfte aufgenommen hatte, nun in Worte fassen konnte, solange sie noch in ihrem Ätherleibe war. Das gelang mir aufzufangen von der Toten, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen war, und das mußte ich bei der Bestattung sprechen.
In andern Fällen war es dann anders. Als ich zu sprechen hatte bei der Bestattung unseres lieben Fritz Mitscher, der ja den Mitgliedern unseres Zweiges hier besonders teuer sein muß, war es so, daß ich die Notwendigkeit fühlte, mich auch in diese Seele, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen war, voll zu versetzen. Aber nun ergab sich die Notwendigkeit, das, was diese Seele im Leben war für diejenigen, die mit ihr befreundet und um sie herum waren, auch als Mitglieder unserer anthroposophischen Bewegung, es ergab sich die Notwendigkeit, das in Worte zu fassen, um mit dieser Seele zusammen nach dem Tode das durchzudenken und gemeinschaftlich zu durchleben, was Anspornung und Vergrößerung jenes Willens ist, der aus der Selbsterkenntnis folgt. Da ergab sich dann die Notwendigkeit, gerade bei dieser Bestattung Dinge zu sagen, welche zusammenklingen mit dem, was unser lieber Freund Fritz Mitscher in den Zeiten seiner Entwickelung, nachdem er in unsere geisteswissenschaftliche Bewegung hereingekommen war, durchmachte, was er sich angeeignet hat, wie ihn da sein inneres Karma getrieben hat. Und die Worte, die ich da zu sprechen hatte, sind ja, wie gesagt, nicht meine Worte, sie sind aus den Kräften seiner eigenen Seele hervorgegangen, aber so geformt, daß sie das Wesentliche der Jahre ausdrückten, die seinem Tode vorausgegangen sind. Ich mußte das sagen - nicht: ich wollte das sagen, was ich da zu sagen hatte. Natürlich ist es nicht etwas, was unmittelbar seine eigenen Worte waren; die betreffende Seele würde dies niemals von sich selber im Leben gesagt haben. Es ist dasjenige, was doch die andere Seele empfunden hat, die aber dann verbunden ist mit der Seele des Abgeschiedenen, so wie man nur mit einer Seele empfinden kann, die schon entkörpert ist. Ich will Ihnen diese Worte, die ich bei der Bestattung zu sprechen hatte, mitteilen:
Eine Hoffnung, uns beglückend:
So betratest Du das Feld,
Wo der Erde Geistesblüten,
Durch die Kraft des Seelenseins,
Sich dem Forschen zeigen möchten.Lautrer Wahrheitliebe Wesen
War Dein Sehnen urverwandt;
us dem Geisteslicht zu schaffen,
War das ernste Lebensziel,
Dem Du rastlos nachgestrebt.Deine schönen Gaben pflegtest Du,
Um der Geist-Erkenntnis hellen Weg,
Unbeirrt vom Welten-Widerspruch
Als der Wahrheit treuer Diener
Sichern Schrittes hinzuwandeln.Deine Geistorgane übtest Du,
Daß sie tapfer und beharrlich
An des Weges beide Ränder
Dir den Irrtum drängten
Und Dir Raum für Wahrheit schufen.Dir Dein Selbst zur Offenbarung
Reinen Lichtes zu gestalten,
Daß die Seelen-Sonnenkraft
Dir im Innern machtvoll strahle,
War Dir Lebenssorg’ und Freude.Andre Sorgen, andre Freuden,
Sie berührten Deine Seele kaum,
Weil Erkenntnis Dir als Licht,
Das dem Dasein Sinn verleiht,
Als des Lebens wahrer Wert erschien.Eine Hoffnung, uns beglückend:
So betratest Du das Feld,
Wo der Erde Geistesblüten
Durch die Kraft des Seelenseins
Sich dem Forschen zeigen möchten.Ein Verlust, der tief uns schmerzt,
So entschwindest Du dem Feld,
Wo des Geistes Erdenkeime
In dem Schoß des Seelenseins
Deinem Sphärensinne reiften.Fühle, wie wir liebend blicken
In die Höhen, die Dich jetzt
Hin zu andrem Schaffen rufen.
eiche den verlaß’nen Freunden
Deine Kraft aus Geistgebieten.Höre unsrer Seelen Bitte,
Im Vertrau’n Dir nachgesandt:
Wir bedürfen hier zum Erdenwerk
Starker Kraft aus Geistes-Landen,
Die wir toten Freunden danken.Eine Hoffnung, uns beglückend,
in Verlust, der tief uns schmerzt:
Laß uns hoffen, daß Du ferne-nah,
Unverloren unsrem Leben, leuchtest
Als ein Seelenstern im Geistbereich.
Wenn diese Worte nicht so genommen werden dürften, daß sie etwa von der Seele selbst gesprochen werden, so sind sie doch in solcher Gemeinschaft mit der Seele gesprochen gewesen, daß nach verhältnismäßig ganz kurzer Zeit sich von dieser Seele etwas offenbarte, was aber jetzt nur von der Seele kam; also nun gar nicht von meiner Seele, sondern nur von der Seele, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen war. Und das klang dann so, und wiederholt seit jener Zeit her klingen mir immer wiederum diese Worte:
Mir mein Selbst zur Offenbarung
Reinen Lichtes zu gestalten,
Daß die Seelen-Sonnenkraft
Mir im Innern machtvoll strahle,
War mir Lebenssorg’ und Freude.Andre Sorgen, andre Freuden,
Sie berührten meine Seele kaum,
Weil Erkenntnis mir als Licht,
Das dem Dasein Sinn verleiht,
Als des Lebens wahrer Wert erschien.
So klangen die Worte zurück. Ich hatte selbst erst nachher entdeckt, daß die zwei Strophen, die mitten darinnen sind, sich unmittelbar aus dem Du ins Ich und aus dem Dir ins Mir umwandeln lassen. Ich hatte es vorher nicht gewußt. Denn ich hatte die Strophen so vernommen, wie ich sie Ihnen zuerst gelesen habe. Und nun kamen sie zurück aus dem Wesen des Toten, von ihm gesprochen:
Und als ich zum erstenmal, seither ist es öfter geschehen, diese Worte von dieser durch den Tod gegangenen Seele hörte, da kam ich erst darauf —- denn dasjenige, was da vorgelesen worden ist, ist wirklich wortwörtlich so geschrieben, wie es gehört worden ist im Zusammenhang mit der andern Seele -, da kam ich erst darauf, daß ein Zwiegespräch entstehen konnte. Bei der Einäscherung war gesagt worden:Mir mein Selbst zur Offenbarung
Reinen Lichtes zu gestalten,
Daß die Seelen-Sonnenkraft
Mir im Innern machtvoll strahle,
War mir Lebenssorg’ und Freude.Andre Sorgen, andre Freuden,
Sie berührten meine Seele kaum,
Weil Erkenntnis mir als Licht,
Das dem Dasein Sinn verleiht,
Als des Lebens wahrer Wert erschien.
Dir Dein Selbst zur Offenbarung,
Reinen Lichtes zu gestalten...
Dir und Dein, das kommt in diesen Strophen vor. Aber es war nicht irgendwie gemacht von mir. Ich merkte erst, als die Worte zurückkamen aus der verstorbenen Seele, daß diese Worte so geformt waren, daß man sie eben auch in der ersten Person zurückgeben könne:
Mir mein Selbst zur Offenbarung
einen Lichtes zu gestalten...
Sie sehen da ein über das Grab hinausreichendes Zwiegespräch, eine Art Verständigung.
Ich möchte an dieses anknüpfend von etwas sprechen, was in unserer geisteswissenschaftlichen Bewegung ja oftmals erwähnt wird, wovon man aber nicht oft genug sprechen kann. Sie finden in den Strophen, die an eine durch die Pforte des Todes gegangene Seele gesprochen worden sind, etwas anklingend, das am bedeutsamsten da ausgesprochen ist, wo gesagt wird:
Höre unsrer Seelen Bitte,
Im Vertrau’n Dir nachgesandt:
Wir bedürfen hier zum Erdenwerk
Starker Kraft aus Geistes-Landen,
Die wir toten Freunden danken.
Nehmen Sie eine solche Sache nicht als bloße Worte. Das spricht von etwas, was im tiefsten Sinne bedeutungsvoll mit dem ganzen Wesen unserer geisteswissenschaftlichen Bewegung zusammenhängt.
Wenn eine Seele so gestrebt hat wie diejenige, von der hier die Rede ist, so daß sie das, was sie sich aneignen konnte an Wissen, an Erfahrungen, durchdringen wollte mit den geisteswissenschaftlichen Impulsen, und sie geht so frühzeitig durch die Pforte des Todes, dann ist es wirklich so, daß solch eine Seele ein treuer Mitarbeiter bleiben kann. So war es etwas wie eine Bitte, wenn ich dieser Seele diese Worte nachgerufen habe, daß sie Helfer werde für dasjenige, was wir wollen müssen in die Erdenzukunft hinein. Denn das können Sie als ganz sicher betrachten: Die Kluft zwischen den Lebenden und den Toten muß im Laufe der Erdenentwickelung durch unsere Geisteswissenschaft wirklich lebendig überbrückt werden. Wir müssen lernen, ebenso wie wir mit den im physischen Leibe Lebenden zusammen sind, die Toten nicht als Tote, sondern als unter uns Lebende zu betrachten, als mit uns Lebende und Schaffende. Diejenigen, welche die sogenannten Toten sind, wirken dann mit uns mit jenen Kräften, die ihnen zur Verfügung stehen.
Wir müssen lebendig und nicht als Theorie das zu erfassen trachten, was die Geisteswissenschaft in uns an Impulsen schaffen und umsetzen soll in das lebendige Leben, das wir gerade der Kulturentwickelung aus dem Geiste heraus einfügen wollen. Und man muß wahrhaftig sagen: Man wird nach der Beschaffenheit unserer äußeren Kultur in der Zukunft die Hilfe derjenigen brauchen, die in den geistigen Welten droben sind. Diejenigen, die hier auf Erden der geisteswissenschaftlichen Bewegung wirklich Eingang verschaffen, die werden die toten Seelen brauchen. Daher wurde das gesagt, daß wir zum Erdenwerke der Kraft aus Geisteslanden bedürfen, die wir toten Freunden danken. Es ist gleichsam ein bittender Auftrag, daß diese weiterarbeitenden Seelen mit den Kräften, die gestärkt werden durch das, was sie hier aufnahmen, und durchdrungen von dem, was sie in Geisteslanden aufgenommen haben, mit uns wirken sollen auf Erden; daß sich diese durchdringen mit dem, was von derselben Art ist mit dem, was wit wollen.
Ach, es kommt ja so manchmal symptomatisch heraus, welche Schwierigkeiten und Hemmnisse dasjenige, was wir unser anthroposophisches Erdenwerk nennen, findet. Unter mancherlei, was sich immer wieder beobachten läßt, sei jetzt nur das eine hervorgehoben. Da erschien in einer süddeutschen Zeitschrift vor einigen Jahren ein Artikel, der Aufsehen machte, weil die Kunde herumgetragen wurde, er rühre von einem sehr bedeutenden Philosophen her. Derjenige, der die Zeitschrift redigiert, heißt Karl Muth. Jener Karl Muth hat dazumal einen vielseitigen Artikel aufgenommen; als meine «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» erschienen ist, hat er diesen Artikel gebracht, eben in Anknüpfung an dieses Buch «Die Geheimwissenschaft». Es wäre mir vielleicht gar nicht so besonders schwierig gewesen, wenigstens das Schlimmste, das in dem Artikel stand, die törichtsten Behauptungen, etwas auszumerzen. Denn mit der Wahrheit jenes großen Philosophen verhält es sich ja folgendermaßen: Er gilt vielen wirklich als ein großer Philosoph. Aber manchen, denen er im Leben nahegetreten ist — er braucht ihnen gar nicht besonders nahe getreten zu sein, ihnen nur einmal gegenübergesessen zu haben -, denen erscheint er wie eine Art Klette, die sich anhängt. Und so erschien er mir, und ich habe mich seiner zu erwehren gehabt. Aber nachdem er mir Postkarte nach Postkarte, Brief nach Brief geschrieben hatte, schickte er mir auch als Manuskript diesen Artikel. Ich konnte mich nicht entschließen, den Artikel zu lesen, weil er schon zu töricht anfing. Da hieß es zum Beispiel: Geheimwissenschaft nenne Steiner das, was er da in seinem Buche schrieb. Aber eine geheime Wissenschaft könne es gar nicht geben, denn das sei das Wesen der Wissenschaft, daß sie nicht geheim, sondern öffentlich sei. — Also, eine Geheimwissenschaft widerspricht dem Wesen der Wissenschaft selbst! So fing es an. Und wo man blätterte, kam man auf solche unverschämten Torheiten, daß es mir fatal war, weiterzulesen, das Manuskript zu lesen. Es liegt immer noch irgendwo da. Es ist eine Torheit, dieses von der «Geheimwissenschaft», denn man braucht bloß deutsch zu können, um diese Torheit zu empfinden. Es ist das gerade, als wenn jemand sagte: Natürliche Wissenschaft gibt es nicht. Es gibt aber Naturwissenschaft! Eine geheime Wissenschaft gibt es freilich nicht, aber eine Geheimwissenschaft gibt es. Es war also zu töricht, aber der Herausgeber der Zeitschrift fand, daß es ein besonders bedeutender Artikel sei. Der Artikel ist viel gelesen worden, und es galt als etwas sehr Gescheites, was über die Geisteswissenschaft geschrieben worden ist, wo sie ja in Grund und Boden hinein kritisiert worden ist.
Jetzt ist der Krieg gekommen. Jener Philosoph ist kein Deutscher, sondern er rechnet sich jetzt zu den ärgsten Feinden Deutschlands. Und nun schreibt er eine Anzahl von Briefen an denselben Karl Muth, der dazumal - verzeihen Sie den trivialen Ausdruck - sich die Finger abgeleckt hat, daß er den Artikel von dem berühmten Philosophen bekommen hat. Es ist schon viel an Gift und Galle über Deutschland und das deutsche Volk ausgeschüttet worden, aber so giftig, so schaurig wie dasjenige, was dieser berühmte Philosoph in Briefen an Karl Muth schrieb, ist eigentlich wenig verfaßt worden. Da finden sich wirklich die gräßlichsten Urteile und Kritiken über das Deutschtum und deutsches Wesen. Das Folgende kann nun sogar als ein gutes Zeichen betrachtet werden. Der betreffende Philosoph schrieb, nachdem er Gift und Galle gespuckt hat, leider nicht mit «geheimer Wissenschaft», weil die Zensur es gar nicht hinderte, über die Grenze zu gehen, so daß es sogar in München ankam, und Muth den Mut fand, diese Gift und Galle wieder abzudrucken; jetzt aber nicht, um den «bedeutenden Aufsatz eines bedeutenden Mannes» abzudrucken, sondern -— nach Jahren druckt derselbe Karl Muth diese Schrift über die Deutschen ab und schreibt: Selbstverständlich müsse man einen Mann, der so schreibe, sich so vorstellen, daß er ins Narrenhaus gehöre! - Sie sehen, für Karl Muth bedurfte es dieser Schrift über das deutsche Wesen, um darauf zu kommen, daß der Mann ein Narr ist. Vor einigen Jahren aber hat er denselben Narren auf unsere Geisteswissenschaft losgelassen. Ein vernünftiger Mensch konnte das schon dazumal wissen, aber Narren gelten oftmals auch als berühmte Philosophen; darauf kommt es nicht an! Aber Sie sehen daraus, wie die Dinge stehen, welchen Fährlichkeiten Geisteswissenschaft eigentlich ausgesetzt ist. Wäre der Krieg nicht gekommen und Karl Muth darüber belehrt worden, daß eigentlich der gute Mann, dieser Professor Wincenty Lutoslawski, ein Narr ist, so würde er bei Gelegenheit wiederum einen die Geisteswissenschaft vernichtenden Artikel aus der Feder dieses «berühmten Philosophen» angenommen haben.
Daraus ersehen Sie auch, wie in unserer Zeit die Menschen oft nicht geneigt sind, durch ihre Urteilskraft darauf zu kommen, welchen Standpunkt sie der Geisteswissenschaft gegenüber einzunehmen haben. Das führe ich nur an, um an einem Beispiel zu zeigen — man könnte ja viele solche Beispiele anführen -, welchen Hindernissen unsere geisteswissenschaftliche Bewegung ausgesetzt ist; daß sogar diejenigen, die später als Narren angesehen werden müssen, gegen sie losgelassen werden. Dann darf vielleicht auch das Urteil berechtigt sein, daß auch manches andere, was gegen diese Geisteswissenschaft gesagt wird, nicht gescheiter ist. Denn, wo es einmal recht eklatant bewiesen werden konnte, da ist es ja bewiesen worden.
Das müssen wir uns schon klarmachen, daß wir zum Lebendigmachen dessen, was die geisteswissenschaftlichen Impulse sind, auch die Kräfte gerade derjenigen brauchen, die durch des Todes Pforte gegangen sind, und die, bevor sie durch diese Pforte schritten, dasjenige aufgenommen haben, was im Lichte der Geisteswissenschaft enthalten ist. Die Kluft zwischen Lebenden und Toten muß vor allen Dingen zuerst auf unserem geisteswissenschaftlichen Felde selbst hinweggeräumt werden. Darum muß immer wieder und wiederum etwas wie eine Ermahnung auftauchen: Das Bewußtsein, daß wir nahestehende Seelen hatten, solange sie im physischen Leibe unter uns wandelten, das wollen wir bewahren, ganz so wie es war vorher, nur eben entsprechend gerichtet nach der andern Lebensform; das wollen wir bewahren, auch wenn die betreffenden Seelen durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind. Denn zu dem Schönsten, zu dem Bedeutsamsten, was wir uns aus der Geisteswissenschaft erringen können, wird es gehören, wenn wir diejenigen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, ansehen können wie unter uns Lebende, wie uns Begegnende; ganz so, wie uns diejenigen begegnen, die im physischen Leibe leben. Und das wird eine wesentliche Unterstützung finden dadurch, daß jetzt so viele Seelen auf den Feldern, wo Neues sich vorbereitet aus Blut und Tod heraus, in frühen physischen Lebensaltern durch die Pforte des Todes gehen und unverbrauchte Ätherleiber der geistigen Welt überliefern.
Der Ätherleib des Menschen ist ja so zubereitet, daß er bis in das höchste Alter hinein den Menschen mit Lebenskraft versorgen kann. Geht der Mensch nun im jugendlichen Alter durch die Pforte des Todes, so bleiben die Kräfte unverbraucht, die hier noch hätten verwendet werden können, wenn der Mensch ein höheres Alter erteicht hätte. Und wir können jetzt hinaufschauen in die geistige, die ätherische Welt, wo der Mensch noch einige Zeit bleibt, wenn er den physischen Plan verlassen hat; da sind von denen, die auf den Feldern der Ereignisse gefallen sind, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, eben viele jugendliche Ätherleiber vorhanden, die sich nicht gleich auflösen, sondern die bleiben, zusammenhaltend und die Kräfte enthaltend, die lange Zeit noch hätten Lebensverhältnisse versorgen können.
Diese Ätherleiber aber, sie werden da sein, sie werden Kräfte sein, die dann den Menschen zu Hilfe kommen können, wenn diese mit dem Bewußtsein der Geisteswissenschaft sehnend hinaufschauen, dahin, wo dasjenige sein wird, was in unverbrauchten Ätherleibern enthalten ist. Jene Kräfte von oben werden sich verbinden denen, die sich bewußt verbinden wollen mit diesen Kräften aus dem geisteswissenschaftlichen Bewußtsein heraus. Dieses fühlend und empfindend, sollen wir uns zu ihnen wenden. Wir sollen uns bekennen zu der geistigen Welt in lebendiger Weise. Wir sollen uns sagen können: Menschen muß es geben gerade in der Zukunft, in der Zeit, die auf diesen Krieg folgen wird, hier auf dieser unserer Erde, welche Seelen in sich tragen, die so in die geistige Welt hinaufschauen können, daß ihnen diese unverbrauchten Ätherleiber Realitäten sein werden; daß ihnen das zur Realität wird durch die Erkenntnis der geistigen Welt. Dann wird Geisteswissenschaft sich als gewachsen zeigen dem, was nicht nur Erkenntnis ist, sondern reales Leben; reales Leben auch durch die schicksaltragenden Ereignisse unserer Zeit. Und dann wird man sagen können: Dadurch, daß Seelen vorhanden sein werden in der Welt, die aufblicken zu den Ätherleibern da oben, die unverbraucht ihre Kräfte entwickeln, dadurch werden jene Menschenseelen auf der Erde aufnehmen können diese Kräfte und um so stärker wirken können. Und fruchtbar für die Erdenseelen in der Zukunft werden diese unverbrauchten Ätherleiberkräfte derjenigen sein, die heute auf den Feldern von Blut und Tod ihre Opfer dargebracht haben.
Aus diesem Grunde wollen wir auch heute wiederum gedenken jenes Zusammenwirkens, das entstehen kann zwischen den Seelen, die künftig durchseelt und durchgeistigt von geisteswissenschaftlichen Erkenntnissen hinaufblicken zu dem, was aus diesem Kriege von den Ätherleibern zurückbleibt, was entstehen kann aus diesem inneren seelischen Zusammenwirken. Wir wollen auch heute wiederum jene Worte in unsere Seelen schreiben, die ich jetzt gerne am Ende unserer Zweigbetrachtungen spreche, aus dem ganzen Zusammenhang der Zeitereignisse heraus:
Aus dem Mut der Kämpfer,
Aus dem Blut der Schlachten,
Aus dem Leid Verlassener,
Aus des Volkes Opfertaten
Wird erwachsen Geistesfrucht
Denken Seelen geistbewußt
Ihren Sinn ins Geisterreich.
The Knowledge-Based Overcoming of Death Prenatal and Postmortem Soul Experiences Our Connection with the Dead
The day before yesterday, in our Düsseldorf branch meeting, we took a brief look at what is referred to in the context of life as the passage of human beings through the gates of death. This is what matters: that Western spiritual development gradually penetrates with a realization that, in a sense, overcomes death through knowledge, overcoming it by recognizing it as a transformation of life itself.
It is understandable that, especially in our time, which is permeated by materialistic views, death must appear more and more as a boundary of the world that human beings pass through. We can easily imagine that this was very different in earlier times; it was different, of course, because, as we know, people in those earlier times still had a kind of remnant of ancient dreamlike clairvoyance. This dreamlike clairvoyance was connected with standing in the spiritual world. And since in those times, when our souls were embodied in such bodies, it was still possible to stand clairvoyantly in the spiritual worlds, our souls were connected with the spiritual world, so death was not a meaningful, final phenomenon for them as it is in our times. But this would become increasingly so if the knowledge that is to be gained through spiritual science did not gradually come into our time. For one should not believe that this spiritual science that we are acquiring does not already have the greatest significance for the whole of human experience.
Certainly, many of us will say: We strive for two things on our path through the spiritual scientific movement. First, to penetrate rationally and intelligently what spiritual science gives us. Second, by applying the spiritual scientific methods to our souls, as outlined, for example, in the book How to Know Higher Worlds, we strive to enter into the perception of the spiritual world already during our physical incarnation. But some will say: Surely only a few, only very few, are assigned by their karma to enter fully conscious into the spiritual world in this incarnation. In a certain sense, everyone who applies these rules would enter, and indeed everyone does enter; but to notice that one is there, to be attentive to it, is more difficult than entering itself. And even when they are already truly in the spiritual world, many are hindered by the impossibility of applying that subtle, intimate attention to what they are now experiencing in order to be truly conscious of how they are there. One might say that for everyone who applies the rules given in the book How to Know Higher Worlds, after a relatively short time they find themselves standing in the spiritual world with their own self, but they do not notice it. In response to such a consideration, it must be emphasized again and again that a reasonable understanding of what is given in spiritual science does not depend at all on whether one looks into the spiritual world oneself. We have often said that the spiritual scientific view is naturally necessary in order to establish the facts of the spiritual world. But once what has been found is given, anyone can understand it if they apply their healthy mind in an unbiased way, unclouded by the prejudices of the external materialistic world. We must be clear that it is not enough to resolve or convince ourselves that we have completely overcome the prejudices of the materialistic age. Certainly, according to our will, our longing, we will be beyond these prejudices of the materialistic age if we seriously engage in the spiritual scientific movement. For, basically, no one will honestly and sincerely commit themselves to this spiritual scientific movement unless they are deeply imbued with the longing to overcome materialistic prejudices. But these materialistic prejudices are so deeply ingrained in our habits of thinking, and what is not directly a materialistic prejudice but is connected with it is particularly deeply ingrained. It is connected with the materialistic prejudice, with the whole materialistic worldview, that human beings are in a certain sense incapable of developing a comprehensive faculty of thinking. As much as our age is focused on reason and logic, a sharp mind and sharp logic are not really the property of those who perhaps want to be at the forefront of the scientific or other cultural endeavors of our time.
In our time, people do not strive for complete clarity of thought. If they did, they would already be able to fully understand the spiritual sciences. Those who think clearly will find nothing to object to in what spiritual science has to offer — in general, of course, for in details the spiritual scientist can err, as human beings in general can err. Countless examples could be given to show how little our age is inclined to apply clear, sharp thinking.
I would like to give you just one example from our own time. It has often been read as a very common judgment of a truly great man, a very important person. This judgment has been repeated, and one of the German publicists has made a name for himself by repeating it over and over again. A great man once said that war is the continuation of politics by other means. And to many thinkers who think in a way that is very much in keeping with our times, this seems infinitely logical: war is a continuation of politics. Of course, nothing should be said against the greatness of the man who made this statement. What he means is that nations pursue a certain policy among themselves, thereby regulating their affairs; when this policy has reached a point where it can no longer continue, then—well, what then?—then war simply continues politics. In this sense, the judgment of all people can be justified and immediately recognized. But if one thinks about it a little, one realizes how one-sided such a judgment usually is. For this judgment is quite the same as saying, for example: There are two people who are friends or in some other relationship, who have always got along well, perhaps loved each other infinitely, and who then begin to quarrel. Then one could also say: The quarrel is the continuation of love. Outwardly, the quarrel is the continuation of love. But one will not have learned anything special about the nature of the quarrel if one knows that this quarrel is the continuation of love. So, of course, one has achieved nothing, one has said nothing at all about war if one views it in such a way that one says: War is the continuation of politics. It is indeed the case that in our time judgments can seem enormously significant, even though they are actually quite one-sided judgments. Some judgments are highly valued today that do not say anything special about the nature of the matter in question. Nevertheless, such a judgment does not always have to be fruitless. It can even have a very fruitful meaning. But those who profess our worldview should also penetrate the veil of Maya a little with regard to external life. Of course, there should not be the slightest objection to the judgment that now appears in every third newspaper column, for it is a fruitful judgment, but one would have strange inner experiences with the correctness of the judgment if one wanted to examine it with clear thinking. The same is true when almost every newspaper column today says: We will win because we must win! As I said, there is no objection to the justification of this judgment, to the fruitfulness and value of this judgment; but if someone standing in front of a stream and having to cross it says, “I will swim because I must swim,” the correctness of the judgment depends on whether he can swim. And in this case, one can certainly attest to the correctness of the judgment of a non-swimmer with clear thinking: I want to swim across because I must swim. What value does such a judgment have? Oh, it has great value, because it gives strength, courage, and confidence; it permeates the will; it is a judgment that spurs the will. It is not a judgment that recognizes something, but one that strengthens the will. This makes the judgment significant and important. Do not misunderstand such things. They are cited to show that clear, penetrating thinking is something different from what is so often claimed to be the case. In our time, materialistic habits of thought are exceptionally widespread and strong.
But our judgment is most clouded when we allow ourselves to examine in our judgment what the spiritual scientist says. It is the case that everything the spiritual scientist says can be understood, even if one has never looked into the spiritual world, if one applies truly healthy, correct thinking. There is no one who, even without being clairvoyant, would have to be an opponent of spiritual science if they had a healthy judgment. There are actually quite different reasons in human nature, in the human soul, for being an opponent of spiritual science. One of these reasons is, above all, the following.
When human beings stand in the physical world with their perceptions, they are always aided in these perceptions by the support of their physical body, their etheric body, and also their astral body. These—the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body—have long been present in the world through the Saturn, Sun, and Moon epochs and have been built up in human beings from the forces of the divine hierarchies. They are today what they have become in the past. When humans enter physical existence in the world, they are placed into what has been prepared for them over long periods of time. All of this supports them when they are in physical perception. Every time we perceive something or form an idea, an impression is made in our physical body. We are unaware of this, but this impression in the physical body does occur. And the fact that it happens is the reason why we have memory during physical life. One only has to imagine this correctly. Let us ask the question: Why do we have memory in physical life? — We must say: Every time we form an idea, an impression is made on the physical body. This impression is even more or less human-like. Every idea we form does not just make an impression here or there in the brain, as materialistic and fantastical thinkers believe, but every idea makes an impression on the whole human being. And in relation to a kind of after-formation of the head and even of the upper part of the human chest, every idea we form really does leave an impression. It is really true: when I speak to you now, perhaps a hundred syllables in a minute, during those minutes you have quickly formed fifty people within yourself, but you have quickly discarded fifty images of people, one quickly replacing the other. Now, you can imagine how many such images of people you have formed within yourself when the hour of contemplation is over. These images of people are more or less the same in their outward appearance, but they are nevertheless different; no two are completely alike. Each is different from the other, even if only slightly. It is a childish idea to believe that when we have an impression of the outside world and remember it tomorrow, that impression has remained within us in some form. It has not remained there at all, but rather an image that is human-like has remained in the person. Indeed, every impression of the external world leaves behind an image that is human-like. And when you remember the impression tomorrow, you place your soul in this human image that is within you. And the reason why you do not see this human image tomorrow, but remember the impression, is that you are reading in your astral body. It is a real act of reading, a subconscious act of reading; just as when you write something down and want to read it later, you do not describe the letters, but what the letters mean, so it is tomorrow when you remember what you experienced today. You do not look at the image that has arisen within you, the human phantom that lives there, but you interpret it. You place yourself in your soul into this human phantom, and your soul experiences something completely different from this human phantom. It experiences what it experienced yesterday once again. People need not be too surprised about this, because when you read Goethe's Faust today, what do you see before you? Just so much paper and printer's ink in any form. That is the entire Faust in its external, material form. And you would never have Goethe's Faust if you could not soulfully do something with what you have in front of you in the form of paper and printer's ink. If you couldn't decipher it, it would just be paper and printer's ink. With regard to the external world, materialists constantly argue that what the spiritual scientist says is there is not there.
But these materialists are as clever as a person who would say: What are you talking about Goethe's “Faust”? It doesn't exist, it's just paper and printer's ink! — This judgment about “Faust” is exactly the same as the judgment that materialists make about the world today. But it is the same with our memories. Tomorrow there will be nothing left in our human beings of today's impressions except the phantom, the image, and everything else must be done by the soul's work on this phantom. And just as the entire fabric of Goethe's Faust emerges from the paper and printer's ink in our soul, so what remains in us as a phantom emerges as a revival of today's impression when we remember it tomorrow. But this activity, which must be carried out so that we can remember, carries out for us what has been prepared by Saturn, Sun, and Moon time; it is carried out by our wonderfully formed physical body, then by our etheric body. They shape it, they do it for us. And the materialistic thinker senses this, feels this. Now you may think that the spiritual truths that are gained are gained without this help, in such a way that the help of the outer physical body is not required. In that case, the forces that otherwise work in the outer body must come from within the soul; the work must be done from the soul. If we have a spiritual insight that has not been brought about by the outer world, then when we want to remember it, we cannot transport ourselves into an inner phantom that has remained; that is in the body. We must work through the whole thing again from within, without this support, using a much stronger force. So this is nothing particularly wonderful either. Just think of the difference in how the thing I mean is reflected in a small way. Suppose someone reads a poem today and keeps the poem he has read today in print until tomorrow. Then he can read it again tomorrow, and again the day after tomorrow. But suppose he doesn't save it, then he has to recite it from memory. You see the difference: in one case, we are doing something that has nothing to do with us; what we would otherwise have to do is carried over from one moment to the next by the external piece of paper; we have a support in the paper. We have to make more of an effort when we reconstruct the poem from our soul. Thus, those who live in the spiritual world have to make more of an effort with their will than those who rely on the support of their body. But this has to do with the fact that everything that is achieved in spiritual science, indeed, everything that is to be understood at all, requires great mental effort. One can be much more sluggish, lazier, if one is a materialist than if one is a spiritual scientist. And this is the reason why people are materialists, or at least one of the reasons. They are not materialists because they are compelled to be so by logic, but they are materialists out of fear, but also out of laziness, because they want everything that takes place in the soul not to take place through the inner forces of the soul, but through what is written in the body, what is recorded there. These are things we must definitely consider if we want to understand the reasons why so many people are opponents of spiritual science. Above all, however, it is difficult to come to terms with thinking when something must be achieved that human beings must nevertheless achieve when they pass through the gate of death.
The day before yesterday, I already pointed out what is essential for passing through the gate of death: it is self-knowledge. Now, of course, this self-knowledge is by no means something easy. Some of you have already heard me speak about how, even with regard to their outer appearance, people very often fall prey to the greatest error. There is a philosopher who is often mentioned nowadays, who lived in Vienna, Mach—I don't mean the Hamburg theosophy detractor Maack, but Ernst Mach, the serious philosopher. He wrote an “Analysis of Sensations.” In it, he says the following with great naivety: I was walking down the street once; suddenly I had to stop because someone came towards me, and I thought: That is a person with a very unpleasant face, yes, with an unbearable face. And lo and behold, I discovered that I had walked past a mirror, and the mirrors were positioned in such a way that I had seen myself. Then I became aware of how little I knew my own appearance.” When he saw himself, he thought he was an unpleasant person with an unbearable face. This is a philosophy professor, a famous contemporary professor. And to reinforce what happened to him, he adds something else: When he had been a professor for a long time, he was traveling by train one day, arrived in a city very tired, and boarded a bus. There he saw a man getting on on the other side, and he thought: There's a down-and-out schoolmaster getting on! But then he saw that there was another mirror on the opposite side, and he discovered that he had described himself as a down-and-out schoolmaster. He points out that, as he says, he knew the generic type better than his specific form.
Now, if it is so difficult to recognize oneself in terms of one's outward appearance—perhaps it is easier for women because they look in the mirror more often—it is quite different when it comes to the soul. There is hardly any other way for our cycle of time to recognize itself than to sharpen our powers of cognition through what we can take in through spiritual science. The concepts and ideas we take in through spiritual science are particularly well suited to sharpening our self-knowledge. Basically, everything we take in from the book “An Outline of Esoteric Science” is predisposed to self-knowledge in general. All the ideas we take in from this book actually boil down to recognizing ourselves, to knowing what human beings really are. By studying how the human physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body gradually came into being through the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions, we learn about what is within us. And by learning in this way what is within us in general, our powers of imagination are sharpened, enabling us to recognize things in particular much better than would otherwise be possible.
In what way does this self-knowledge have significance for the moment of death? As long as we remain here in the physical body, self-knowledge is simply knowledge. But when we pass through the gate of death, everything we have acquired as self-knowledge is transformed into willpower. The better we know ourselves, the stronger a kind of willpower becomes, especially when we have shed the physical body. Let us suppose, for example, that we have realized here that we were, in relation to certain things, let us say, a violent person. Now, you know how difficult it is to completely transform ourselves in physical life, for example, to truly abandon our violent nature, even if we recognize it. But the moment we shed our physical body, the moment we simply know: You were violent — that becomes will. And this will is directed toward eliminating violence from our being. Every judgment of knowledge becomes a judgment of will as we pass through the gate of death; it becomes a force of will. And then something very significant occurs, which we can call, in a certain sense, the reversal of something that is experienced before the birth of the human being, but which is forgotten because the human being cannot look back on the times he went through before his birth. But let us imagine that human beings could already now do what they will develop in their Jupiter existence: when they gradually prepare themselves in the spiritual world to come back to incarnation, they would experience something very strange, like looking back at their future form, their future life. They would actually see something of their physical form. But there is one thing he would never be able to penetrate in this physical form, which would appear to him as two points. Let us imagine that when we are about to be born, we see our physical form disappearing before us as if in a fog. We would see it like light, but within it we would see impenetrable, dark points, dark spheres, and many other things, but also these dark spheres. Long before the human being approaches his physical birth, he sees—as if in time, not in space—before him: That is what you will become! And he sees, in a sense, how his physical form is being formed out of the essence of the spirits of form. This appears to him more or less as a figure of light, but within it, as if floating, are two dark spheres. When humans live toward physical life, they do so partly already in their mother's womb; there they absorb certain forces from their surroundings, which then form the mother. They gradually feel connected to this light figure, and then they feel as if they were stuck inside these two spheres in particular. Before, they seemed impenetrable to him, but now he is inside them and feels the forces coming at him from all sides, entering him. Then he pierces these two spheres, the space between them; the space loses its impenetrability. And these are the places where the eyes will later be. When one approaches physical incarnation in this way, what one does not see, but which enables us to see, are the eyes. They are like impenetrable spheres towards which we live. Then, in the final phase before entering the physical world, one penetrates them. If one were to consciously experience this, it would actually be a wonderful phenomenon. Imagine how, as you emerge from the spiritual world into the physical world, you say to yourself: Now you are going with your soul to meet this physical form. There you will find two dark spheres. You cannot see through them with your present soul vision; they are completely filled with spiritual substance! Then you receive the power to make what was previously spiritually opaque transparent. And when you then, as they say, “see the light of the world,” these spaces that were opaque are precisely the reason why you can see. You cannot see your own eyes; if you could see them, you would not see the world.
When you pass through the gate of death, the sight of death is such a wonderful phenomenon in the spiritual life of the human being after death because something similar to what happened here with the eyes happens to the whole human being. Only now what happens to the whole human being is consciously experienced. After death, one must have the inner experience of feeling that one has left the world. Until then, one had seen the physical world as a physical experience, as what the etheric body shows as its last tableau. Now, with what one has gained in self-knowledge, one passes through the gate of death, and this becomes willpower. Now imagine that the dead person is here. He leaves behind his physical experiences. He radiates his willpower, the willpower he has acquired through self-knowledge. This radiant willpower, acquired through self-knowledge, removes what prevents us from seeing into the spiritual environment. Just as we remove the clouding from our eyes when we enter birth, so we remove what prevents us from seeing into the spiritual world through this willpower. After death, we become transparent. That is the significant event.

When a person passes through the gate of death, as long as they still have their etheric body, they see their entire life as if in a powerful tableau. It stands before them. But now they also get the feeling: You see yourself! That is you as you lived between birth and death, that is all of you! Now all the power of self-knowledge that they have acquired stirs within them and pierces it, as I have described; through this, the etheric body disappears. Then it is as if a veil were falling, and what is behind it comes into view, and that is the spiritual world. It is an immense experience to pass through the gate of death and, through the liberation of the etheric body, to have one's entire last life before one and to feel that this last life is a veil covering an immense world that one was unable to perceive during life. Now the willpower that has emerged from self-knowledge fights against this veil, removing it. And as the veil tears, the spiritual world appears behind it.
There is no need to be afraid, for example, because someone might say: In our present time, so many people have done nothing to attain any self-knowledge. According to many people, it is hardly possible to be any smarter or more intelligent than a contemporary university professor of philosophy; that is the ideal of intelligence in the present day. And one can be just as little inclined toward self-knowledge as a famous man, even a philosopher, Ernst Mach, who is truly a significant person! So someone might become faint-hearted and say: Self-knowledge is in a bad way. Of course, if it were the case that people were dependent on having only the willpower that comes from self-knowledge, which follows from contemporary life, then things would be very bad for humanity! People today are very proud of the tremendous advances in knowledge that have been achieved, and from a certain point of view they are right to be so. Just think how a modern doctor, who knows everything that is currently considered medical science, looks down proudly on those who were doctors not so long ago. They were all fools, he naturally thinks. With regard to external knowledge, people have gained and experienced a great deal about the external world over the last few centuries, such as how external phenomena are connected and so on. Great progress has been made in this area. But with regard to self-knowledge, the older times we went through in previous incarnations were far ahead of the present; so far ahead, in fact, that the present human being, when thinking materialistically, has no idea what to do with what comes from ancient times. For what people today regard as old prejudices were, in essence, self-knowledge as experienced by the souls of earlier times. And what has been recorded are only the last remnants of self-knowledge.
Now, it is the nature of earthly life that human beings know nothing of their previous incarnations with their ordinary outer consciousness. We do know that there are people among theosophists who, after a relatively short time, begin to know a great deal about their previous incarnations. I once met a group of people in a European city where Seneca, Frederick the Great, Emperor Joseph, the Duke of Reichstadt, Madame Pompadour, Marie Antoinette, and several others were sitting together at a coffee table. But apart from those who know so much about their previous incarnations after having studied a little theosophy, it is well known that people do not know very much or anything at all about their previous incarnations through ordinary external knowledge. For, as true as it is that human beings know nothing of their previous incarnations through what the present human cycle gives them, it is equally true that they have everything they have retained from previous lives for the development of their will after death. For between death and a new birth it is different. While between birth and death here on earth human beings know nothing of their previous incarnations, in the life between death and a new birth they have within themselves all the powers of their previous incarnations, but also that which has been lived through between death and a new birth. So when a person passes through the gate of death, they have not only the willpower that comes from self-knowledge, which most people today do not have, but all the willpower that does not come from self-knowledge in this life; it comes from the self-knowledge that people have gained in earlier times. So that when a person passes through the gate of death, they do not lack the willpower to remove the fabric that has been woven through their own life. But if, in the course of the next millennia, human beings want to acquire new willpower, then in the present cycle of time this self-knowledge from ancient times would also be increasingly valued. Therefore, spiritual science must come forward for the further development of humanity. For it is the course of humanity that, although the willpower of human beings is still sufficient today, the time is now beginning when, during the development of the earth, this willpower can be strengthened by human beings becoming acquainted with the spiritual world.
The earthly development of humanity would be in danger if, from now until the end of earthly development, people were to resist accepting anything from spiritual science in any way. Then, indeed, human beings would find themselves increasingly unable to perceive spiritual things and events in the spiritual world. They would be less and less able to do so. They would be less and less able to penetrate the veil of which I spoke. You can see, then, the significance of self-knowledge transformed into willpower. Here, this knowledge is self-observation; over there, it is self-will directed toward pulling away the veil from the spiritual world. It is precisely in those who pass through the gate of death that one perceives how important it is for them to strengthen themselves in the willpower that has now been described, in the willpower that comes from self-knowledge. It is therefore very significant that, as a person passes through the gate of death, they are occupied with what is within them, what is in their self, what they were during their earthly life. And when someone has communion with a dead person, it is of great, essential importance to make this communion particularly fruitful by helping the departed to strengthen their self-awareness and fulfill this self-awareness. This is meant in a concrete sense: Let us imagine, for example, that someone who was here with us in physical life passed through the gate of death. Having lived with him, we know what he was like, we know what he particularly liked to do, and so on. When he has passed through the gate of death, he necessarily, urgently needs to summon up, as it were, everything he wants through strong inner forces. This must flow out of his retrospective view. And we can help him if we think of him as he appeared to us in life; if we occupy ourselves with sending him the thoughts that characterize him. In addition to the various things that have already been said about our preoccupation with the dead who have passed away, we can also help the dead by presenting them, as it were, with the image of their being. In doing so, we relieve them of a certain effort in the unfolding of that will which must tear away the veil of characterization. That is why the other thing I told you about the day before yesterday has now become clear to me. When I had to speak at the funeral of some friends recently, I felt compelled to express what lives in them as their essence, especially at their funeral. These words did not come from memory, but were spoken from my own soul in such a way that this soul placed itself completely in the other soul after it had already passed through the gate of death.
When one has to do with a soul that has already passed through the gate of death, it is a matter of putting oneself into that soul. Here in the physical world, the object is there, one looks at it from outside. In the spiritual world, one is with one's whole being in this spiritual-soul realm itself. And in the individual case I spoke of the day before yesterday, it was possible to put oneself into the soul of this personality who had passed through the gate of death and whom I characterized as a personality who, during the long years before her death, had been very much concerned with our worldview, who lived completely in it, so that she could now, while still in her etheric body, put into words what she had been as a being through her immersion in spiritual science and the absorption of certain forces. I was able to catch this. what she was as a being, having immersed herself in spiritual science and absorbed certain forces, into words while she was still in her etheric body. I was able to capture this from the deceased who had passed through the gate of death, and I had to speak it at the funeral.
In other cases, it was different. When I had to speak at the funeral of our dear Fritz Mitscher, who was particularly dear to the members of our branch here, I felt the need to fully immerse myself in this soul that had passed through the gate of death. But now it became necessary to express in words what this soul had been in life for those who were friends and surrounded her, including as members of our anthroposophical movement. It became necessary to express this in words so that, together with this soul after death, we could think through and experience collectively what is the incentive and enlargement of that will which follows from self-knowledge. It then became necessary, especially at this funeral, to say things that resonate with what our dear friend Fritz Mitscher went through during his development after he joined our spiritual scientific movement, what he acquired, how his inner karma drove him. And the words I had to speak there are, as I said, not my words; they came from the forces of his own soul, but were shaped in such a way that they expressed the essence of the years that preceded his death. I had to say this — not that I wanted to say what I had to say there. Of course, it is not something that was directly his own words; the soul in question would never have said this of himself in life. It is what the other soul felt, but which is then connected with the soul of the departed, just as one can only feel with a soul that has already left the body. I would like to share with you the words I had to speak at the funeral:
A hope that made us happy:
Thus you entered the field,
Where the spiritual blossoms of the earth,
Through the power of the soul,
Wish to reveal themselves to the seeker.A pure love of truth
Was your deepest longing;
To create from the light of the spirit,
Was the serious goal of your life,
Which you pursued tirelessly.You cultivated your beautiful gifts,
To illuminate the path of spiritual knowledge,
Unperturbed by the contradictions of the world,
As a faithful servant of truth,
With sure steps.You exercised your spiritual organs,
That they might bravely and persistently
On both sides of the path
Drive error away from you
And create space for truth.To reveal your self
of pure light,
so that the power of the soul's sun
might shine mightily within you,
was your life's concern and joy.Other cares, other joys,
barely touched your soul,
because knowledge was your light,
That gives meaning to existence,
Appeared to you as the true value of life.A hope that made us happy:
Thus you entered the field,
Where the spiritual blossoms of the earth
Through the power of the soul
Wish to reveal themselves to the seeker.A loss that pains us deeply,
Thus you disappear from the field,
Where the seeds of the spirit
In the womb of the soul
Matured to your sense of the spheres.Feel how we look lovingly
Hear the plea of our souls,
To the heights that now call you
Call you to other creations.
Send your strength from the realms of the spirit
To your departed friends.
Sent to you in trust:
We need here on earth
Strong power from the realms of the spirit,
Which we give thanks to our dead friends.A hope that makes us happy,
In loss that pains us deeply:
Let us hope that you, far away yet near,
Unlost to our lives, shine
Like a star of the soul in the realm of the spirit.
If these words are not to be taken as spoken by the soul itself, they were nevertheless spoken in such communion with the soul that after a relatively short time something was revealed by this soul, which now came only from the soul; that is, not at all from my soul, but only from the soul that had passed through the gate of death. And it sounded like this, and since that time these words have repeatedly sounded to me:
To reveal my self to me
In pure light,
So that the soul's solar power
Might shine powerfully within me,
Was my life's concern and joy.Other cares, other joys,
Barely touched my soul,
Because knowledge appeared to me as light,
Giving meaning to existence,
As the true value of life.
So the words echoed back. It was only afterwards that I discovered that the two verses in the middle can be transformed directly from “you” to “I” and from “you” to “me.” I had not known this before. For I had heard the verses as I had first read them to you. And now they came back from the essence of the dead man, spoken by him:
To reveal my self to me
In pure light,
So that the power of the soul's sun
Might shine powerfully within me,
Was my life's concern and joy.Other cares, other joys,
Barely touched my soul,
Because knowledge appeared to me as light,
Which gives meaning to existence,
As the true value of life.
And when I heard these words for the first time from this soul who had passed away, and since then I have heard them often, I realized for the first time—for what was read aloud was written word for word as it was heard in connection with the other soul—I realized for the first time that a dialogue could have taken place. At the cremation, the following had been said:
To reveal your true self,
pure light...
You and yours appear in these verses. But it was not done by me in any way. I only realized when the words came back from the deceased soul that these words were formed in such a way that they could also be returned in the first person:
My self to reveal
to shape a light...
You see there a dialogue reaching beyond the grave, a kind of understanding.
I would like to follow up on this by saying something that is often mentioned in our spiritual scientific movement, but which cannot be said often enough. In the verses spoken to a soul that has passed through the gate of death, you will find something that is most significantly expressed where it says:
Hear the plea of our souls,
Sent to you in trust:
We need here on earth
Strong power from the spiritual realm,
Which we thank our dead friends for.
Do not take such a thing as mere words. It speaks of something that is deeply meaningful and connected to the whole essence of our spiritual scientific movement.
When a soul has strived as the one mentioned here has done, wanting to permeate everything it has been able to acquire in knowledge and experience with spiritual scientific impulses, and then passes through the gate of death so early, then it is truly the case that such a soul can remain a faithful co-worker. So it was something like a request when I called after this soul with these words, that it should become a helper for what we must want for the future of the earth. For you can be quite sure that the gap between the living and the dead must be bridged in a truly living way through our spiritual science in the course of the earth's evolution. We must learn, just as we are together with those who live in the physical body, not to regard the dead as dead, but as living among us, as living and creative beings. Those who are the so-called dead then work with us with the forces available to them.
We must strive to grasp in a living way, and not as a theory, what spiritual science is to create in us as impulses and implement in the living life that we want to introduce into cultural evolution from the spirit. And it must truly be said: According to the nature of our outer culture in the future, we will need the help of those who are in the spiritual worlds above. Those who truly bring the spiritual science movement to fruition here on earth will need the dead souls. That is why it was said that we need the power from spiritual realms, which we thank our dead friends for, for our work on earth. It is, as it were, a request that these souls who continue their work should work with us on earth with the forces strengthened by what they have absorbed here and permeated by what they have absorbed in the spiritual realms; that they should permeate themselves with what is of the same kind as what we want.
Ah, it sometimes comes out symptomatically what difficulties and obstacles are encountered by what we call our anthroposophical work on earth. Among the many things that can be observed time and again, let us highlight just one. A few years ago, an article appeared in a southern German magazine that caused a stir because it was rumored to have been written by a very important philosopher. The editor of the magazine is Karl Muth. At that time, Karl Muth published a multifaceted article; when my “Outline of Occult Science” appeared, he reprinted this article in connection with this book, “The Occult Science.” It would not have been particularly difficult for me to eliminate at least the worst of what was written in the article, the most foolish assertions. For the truth about that great philosopher is this: he is truly regarded by many as a great philosopher. But to some whom he offended in life—he did not even need to have offended them particularly, just to have sat opposite them once—he appears as a kind of burr that sticks to them. And that is how he appeared to me, and I had to defend myself against him. But after he had written me postcard after postcard, letter after letter, he also sent me this article as a manuscript. I couldn't bring myself to read the article because it started off so foolishly. For example, it said that Steiner called what he wrote in his book a secret science. But a secret science couldn't exist, because the essence of science was that it was not secret but public. — So, a secret science contradicts the very essence of science! That's how it began. And wherever one turned the page, one came across such outrageous follies that it was fatal for me to continue reading the manuscript. It is still lying around somewhere. It is foolishness, this “secret science,” because one only needs to know German to perceive this foolishness. It is just as if someone said: Natural science does not exist. But there is natural science! Of course, there is no such thing as a secret science, but there is a secret science. It was foolish, but the editor of the magazine thought it was a particularly important article. The article was widely read and was considered very clever for what it said about spiritual science, which was thoroughly criticized.
Now war has come. That philosopher is not a German, but now counts himself among Germany's worst enemies. And now he is writing a number of letters to the same Karl Muth, who at that time – forgive the trivial expression – licked his fingers with delight at having received the article by the famous philosopher. Much poison and bile have already been poured out on Germany and the German people, but little has been written that is as poisonous and gruesome as what this famous philosopher wrote in his letters to Karl Muth. They contain truly horrific judgments and criticisms of Germanism and the German character. The following can now even be considered a good sign. After spewing venom and bile, the philosopher in question unfortunately did not write with “secret knowledge,” because the censors did not prevent him from crossing the border, so that it even reached Munich, and Muth found the courage to reprint this venom and bile; but now not in order to print the “important essay of an important man,” but—years later, the same Karl Muth reprints this writing about the Germans and writes: Of course, one must imagine that a man who writes like this belongs in a madhouse! You see, Karl Muth needed this writing about the German character to come to the conclusion that the man is a fool. A few years ago, however, he unleashed the same fool on our humanities. A reasonable person could have known that even back then, but fools are often regarded as famous philosophers; that is not the point! But you can see from this how things stand, what dangers spiritual science is actually exposed to. If the war had not come and Karl Muth had not been informed that the good man, this Professor Wincenty Lutoslawski, was actually a fool, he would have accepted another article destroying spiritual science from the pen of this “famous philosopher” at the first opportunity.
From this you can also see how, in our time, people are often not inclined to use their power of judgment to determine what position they should take toward spiritual science. I mention this only to give an example—one could cite many such examples—of the obstacles facing our spiritual science movement, which even those who must later be regarded as fools are set against it. Then perhaps the judgment may also be justified that much else that is said against this spiritual science is not any more intelligent. For where it could be proven quite clearly, it has been proven.
We must realize that in order to bring to life the impulses of spiritual science, we also need the forces of those who have passed through the gate of death and who, before passing through this gate, have taken in what is contained in the light of spiritual science. The gap between the living and the dead must first and foremost be bridged in our spiritual science field itself. That is why something like an admonition must arise again and again: we want to preserve the awareness that we had souls close to us as long as they walked among us in their physical bodies, just as it was before, only directed toward the other form of life; we want to preserve this even if the souls in question have passed through the gate of death. For it will be one of the most beautiful and significant things we can achieve through spiritual science if we can look upon those who have passed through the gate of death as living beings among us, as beings who encounter us, just as those who live in physical bodies encounter us. And this will find essential support in the fact that so many souls are now passing through the gate of death at an early age, in the fields where something new is being prepared out of blood and death, and are handing over their unspent etheric bodies to the spiritual world.
The etheric body of the human being is prepared in such a way that it can supply the human being with life force until a very advanced age. If a person passes through the gate of death in youth, the forces that could still have been used if the person had reached a higher age remain unused. And we can now look up into the spiritual, etheric world, where human beings remain for some time after they have left the physical plane. There are many youthful etheric bodies of those who have fallen in the fields of battle, who have passed through the gate of death. These do not immediately dissolve, but remain together, containing the forces that could have sustained life for a long time.
But these etheric bodies will be there, they will be forces that can come to the aid of human beings when they look up longingly with the consciousness of spiritual science to where that which is contained in unspent etheric bodies will be. Those forces from above will connect with those who consciously want to connect with these forces out of spiritual scientific consciousness. Feeling and sensing this, we should turn to them. We should profess our belief in the spiritual world in a living way. We should be able to say to ourselves: There must be human beings, especially in the future, in the time that will follow this war, here on this earth of ours, who carry souls within themselves that can look up into the spiritual world in such a way that these unspent etheric bodies will become realities for them; that this will become reality for them through the knowledge of the spiritual world. Then spiritual science will prove itself equal to what is not only knowledge but real life; real life even through the fateful events of our time. And then it will be possible to say: through the existence of souls in the world who look up to the etheric bodies above, who develop their powers unspent, those human souls on earth will be able to take up these powers and thus work all the more powerfully. And these unspent etheric body forces of those who have sacrificed themselves today on the fields of blood and death will be fruitful for the souls of the earth in the future.
For this reason, we want to remember again today the interaction that can arise between souls who, in the future, will look up, inspired and spiritualized by spiritual scientific knowledge, to what remains of the etheric bodies after this war, and what can arise from this inner soul interaction. Today, too, we want to write in our souls those words that I would now like to say at the end of our branch contemplations, based on the whole context of the events of our time:
From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the suffering of those left behind,
From the sacrifices of the people
The fruits of the spirit will grow
Souls will think spiritually
And find their meaning in the spiritual realm.