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Chance, Necessity and Providence
GA 163

5 September 1915, Dornach

7. The Physical Body Binds Us to the Physical World, the Etheric Body to the Cosmos

I have often mentioned the fact that we can derive the right impulses from spiritual science only if we make the effort to progress ever further in a positive, concrete understanding of the spiritual beings about whom spiritual science wishes to instruct us. I have emphasized here before that we must of course realize first that human beings consist of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and so on, and we need to know how these various members are related to one another. But if we are intent upon deriving the right impulses from spiritual science it is not enough to rest content with these abstractions. We need to become thoroughly familiarized with the interrelationships in the cosmos whereby these members of the human entelechy are incorporated into the entire cosmic process.

Our physical bodies incorporate us into the physical world and set us down on the physical plane. They make us resemble our parents and other forbears in the ongoing stream of heredity. They bring this about through the fact that they bear within themselves certain preconditions of similarity to our ancestors. And much else is also responsible for the incorporation of our physical bodies into the physical world. We concerned ourselves yesterday to some extent with an awareness of how human beings who gradually advance to what is known as clairvoyant perception free themselves from their dependence upon their physical bodies as tools for relating to the world.

The next step is then that the etheric rather than the physical body serves as the direct means of interrelationship with the world; imaginative perception takes the place of the mental images and other knowledge acquired with the use of our physical bodies, i.e., with the sense organs and the brain. I tried yesterday to describe in a more pictorial way how changed the soul feels when it progresses from using the physical body to making use of the etheric body.

It is true, of course, that we are always making use of our etheric bodies, except when we are sleeping, but we use them in the sense that they carry on their activity within our physical bodies, so that both the physical and etheric bodies are made use of during our life on the physical plane. But we come to know what the particular characteristics of the etheric body are when it is lifted out of its connection with the physical body and put to use as our sole perceptive instrument. We know that this condition comes about naturally immediately after death, when we have laid the physical body aside. Then, for a short time, we make use of the etheric body, until that too is laid aside.

We have therefore to distinguish the first condition after death, in which we dissolve our bond with the physical body, from the second condition that soon follows it, and brings about the dissolution of our bond with the etheric body.

I have been saying that the physical body binds us to everything that comes to us on the physical plane. What, then, does the etheric body bind us to? It binds us to everything that relates us to the cosmos, to the extraterrestrial, to everything that lives in us that cannot be ascribed directly to any connection with the physical realm. If, for example, a person is born with a physically defective ear, he won't be able to become a musician. But physical defects are due to physical heredity. This is a radical case that illustrates our dependence upon the ongoing heredity process. But we must turn our attention from the capacities to which our physical bodies predispose us to those occasioned by the etheric. These show up more distinctly in particular predispositions of the soul. Only a poor observer can miss the fact of the great differences of soul manifested by individuals. Dull-witted materialists are sometimes little interested in subtle differences of soul; they want to investigate the external form element alone. But alert observers of life are perfectly aware that nobody resembles any other person as far as his individuality is concerned.

People who have entertained theosophical concepts for awhile are satisfied to explain these individual differences by saying that everyone has lived through repeated earth lives and demonstrates in his individual characteristics what he has brought with him from the past. This is right, of course, but it does not suffice for true understanding. Just imagine, for example, a person being born with a sensitive musical ear, but with no opportunity to get a musical education. In such a case his musical ear would go undeveloped. One cannot, of course, be musically educated if one lacks a musical ear, but external opportunity, a person's milieu, must also permit it. There are people who are always satisfied to fall back on the same one-sided explanation of facts, saying that our higher ego, our higher self, takes care of everything. The higher self is actually the world! This may be true, but it is by no means enough to explain everything in the universe. It is true that karma is the cause of our individual predispositions, that our individual differences come from the way we develop in the course of our incarnations. But it is not enough to know that we pass through various earth lives and develop ourselves as individuals; we need to know what enables us to make actual use in life of the capacities developed by us as individuals.

Let us turn our attention to the life between death and a new birth. You are familiar with the content of the published lecture cycle entitled Life between Death and Rebirth, and can gather from it that the various factors preparing us for rebirth, for a new incarnation in a physical body, must be brought together during that life.1Rudolf Steiner, Life between Death and Rebirth, (Hudson, N.Y.: Anthroposophic Press, 1987). But it has to be possible in the spiritual world for human beings to find there what they need in order to develop their individual capacities. We can conceive of having had an incarnation during which we laid the foundation for certain developments in the following earth life, but finding no possibility between death and rebirth of bringing to development the potentialities implanted in us for the following incarnation. A plant seed may be full of potential, but unless it is planted in favorable soil it is impossible for its potential to develop. Similarly, we may be ever so full of promise as individuals, but if we are unable to find in the spiritual world factors that nourish us as suitable soil does a plant seed, then the life-conditions needed for the unfolding of the capacities we have developed for a future incarnation cannot be provided.

This can make us aware that the world contains deep hidden secrets that can be discovered if we train the light of spiritual science on the actual facts. A few catchy theories or sayings, such as that we have various incarnations and so on, each as our individuality dictates, from one to the next, are not enough; they do not reach down to what we experience as the riddles of life. The need, as I have reiterated these last few days, is always to find the right perspective. We will encounter much in life that will strike us as profound riddles that need some degree of solution if we are not to feel ourselves helpless strugglers who, though we may see the riddles life presents, cannot cope with them.

There is a riddle I want to bring up here because it deals with the spiritual investigator's connection with the question of what conditions contribute to the development of individuality. I'll characterize it later on. I refer to the riddles we encounter in life with respect to the varying ages at which people die. Let's say one person lives to a great old age, while someone else dies very young. People die, of course, at all the various ages. We can state this thoughtlessly; there is particularly little inclination to be sensitive to a riddle so frequently encountered. But the fact is that the most commonplace matters pose the greatest riddles.

A contemplation of the relationship of the etheric body to the world as a whole brings us closer to this riddle. Everyone knows as a fact of experience that our physical bodies age; we grow older and older physically. And everyone understands what is involved in aging. But where our etheric bodies are concerned the opposite is true: we grow younger, ever younger. When we are very old, our physical bodies are old, but our etheric bodies have grown young. Some of you have already heard of this in my lectures, but I want to discuss it today in a different context. We have to develop our etheric bodies during an incarnation in such a way that when we have come to its close, our astral bodies will be so embedded in these etheric bodies that they feel themselves prepared for their appropriate entrance into the next life. It is really true that when an individual is old and gray and wrinkled, his etheric body burgeons with fresh life, for his astral body must accustom itself at this point to live in an etheric body already teeming with germinal potential. The way the astral body is to permeate and work in the physical body of a child in the following incarnation must already find some degree of expression in its connection with the etheric body grown young.

It is remarkable how the genius of language can reveal some secret or other. As I've mentioned on other occasions, you will find a beautiful passage in Goethe's Faust where the term “growing young” is used in place of “being born,” “growing young” rather than “growing old.” In other words, we start to grow young when we are born.

This is based, of course, on the conception of the soul pre-existing birth. But the forces it will need to enable it to work through the body into which the child is born must have been acquired while the etheric body is growing young in the aging physical body of the previous earth life.

Materialists find special corroboration of their materialistic theories in the fact that even geniuses—or at least those who are regarded as such—sometimes become senile in their old age, and Kant is cited as a particularly relished case. But people who subscribe to this way of thinking do not grasp the fact that the soul can manifest here on the physical plane only through the agency of the physical organs. Kant's brain became unable to serve as the tool of the soul forces he had evolved, and this is why he appeared feebleminded in old age, even though the soul that was preparing to organize the physical body of his next incarnation was actually already living in him. But in the previous earth life this soul was unable to make a suitable instrument of the physical body it inhabited.

If you apply what I have just been saying, you will see that it makes a tremendous, an enormous difference whether an individual dies in extreme old age or as a youngster, perhaps even in childhood. For the etheric body of someone who dies in youth has not yet grown young. If we are speaking of physical human beings we can say that they are growing old, but in speaking of the etheric body we would have to say that it “grows young.” That would be the proper expression for it. The etheric body grows young but it has not yet grown entirely young in those who die at an early age. I once tried to suggest this by saying that when a person dies in childhood or in youth his etheric body has not actually been used up. This etheric body would have lasted him a lifetime; he could have reached sixty years or more with it if he hadn't died young. But the force inherent in such an etheric body remains in existence, just as forces in the physical world do; they are not lost. However, we need to make a closer study of the special, unique attributes of this etheric body.

When a person can live to what is considered a normal old age—say seventy or eighty—his etheric body has grown very young. The whole fruit of his life experience lodges in this young etheric body, is imprinted on and expressed in it, and the astral body then takes possession of it. That happens in the following way. Let us picture the physical body abandoned by the etheric body. So long as the etheric body remains in the physical body, it cannot develop the forces it has acquired in life because it is imprisoned in the physical body. Picture how, in our previous earth life, we acquired this or that capacity. This is to say, we acquired it with the physical body of that incarnation. What we have added to it in the present incarnation has not yet had time to develop organs for its use; we must first create these in our current incarnation for the life to follow. But all this is lodged in the etheric body, which is more elastic, more fluid than the physical. No use can be made of it, however, as long as the etheric body remains bound to the physical body. But when the physical body has fallen away, the etheric body is freed. And now this etheric body brings forth all the fruits of the life we have lived through up to our death. That is also the reason why it presents the whole life-panorama that spreads out before us for a few days, the tableau of finished earth life, so that we may learn and acquire from this panorama everything that can be extracted from our past experiences. And that takes place during the few days during which we have the tableau before us.

Every morning, on awakening, when our astral body enters our physical and etheric bodies, it has to adapt itself to what has evolved out of the physical and etheric bodies of the past incarnation, and there it encounters what we have made of ourselves. The astral body never enters the etheric body in a way that allows it to make use of what the etheric body has developed in the present incarnation. But after death it does so. It is related to the etheric body in a way that lets it feel and perceive and sense the fruits gathered from the life just ended. And when, a few days later, the astral body separates from the etheric, the entire product of that life is contained in the astral body as the result of the astral body's having drawn it out of the etheric body during the days it has spent there. The astral body needs to spend only those few days in the liberated etheric body to live through everything that an incarnation has brought forth. But it takes a long time so to shape what it has thus experienced that a new earth life can be fashioned from it.

It requires a great deal, as you see, to fashion a new life. And if it were left to human wisdom to achieve this fashioning all by itself, the result would certainly be most inadequate. Try to picture yourselves having to shape your entire physical instrument with the content of your consciousness. You would first have to have a thorough understanding of it. But every glance into external science makes it clear how little insight into our physical make-up we possess. But between death and rebirth we possess it sufficiently to be able to fashion our physical body, right down into its most delicate details, in a way that qualifies it to make use of the capacities evolved in the previous incarnation.

If someone were to ask you how a convolution of the brain could be arranged to conform with the capacities acquired in the previous incarnation and you had to decide whether it should be turned or twisted thus or so, you wouldn't be able to say, if you were examined on the subject, that twisting in some particular direction would correspond to a person's having been an orator in his past incarnation, and that that particular twist would produce the right working out in this life of the acquired capacity. How could you conceivably answer out of the consciousness you possess on the physical plane? But we have to answer that question in the life between death and rebirth, for we must endow the new etheric body with the requisite capacity delicately to chisel out our organs. A single word suffices to describe what is needed, but I wanted to evoke a sense of what this word encompasses: wisdom is required, a wisdom human beings really need to have.

Even though Kant grew feeble-minded in old age, his soul—which is to say, his astral body as it lived in his newly constituted etheric body—his soul was wise, for it was already in possession of wisdom. But his ego was unable to raise it to a conscious level with the brain. His soul contained the wisdom that was to emerge between death and rebirth and make its contribution to Kant's future incarnation. Kant lived into old age. The older a person grows, physically speaking, the more pronounced is this moment of wisdom.

But in the case of those who die young the situation is different, for the etheric body has not grown young, and there is consequently less earth-acquired wisdom stored up in it. It is earth-acquired wisdom that is involved here. Something else takes its place. Those who die early have old etheric bodies that have not had time to grow young, and these are all the more teeming with will. Direct will-force in all its immediacy, the love element, creative love-force, permeates them. That is the difference between the etheric bodies of the old and young. The former bear more the character of wisdom, the latter of will. The etheric body of a person who dies young streams out love, warm love, a warm etheric love-element, while that of an older person streams out an aura filled with light and wisdom.

We can answer the question that interests us here by asking spiritual science what would happen if, for some reason, everyone were to grow very old, living on to eighty or ninety, if not a single person died young. What would the result be?

In that case, all the etheric bodies deserted by their souls would be imbued with loving wisdom. People living on the earth in the continuity of history would find it possible to learn a great deal during their physical earth lives, for their physical bodies would be wisely fashioned. They would be born somewhat undifferentiated, each similar to all the rest, but they could learn a great deal on the physical plane. They would be delicately and wisely built, and could learn a great deal, since such learning would be connected with an extremely mobile constitution. Due to their extraordinarily sensitive, mechanistically-wisely constituted physical organisms, these people would be in a state of labile balance that could easily shift. A person would learn a great deal, but be terribly nervous, as the current “nervous” age would express it. It would be a humanity tending to fidget and to have a precarious balance, very gifted for learning on the physical plane, but nevertheless very restless and fidgety. We had better say fidgety rather than nervous; why not put it in a way that feels right? In earlier times, even a couple of centuries ago, throughout Europe a person who had strong nerves and could stand a lot was referred to as “nervy” or “nervous.” But nowadays the tone is not set by the same people, so the meaning of the word got turned into the exact opposite.

Now the soul-differentiations we bring with us into an incarnation from the spiritual world would not exist in human development if everybody grew old, if no one were to die young. There would be no talents, no being born with special gifts. People would come into the world more or less like each other, more or less undifferentiated. They would differ from one another and learn different things only as a result of experiencing different conditions on the physical plane, and would be rather similarly adaptable to whatever circumstances they encountered. Special individual needs would be taken care of by karma through the agency of heredity. Beyond this, what we know as predispositions to special soul-qualities would be lacking. People would simply not possess inner differences.

But everything in the world has to be founded on balance, as I've often said, and in these matters too there can be no one-sidedness. Human life must accordingly be built, on the one hand, on the possibility of pouring into the physical body what an individual has stored up as wisdom in the etheric body's growing younger for use in a future incarnation. On the other hand, the will impulses of those who die young are needed. I have shown at hand of many examples how children who die very young have not expended their etheric bodies. Right here at the Goetheanum we ourselves live in the aura of an etheric body out of which those forces that provide artistic stimulus are derived. I explained how a child belonging to the Goetheanum community left his etheric body at his death, and that this etheric body has created an aura that is incorporated into our building. Those able to perceive the nature of the impulses that come from this etheric body find support in them for the artistic impulses to be lived out here.

But this is in general the situation with the etheric bodies of those who die young. They go back; they haven't as yet grown so young as entirely to have worn down the will element; instead, will and creative love-forces accompany them into the spiritual world. And now a continuous interchange has to take place between those etheric bodies that have grown wholly young and those less young. Continuous mutual support is exchanged in the spiritual world between what ascends from the earth in the etheric bodies of the very aged and the etheric bodies of young people, or, indeed, of those in the in-between years. When very young children die, those referred to in Faust as “the midnight-born,” their etheric bodies are very old, quite hoary in fact, but they are endowed with strong will- forces. Etheric bodies of this kind are able to work powerfully on the long-lived etheric bodies of those who grow physically old.

Just think what a brilliant idea it was that made Goethe have the centenarian Faust go to heaven surrounded by the etheric bodies of very young boys, the “midnight-born,” hinting thereby that an exchange of the kind described has to take place!

This interchange is always going on. We can therefore say that there exist in the spiritual world the etheric bodies of human beings who have grown physically old, and various things are taking place in them (see drawing, mauve); then, in red, the etheric bodies of deceased young people, with various things taking place in them as well; and an interchange between them, a process of mutual exchange. And what we encounter in the life between death and rebirth is the result of the situations that develop in this exchange between the etheric bodies of those who died young and those who died old. This interchange is essential; without it, the evolution of humanity on earth could not proceed properly.

The beings who direct this interchange are to be found in the realm of the angel hierarchy, so that we really have to recognize such an interchange between the two kinds of etheric bodies in the spiritual world in which we are immersed. The two kinds of activity coalesce, like two merging rivers. But they are then given proper direction and regulation by angelic beings; that is one of the tasks with which angels are charged. When, therefore, persons are able to come into the world with special talents, this is due not only to the possibility that between death and rebirth wisdom of a materialistic nature that is a fruit of the earth has been imprinted into physical bodies, but that something not as yet fully developed on earth, the product of the etheric bodies of those who died young, has brought about effects present as forces that can be interwoven in the process of fashioning human talents.

You see how spiritual science can bring about a living feeling for things when we really immerse ourselves in its secrets. We learn from spiritual science to lift ourselves in spirit to a contemplation of the mystery of death in an older person. For then we tell ourselves that people grow old in order that human evolution may go forward in the right way for as long as physical bodies are needed as vehicles. We have a premonition, whenever an older person dies, of the fruits that human evolution on earth will bear as a result. And when we give ourselves up to a contemplation of what the future holds, we realize that there has to be a continuous development of talents in mankind's progressive evolution. This person must be gifted in this direction, another in that, with capabilities ranging all the way to the genius level. That could not be the case if nobody were fated to die young. And as we look up to people of special genius, we can attribute their gifts to the fact that some individuals have to die young. To contemplate the mystery of death in the case of young human beings is to realize that early death too is part of the wise design, for it gives rise to seed-forces of soul-endowment needed by the human race for its further progress.

If we can lift ourselves above a personal reaction to death to a contemplation of what is needed by mankind as a whole, we encounter the wisdom involved in the deaths of both young and old. It is important to realize that a truly genuine and earnest study of spiritual science does not remain mere theory, but that a proper grasp of theories leads to attitudes and feelings that enable us to achieve greater harmony in our lives than we could achieve if we didn't have it. We need spiritual science to develop the deeper insight that can lead to a perception of the consonance that lies behind life's otherwise unbearable dissonances.

We learn, too, to understand the sacrifices that we have to make in life and the things that pain us, if we know that the entire universe can be rightly maintained only by developments that cannot help but cause us sorrow. We simply have to make the effort to sense that the many hundreds of geniuses: Homer, Shakespeare, Goethe, Michelangelo, Raphael, and so on, are essential to mankind's progressive evolution, and would not have existed as such had the ground not been prepared by people dying young. This has nothing to do with the individual. Those who die young and thus sacrifice their etheric bodies in their youth provide the entire cosmos with a fruitful soil for the growth and maturing of human soul-capacities.

We become united with the universe when, instead of taking an abstract approach to spiritual science, it becomes for us a seeking out of impulses that flow into us as soul-warmth, reconciling us with the world, moving us to our depths as they show us that, though we human beings have to undergo painful experiences, we suffer them for the sake of harmony in the entire universe.

It is not always easy to withdraw our attention from individual life to focus on the life of the whole world. But the fact that achieving this goal is difficult is also the reason why it strengthens us. And as we develop a feeling for community from our suffering, that sense of the totality of the cosmic order becomes ever more intense and lays ever more profound hold on our innermost souls. And we prepare ourselves in doing this to become participants in the universal order of a kind the gods make use of.

Siebenter Vortrag

Ich habe es öfter erwähnt, daß wir nur dann die richtigen Impulse von der Geisteswissenschaft haben können, wenn wir versuchen, immer weiter und weiter zu gehen in dem positiven, in dem konkreten Verständnis der Tatsache von den \WWesenheiten, von denen uns die Geisteswissenschaft berichten will. Ich habe schon einmal hier erwähnt, daß man gewiß erst wissen muß: die menschliche Wesenheit trägt in sich physischen Leib, Ätherleib, astralischen Leib und so weiter. Man muß wissen, wie sich diese einzelnen Glieder zunächst äußerlich zueinander verhalten. Aber dann genügt es nicht, wenn man die richtigen Impulse von Geisteswissenschaft haben will, bei diesen, ich möchte sagen, Abstraktionen stehenzubleiben, sondern es handelt sich darum, daß man nun wirklich die Zusammenhänge, die Weltzusammenhänge kennenlernt, durch die man durch diese seine Menschheitsglieder in das ganze Weltgeschehen hineingestellt ist.

Unser physischer Leib stellt uns in die physische Welt hinein, er stellt uns auf den physischen Plan. Unser physischer Leib macht uns durch die Vererbungsverhältnisse in der physischen Fortentwickelung der Menschheit ähnlich Eltern, Voreltern und so weiter. Er macht uns dadurch ähnlich, daß er eben selber gewisse Vorbedingungen des Ähnlichseins mit den Vorfahren in sich trägt. Durch vieles andere noch sind wir durch den physischen Leib in die physische Welt hineingestellt. Wir haben gestern etwas darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie der Mensch, indem er allmählich zur sogenannten hellseherischen Erkenntnis vorrückt, sich in seiner Beziehung zur Welt unabhängig macht von dem Werkzeug, das wir den physischen Leib nennen.

Das nächste ist dann, daß sich der Mensch nicht des physischen Leibes als eines unmittelbaren Werkzeuges seines Verkehrs mit der Welt bedient, sondern seines Ätherleibes, und daß an die Stelle derjenigen Vorstellungen und Erkenntnisse, die wir durch unseren physischen Leib, das heißt durch seine Sinnesorgane, durch sein Gehirn bekommen, daß an die Stelle dieser Erkenntnis die imaginative Erkenntnis tritt. Und ich habe gestern in einer etwas anschaulicheren Form zu schildern versucht, wie sich die Seele verändert fühlt, wenn sie den Übergang durchmacht von der Benützung des physischen Leibes zu der Benützung des Ätherleibes.

Gewiß, der Mensch benutzt seinen ätherischen Leib immer, wenn er nicht gerade schläft. Der Mensch benutzt aber seinen ätherischen Leib so, daß dieser ätherische Leib in dem physischen Leib drinnen webt und beide gleichzeitig benutzt werden in dem Wachzustande des physischen Planes. Aber kennenlernen kann man die Eigentümlichkeiten desjenigen, was dieser ätherische Leib eigentlich ist, wenn man ihn gewissermaßen heraushebt aus seinem Zusammenhange mit dem physischen Leib und ihn allein, ohne den physischen Leib, als ein Werkzeug benützt. Wir wissen, daß auf ganz naturgemäße Weise, unmittelbar nach dem Tode, der Mensch in dieser Lage ist, daß er, nachdem er seinen physischen Leib abgelegt hat, wenn auch nur kurze Zeit, seinen Ätherleib allein benützt, bis auch dieser dann abgelegt wird.

So müssen wir unterscheiden, ich möchte sagen, das erste Todesfaktum: die Loslösung des Menschen von dem physischen Leib, von dem zweiten kurz darauf folgenden Todesfaktum, der Loslösung von dem ätherischen Leib. Der physische Leib, sagte ich, bindet uns gewissermaßen an all dasjenige, was wir vom physischen Plan haben. Woran bindet uns der ätherische Leib? Dieser ätherische Leib bindet uns an all dasjenige, was wir als Zusammenhang mit dem Kosmos haben, mit dem Außerirdischen, mit dem, was in uns lebt, ohne daß wir sagen können, es sei unmittelbar heraus aus dem physischen Weltenzusammenhang. Wenn der Mensch, sagen wir, von vornherein ein physisch mangelhaftes Ohr hat, so wird er kein Musiker werden können, aber ein physisch mangelhaftes Ohr hat man aus physischer Vererbung. Das ist nur ein radikaler Fall, an dem man sehen kann, wie wir hineingestellt sind in den fortlaufenden Vererbungsprozeß. Aber man muß von dem, wozu uns unser physischer Leib bereit macht, übergehen zu dem, wozu uns unser Ätherleib bereit macht. Das tritt mehr zutage in den eigentlichen seelischen Veranlagungen. Nur der Stumpfsinnige kann unberücksichtigt lassen, daß die Menschen in seelischer Beziehung ganz verschieden veranlagt sind. Den stumpfsinnigen Materialisten werden manchmal intime Verschiedenheiten der Menschen in seelischer Beziehung nicht besonders interessieren, er will nur die äußere Formenwelt untersuchen; aber jedem wirklich auf das Leben Aufmerksamen fällt hinlänglich auf, wie kein Mensch in bezug auf seine Individualität dem anderen Menschen gleicht.

Diejenigen, die in theosophischen Vorstellungen eine Zeitlang gelebt haben, befriedigen sich daran, daß sie sagen: Nun, das ist ja erklärlich, daß die Menschen individuell verschieden sind, denn es gibt eben eine Reinkarnation, eine Folge von wiederholten Erdenleben, und dasjenige, was wir uns als Bedingungen aus früheren Leben mitbringen, das lebt sich als unsere individuellen Verschiedenheiten aus. — Das ist selbstverständlich ganz richtig, aber das Richtige allein genügt nicht, wenn wir die Welt verstehen wollen. Denn denken Sie sich einmal, ein Mensch würde mit einem feinen musikalischen Ohr geboren, aber es würden ihm vorenthalten in der Welt die Mittel musikalischer Ausbildung: Das musikalische Ohr würde unausgebildet bleiben. Daß er musikalisch ausgebildet werden kann, hängt mit seinem musikalischen Ohr zusammen, gewiß; aber die äußeren Mittel müssen dazu da sein, das Milieu, in das der Mensch versetzt ist oder wird, das muß da sein, die Bedingungen müssen da sein. Es gibt Seelen, welche mit einer einseitigen Erklärung der Tatsachen sich befriedigt erklären, die immer wieder darauf zurückfallen, wie die Katze auf die Pfoten, daß sie sagen: Nun ja, alles macht das höhere Ich des Menschen, oder das höhere Selbst. Das höhere Selbst ist eigentlich die ganze Welt! - Gewiß, solche Dinge können wahr sein, aber sie reichen eben zur Erklärung der Tatsachen der Welt durchaus nicht aus. Daß wir durch unser Karma, durch ein inneres Karma in verschiedener Weise veranlagt sind, das ist richtig. DaB die Verschiedenheiten der Menschenindividualitäten davon abhängen, wie diese Menschen in den aufeinanderfolgenden Leben sich entwickelt haben, das ist ganz richtig; aber allein genügt es nicht, zu wissen, daß der Mensch durch verschiedene Erdenleben geht und seine Individualität ausbildet, sondern wir müssen wissen, woher es kommt, daß eine Möglichkeit besteht, dasjenige, was wir uns als Individualität erworben haben, nun wirklich auszuleben.

Nehmen Sie das Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Verschiedenes kennen Sie, namentlich aus dem Zyklus, der gedruckt vorliegt «Das Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt». Aus diesem können Sie entnehmen, daß in dem Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt die verschiedenen Tatsachen zusammenkommen müssen, die den Menschen zu einer neuen Geburt, zu einer neuen Einkörperung in einen physischen Leib vorbereiten. Aber es muß in der geistigen Welt eine Möglichkeit da sein, daß auch dem Menschen dasjenige wird, was notwendig ist, daß seine individuellen Anlagen zur Ausbildung kommen. Man kann sich denken, daß wir durch ein Erdenleben gegangen sind, in diesem Erdenleben uns Bedingungen geschaffen haben für ein folgendes Erdenleben in einer gewissen Weise, daß wir aber zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt nicht die Möglichkeit finden, das, was wir da in uns verpflanzt haben als Anlage für ein künftiges Erdenleben, wirklich zur Entfaltung zu bringen. Ein Pflanzenkeim kann gut veranlagt sein; wenn er nicht in ein ihm günstiges Erdreich gesetzt werden kann, ist es ihm unmöglich, sich zu entfalten. In unserer Individualität kann noch so viel drinnen sein: wenn wir nicht imstande sind, in der geistigen Welt zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt Tatsachen zu finden, welche so auf uns wirken wie der Nährboden auf den Pflanzenkeim, dann können die in uns gesetzten Lebensbedingungen für eine künftige Inkarnation eben nicht ausgebildet werden.

Wir ahnen daraus, daß die Welt tiefe Geheimnisse verbirgt, die wir nach und nach enthüllen können, wenn wir in die konkreten, in die tatsächlichen Verhältnisse des Lebens mit der Geisteswissenschaft hineinleuchten. Denn ein paar Schlagtheorien — Schlagworte, wie man sagt —, daß der Mensch verschiedene Erdenleben habe und seiner Individualität nach diese Erdenleben so weiter trägt, das genügt nicht; das erklärt nicht zuletzt dasjenige, was uns als Rätsel des Lebens berührt im Leben. Man muß überall, das habe ich betont gerade in diesen Tagen, die richtigen Gesichtspunkte finden. Und manches berührt uns ja als tiefes Rätsel im Leben, das wenigstens bis zu einem gewissen Grad für uns gelöst werden muß, wenn wir nicht wie ohnmächtige Kämpfer uns fühlen sollen im Leben, die zwar sehen, was das Leben an Rätseln ihnen aufgibt, die aber eben ohnmächtig wären, diese Rätsel des Lebens zu bezwingen.

Da ist ein Rätsel, und ich nenne es im voraus, weil es den geistigen Forscher in Zusammenhang bringt mit der Frage, wie die Bedingungen herbeigeführt werden zur Entwickelung unserer Individualität. Ich werde es nachher charakterisieren. Es ist das Rätsel, das sich uns aufgibt im Leben, wenn wir sehen, in welch verschiedenen Lebensaltern die Menschen sterben. Der eine, es ist leicht gesagt, wird uralt, der andere stirbt ganz jung. In jedem Lebensalter sterben die Menschen. Dies kann man, ich möchte sagen, gedankenlos so aussprechen. Und die Menschen sind am wenigsten geneigt, dem gegenüber das Rätselhafte zu empfinden, das sich fortwährend wiederholt. Aber gerade in diesen alleralltäglichsten Tatsachen des Lebens sprechen sich die größten Rätsel aus.

Wir kommen diesem Rätsel nahe, wenn wir ein wenig das Verhältnis des menschlichen Ätherleibes zur Gesamtwelt ins Auge fassen. Jedem ist bekannt, denn das ist eine Tatsache des äußeren Lebens, daß wir altern in bezug auf unseren physischen Leib. Wir werden immer älter. Und worinnen das Älterwerden besteht, das weiß ja jeder. Und in bezug auf unseren Ätherleib ist das Umgekehrte der Fall: da werden wir nämlich immer jünger, richtig jünger! Und wenn wir ganz alte Leute geworden sind, so sind wir in bezug auf unseren physischen Leib alt, in bezug auf unseren Ätherleib jung geworden. Einige sind ja unter Ihnen, die auch das schon in Vorträgen von mir gehört haben, ich will aber heute über diese Sache noch einmal in einem anderen Zusammenhang sprechen. Wir müssen unseren Ätherleib so ausbilden im Verlaufe unseres Erdenlebens, daß wenn wir am Ende unseres Erdenlebens angekommen sind, unser astralischer Leib in diesen Ätherleib so eingebettet ist, daß er sich so drinnen fühlt, wie er beschaffen sein muß, um das nächste Leben in entsprechender Weise anzutreten. Man kann wirklich sagen: Wenn der Mensch alt, grau, runzlig geworden ist, so blüht sein Ätherleib auf, wird frisch; denn sein astralischer Leib muß sich dann gewöhnen, in einem Ätherleib so zu leben, daß da schon das Keimhafte drinnen liegt. Wie nun dieser astralische Leib in dem nächsten Erdenwerden die physische Leiblichkeit des Kindes durchdringt, wie er da drinnen arbeitet, das muß sich in einer gewissen Weise schon durch das Leben mit dem junggewordenen Ätherleib ausdrücken.

Es ist merkwürdig, wie man im Sprachgenius oftmals Geheimnisse bewahrt hat. Ich habe bei anderen Gelegenheiten schon darauf aufmerksam gemacht: Sie werden in Goethes «Faust» ein schönes Wort finden, das gebraucht wird statt geboren werden; im «Faust» heißt es: «Im Nebelalter jung geworden», er sagt nicht: geboren worden, sondern «jung geworden» — Junggewordensein im Gegensatz zum Altgewordensein. Also wenn man geboren wird, wird man «jung».

Dem liegt natürlich die Vorstellung zugrunde, daß die Präexistenz der Seele dem Kindwerden vorangeht. Aber das, was diese Seele an Kräften entwickelt, um nun den kindlichen Leib durcharbeiten zu können, das muß sie sich aneignen, wenn der Ätherleib im letzten, im vorhergehenden Leben beim physischen Altern jung wird.

Die Materialisten finden eine besondere Bekräftigung ihrer materialistischen Theorien darin, daß selbst geniale oder für genial gehaltene Menschen im Alter manchmal schwachsinnig werden können. Es wird mit besonderer Vorliebe angeführt, daß Kart im Alter schwachsinnig geworden ist. Aber die Leute, die sich auf solche Dinge berufen, verstehen nicht, wie dasjenige, was als Seele wirkt hier auf dem physischen Plan, sich nur durch die körperlichen Organe kundgeben kann. Kants Gehirn war eben nicht mehr imstande, als Werkzeug zu dienen den Seelenkräften, die in ihm ausgebildet waren. Daher erscheint er am Ende seines Lebens schwachsinnig. In ihm lebte schon die Seele — das war wirklich der Fall -, die sich vorbereitete, den nächsten physischen Leib durchzuorganisieren; aber die konnte sich in dem bisherigen physischen Leib nicht so verhalten, daß der bisherige physische Leib ein ordentliches Werkzeug gewesen wäre.

Nun ist ein großer, gewaltiger Unterschied, der Ihnen einleuchten wird, wenn Sie das, was ich eben gesagt habe, voraussetzen, ein gewaltiger Unterschied, ob man uralt stirbt, oder ob man in der Jugend stirbt, vielleicht gar als Kind. Denn stirbt man in der Jugend, dann ist der Ätherleib noch nicht so jung geworden. Wenn man von dem physischen Menschen spricht, kann man sagen: er altert. Wenn man von dem Ätherleib spricht, müßte man eigentlich sagen: er jüngert. Das wäre ein ganz richtiges Wort! Es wäre gut, wenn unsere Sprache bereichert würde durch solche Worte. Er jüngert, der Ätherleib, aber er ist noch nicht so gejüngert, wenn der Mensch im jugendlichen Alter stirbt. Ich habe das früher einmal dadurch anzudeuten versucht, daß ich gesagt habe: Wenn der Mensch im jugendlichen, kindlichen Alter stirbt, so ist sein Ätherleib im Grunde genommen unverbraucht. Er hätte ein ganzes Leben damit ausgereicht, mit diesem Ätherleib. Man hätte sechzig, achtzig Jahre alt werden können mit diesem Ätherleib, den man zur Verfügung hat, wenn man nicht jung gestorben wäre. Aber sowenig wie in der äußeren physischen Welt irgendeine Kraft verlorengeht, sowenig geht die Kraft eines solchen Ätherleibes verloren. Die bleibt vorhanden. Nur müssen wir etwas genauer auf das Besondere, Eigentümliche dieser Kraft eingehen.

Wenn der Mensch ein, wie man sagt, normales Alter, also ein Alter von siebzig, achtzig Jahren erreichen kann, ist sein Ätherleib sehr jung geworden. Und in diesem junggewordenen Ätherleib sitzt, ich möchte sagen, das Fazit seines Lebens, das Lebensergebnis darinnen, das drückt sich darinnen aus, und der astralische Leib ergreift dann Besitz davon. Denn das geschieht ja so: Stellen wir uns einmal vor, der Mensch hätte seinen physischen Leib abgelegt, der Ätherleib wäre aus dem physischen Leib herausgetreten. Während der Ätherleib noch im physischen Leib ist, kann er das, was er sich im Leben angeeignet hat an eigentlichen Kräften, nicht entfalten, weil er in den physischen Leib gebannt ist. Denken Sie sich, wir haben uns im Leben, das wir zuletzt auf der Erde gelebt haben, diese oder jene Fähigkeit erworben. Das bedeutet, daß wir uns diese Fähigkeit mit dem physischen Leib, den wir aus der vorhergehenden Inkarnation haben, erworben haben. Aber was wir in der jetzigen Inkarnation dazubekommen, dazu haben wir noch nicht die Organe, die müssen wir uns erst bilden für die nächste Inkarnation. Aber im Ätherleib, der elastischer, flüssiger ist als der physische Leib, sitzt das drinnen. Nur kann es sich nicht entfalten, solange der Ätherleib im physischen Leib drinnen ist. Ist jetzt der physische Leib abgefallen, dann wird der Ätherleib frei. Und dieser Ätherleib erscheint nun zunächst mit dem ganzen Ergebnis des Lebens, das wir eben durchlebt haben, wenn wir durch den Tod gegangen sind. Daher zeigt er auch das ganze Lebenspanorama, das sich während weniger Tage über das ganze verflossene Leben ausdehnt, damit wir all das, was wir lernen können, uns aneignen können, aus dem Lebenspanorama herausziehen können. Das geschieht eben in diesen paar Tagen, in denen wir dieses Lebenspanorama durchblicken.

Wenn unser astralischer Leib jeden Morgen beim Aufwachen in den physischen und Ätherleib hineingeht, muß er sich anpassen dem, was aus dem physischen und Ätherleib aus der vorigen Inkarnation geworden ist, da trifft er all das, was man geworden ist. Der astralische Leib kommt nie herein in den Ätherleib so, daß er sich bedienen kann desjenigen, was der Ätherleib erst in der jetzigen Inkarnation geworden ist. Aber jetzt, nach dem Tode, ist das der Fall. Er ist so mit dem Ätherleib verbunden, daß der Astralleib spürt, wahrnimmt, empfindet, was man als Fazit, als Resultat von dem eben abgelaufenen Leben hat. Und wenn sich dann der astralische Leib von dem Ätherleib nach einigen Tagen trennt, dann ist im astralischen Leib das ganze Ergebnis des Lebens dadurch drinnen, daß er es aus dem Ätherleib herausgezogen hat, daß er es im Ätherleib ein paar Tage erlebt hat. Dazu braucht er nicht länger als ein paar Tage, um in dem Ätherleib, der frei geworden ist, das ganze Ergebnis, das Fazit des Lebens zu durchleben. Lange braucht er dann, um das, was er jetzt da erlebt hat, so auszugestalten, daß ein neues Erdenleben gezimmert werden kann.

Ja, sehen Sie, um ein neues Erdenleben zu zimmern, dazu gehört sehr viel. Und wenn es der menschlichen Weisheit so unmittelbar überlassen wäre, ein neues Erdenleben durch sich selbst zu zimmern, da käme ganz sicher nichts Ordentliches zustande. Setzen Sie sich einmal in den Fall, Sie sollten aus Ihrem Bewußtsein heraus das ganze physische Instrument des Menschen formen. Da müßten Sie es doch eben kennen, nicht wahr? Aber jeder Blick in die äußere Wissenschaft sagt einem, wieviel der Mensch von der Zusammensetzung seines physischen Leibes kennt! Zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt kann er es soweit, daß er den physischen Leib so formen kann, daß dieser physische Leib wirklich bis in seine feinsten Ziselierungen hinein geeignet ist, das zum Ausdruck zu bringen, was aus dem früheren Erdenleben veranlagt ist.

Wenn jemand Sie fragen sollte: Wie muß ich es machen mit einer bestimmten Gehirnwindung, daß ich ihr da in ihrer Linie diejenige Wendung gebe, die gerade dem entspricht, was ich mir im vorigen Leben angeeignet habe? Ja, wenn Sie die Frage entscheiden sollten, ob ich sie hier ein bißchen drehen oder vielleicht so machen soll (es wird gezeichnet) — Sie würden es nicht entscheiden können, wenn jemand Sie examinieren würde, und nicht sagen können: Drehst du diese Gehirnwindung so herum, dann entspricht das dem Umstande, daß du in der früheren Inkarnation ein Redner warst, und das dann zur Ausarbeitung bringen kannst. Wie sollten Sie das beantworten können mit dem Bewußtsein des physischen Planes? Zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt muß der Mensch das beantworten, denn er muß sich in dem neuen Ätherleib diese feine Ausziselierung seiner Organe veranlagen. Das muß alles geschehen. - Was dazu notwendig ist, das läßt sich leicht mit einem Worte bezeichnen, aber ich wollte ein Gefühl davon hervorrufen, was dieses Wort umschließt: Weisheit ist dazu notwendig, Weisheit! Und diese Weisheit muß wirklich im Menschen sein.

Wenn Kant auch im Alter schwachsinnig geworden war, seine Seele, das heißt sein astralischer Leib, insofern er in seinem neugewobenen Ätherleib drinnen war, seine Seele war weise, denn die hatte die Weisheit schon in sich, nur konnte es das Ich nicht mit dem Gehirn ins Bewußtsein heraufheben. Seine Seele hatte in sich die Weisheit, die nun herauskommen sollte zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, und die weisheitsvoll in die neue Inkarnation des Kant in späterer Zeit kommen sollte. Kant ist ein alter Mann geworden. Je älter man wird im physischen Leib, desto mehr prägt sich im Menschen dieses Moment der Weisheit aus.

Aber bei denjenigen, die jung sterben, da ist es anders, da hat der Ätherleib nicht so «gejüngert», und die Folge davon ist, daß weniger Weisheit, die auf der Erde erworben ist, in diesem Ätherleib aufgespeichert ist, denn es handelt sich wirklich um die auf der Erde erworbene Weisheit. Dafür ist etwas anderes darin: In dem alten, noch nicht gejüngerten Ätherleib eines Frühverstorbenen, da ist um so mehr Wille darinnen; direktes Willenselement, Liebeselement, schöpferisches Liebeselement ist darinnen. Das ist nämlich der Unterschied zwischen dem Ätherleib eines altgewordenen Menschen, der mehr durchdrungen ist mit dem Weisheitscharakter, und dem Ätherleib eines jung verstorbenen Menschen, der durchdrungen ist mit dem Willenselement. Der Ätherleib eines jung verstorbenen Menschen strömt Liebe aus, warme Liebe, warmes Ätherisches der Liebe. Der Ätherleib des altgewordenen Menschen strömt aus weisheitsvolles Aurtisches, Lichtvolles.

Nun können wir uns die Frage, die uns da interessiert, dadurch beantworten, daß wir die Geisteswissenschaft fragen: Was würde eintreten, wenn auf irgendeine Weise alle Menschen achtzig oder neunzig Jahre alt, also ganz alt werden könnten, wenn gar keiner jung stürbe, was würde dann eintreten? - Dann würden alle Ätherleiber, die von ihren Seelen verlassen würden, von liebevoller Weisheit durchsetzt sein. Es würden die Menschen auf der Erde in ihrem historischen Fortgang die Möglichkeit haben, während des physischen Lebens zwischen Geburt und Tod viel zu lernen auf der Erde, denn die physischen Leiber würden weisheitsvoll gestaltet werden. Die Menschen würden gewissermaßen undifferenziert geboren werden, einer wäre wie der andere, aber sie könnten sehr viel lernen auf dem physischen Plan. Ich möchte sagen, sie wären fein-weisheitsvoll gebaut und könnten sehr viel lernen hier auf dem physischen Plan. Allerdings würde ein solches Lernen verbunden sein mit einer außerordentlich labil sich haltenden Konstitution. Die Menschen würden gewissermaßen, weil alles so außerordentlich fein, ich möchte sagen, mechanistisch-weisheitsvoll in ihrem physischen Organismus gebildet wäre, ein labiles Gleichgewicht haben, aus dem sie leicht herauskommen könnten. Es würde einer viel lernen können, aber er würde furchtbar nervös werden, wie man heute im «nervösen Zeitalter» sagt. Es würde eine Menschheit sein, die immerfort zappelt und immerfort aus dem Gleichgewicht kommen würde, eine sehr für das Lernen auf dem physischen Plan begabte, aber recht zappelige Menschheit. Es ist besser, «zappelig» zu sagen als «nervös». Warum soll man die Dinge nicht so nennen, daß man das Richtige dabei fühlt? Denn, sehen Sie, als nervös hat man früher, noch vor ein paar Jahrhunderten, in ganz Europa einen Menschen bezeichnet, der stark, kräftig durchnervt war, der nervig war, der etwas aushalten konnte. Weil diese Menschen nicht mehr so den Ton angeben wie früher, so hat man dieses Wort für das gerade Gegenteil angewendet. Aber ausbleiben würde in der Menschheitsentwicklung, wenn alle Menschen alt werden würden, wenn keiner jung sterben würde, ausbleiben würde die seelische Differenzierung, die wir mitbringen, wenn wir aus der geistigen Welt in eine Inkarnation hereingehen. Das Anlagen-Haben, das gewissermaßen mit geistigen Gaben Ausgestattetsein, das würde ganz ausbleiben. Die Menschen würden sozusagen alle ziemlich gleich, undifferenziert in die Welt hereintreten, würden nur verschieden werden dadurch, daß sie auf dem physischen Plan in verschiedene Verhältnisse kommen und Verschiedenes lernen würden; sie würden sich in allen Verhältnissen ziemlich gleich zurechtfinden. Das Karma würde sie in das für sie besonders Geeignete durch die physischen Vererbungsmerkmale hereintragen. Im übrigen würde fehlen in der Welt gerade das, was wir als Veranlagtheit für besonderes Seelisches haben. Das Innere des Menschen in seiner Differenziertheit würde nicht da sein.

Aber wie alles in der Welt nicht bloß auf Einseitigkeit beruht, sondern, wie ich Ihnen ausgeführt habe, auf Gleichgewicht beruhen muß, so muß das Menschenleben darauf beruhen, daß der Mensch einerseits in seinen physischen Organismus das ergießen kann, was beim Jüngern des Ätherleibs als Weisheit angehäuft wird für ein weiteres physisches Leben. [Andererseits werden die Willensimpulse Jungverstorbener benötigt.] Ich habe Ihnen an vielen Beispielen schon auseinandergesetzt, wie ganz jung gestorbene Kinder ihren Ätherleib unverwendet lassen. Wir selber leben in der Aura eines Ätherleibes, wie ich ausführte, hier in diesem Bau. Aus jenem Ätherleib heraus kommen diejenigen Impulse, die künstlerisch anregen können im Bau. Ich habe angeführt, wie ein zum Bau gehöriges Kind nach seinem Tode den Ätherleib hinterlassen hat und dieser Ätherleib eine Aura bildet, in die unser Bau eingebettet ist. Und wenn man wahrnehmen kann, was für Impulse kommen können aus diesem Ätherleib, dann hat man Unterstützung für die künstlerischen Impulse, die im Bau auszuleben sind.

So ist es aber mit den Ätherleibern der Jungverstorbenen überhaupt; sie gehen zurück, sie sind noch nicht so gejüngert, daß sie ganz abgeschwächt haben das Element des Willens, sondern Wille, schöpferische Liebekraft geht mit ihnen ein in die geistige Welt. Und es muß nun eine fortwährende Wechselwirkung stattfinden zwischen den ganz gejüngerten Ätherleibern und den noch weniger gejüngerten Ätherleibern. Fortwährend findet eine gegenseitige Unterstützung statt in der geistigen Welt zwischen dem, was von der Erde heraufkommt in Ätherleibern von ganz alten Menschen und diesen Ätherleibern von jungen Menschen oder selbstverständlich auch solchen, die dazwischen liegen. Wenn ganz kleine Kinder sterben, eben wie es im «Faust» heißt: «Mitternachts-Geborne», so sind die Ätherleiber ganz alte, greisenhafte, aber stark von Wille. Solche Ätherleiber werden mit starker Kraft wirken können gerade auf solche Ätherleiber, die nun durch ein langes Leben gegangen sind, die von physisch altgewordenen Menschen herrühren.

Denken Sie sich, was es für eine geniale Idee von Goethe war, den altgewordenen, hundertjährigen Faust, der zum Himmel fährt, umringt sein zu lassen von den Ätherleibern ganz junger Knaben, «Mitternachts-Gebornen», andeutend, daß ein solcher Austausch stattfinden muß!

Immerfort findet diese Wechselwirkung statt. So daß wir sagen können: Da in der geistigen Welt haben wir die Ätherleiber der physisch altgewordenen Menschen, in denen geht Verschiedenes vor (siehe Zeichnung, lila); dann haben wir die Ätherleiber physisch jungverstorbener Menschen (rot), in denen geht auch Verschiedenes vor: Da findet eine Wechselwirkung, ein gegenseitiger Austausch statt. Und das, was wir antreffen in dem Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, finden wir dadurch, daß Tatsachen hervorgerufen werden in diesem Austausch zwischen den Ätherleibern der Jungverstorbenen und den Ätherleibern der Altverstorbenen. Diese Wechselwirkung brauchen wir. Es könnte die Menschheitsentwickelung auf der Erde gar nicht in der richtigen Weise vor sich gehen, wenn nicht die Wechselwirkung der Ätherleiber Jungverstorbener und Altverstorbener in der geistigen Welt stattfinden würde.

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Und die Leiter dieser Betätigung sind in der Region in der Hierarchie der Angeloi zu finden, so daß wir in der geistigen Welt, in die wir unmittelbar eingebettet sind, wirklich ein solches Ineinanderwirken der einen Art von Ätherleibern mit der anderen Art von Ätherleibern anerkennen müssen. Wie wenn zwei Flüsse etwa zusammenfließen würden in einen, so fließen diese Wirkungen zusammen. Aber dann werden sie geordnet, geregelt, in der richtigen Weise geleitet. Und das geschieht von Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi. Zu den anderen Aufgaben haben diese Wesen auch noch diese Aufgabe. Wenn also ein Mensch mit besonderen Anlagen in die Welt hereinkommen kann, dann rührt das davon her, daß sich zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt nicht bloß die Möglichkeit, daß Weisheit, materialistische, auf der Erde gesammelte Weisheit in die physischen Leiber hineingeprägt wird, sondern daß dasjenige, was noch nicht für die Erde voll ausgebildet war - von jung Verstorbenen herrührende Ätherleiber -, auch als Wirkungen da sind, als Kräfte da sind, die mit hineinverwoben werden können da, wo die menschlichen Anlagen gebildet werden.

Sie sehen, wie Geisteswissenschaft, wenn man sich wirklich in ihre Geheimnisse vertieft, ausmünden kann in lebendiges Fühlen und Empfinden. Wenn ein alter Mensch stirbt, so wissen wir durch die Geisteswissenschaft uns zu erheben zu dem Mysterium seines Todes in geistiger Beziehung. Denn wir sagen uns: alt werden die Menschen, damit die Entwickelung der Menschheit, insofern die physischen Leibeswerkzeuge gebraucht werden können, für alle Zukunft in der richtigen Weise vor sich gehe. Was wir an Früchten in der Erdenentwickelung der Menschheit haben, wir ahnen es voraus, wir empfinden es voraus bei jedem Tode eines älteren Menschen. Wenn wir auf uns wirken lassen das andere, was einen Einblick uns geben kann, wenn wir in die Zukunft blicken, so sagen wir uns: es muß allezeit in der Fortentwickelung der Menschheit besondere Anlagen geben; der eine muß zu dem, der andere zu jenem veranlagt sein; bis hinauf zu der Genialität, bis hinauf zu den genialen Menschen müssen die Veranlagungen da sein. Niemals könnte das sein, wenn nicht auch Menschen jung sterben müßten in der Welt! Und wenn wir aufblicken zu besonders genialen Menschen, so ist die Genialität verdankt der Tatsache, daß Menschen auch jung sterben müssen. So blicken wir zu dem Mysterium des Todes Jungverstorbener, indem wir uns sagen: Weisheitsvoll eingefügt in das ganze Gewebe ist auch der frühe Tod Jungverstorbener. Denn aus dem frühen Tode Jungverstorbener erstehen die Keime für die seelischen Anlagen, welche die Menschheit in ihrer Fortentwickelung braucht.

Sobald wir uns erheben können von unserem persönlichen Empfinden dem Tode gegenüber zu dem, was die ganze Menschheit braucht, erscheint uns das Weisheitsvolle bei dem Tode junger und bei dem Tode älterer Menschen. Das ist das Bedeutungsvolle, daß wirklich echt und redlich betriebene Geisteswissenschaft uns nicht bloß Theorien gibt, sondern daß die recht verstandenen Theorien immer ausmünden in Empfindungen und Gefühle, durch die wir mehr Harmonie im Leben gewinnen können, als wir ohne die Geisteswissenschaft dem Leben gegenüber haben. Dazu sollen wir Geisteswissenschaft haben, daß dann, wenn Dissonanzen im Leben vorhanden sind, die wir als Dissonanzen nicht mehr ertragen können, wir durch einen tieferen Blick hinter diese Dissonanzen zur Auffassung vom Zusammenklang, vom harmonischen Zusammenklang kommen.

Auch die Opfer, die wir im Leben zu bringen haben, wir lernen sie verstehen durch Geisteswissenschaft. Wir lernen manches, was uns Schmerz macht, verstehen, wenn wir wissen, daß dadurch, daß wir Schmerz erleben müssen, das ganze Weltall in seiner richtigen Weisheit allein bestehen kann. Wir müssen uns nur dazu aufschwingen können, zu empfinden, daß zum Beispiel kein Homer, kein Shakespeare, kein Goethe, Michelangelo, Raffael und wie sie alle heißen, die Hunderte und Hunderte, auf denen die Fortentwickelung der Menschheit beruht, insofern die Fortentwickelung der Menschheit Genialität braucht, daß die alle nicht hätten sein können, wenn nicht der Boden dazu bereitet würde dadurch, daß auch Menschen jung sterben müssen.

Das hat nun nichts mit der einzelnen Individualität zu tun, sondern derjenige, welcher jung stirbt, gibt, indem er seinen Ätherleib hinopfert in seiner Jugend, dem ganzen Kosmos einen fruchtbaren Boden für die Ausreifung der inneren seelischen Anlagen der Menschen.

Wir wachsen zusammen mit dem Weltenall, indem wir nicht als Abstraktion die Geisteswissenschaft nehmen, sondern als ein Suchen von solchen Impulsen, die warm in unsere Seele fließen, indem sie uns mit der Welt versöhnen, die tief unsere Seele ergreifen, indem sie uns zeigen, daß wir Menschen allerdings auch Schmerz ertragen müssen, aber den Schmerz ertragen müssen um der Harmonie des ganzen Weltenalls willen.

Nicht leicht ist es zuweilen, in dieser Weise abzulenken den Blick von dem einzelnen Menschenleben zu dem Leben der ganzen Welt. Aber indem dasjenige, was wir erreichen sollen, schwierig ist, wachsen uns auch die Kräfte, und indem wir durch Schmerzen uns aneignen das Gefühl für die Gesamtheit, wird dieses Gefühl für die Gesamtheit der Weltenordnung um so intensiver, um so intimer unser Innerstes in der Seele ergreifen. Und wir werden uns dadurch bereit machen, Glieder in der Weltenordnung zu sein, welche die Götter gebrauchen können.

Seventh Lecture

I have often mentioned that we can only receive the right impulses from spiritual science if we try to go further and further in the positive, concrete understanding of the fact of the beings about which spiritual science wants to tell us. I have already mentioned here that we must first know that the human being consists of a physical body, an etheric body, an astral body, and so on. We must know how these individual members relate to each other externally. But then, if you want to receive the right impulses from spiritual science, it is not enough to remain with these, I would say, abstractions. Rather, it is a matter of really getting to know the connections, the world connections through which you are placed in the whole world event through these members of your humanity.

Our physical body places us in the physical world; it places us on the physical plane. Through hereditary conditions in the physical evolution of humanity, our physical body makes us similar to our parents, ancestors, and so on. It makes us similar in that it itself carries within it certain preconditions of similarity with our ancestors. There are many other ways in which we are placed in the physical world through the physical body. Yesterday we drew attention to how, as human beings gradually advance toward so-called clairvoyant knowledge, they become independent in their relationship to the world from the instrument we call the physical body.

The next thing is that human beings do not use the physical body as an immediate tool for their interaction with the world, but rather their etheric body, and that the ideas and knowledge we obtain through our physical body, that is, through its sense organs and brain, are replaced by imaginative knowledge. And yesterday I tried to describe in a somewhat more vivid form how the soul feels changed when it undergoes the transition from using the physical body to using the etheric body.

Certainly, human beings always use their etheric bodies when they are not asleep. But human beings use their etheric body in such a way that this etheric body weaves within the physical body, and both are used simultaneously in the waking state of the physical plane. But one can only get to know the peculiarities of what this etheric body actually is if one lifts it out of its connection with the physical body, so to speak, and uses it alone, without the physical body, as a tool. We know that in a completely natural way, immediately after death, the human being is in this situation: after shedding the physical body, even if only for a short time, he uses his etheric body alone until this too is shed.

So we must distinguish, I would say, between the first fact of death: the separation of the human being from the physical body, and the second fact of death, which follows shortly thereafter, the separation from the etheric body. The physical body, I said, binds us, so to speak, to everything we have from the physical plane. What binds us to the etheric body? This etheric body binds us to everything we have in connection with the cosmos, with the extraterrestrial, with what lives within us without our being able to say that it comes directly from the physical world. If a person, let us say, has a physically defective ear from the outset, he will not be able to become a musician, but a physically defective ear is something one inherits physically. This is only a radical case in which we can see how we are placed in the ongoing process of inheritance. But we must move on from what our physical body prepares us for to what our etheric body prepares us for. This becomes more apparent in our actual soul dispositions. Only the dull-witted can ignore the fact that human beings are very differently disposed in soul terms. The dull materialist will sometimes not be particularly interested in the intimate differences between people in a spiritual sense; he only wants to investigate the outer world of forms. But anyone who is truly attentive to life will notice that no two people are alike in terms of their individuality.

Those who have lived with theosophical ideas for a while are satisfied with saying: Well, it is understandable that people are individually different, because there is reincarnation, a succession of repeated earthly lives, and what we bring with us as conditions from previous lives is lived out as our individual differences. That is, of course, quite correct, but the correct alone is not enough if we want to understand the world. For imagine that a person were born with a fine ear for music, but were denied the means of musical education in the world: the musical ear would remain untrained. That he can be trained in music is certainly connected with his musical ear, but the external means must be there, the environment into which the person is placed or will be placed must be there, the conditions must be there. There are souls who are satisfied with a one-sided explanation of the facts, who always fall back on it like a cat on its paws, saying: Well, everything is done by the higher self of the human being, or the higher self. The higher self is actually the whole world! Certainly, such things may be true, but they are not sufficient to explain the facts of the world. It is true that we are predisposed in various ways by our karma, by an inner karma. That the differences between human individualities depend on how these people have developed in successive lives is quite correct; but it is not enough to know that human beings go through various earthly lives and develop their individuality. We must also know where the possibility comes from that we can actually live out what we have acquired as individuality.

Take the life between death and a new birth. You know various things, namely from the cycle that is available in print, “Life Between Death and a New Birth.” From this you can see that in the life between death and rebirth, the various facts must come together that prepare the human being for a new birth, for a new incarnation in a physical body. But there must be a possibility in the spiritual world that the human being also receives what is necessary for his individual predispositions to develop. One can imagine that we have gone through an earthly life, that in this earthly life we have created conditions for a subsequent earthly life in a certain way, but that between death and a new birth we do not find the possibility of really developing what we have implanted in ourselves as a predisposition for a future earthly life. A plant seed may be well endowed, but if it cannot be planted in soil that is favorable to it, it is impossible for it to develop. No matter how much potential there may be in our individuality, if we are unable to find facts in the spiritual world between death and rebirth that have the same effect on us as the soil has on the plant seed, then the conditions for a future incarnation that have been laid within us cannot be developed.

We sense from this that the world conceals deep mysteries that we can gradually uncover if we shine the light of spiritual science into the concrete, actual conditions of life. For a few striking theories — slogans, as they are called — that human beings have different earthly lives and carry these earthly lives on according to their individuality, are not enough; they do not explain what touches us as the mystery of life in life. Everywhere, as I have emphasized especially in recent days, we must find the right points of view. And some things touch us as deep mysteries in life that must be solved, at least to a certain extent, if we are not to feel like powerless fighters in life, who see the mysteries that life presents them with but are powerless to overcome these mysteries of life.

There is a mystery, and I will mention it in advance because it connects the spiritual researcher with the question of how the conditions for the development of our individuality are brought about. I will characterize it later. It is the mystery that presents itself to us in life when we see the different ages at which people die. One, it is easy to say, grows very old, another dies very young. People die at every age. One can say this, I would say, without thinking. And people are least inclined to feel the mystery that is constantly repeating itself. But it is precisely in these most everyday facts of life that the greatest mysteries are expressed.

We come closer to this mystery when we consider the relationship between the human etheric body and the world as a whole. Everyone knows, because it is a fact of external life, that we age in relation to our physical body. We grow older and older. And everyone knows what aging consists of. And in relation to our etheric body, the opposite is true: we become younger and younger, truly younger! And when we have become very old, we are old in relation to our physical body, but young in relation to our etheric body. Some of you have already heard this in my lectures, but today I would like to speak about this again in a different context. We must develop our etheric body during our earthly life in such a way that when we reach the end of our earthly life, our astral body is so embedded in this etheric body that it feels inside it as it must in order to enter the next life in the appropriate manner. One can truly say that when a person has become old, gray, and wrinkled, their etheric body blossoms and becomes fresh, because their astral body must then accustom itself to living in an etheric body in such a way that the germ is already present within it. How this astral body penetrates the physical body of the child in the next earthly existence, how it works there, must already be expressed in a certain way through life with the rejuvenated etheric body.

It is remarkable how secrets have often been preserved in the genius of language. I have already pointed this out on other occasions: in Goethe's Faust, you will find a beautiful word that is used instead of “born”; in Faust, it says: “Im Nebelalter jung geworden” (becoming young in the foggy age); he does not say “born,” but “becoming young” — becoming young in contrast to becoming old. So when one is born, one becomes “young.”

This is based, of course, on the idea that the soul exists before the child is born. But the powers that this soul develops in order to be able to work through the child's body must be acquired when the etheric body becomes young in the last, previous life during physical aging.

Materialists find special confirmation of their materialistic theories in the fact that even people who are genius or considered genius can sometimes become senile in old age. They particularly like to point out that Kant became senile in his old age. But people who refer to such things do not understand how that which works as the soul here on the physical plane can manifest itself only through the physical organs. Kant's brain was simply no longer capable of serving as a tool for the soul forces that had been developed in him. That is why he appeared senile at the end of his life. The soul was already living within him — that was really the case — preparing to organize the next physical body; but it could not behave in the previous physical body in such a way that the previous physical body could have been a proper instrument.

Now there is a great, tremendous difference, which will become clear to you if you take what I have just said as a given, a tremendous difference between dying at an advanced age and dying in youth, perhaps even as a child. For if one dies in youth, the etheric body has not yet become so young. When we speak of the physical human being, we can say that he ages. When we speak of the etheric body, we should actually say that it becomes younger. That would be a very accurate word! It would be good if our language were enriched by such words. The etheric body becomes younger, but it is not yet so young when a person dies in youth. I once tried to indicate this by saying that when a person dies in youth, in childhood, his etheric body is basically unspent. He could have lived a whole life with this etheric body. One could have lived to be sixty or eighty years old with this etheric body at one's disposal, if one had not died young. But just as no force is lost in the outer physical world, so too is no force lost from such an etheric body. It remains available. We just need to look a little more closely at the special, unique nature of this force.

When a person reaches what is considered a normal age, say seventy or eighty years, their etheric body has become very young. And in this rejuvenated etheric body sits, I would say, the sum total of their life, the result of their life, which is expressed therein, and the astral body then takes possession of it. For this is what happens: Let us imagine that a person has shed their physical body and the etheric body has emerged from the physical body. While the etheric body is still in the physical body, it cannot unfold the actual powers it has acquired during life because it is bound to the physical body. Imagine that we have acquired this or that ability during our last life on earth. This means that we acquired this ability with the physical body we had in our previous incarnation. But we do not yet have the organs for what we acquire in our present incarnation; we must first develop them for the next incarnation. But it is contained in the etheric body, which is more elastic and fluid than the physical body. However, it cannot unfold as long as the etheric body is inside the physical body. Once the physical body has fallen away, the etheric body is freed. And this etheric body now appears with the entire result of the life we have just lived through when we have passed through death. Therefore, it also shows the entire panorama of life, which extends over the entire past life in a few days, so that we can acquire everything we can learn and draw it out of the panorama of life. This happens in these few days in which we look through this panorama of life.

When our astral body enters the physical and etheric bodies every morning upon awakening, it must adapt to what has become of the physical and etheric bodies from the previous incarnation, where it encounters everything that one has become. The astral body never enters the etheric body in such a way that it can make use of what the etheric body has become in the present incarnation. But now, after death, this is the case. It is so connected with the etheric body that the astral body feels, perceives, and senses what one has as the conclusion, as the result of the life that has just passed. And when the astral body separates from the etheric body after a few days, the entire result of life is contained in the astral body because it has been drawn out of the etheric body and experienced in the etheric body for a few days. It does not need more than a few days to experience the entire result, the conclusion of life, in the etheric body that has been freed. It then takes a long time to shape what it has now experienced in such a way that a new earthly life can be built.

Yes, you see, a great deal is involved in building a new earthly life. And if it were left entirely to human wisdom to build a new earthly life by itself, nothing proper would certainly come of it. Imagine for a moment that you were to form the entire physical instrument of the human being out of your consciousness. You would have to know it, wouldn't you? But every glance at external science tells us how little human beings know about the composition of their physical body! Between death and rebirth, they can go so far as to shape the physical body in such a way that this physical body is truly suited, down to its finest details, to express what has been predisposed in their previous earthly life.

If someone were to ask you: How am I to do this with a certain brain circuit, so that I give it the twist that corresponds exactly to what I acquired in my previous life? Yes, if you had to decide whether I should turn it a little here or perhaps do it like this (drawing is made) — you would not be able to decide if someone were to examine you, and you would not be able to say: Turn this brain connection this way, then it corresponds to the fact that you were an orator in your previous incarnation, and you can then work this out. How could you answer that with the consciousness of the physical plane? Between death and a new birth, the human being must answer that, because he must predispose himself in the new etheric body to this fine chiseling of his organs. All this must happen. What is necessary for this can be easily described in one word, but I wanted to evoke a feeling of what this word encompasses: Wisdom is necessary for this, wisdom! And this wisdom must truly be within the human being.

Even though Kant had become senile in his old age, his soul, that is, his astral body, insofar as it was within his newly woven etheric body, was wise, for it already had wisdom within itself, but the ego could not bring it up into consciousness with the brain. His soul had wisdom within itself, which was now to emerge between death and a new birth, and which was to come wisely into Kant's new incarnation in later times. Kant became an old man. The older one becomes in the physical body, the more this moment of wisdom is imprinted in the human being.

But with those who die young, it is different, because the etheric body has not been “rejuvenated” to the same extent, and the result is that less of the wisdom acquired on earth is stored in this etheric body, because it is really the wisdom acquired on earth. But there is something else in it: in the old, not yet rejuvenated etheric body of someone who died young, there is all the more will; there is a direct element of will, an element of love, a creative element of love. This is the difference between the etheric body of an elderly person, which is more permeated with the character of wisdom, and the etheric body of a person who died young, which is permeated with the element of will. The etheric body of a person who died young radiates love, warm love, warm etheric love. The etheric body of an elderly person radiates wisdom, light.

Now we can answer the question that interests us by asking spiritual science: What would happen if, in some way, all people could live to be eighty or ninety years old, that is, very old, if no one died young? What would happen then? Then all etheric bodies that were left by their souls would be permeated with loving wisdom. In the course of their historical development, people on Earth would have the opportunity to learn a great deal during their physical life between birth and death, because their physical bodies would be designed with wisdom. People would be born, so to speak, undifferentiated, one would be like the other, but they could learn a great deal on the physical plane. I would say that they would be finely and wisely constructed and could learn a great deal here on the physical plane. However, such learning would be connected with an extremely unstable constitution. Because everything would be so extraordinarily fine, I would say mechanically wise, in their physical organism, people would have a delicate balance that they could easily lose. One could learn a great deal, but one would become terribly nervous, as we say today in our “nervous age.” It would be a humanity that is constantly fidgeting and constantly losing its balance, a humanity that is very gifted for learning on the physical plane, but quite fidgety. It is better to say “fidgety” than “nervous.” Why not call things by the name that feels right? You see, a few centuries ago, throughout Europe, the word “nervous” was used to describe someone who was strong, had strong nerves, was annoying, and could endure a lot. Because these people no longer set the tone as they did in the past, the word has come to mean the exact opposite. But something would be missing in human development if all people grew old, if no one died young. The spiritual differentiation that we bring with us when we enter incarnation from the spiritual world would be missing. The predisposition, the endowment with spiritual gifts, so to speak, would be completely absent. People would, so to speak, all enter the world fairly similar, undifferentiated, and would only become different through coming into different circumstances on the physical plane and learning different things; they would find their way around fairly equally in all circumstances. Karma would carry them into what was particularly suited to them through physical hereditary characteristics. Moreover, the world would lack precisely what we have as a predisposition for special soul qualities. The inner life of the human being in all its differentiation would not exist.

But just as everything in the world is not based solely on one-sidedness, but, as I have explained to you, must be based on balance, so human life must be based on the fact that, on the one hand, human beings can pour into their physical organism what is accumulated in the etheric body as wisdom for a further physical life. [On the other hand, the will impulses of those who die young are needed.] I have already explained to you with many examples how children who die very young leave their etheric body unused. We ourselves live in the aura of an etheric body, as I explained, here in this building. From that etheric body come the impulses that can inspire artistic creativity in the building. I have explained how a child who belonged to the building left behind his etheric body after his death, and how this etheric body forms an aura in which our building is embedded. And if one can perceive what impulses can come from this etheric body, then one has support for the artistic impulses that are to be lived out in the building.

This is how it is with the etheric bodies of the young deceased in general; they return, they are not yet so rejuvenated that they have completely weakened the element of will, but will, creative love power, enters the spiritual world with them. And now there must be a continuous interaction between the completely rejuvenated etheric bodies and the less rejuvenated etheric bodies. There is a continuous mutual support in the spiritual world between what comes up from the earth in the etheric bodies of very old people and these etheric bodies of young people, or of course also those in between. When very small children die, just as it says in Faust: “Midnight-born,” their etheric bodies are very old, senile, but strong in will. Such etheric bodies will be able to exert a powerful influence precisely on those etheric bodies that have now gone through a long life, that originate from physically aged human beings.

Think what a brilliant idea it was of Goethe to have the aged, hundred-year-old Faust, who ascends to heaven, surrounded by the etheric bodies of very young boys, “midnight children,” suggesting that such an exchange must take place!

This interaction takes place constantly. So we can say: in the spiritual world we have the etheric bodies of physically aged human beings, in which various things take place (see drawing, purple); then we have the etheric bodies of physically young people who have died (red), in which various things also take place: there is an interaction, a mutual exchange. And what we encounter in the life between death and a new birth, we find through the fact that events are brought about in this exchange between the etheric bodies of the young deceased and the etheric bodies of the old deceased. We need this interaction. Human development on Earth could not proceed in the right way if the interaction between the etheric bodies of the young deceased and the old deceased did not take place in the spiritual world.

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And the leaders of this activity are to be found in the region of the hierarchy of the Angeloi, so that in the spiritual world in which we are immediately embedded, we must truly recognize such an interaction between one type of etheric body and another type of etheric body. Just as two rivers flow together into one, these effects flow together. But then they are ordered, regulated, and guided in the right way. And this is done by beings from the hierarchy of the Angeloi. In addition to their other tasks, these beings also have this task. So when a person with special abilities comes into the world, it is because between death and a new birth there is not merely the possibility for materialistic wisdom gathered on earth to be imprinted into physical bodies, but that what was not yet fully developed for the earth — the etheric bodies of those who died young — is also present as effects, as forces that can be woven into the fabric where human predispositions are formed.

You see how spiritual science, when one really delves into its secrets, can lead to living feelings and perceptions. When an old person dies, spiritual science enables us to rise above the mystery of their death in a spiritual sense. For we say to ourselves: human beings grow old so that the development of humanity, insofar as the physical body instruments can be used, may proceed in the right way for all the future. What we have as fruits of humanity's development on earth, we anticipate, we feel in advance with every death of an older person. When we allow ourselves to be influenced by the other thing that can give us insight when we look into the future, we say to ourselves: there must always be special predispositions in the further development of humanity; one person must be predisposed to this, another to that; predispositions must exist all the way up to genius, all the way up to genius people. This could never be the case if people did not also have to die young in the world! And when we look up to particularly genius people, their genius is due to the fact that people also have to die young. So we look at the mystery of the death of those who die young and say to ourselves: the early death of those who die young is also wisely woven into the whole fabric of life. For from the early death of those who die young arise the seeds of the spiritual dispositions that humanity needs in its further development.

As soon as we can rise above our personal feelings about death to what the whole of humanity needs, the wisdom of the death of young and old people becomes apparent to us. This is the significance of truly genuine and honest spiritual science: it does not merely give us theories, but the correctly understood theories always lead to feelings and emotions through which we can gain more harmony in life than we would have without spiritual science. We should have spiritual science so that when there are dissonances in life that we can no longer bear as dissonances, we can gain insight into harmony, into harmonious harmony, by looking more deeply behind these dissonances.

We also learn to understand the sacrifices we have to make in life through spiritual science. We learn to understand many things that cause us pain when we know that it is only through experiencing pain that the entire universe can exist in its true wisdom. We just have to be able to feel that, for example, no Homer, no Shakespeare, no Goethe, Michelangelo, Raphael, and all the others, the hundreds and hundreds on whom the further development of humanity depends, insofar as the further development of humanity requires genius, could have existed if the ground had not been prepared by the fact that people also have to die young.

This has nothing to do with individuality, but rather, those who die young, by sacrificing their etheric body in their youth, give the entire cosmos fertile ground for the maturation of the inner soul dispositions of human beings.

We grow together with the universe by not taking spiritual science as an abstraction, but as a search for impulses that flow warmly into our souls, reconciling us with the world, touching us deeply by showing us that we humans must indeed endure pain, but must endure it for the sake of the harmony of the entire universe.

It is not always easy to divert our gaze in this way from the life of the individual to the life of the whole world. But because what we are striving to achieve is difficult, our powers also grow, and as we acquire a sense of the whole through suffering, this sense of the whole of the world order becomes all the more intense and all the more intimate in our innermost soul. And in this way we prepare ourselves to be members of the world order, which the gods can use.