The Influence of the Dead on the Life of Man on Earth
GA 168
3 December 1916, Zurich
Translator Unknown
From yesterday's lecture you will have seen how the spiritual world, in which we are between death and a new birth, and the physical world interpenetrate. Not only so; the spiritual world and the physical interpenetrate even in our so-called physical life between birth and death. We ourselves give the directions, as it were, for the way we are born with such and such characteristics. For we are connected between death and a new birth with what is taking place here in the physical world, and, among other things, with the stream of inheritance which eventually leads to our own birth.
We may now consider in a more inward way the whole line of evolution which we studied yesterday more externally. We will try to bring before our souls the connection of man with the spiritual world from a certain special aspect. Between birth and death we are living here in the physical world, and the physical world is known to us through our sense perceptions. It is a trite saying and we need scarcely repeat it: If we did not have our sense organs, we could know nothing of our connection with this physical world. All that gives us this connection through the sense organs with the physical world, falls away from us when we pass through the gate of death. Hence we may even say: It is our specific task between birth and death to make acquaintance with the physical world. We are incorporated in this physical body in order to make ourselves acquainted through it with the physical world.
Now we are not only members of the physical world, but equally of the spiritual worlds. The next spiritual world, as it were adjoining this physical, is the world which we have grown accustomed to call the ethereal or elemental. Whether or not the expression is really fitting is a matter of less consequence. To begin with, this elemental world is an unknown world for the human being as he now lives in the physical. It is, in fact, the first of the super-sensible worlds but it is no less fraught with significance for man than this physical world of the senses. For as soon as our sense is awakened for the elemental world—which happens when we are able to perceive Imaginatively—we realise that this world is peopled by many beings, no less abundantly than is the physical. Man himself, inasmuch as he has an etheric body, belongs to the elemental world. As an ether-being, man too is a citizen of the elemental world; only the conditions in the elemental world are somewhat different from the conditions in the physical.
To begin with, I must say something on this one point: the power of perception for the elemental world cannot begin in man till he is able entirely to free himself from that which makes him earthly man. In general it is not even difficult for him to do this. True, it is more difficult for the man of today than for the man of primeval times. We have all heard of the primeval atavistic clairvoyance. For the most part it consisted in this very fact: man was able to free himself from that which makes him earthly man. As earthly men, as you all know, we are formed of solid matter only to a very small extent. To a large extent we consist of liquid; and the moment we can emancipate ourselves from what is solid in us, the moment we feel ourselves only in our liquid part, Imaginative experiences can emerge. It is only our existence in the solid element which prevents our knowing by Imaginative perception all that surrounds us as the elemental world. Imaginative perception will surely return to mankind even as it has been lost. Only the old Imaginative clairvoyance which is lost was in a way unconscious and dream-like, while that which will gradually arise in our Fifth post-Atlantean epoch will be a fully conscious Imaginative seership. By a perfectly normal and natural process of evolution it will enter into human nature.
Let us now return to what I said before. Our relation to the elemental world is different from our relation to the ordinary, physical world. To begin with, I will give one example to confirm this. In the physical world—apparently at any rate—we determine our relationships with other beings by our own free human choice. We form our friendships for ourselves, likewise our other relations to the beings that surround us. In the elemental world, in which we are through our etheric body, this is no longer the case in the same direct way. Through our whole life in the elemental world we are in a more or less close relationship to certain other elemental beings. As an independent elemental being—for such we are by virtue of our etheric body—we are related to a number of other elemental beings, who accompany us throughout our life, and we may compare this relationship to the relation of the Sun to the encircling planets. Our own etheric body is a kind of Sun elemental being, and is actually accompanied by a number of elemental beings belonging to it, like the planets to the Sun. These elemental beings, together with it, constitute a kind of sevenfold entity, as do the planets and the Sun according to the older conception.
During our whole physical life between birth and death, there is a constant interplay between these our elemental satellites and ourselves. Not only does our feeling, our condition, depend on the way in which our elemental or etheric body is related to its ‘planets’; our relation to the outer world, to certain outer beings, and notably to other human beings, is regulated by the mutual relations between these ‘planets’ and our own etheric body. In future time there will be a kind of medicine which will reckon especially with what I have now said; there will be a medical, physiological conception which will ascertain how the one or the other satellite is related to the etheric body; and according to this, it will be possible to diagnose the sick or healthy condition of the patient. For what is called illness today is in truth only the outer physical picture of what is there in reality. In reality there is some kind of irregularity in what I have here compared to a planetary system, and the illness is but an image of this irregularity.
Of course, one might say forthwith: ‘Well, let the people who know this establish a new pathology. Hic Rhodus, hic salta, now let occultism show its art!’ Well, it will do so the moment its legs are freed! A man cannot dance whose legs are tied, and by the fettering of the legs in this case I mean the presence of modern materialism which has simply confiscated the science of medicine. This state of affairs cannot be improved by one individual or another doing this or that it can only be improved by the common will of a larger number of people, strong enough to bring about a system of medical practice which will make the penetration of medicine with spiritual principles a practical possibility.
One thing it is important to perceive. St. Paul did not speak in vain words of untold importance which have, however, never been rightly understood. For people keep on imagining that they are Christian while in reality they are not. St. Paul said that sin came into the world through the law, i.e. sin is there through the law. In a wider sense, that which mars the order of things is there through the law. Even today these truths can only be hinted at. For as a rule, if anything is not in order, our materialistic age will always cry aloud for a law—quite unaware that whatever is not in order comes from the very laws that are made. But, as I said, such a thing can only be hinted at. A very great deal will yet be necessary towards an understanding of these things. I said, people only imagine that they are Christians. For such a passage as this one by St. Paul, though it is read by countless people, is very little understood.
Through the fact that we are etheric beings, we belong to an elemental world, and there is a certain system which stands in a near relation to ourselves. This system consists of the elemental beings or ether-beings who accompany us. Their forces are ordered or arranged in a certain way; and when we pass through the gate of death, it is they, by their forces, who draw our etheric body out of our physical body, and place it—that is to say, place the human being himself to begin with—into the elemental world. The elemental world, as I have indicated, is clearly to be perceived by Imaginative cognition. In it are a multitude of beings whom we may call nature-spirits, but not only these. In it are also all those human beings who have just passed physically through the gate of death. They are only there, however, for a short time, as you know, for a few days. Then what we call the etheric body is given over to the elemental world; a second corpse is laid aside. But we must not imagine that this, the second body which we lay aside, is at all rapidly disintegrated in that world. That is not so. True, in a certain sense, it does become dissolved in the elemental world. It dissolves, it becomes ever more tenuous. But it does not become imperceptible to those beings who by their very nature can perceive Imaginatively.
The elemental or etheric body is always perceptible, for instance, to the human being himself, who has passed through the gate of death. True, he has laid aside this elemental body and he now lives on through the time between death and a new birth. But he remains constantly related to the elemental body which he has laid aside. It is not as with the physical body, to which man loses his relationship when he has cast it off. With the elemental body the opposite is the case; man preserves his relationship to it. Moreover, this relationship of man to his elemental or etheric body can work right down into the physical world.
When a human being here in the physical world has made his soul receptive, when he has acquired the elemental or Imaginative power of perception, then, too, he can consciously converse in his life of thought with the dead. Only, of course, these thoughts are far more refined and delicate than those of ordinary life. Thus he is consciously connected with the dead. Now the connection of which man thus becomes conscious is always there in the subconscious, whenever there was a relation during earthly life between the one who has remained behind in the physical, and the one who has risen into the spiritual world. Let us assume that we lost a beloved friend through death. One who has attained Imaginative perception will be aware of it but, whether we know it or not, the dead human being works upon us. He works—if I may so describe it—as though he were pouring his will into the etheric body which he has laid aside, as into a mirror, and the mirror, in its turn, were sending on the rays to us. Via the elemental or etheric body, the dead react upon the living. This, as it were, is the mediate influence of the dead upon the living.
To describe where this mediate influence comes to expression, I may say, it is expressed in our ordinary conceptions and ideas which we carry with us through the world. As a rule, the human being—especially in our materialistic age—is aware only of the conceptions and ideas which portray to him the outer physical reality. But among the conceptions which we thus carry through the world, some are perpetually living which are so fine and delicate that they are not directly perceptible; we simply do not pay attention to them. If we were wont to observe our soul's life more intimately, we should soon recognise their presence. But we constantly let this finer, more delicate life of the soul be overwhelmed and drowned by the coarser ideas which flow into us from the surrounding physical world. If it were not so, we should soon perceive that finer, more intimate thoughts are constantly there in us. These are due to those who were connected with us and have passed before us through the gate of death; and who, especially in the first period after their passage through the gate of death, are able to communicate their deeds to us.
Through the fact that as ether-beings we belong to the elemental world, we thus bear the being of the dead with us in our own conceptions, in our own life of ideas, for a certain length of time. If we would speak of ‘Monism’ on any basis of reality, we should chiefly speak of the Monism which I have just described—the Monism that is formed by the working together of the living and the dead. In truth, those who have passed through the gate of death are by no means far away from us; they are far nearer to us than we believe.
Now man develops more and more as he lives through the time between death and a new birth, and so he becomes able to work upon the world down here not only indirectly but directly. From a certain time onward we can perceive this influence upon us of the departed; their rays of force begin to penetrate into our soul's life. But this immediate influence cannot work its way directly into our thoughts, into our conceptual life. It works its way rather into our habits, into our whole way of life and conduct; into all this there streams an influence working downward from spiritual worlds, coming to us from those who have passed before us through the gate of death.
We must however realise that this working together of the dead and the living depends on many different conditions. The dead man is in an environment wherein there are beings of his own kind, that is, beings of soul, and all the beings who belong to the higher Hierarchies, down to man himself. And inasmuch as the etheric body which he has laid aside is his mediator, he can also have perceptions of the human beings down here, who are, as it were, veiled from him through the physical body. With the help of his etheric body, he can penetrate the veil. He who has passed through the gate of death is of course subject to the conditions under which man must live in the world of soul and Spirit; he must submit to them. I need only mention one main point, and you will understand what I mean in this connection. We know that throughout the world in which we live Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces are working in the most manifold ways. If these Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces did not entice us, all that comes to expression in man as wrong and evil actions would not be there in the world. The Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces must work upon man, and must give him the opportunity to follow and obey them. Once this fact is brought home to us strongly enough, we shall recognise that man, after all, is a very different being from what we often make him out to be with our hostile criticisms. If we had the faculty, already in the physical world, always to see how the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic work in man, we should judge our fellow men quite differently.
I do not say that we should generally be less critical; for when we divert our adverse judgement from man—though we should no longer be fighting against man himself—we must still be fighting Lucifer and Ahriman. But against man as man, we should be infinitely more tolerant. Now he who lives in the soul life in the time between death and a new birth, practises this tolerance both in relation to the beings who are with him in the spiritual world and in relation to those who are still incarnated as men here in the physical life. It is part of the very character of man, when he has passed through the gate of death, that he acquires this tolerance. He always sees through the fact that Lucifer and Ahriman are playing such and such a part in a human being. He does not say, ‘That is a bad man, following evil desires’, but he sees through the fact that Lucifer is playing such and such a part in him. He does not say, ‘That is an envious fellow’ but he says, ‘Ahriman is playing such and such a part in him’.
He who lives above, between death and birth, judges in this way, it belongs to his very being to do so, just as it belongs to our being to have good eyesight (if we are sound and healthy). Moreover, since this belongs to his very being, it hurts the dead man infinitely when, maintaining his connection with us in the physical life (the connection which was begun during his own life on Earth), he comes up against an altogether different spirit in ourselves. Assume, for instance, that out of our personal antipathy we meet with peculiar hate another human being, who was also connected with the dead man. This hate will signify infinite pain for the dead who tries to approach us—as he must do, since he is still connected with us. This hatred must first be overcome by him; it is like a sword, a jagged sword, a spear that is shivered constantly against him.
And so the way in which the dead man tries to work into us—his own experience as he does so—depends very, very much on the attunement of our soul. Into our ordinary thoughts and ideas borrowed from the surrounding world, into our feelings and sentiments, into our temperament and habits, these influences of the dead are working as I have now described. And there is a constant mutual interaction between what goes on in the realm of those who have passed through the gate of death, and our own souls.
If you bear all this in mind, you will say to yourself: Complicated workings are contained in that which we bear within us as our soul; and much is necessary fully to perceive all the mysterious forces that pulsate in the human soul. The soul has very little in its own consciousness of all that is pulsating in it. But the mood and attunement of the soul, and its ability or inability in one direction or another, depend on all these things. For on a large scale all this is determined once more through our karma. The fact that we are brought together here with this man or that, and that they in turn work down upon us in the way I have described, is, of course, connected with our karma in the widest sense.
In bringing all this before us, we must realise, of course, that our age has a real longing for what Spiritual Science brings to men; and the real longings are frequently satisfied today by quite erroneous methods. Thus there are many people today who have decidedly got beyond the prejudice which people had in the middle of the 19th century, and even in the last third of the 19th century—the prejudice that all things of the soul can still be explained from physical and physiological effects. Frequently, however, half- or quarter-truths have far worse effects than complete errors. Thus it is a half- or quarter-truth which underlies what is so frequently described today as analytical psychology or psychoanalysis. People are truly seeking but they are groping in the dark; they divine that many things are hidden in the foundations of the soul, but they cannot resolve to take the real steps into the spiritual world, so as to find what is hidden there, in the depths of the soul.
What do the psychoanalysts say? They say: Observe a human being as he meets us just in ordinary life. His feeling and condition as a whole depends very largely, not only on what is there in his consciousness, but on a variety of factors which lie in the unconscious, beneath the threshold of consciousness. There comes a man, feeling in a depressed mood; an irregularity in his whole nervous apparatus is apparent. In such a case—the psychoanalyst opines—we must look and see what he may have experienced perhaps many years ago; experiences which he may not altogether have assimilated, but which he pressed down into the subconscious.
The psychoanalyst divines quite well that that which has been removed from consciousness has not therefore been removed from reality; it is still there, down in the subconscious. But his idea is this: If we can only entice it forth into the consciousness by a kind of catechising process, then we shall perceive what is consuming and gnawing at him down below. (I cannot, of course, explain psychoanalysis here in all its ramifications; I will only show you a few features of it.)
Starting from this point, the psychoanalyst looks for many things in the foundations of the soul. Years ago, the human being had perhaps this or that ideal of life, this or that hope or plan. He did not carry it out; he was not able to do so. It is no longer in his consciousness, for he is living in his present life. But it is not eliminated from the reality of his soul; there it goes on gnawing away and consuming him. And his whole mood and condition depends on what is there beneath in his subconsciousness. Perhaps he had an unhappy love affair—that is what the psychoanalysts generally find, for they are on the lookout for it. It is an isolated province in his subconsciousness; he has fought against it, but it goes on working. Notably it will go on working—so believe the psychoanalysts—if feelings of love were there, while the beloved being was removed; that is to say, if the love remained unsatisfied.
In addition to these disappointed spring time hopes of life—in addition to what I have just indicated—the psychoanalyst seeks in the depths of the soul for what we might call the ‘animal morass’ at the very basis of human life—the ‘animal morass’ or slime of life working constantly upward to the surface—connected, as they conceive it, with all that man possesses as an animal being, playing upward into his soul's life. Some psychoanalysts will go still further: if we get further and further down, we find at length what plays upward into the soul out of racial and national connections and the like, playing into the soul's life in more or less unconscious ways. And at last, at the very bottom, there is something demonic—the most undefined of all—lying even beneath the ‘animal morass’, at the very ground of life. Such people, who are among the special followers of the modern psychoanalysts, will sometimes gently hint that in these demonic depths beneath are to be found the impulses that lead people to such subjects as Gnosis, Theosophy and Anthroposophy. Although it is hinted at in a rather veiled way, still the hint is there. Read one of the last numbers of the periodical Wissen und Leben—I think it is called—and you will find such hints at one place and another, albeit they are rather hidden between the lines.
I said half- or quarter-truths often have a far worse effect than complete mistakes. Analytical psychology in its search for the sub-conscious foundations of the soul contains half and quarter-truths. Compare it with what we have pointed out today. The realities that live in the foundations of the soul work in towards us from the realm of the dead. Here we are led to quite a different way of thinking; we shall not seek for the ‘animal morass’ of the soul; we shall not try to interpret this or that mood of the soul from the aspect of disappointed love affairs. On the contrary, we shall often have to seek the underlying cause of an unhappy mood of soul in this or that departed one, for whom we are making difficulties through our own conduct—which difficulties find expression in dissatisfactions of one kind or another, surging up into our consciousness.
In short, we shall do well to bring home to ourselves with true reverence this actual connection with the spiritual world. It is the connection of our world, not with an abstract, vaguely pantheistic spiritual world, but with the real spiritual world wherein those who have passed through the gate of death are living as real beings. They are with us even now, as they were with us in life. But what they do with us now touches our soul far more nearly than what they did in life, when we were always separated from them by our body and theirs, which stood between us like a barrier.
Then comes a later time, when man has become utterly free from the astral body—when he has laid aside the astral. Not long after this, man is able to work down from the spiritual world into the physical in a more inward way. In former times, the outer life was frequently arranged instinctively according to these truths. Customs that arose in outer life might often be referred, it is true, to ordinary outer reasons, but an inner reason underlay the outer, though it was often only known by instinct. I said: the dead, soon after passing through the gate of death, are in direct connection with the human beings whom they have left behind, especially with those to whom they are lovingly united, and the connection is such that they work upon our habits. For this reason, in the times when such things were still felt instinctively, care was taken that a son should remain as far as possible in the whole circle with which his parents were connected. Learning the same business, spending his life in the same profession, he should remain where access was easier for them. All in all, this conservative way of holding on to the same stream of life was an instinctive expression of the desire to make it easier for those who had passed through the gate of death to work in upon those whom they had left behind. For if the latter were in similar circumstances to those in which the dead themselves had lived, it made it easier for the dead to find the way to them. In time to come historians will well observe such intimate impulses and underlying reasons in the historic evolution of mankind.
Now, as we know, when man has been still longer dead, he will have completely laid aside the astral body. But this only happens after decades, for we experience things much slower in the spiritual world than in the physical. One year of the spiritual world corresponds to 30 years of the physical. Man has a way of hastening here in the physical world whereas in the spiritual world, so to speak, he always has to revolve in far larger circles. So, as one spiritual year is equal to 30 earthly years, in one year of the spiritual he experiences approximately the same piece of the world as in 30 years of the physical. He thereby experiences it more intensively, more inwardly.
All in all, what man lives through on Earth is multiply connected with the great universe, the macrocosm. Therefore, what is experienced in the microcosm, in man himself, always finds expression even in the numerical relations to the macrocosm. I will only draw your attention to one point: Reckon up the number of days in an average human life; you get the same number of years—purely as a number—which the Sun requires to process through the complete Platonic year, the cosmic year. Man's life is numbered by as many days as the Sun requires years to advance through the whole cosmic circle in its precession from one sign of the zodiac to another. The Sun requires about 25,900 and a few more years to process through all the signs of the zodiac. Man lives for about as many days—though, of course, it is not always equal—in his individual life between birth and death.
Another interesting connection is this one: man has as many breaths in one day as the number of days he lives, or as the number of years it takes for the Sun to process through the whole zodiac. You see, therefore, in the very deepest sense the world is ordered according to measure and number. One should imagine that this delicate incorporation of man into the universe—this correspondence of the harmonies—would lead the crude materialists of our time beyond their limited outlook which sees nothing more in the whole universe than a great mechanism. Truly it is a strange mechanism which contains all its individual beings organically within itself, in wondrously harmonious numerical relation to the whole.
It is indeed a strange thing. When we consider the world spiritually, we can actually say: In the evolution which takes its course between death and a new birth, man advances more slowly in order that he may do things more thoroughly. Not only so; he advances as many times more slowly in the spiritual world as Saturn courses around the sun more slowly than the Earth. Saturn runs its course around the Sun as many times more slowly than the Earth, as man in the spiritual world moves more slowly than he moves on the physical Earth. For this reason, and not because they knew less than the astronomers of today, the ancients reckoned Saturn as the outermost planet of the solar system. Even astronomically speaking, they were right, for the other planets which are now included—Uranus and Neptune—joined the system at a later time; moreover, they circle around in quite a different order, even in a different rotation than the planets belonging to the solar system proper.
Now at least one such spirit-year—that is, 30 earthly years—must have elapsed before the soul (assuming, needless to say, that a normal age of 70 or 80 was attained) can enter not merely into the habits, but into the whole thought and outlook, into the spiritual life of those whom they have left behind or who join on of their own free will. Nevertheless, in this way too the dead work into our life on a very large scale. It is so indeed. In the whole spirit, in the whole way of thought in which we live, we bear within us the impulses of men who died long ago and who work into us. Altogether, the connection of the future with the past is brought about precisely in this way, through this actual connection of the dead with the living.
The mediate manifestation of the dead, through the etheric body which they have laid aside, works upon our Imaginative cognition. That influence which enters, as above described, into our habits, works upon our Inspirational cognition. And the influence to which I now refer, which can only work when man has passed through a whole spirit-year, works—if we are conscious of it—into our Intuitive cognition. But in any event these influences are working all the time; nor can we truly understand the sense of evolution unless we bear these things in mind.
Forgive my inserting at this point a personal remark—you know I am not fond of doing so, and I do so seldom. Anyone who looks at what I wrote when I first began my work, decades ago, will see that at that time I disregarded what I had to bring forward as my own opinion. I did not write my opinion about Goethe, but tried to express the thoughts that came forth from Goethe. I did not write my own Theory of Knowledge, but a Theory of Knowledge implicit in Goethe's Conception of the World. In this way it is possible quite consciously to connect oneself with men long dead and work out of their spirit. Indeed this is what gives one, as it were, a true, legitimate certificate to influence the living. It is a bad certificate which people of our time are so very keen upon: namely, that every individual, scarcely has he conceived an opinion, should wish to communicate it forthwith to as many followers as possible.
He who is aware of the conditions of existence, the fundamental laws that work from the spiritual world, knows that in truth a man cannot rightly work into the depths of the souls of his fellowmen until he is dead—strange as it may sound. Even then he cannot, till he has passed through a spirit-year, that is to say, 30 earthly years. Infinitely much would be achieved if once this selflessness gained ground a little in the world, so that those who lived later would connect their own work with the dead, and consciously try to maintain the continuity in evolution. Whether it be a pure elective affinity, or some other relationship brought about by karma, to attach ourselves to those who are trying so hard to send the pure rays of their influence out of the spiritual world is of infinite significance, and it is so most of all if we do it consciously.
I have tried to call forth in you a feeling for the way in which the so-called dead and the so-called living work together. Now we must realise that the conditions are very different in the spiritual world and here. You will find a great deal about the conditions of experience in the spiritual world in the lectures Life Between Death and a New Birth which I gave a few years ago in Vienna. But of course one can only select a few points especially important from one aspect or another. Now here it must be said that there is in the spiritual world something very similar, and again dissimilar, to our physical experience.
Before we enter the physical world in the full sense, we undergo the embryo period of existence. There the conditions of life are very different from what they become the moment we enter fully into the physical world as breathers of the outer air. Now in a certain sense and style, the time we go through after death in the first spirit year, which is so often called the period of Kamaloca, is very like the embryo period of existence. Just as the human being calls to his aid, as it were, another human being by whom he lets himself be borne into the physical world through the 10 lunar months, so likewise, through all the wishes and cravings which hold him to the physical and which he slowly casts aside, he lets himself be borne into the spiritual world. Moreover, his consciousness in this first year of the spirit still to some extent resembles his consciousness in the physical world, although the faculties which are only to be acquired in the physical world can only be transmitted mediately through the etheric body. But after this first spirit-year a far higher consciousness ensues than anything which we can have here in the physical body.
If you remember many things that were said in the above-mentioned lectures, you will see how very different is this consciousness in the spiritual world. You need only remember how much our consciousness depends on what can enter into us. When we go about as ordinary men in the physical world, the phenomena of the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms of nature, and of the physical human kingdom, come into us along with other experiences of soul—experiences of civilisation and the like. But after death, what becomes of the major part of that which enters our soul life through the faculties we possess here in the physical world? The mineral world as such—this we no longer perceive at all, as you are well aware; and of the plant world we only see the all-pervading life. You can read in my Theosophy how these things are, as we ascend within the spiritual world.
Experience in the spiritual world is in fact quite different in kind. Indeed, for these things, there are no words which you can understand. Our language after all is created for the physical; hence it is always difficult to describe these things correctly, and one can easily be misunderstood. Above all, we can only express ourselves by comparisons. Consider the following: here in the physical world you stand as it were, in a single point of the whole world structure, and look out with your eyes in all directions of the surrounding sphere. In the spiritual world it is not so; there you look in from the circumference as it were, towards the interior of a hollow sphere. But this is only a comparison; in reality it is not a hollow sphere, for time plays a greater part in it than space. Nevertheless, it is from the circumference that you observe all things. Hence the conditions of ideation are quite different; even within your thinking the conditions are quite different.
I will describe it somewhat crudely: suppose a man had passed through the gate of death 60, 70 or 80 years ago, or even earlier. He feels distinctly a certain inner experience. When you feel hunger in the physical life, you do not say ‘the hunger is here’ or ‘the hunger is there’ but ‘the hunger is in you’. Or again, take the case when you feel pain in this or that part of your body. So it is when you look inward from the whole surrounding sphere; you feel that at a certain place there is something. You know there is something that wishes to have something to do with you, and now you must begin making great efforts to getrid of it.Think what this means: to get rid of that which has manifested itself. And only when you have got rid of it, only then does there emerge the true being that is trying to reveal itself. Thus we may say: as spiritual beings we have an idea within us, but the idea tells us nothing whatever as yet; we must first get rid of it. Then, when we have got rid of it, then do we find within us—strange as it may sound, it is so—an angel or archangel who is revealing himself to us. His presence is first announced to us in the idea; yet we ourselves must first achieve the actual presence. Perception in the spiritual world is thus bound up with real labour, with a strong exertion of our forces. And only the souls who have remained here in the physical body can to some extent manifest themselves upward to the dead without their undergoing this exertion. This is what happens when you concentrate your thoughts on the dead man, or bring something before him by reading to him or the like. In all that I have been saying, I only wished to make it clear to you how altogether different are the conditions of life and experience in the spiritual world. This being so, you will no longer find it surprising that one year of spirit time represents 30 years of physical time. For in the spirit we are in the circumference and look in towards the centre; it is very important to remember this.
I made it my chief task today to describe to some extent how the souls who have passed through the gate of death work down into the world in which the others have remained behind, with whom they were connected while in the physical body. Thus you have seen once more, from another aspect, how the world is an interconnected whole. Truly it is only for outer physical perception that the dead are dead. In reality, the moment they pass through the gate of death they have a new way of access to our souls. That is the difference. They now work into us from within, whereas they formerly worked into us from without. For us, these things should more and more become no mere external theories; they should live their way into our consciousness, till they are no longer a merely theoretic ‘world conception’, but world perception, or even world feeling. Then will Spiritual Science bear the fruits which it is meant to bear, and which it truly can.
One more remark in conclusion. Think what it means that at a certain period between death and a new birth man must have the inner Feeling that he carries the Hierarchies within him as his own inner experience. It is really so. This might well lead the human being to the most appalling arrogance, which would live as a dim feeling in his soul when he is reborn. In ancient times there was a natural limit to such arrogance, in this way: human beings passing through the gate of death and entering into the spiritual world were somehow aware that it was not they themselves who were beholding, but that the highest beings of the Hierarchies were living in them and communicating the vision to them. But man has lost this connection in the spiritual world, just as in the physical world he has lost the old atavistic clairvoyance. Instead there must now come into us what St. Paul expressed in the words ‘Not I, but Christ in me’, which words are endowed with real spiritual feeling when we say ‘Out of God we are born; into Christ we die’.
If we learn this in all its depths, through the feeling which can come to us in Spiritual Science, that Christ is for the Earth, then we shall rightly place ourselves into the vision from the surrounding sphere. Then, having lived through the gate of death with the right feeling: ‘Into Christ we die’, and gazing in from the surrounding sphere, among all the beings whom we behold—beings of the Hierarchies, elemental beings, beings such as the human souls, incarnate or discarnate—among all these, we shall also find our own Ego-being; and we shall behold from outside the relation of this our own Ego to all the other beings. To be able to have this feeling after we have passed through the gate of death is of infinite importance. Only if we can have this feeling towards our own Ego, only then can we find our true way again into physical incarnation. And there is no other way of having this feeling; we can only owe it to the right passage through the gate of death—the passing through the gate of death with the inner feeling: ‘we have died into Christ’. This union with Christ gives us the possibility to behold, as it were with the eye of the soul of Christ Himself, our relation within the spiritual world, to behold ourselves as Ego being among the other beings.
This, my dear friends, is what I would always like to attain. When, as a result of such studies as we have made today, we take with us once more a new piece of knowledge, the knowledge should also be transformed into inner feeling. Even if all the ideas developed in this lecture should have passed by us like a dream; if the one fundamental feeling remains, which I have sought to gather up in these concluding words, then we shall carry with us into our further life the real fruits of such a line of thought. For I have tried to show how the death in Christ can place us rightly into the spiritual world—so rightly, so abundantly, that we can carry it with us through the physical world in our next earthly incarnation
We remain together in such feelings, recognising that they have power to unite us more intensely. So there will by and by arise in the world the true, invisible community of those who are devoted to Anthroposophy, holding together through such inner feelings born out of the clear ideas of Spiritual Science. The world has need of this indivisible community of souls, able to carry into it the inner force of such communion as I have just described. In this sense we will be together spiritually for the future, though for a time we may not be together physically. So indeed it should always be among us; our communion in the spirit should sustain our coming together in the physical.
Der Zusammenhang des Menschen mit der Geistigen Welt
Sie konnten aus dem öffentlichen Vortrage gestern ersehen, wie ineinandergreifen die geistige Welt, in der wir sind zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, und die physische Welt, wie ja im Grunde genommen auch ineinandergreifen geistige Welt und physische Welt in unserem sogenannten physischen Leben zwischen Geburt und Tod. Die Direktion gewissermaßen zu der Art und Weise, wie wir mit diesen oder jenen Eigenschaften geboren werden, geben wir uns selber, indem wir zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt im Zusammenhange stehen mit dem, was hier in der physischen Welt geschieht, also auch mit der Vererbungsströmung, die schließlich zu unserer Geburt führt.
Wir können nun die ganze Entwickelung, die wir gestern mehr äußerlich betrachtet haben, auch noch etwas innerlicher betrachten, indem wir versuchen, den Zusammenhang des Menschen mit der geistigen Welt von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus uns vor die Seele zu führen. Zwischen Geburt und Tod leben wir hier in der physischen Welt. Diese physische Welt ist uns bekannt durch unsere sinnlichen Wahrnehmungen. Es ist ja eine Trivialität, man braucht es kaum zu sagen: Hätten wir nicht unsere Sinnesorgane, so würden wir nichts wissen können von unserem Zusammenhange mit der physischen Welt. Aber alles dasjenige, was uns durch unsere Sinnesorgane vermittelt den Zusammenhang mit der physischen Welt, das löst sich selbstverständlich dann von uns, wenn wir durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, so daß wir geradezu sagen können: Bekanntschaft mit der physischen Welt zu machen ist unsere Aufgabe zwischen Geburt und Tod. Wir werden in diesen physischen Leib eingegliedert, um durch ihn unsere Bekanntschaft mit der physischen Welt zu machen.
Nun sind wir aber nicht nur Angehörige der physischen Welt, sondern wir sind Angehörige ebensogut von geistigen Welten. Die nächste geistige Welt, die gewissermaßen an unsere physische Welt stößt, ist diejenige, die wir gewohnt worden sind - ob der Ausdruck nun geeignet ist oder nicht, darauf kommt es weniger an -, die ätherische Welt, auch die elementarische Welt zu nennen. Diese elementarische Welt ist zunächst für den Menschen, so wie er nun einmal in der physischen Welt lebt, eine unbekannte Welt. Sie ist die erste übersinnliche Welt. Aber indem sie die erste übersinnliche Welt ist, ist sie darum nicht weniger bedeutungsvoll für den Menschen als die physische Welt, als die sinnliche Welt. Sobald dem Menschen der Sinn aufgeht für diese elementarische Welt, welches dadurch geschieht, daß der Mensch imaginativ wahrnehmen kann, ist es ihm klar, daß diese elementarische Welt ebenso reichlich bevölkert ist von Wesenheiten wie die physische Welt. Der Mensch selber, insoferne er einen Ätherleib hat, gehört dieser elementarischen Welt an. Er ist als Ätherwesen ein Bürger dieser elementarischen Welt. Nur sind die Verhältnisse in dieser elementarischen Welt etwas anders als die Verhältnisse in der physischen Welt.
Zunächst möchte ich eine Bemerkung darüber machen, daß eine Wahrnehmung in der elementarischen Welt erst dann beginnen kann, wenn der Mensch sich ganz freizumachen vermag von dem, was ihn zum Erdenmenschen macht. Dieses Freimachen von dem, was den Menschen zum Erdenmenschen macht, das ist im allgemeinen nicht schwierig. Es ist allerdings für den heutigen Menschen schwieriger als für den Menschen der Vorzeit. Wir wissen alle von dem vorzeitlichen atavistischen Hellsehen. Das bestand zum großen Teil darinnen, daß der Mensch sich freimachen konnte von dem, was ihn zum Erdenmenschen macht. Wir sind als Erdenmenschen nur zu einem sehr geringen Teile von fester Materie gebildet. Zum großen Teile bestehen wir aus Flüssigkeit. In dem Augenblicke, wo wir uns emanzipieren können von dem, was fest in uns ist, wo wir uns nur fühlen in unserem Flüssigen, kann schon beginnen das Auftauchen des Imaginativen. Nur das Sein im Festen verhindert eigentlich, daß wir von dem wissen, was durch die imaginative Wahrnehmung als elementarische Welt um uns herum ist. Dieses imaginative Wahrnehmen wird ebenso wiiederkommen, wie es verlorengegangen ist für die Menschheit. Nur ist das verlorengegangene imaginative Hellsehen eine Art unbewußtes, traumhaftes gewesen. Dasjenige, was sich in unserem fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum nach und nach bilden wird, wird ein vollbewußtes imaginatives Schauen sein. Aber das wird durch ganz naturgemäße Entwickelung sich dem Menschen eingliedern.
Wenn wir wieder zurückkommen auf das, was ich vorhin gesagt habe, daß unser Verhältnis zur elementarischen Welt ein anderes ist als unser Verhältnis zur gewöhnlichen physischen Welt, so möchte ich zunächst hauptsächlich ein Beispiel anführen, welches Ihnen das erhärten wird: In der physischen Welt bilden wir uns, wenigstens scheinbar zunächst, aus der freien menschlichen Willkür heraus unsere Beziehungen zu diesen oder jenen Wesen; wir bilden uns unsere Freundschaften, bilden uns andere Beziehungen zu den uns umgebenden Wesen. In der elementarischen Welt, in der wir ja durch unseren Ätherleib sind, ist dies nicht in derselben Weise unmittelbar der Fall, sondern wir stehen mehr oder weniger durch unser ganzes Leben in einer engeren Beziehung zu gewissen anderen Elementarwesen. So können wir wirklich vergleichen unsere Beziehung als selbständiges Elementarwesen — was wir durch unseren Ätherleib sind — zu einer Anzahl anderer Elementarwesen, die uns eigentlich durch unser ganzes Leben begleiten, mit dem Verhältnis der Sonne zu den umlaufenden Planeten. Unser eigener Ätherleib ist eine Art Sonnenelementarwesen, und er ist begleitet von einer Anzahl von Elementarwesen, die zu ihm gehören wie die Planeten zur Sonne, so daß diese Elementarwesen mit ihm zusammen gewissermaßen eine Art Siebenheit ausmachen, wie die Planeten mit der Sonne nach den älteren Anschauungen eine Art Siebenheit ausmachen.
Es ist nun während unseres ganzen physischen Lebens zwischen Geburt und Tod ein fortwährendes Wechselspiel vorhanden zwischen diesen unseren elementarischen Begleitern und uns selber. Nicht nur, daß unser Befinden abhängt von der Art und Weise, wie sich unser elementarischer oder ätherischer Leib zu seinen Trabanten verhält, sondern auch unser Verhältnis zum Äußeren, zu gewissen äußeren Wesen, namentlich zu anderen Menschen, wird geregelt durch die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen diesen Trabanten und unserem eigenen ätherischen Leibe. Es wird in der zukünftigen Zeit eine Art Medizin geben, welche ganz besonders rechnen wird mit dem, was ich jetzt eben ausgesprochen habe. Es wird eine medizinisch-physiologische Betrachtungsweise geben, welche feststellen wird, wie gewissermaßen der eine oder der andere der Trabanten zu dem Ätherleibe stehen wird, und danach wird man das kranke oder gesunde Befinden abschätzen können. Denn, was eigentlich heute Krankheit genannt wird, das ist in Wahrheit nur das äußere physische Bild desjenigen, was in Wirklichkeit da ist. In Wirklichkeit ist irgendeine Unregelmäßigkeit in dem, was ich mit einem Planetensystem verglichen habe, vorhanden, und die Krankheit ist nur ein Abbild dieser Unregelmäßigkeit.
Man könnte nunmehr sagen: Diejenigen, die solches wissen, sollen einmal eine Krankheitslehre heute aufstellen: Hic Rhodus, hic salta! — könnte man sagen -, und der Okkultismus soll hier seine Kunst zeigen. Gewiß, er wird es in dem Augenblick machen, in dem man ihm die Beine frei macht, denn man kann nicht tanzen, wenn man die Beine gebunden hat; und das Gebundensein der Beine besteht eben in dem Vorhandensein des gegenwärtigen Materialismus, der Beschlag gelegt hat auf die gesamte medizinische Wissenschaft. Das kann nicht dadurch verbessert werden, daß der eine oder der andere gewissermaßen dies oder jenes tut, sondern nur dadurch, daß durch einen gemeinsamen Willen einer größeren Anzahl von Menschen wirklich erzwungen wird ein solcher medizinischer Betrieb, der das Eindringen der geistigen Prinzipien in die Medizin möglich macht.
Es ist in dieser Beziehung insbesondere wichtig, einzusehen, daß Paulus nicht umsonst ein ungeheuer bedeutsames Wort ausgesprochen hat, das aber eigentlich niemals richtig verstanden wird, weil die Leute immer glauben, sie seien Christen, während sie es in Wirklichkeit durchaus nicht sind. Paulus hat auseinandergesetzt, daß die Sünde in die Welt gekommen ist durch das Gesetz, daß also die Sünde durch das Gesetz da ist. Im weiteren Sinne: Dasjenige, was die Ordnung stört, ist durch das Gesetz da. Diese Dinge kann man sogar heute nur andeuten, denn im allgemeinen wird unsere materialistische Zeit immer, wenn irgend etwas nicht in Ordnung ist, nach einem Gesetze schreien, ohne zu wissen, daß gerade dasjenige, was nicht in Ordnung ist, von den Gesetzen kommt, die gemacht werden. Aber, wie gesagt, das kann nur angedeutet werden; denn zum Verständnis dieser Dinge wird noch sehr, schr viel gehören. Ich sagte: Die Leute glauben nur, daß sie Christen seien. Denn solch eine Sache wie diese bei Paulus wird zwar von unzähligen Leuten gelesen, aber wenig verstanden.
Also wir stehen dadurch, daß wir ätherische Wesen sind, in einer elementarischen Welt, und ein bestimmtes System steht in näherer Beziehung zu uns selber. Dieses System, das heißt diejenigen elementarischen Wesenheiten, Ätherwesenheiten, die uns ja begleiten, sind auch diejenigen, die durch ihre Kräfte, weil sie in einer bestimmten Weise angeordnet sind, wenn wir durch die Pforte des Todes treten, unseren ätherischen Leib aus unserem physischen Leib zunächst herausziehen und ihn, also damit den Menschen selber, nunmehr in die elementarische Welt hineinversetzen. Diese elementarische Welt ist, wie ich schon angedeutet habe, durchaus durch das imaginative Erkennen eben wahrzunehmen. In dieser elementarischen Welt sind eine Anzahl von Wesen, die man Naturgeister nennen kann. Aber es sind zunächst auch alle Menschen darinnen, die unmittelbar physisch durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, aber nur kurze Zeit, wie wir wissen, nur einige Tage. Dann wird der elementarischen Welt übergeben dasjenige, was wir den ätherischen Leib nennen. Er wird wie ein zweiter Leichnam abgelegt. Aber man darf nicht glauben, daß dieser zweite Leib, der da abgelegt ist, sich nun in aller Eile vernichte in der elementarischen Welt. Das ist nicht der Fall, sondern er löst sich allerdings gewissermaßen auf in der elementarischen Welt, aber dieses Auflösen, dieses immer Dünner- und Dünnerwerden, das bedeutet nicht, daß er nicht wahrnehmbar wäre für Wesenheiten, die überhaupt imaginativ wahrnehmen können. So ist vor allen Dingen dieser elementarische Leib, dieser ätherische Leib, immer wahrnehmbar für denjenigen, der selber durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten ist. Der Mensch hat ihn abgelegt, diesen elementarischen Leib, und lebt nun weiter zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, aber er steht in einer fortwährenden Verbindung mit diesem abgelegten ätherischen Leib. Es ist nicht so wie mit dem physischen Leib, zu dem der Mensch seine Beziehung verliert, wenn er ihn abgelegt hat; beim elementarischen Leib ist das Gegenteil der Fall: der Mensch behält seine Beziehung, und diese Beziehung, die der Mensch hat zu seinem elementarischen, zu seinem ätherischen Leibe, die kann sich auch fortsetzen bis in die physische Welt herunter.
Wenn nun der Mensch hier in der physischen Welt seine Seele empfänglich gemacht hat dadurch, daß er sich elementarisches, imaginatives Wahrnehmen angeeignet hat, dann kann er auch bewußt eine Verbindung unterhalten in den Vorstellungen — die dann natürlich viel feiner auftreten als die gewöhnlichen Vorstellungen - mit den Toten. Das ist bewußtes Verbundensein mit den Toten. Was aber so bewußt wird, das ist unbewußt eigentlich immer vorhanden, wenn während des Lebens cine Beziehung da war zwischen dem, der hier zurückgeblieben ist in der physischen Welt, und demjenigen, der in die geistige Welt hinaufgestiegen ist. Nehmen wir an, wir haben eine geliebte Persönlichkeit durch den Tod verloren. Ob wir es nun wissen oder nicht — wissen kann es der, welcher die imaginative Wahrnehmung sich erschlossen hat —: der Tote wirkt, wie wenn er, ich möchte sagen seinen Willen schickte in den ätherischen Leib, den er abgelegt hat, als wie in einen Spiegel und der Spiegel wiederum die Strahlen bis zu uns sendet; der Tote wirkt auf dem Umweg durch den elementarischen, durch den ätherischen Leib auf die Lebenden zurück. Dies ist das Wirken, welches gewissermaßen mittelbar ist.
Wollen wir charakterisieren, worinnen sich dieses mittelbare Wirken ausdrückt, so kann ich sagen: Innerhalb unserer Vorstellungen, die wir so durch die Welt tragen. Zumeist weiß ja der Mensch, insbesondere in unserer heutigen materialistischen Zeit, nur von den Vorstellungen, die ihm die äußere physische Wirklichkeit abbildet. Aber unter den Vorstellungen, die wir so durch die Welt tragen, leben fortwährend solche, welche gewissermaßen fein sind, so daß sie nicht direkt wahrnehmbar sind. Man achtet eben einfach nicht darauf. Würde man gewohnt sein, intimer auf sein Seelenleben zu achten, und wenn man sich nicht fortwährend, ich möchte sagen das feinere Seelenleben übertönen ließe durch die groben Vorstellungen, die aus der physischen Umwelt einfließen, so würde man schon sehen, wie feinere Vorstellungen doch immer da sind. Und diese rühren her von denjenigen, die mit uns in Verbindung gestanden haben, die vor uns durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, und die insbesondere in der ersten Zeit, nachdem sie durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, uns ihre Taten, Handlungen, Gedanken auf die geschilderte Weise vermitteln können.
So tragen wir in unseren Vorstellungen selber noch eine Zeitlang dadurch, daß wir als ein Ätherwesen der elementarischen Welt angehören, das Wesen der Toten. Wenn man von einem Monismus spricht und will auf dem Boden der Wirklichkeit stehen, dann müßte man hauptsächlich von diesem Monismus sprechen, den ich jetzt angedeutet habe, von dem Monon, das gebildet wird aus dem Zusammenwirken der Lebenden und der Toten. In Wahrheit sind diejenigen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, gar nicht weg von uns. Sie sind uns viel näher, als man glaubt.
Nun entwickelt sich der Mensch immer mehr und mehr, wenn er die Zeit durchlebt zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, so daß er auch unmittelbar von sich aus auf die Welt hier herunterwirken kann. Und man nimmt wahr, als Einwirkung der hingegangenen Toten, von einer bestimmten Zeit an, daß gewissermaßen ihre Kraftstrahlen in unser Seelenleben eindringen. Aber diese Strahlen, dieses unmittelbare Wirken, das kann sich nicht in unser Vorstellungsleben, in unsere Gedanken direkt hineinleben, sondern das lebt sich mehr hinein in unsere Gewohnheiten, in die Art und Weise, wie wir sind, in die Art und Weise, wie wir hier es treiben; in das strömt hinein dasjenige, was aus den geistigen Welten herunterwirkt und was von denjenigen zu uns kommt, die vor uns durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind. Nur müssen wir uns klar sein, daß solches Zusammenwirken der Toten mit den Lebendigen an gar mancherlei Bedingungen gebunden ist. Der Tote ist in einer Umgebung, in welcher Wesen seinesgleichen sind, das heißt auch Seelenwesen, also alle die Wesenheiten, die den höheren Hierarchien angehören bis herunter zum Menschen, und er kann dadurch, daß sein abgelegter Ätherleib ihm der Vermittler ist, auch Wahrnehmungen haben von den Menschen, die hier gewissermaßen ihm verschleiert sind durch den physischen Leib; aber er durchdringt diesen Schleier mit Hilfe seines Ätherleibes. Derjenige, der durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, ist unterworfen den Bedingungen, unter denen man lebt in der seelischen, in der geistigen Welt, er muß sich ihnen fügen. Nun brauche ich nur auf eine Hauptsache hinzuweisen, so wird Ihnen verständlich sein, was eigentlich hiermit gemeint ist. Wir wissen ja: durch die Welt hindurch, in der wir leben, wirken in der mannigfaltigsten Weise luziferische und ahrimanische Kräfte. Würden diese luziferischen und ahrimanischen Kräfte nicht ihre Anziehungskraft auf uns ausüben, so würde dasjenige, was im Menschen zum Ausdruck kommt als unrichtige oder böse Handlungen, eben nicht da sein in der Welt. Das Luziferische und Ahrimanische muß auf den Menschen wirken, muß dem Menschen Gelegenheit geben, ihm zu folgen.
Wenn wir uns das so recht vergegenwärtigen, so werden wir erkennen, daß der Mensch noch etwas anderes ist als das Wesen, das wir oftmals in unserer Kritik aus ihm machen. Würden wir schon in der physischen Welt die Fähigkeit haben, immer zu sehen, wie das Luziferische und Ahrimanische im Menschen wirkt, wir würden ganz anders die Menschen beurteilen. Nicht, daß wir vielleicht oftmals weniger kritisch wären, denn wir müssen ja, wenn wir unser Urteil ablenken vom Menschen, zwar nicht den Menschen, aber Luzifer und Ahriman bekämpfen. Aber den Menschen gegenüber als Menschen würden wir unendlich toleranter sein. Diese Toleranz übt derjenige, der im seelischen Leben lebt in dem Zeitlaufe zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt sowohl gegen diejenigen Wesen, die mit ihm in der geistigen Welt sind, wie auch gegenüber denjenigen Wesen, welche hier als Menschen noch im physischen Leben verkörpert sind. Und es gehört einfach zum Wesen desjenigen, der durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, daß er sich diese Toleranz aneignet, daß er immer durchschaut: diesen oder jenen Anteil an einem Menschen haben Luzifer oder Ahriman. Er sagt nicht: Das ist ein schlechter Mensch, der bösen Lüsten folgt -, sondern er durchschaut: Luzifer hat an ihm soundso viel Anteil. Er sagt nicht: Das ist ein neidischer Mensch -, sondern er sagt: Ahriman hat soundso viel Anteil an ihm. - $o urteilt derjenige, der da oben lebt zwischen Tod und Geburt, da das zu seinem Wesen gehört, wie es zu unserem Wesen gehört, wenn wir naturgemäß gesund sind, gesunde Augen zu haben. Da das zum Wesen des Toten gehört, so tut es dem Toten ungeheuer weh, wenn er die Verbindung aufrechterhält, die er im physischen Leben angeknüpft hat, und bei uns hier auf eine andere Gesinnung stößt. Nehmen wir an, wir bringen einem Menschen, der auch in Verbindung war mit dem Toten, aus unseren persönlichen Antipathien heraus einen besonderen Haß entgegen, dann bedeutet dieser Haß einen ungeheuren Schmerz für den Toten, der mit uns in Verbindung stehen kann, und jederzeit muß dieser Haß wie ein Schwert, wie ein stacheliges Schwert, wie ein Speer, der gegen ihn gezückt wird, erst von dem Toten überwunden werden, wenn der Tote, wie er ja muß, weil er mit uns doch Verbindung hat, uns sich nähern will.
So hängt die Art und Weise, wie der Tote in uns hereinwirken will und wie er selbst erlebt bei diesem Hereinwirken, sehr, sehr ab von der Stimmung unserer Seele. Das Hereinwirken geschieht immer; aber es hängt in der Art des Hereinwirkens sehr, sehr viel von der Stimmung unserer Seele ab. In unsere gewöhnlichen, aus der Umwelt entlehnten Vorstellungen, in unsere Empfindungen, in unsere Gefühlsrichtungen, in unser Temperament, in unsere Gewohnheiten spielen diese unmittelbaren Einflüsse von den Toten herein, die ich geschildert habe. Da ist aber eine fortwährende Wechselbeziehung zwischen demjenigen, was da vorgeht in dem Reiche derer, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, und unseren eigenen Seelen.
Wenn Sie nun das alles ins Auge fassen, dann werden Sie sich sagen: In dem, was wir da als Seele in uns tragen, ist kompliziertes Wirken darinnen, und vieles gehört dazu, um zu überschauen, was alles Rätselhaftes in einer Menschenseele eigentlich pulsiert, was alles so pulsiert, daß die Menschenseele in ihrem Bewußtsein selber wenig von dem hat, was da pulsiert. Aber die Gesamtstimmung der Seele, das, was man kann oder nicht kann, hängt davon ab. Denn das alles ist wiederum im großen bestimmt durch unser Karma; daß wir mit gerade diesen oder jenen Menschen hier zusammengeführt werden, die dann wiederum in solcher Weise auf uns wirken, wie ich es beschrieben habe, das hängt natürlich mit unserem Karma im weiteren Sinne zusammen.
Indem wir uns dies vor die Seele führen, müssen wir uns nur klar darüber sein, daß unsere Zeit nach dem, was die Geisteswissenschaft den Menschen bringen soll, wirkliche reale Sehnsuchten hat, daß aber diese realen Sehnsuchten heute noch vielfach auf den irrtümlichsten Wegen befriedigt werden. Es gibt heute eine Anzahl von Menschen, die durchaus hinaus sind über das Vorurteil, das die Menschen in der Mitte, auch noch im letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts vielfach gehabt haben, daß man alles Seelische nur aus physischen, physiologischen Wirkungen erklären könne. Aber oftmals wirken halbe oder Viertelswahrheiten viel schlimmer als vollständige Irrtümer. Und eine solche halbe oder Viertelswahrheit liegt zugrunde dem, was man heute so vielfach bezeichnet als analytische Psychologie oder Psychoanalyse.
Die Menschen suchen, aber sie suchen tappend. Sie ahnen, daß auf dem Grunde der Seele mancherlei verborgen ist, aber sie können sich nicht entschließen, wirklich die Schritte in die geistige Welt hinein mitzumachen, um dasjenige zu finden, was auf dem Grunde der Seele verborgen ist. Was sagen heute die Psychoanalytiker? Sie sagen: Wenn ein Mensch uns so im Leben entgegentritt, dann ist sein Gesamtbefinden vielfach abhängig nicht nur von dem, was in seinem Bewußtsein ist, sondern von einer ganzen Reihe von Faktoren, die im Unbewußten sitzen, unter der Schwelle des Bewußstseins. Da kommt ein Mensch, fühlt gewissermaßen seine Stimmung herabgedrückt. Eine UnregelmäRigkeit in seinem ganzen nervösen Apparat tritt auf. Man muß, meint der Psychoanalytiker, dann nachsehen, was der Mensch vielleicht vor vielen Jahren erlebt hat, was er als Erlebtes nicht ganz verarbeitet hat, sondern hinuntergedrückt hat in das Unterbewußtsein. Aber weil es vergessen ist, ist es deshalb nicht nicht da. Das ahnt der Psychoanalytiker ganz gut, daß dasjenige, was aus dem Bewußtsein herausgerückt ist, deshalb nicht aus der Wirklichkeit herausgerückt ist; es ist eben da unten im Unterbewußtsein. Nun geht er davon aus: wenn man es herauflockt ins Bewußtsein durch eine Art Katechisierung, dann kommt man darauf, was da unten frißt und zehrt. Von dem ausgehend -— ich kann natürlich hier nicht die Psychoanalyse in allen ihren Verzweigungen erörtern, aber ich will einiges davon zeigen -, sucht nun der Psychoanalytiker vieles in den Untergründen der Seele. Der Mensch hat vor Jahren diese oder jene Lebensideale, diese oder jene Hoffnungen, diese oder jene Pläne gehabt. Er hat sie nicht ausgeführt, konnte sie nicht ausführen. Gewiß, aus seinem Bewußtsein ist das heraus, aus dem Grunde, weil er im jetzigen Leben lebt; aber aus der Wirklichkeit seiner Seele ist es nicht heraus. Da zehrt es, da frißt es, und sein Gesamtbefinden hängt ab von dem, was da unten in seinem Bewußtsein ist. Er hat irgendeine - und das ist dasjenige, was die Psychoanalytiker zuallermeist finden, weil sie darauf ausgehen — unglückliche Liebe gehabt. Das ist eine isolierte Provinz seines Seelenbewußitseins; er hat es zwar bekämpft, es ist nicht mehr in seinem Bewußtsein, aber es wirkt weiter. Insbesondere wirkt es dann weiter, so meinen die Psychoanalytiker, wenn bloß die Liebesgefühle da waren und das geliebte Wesen nicht, wenn er unbefriedigt geblieben ist. Dann sucht unten in der Tiefe des Seelenlebens der Psychoanalytiker außer den zerstörten Lenzeshoffnungen des Lebens, außer solchem, was ich eben angedeutet habe, den «animalischen Grundschlamm» des Lebens, dasjenige, was als «animalischer Grundschlamm» des Lebens fortwährend heraufwirkt, der Zusammenhang mit alldem, was der Mensch als animalisches, als tierisches Wesen hat und was in sein seelisches Leben hereinspielt. Und solche analytischen Psychologen, die weiter gehen, die sagen: Wenn man da nun immer weiter und weiter hinunterdringt, dann findet man endlich dasjenige, was in der Seele heraufspielt von Rassenzusammenhang, von Nationenzusammenhang und so weiter, was auf mehr oder weniger unbewußte Weise in die Seelen hereinspielt, endlich aber ganz unten das Dämonische, das Allerunbestimmteste, was unter dem «animalischen Grundschlamm» liegt. Leise deuten dann solche Menschen oftmals an, die heute besondere Anhänger der Psychoanalyse sind, daß in diesen dämonischen Tiefen unten diejenigen Impulse sind, welche zur Gnosis, zur Theosophie, zur Anthroposophie führen und dergleichen. Wenn das auch manchmal, ich möchte sagen etwas versteckt angedeutet wird, es wird schon angedeutet. Lesen Sie eines der letzten Hefte von «Wissen und Leben», dann werden Sie solche Andeutungen manchmal schon, wenn auch zwischen Zeilen versteckt, finden können.
Nun, ich sagte: halbe und Viertelswahrheiten wirken oftmals schlimmer als vollständige Irrtümer. In der analytischen Psychologie liegen halbe und Viertelswahrheiten, nämlich das Suchen in den unterbewußten Gründen der Seele. Aber vergleichen wir es mit dem, worauf wir heute hingewiesen haben, daß alles, was da auf dem Grunde der Seele lebt an Realitäten, hereinwirkt aus dem Reich der Toten, dann werden wir zu einer ganz anderen Art und Weise getrieben, dann werden wir nicht suchen nach dem «animalischen Grundschlamm» der Seele oder nach der verschlagenen Erotik für irgendeine Seelenstimmung, sondern wir werden oftmals die Ursache für eine Seelenstimmung zu suchen haben bei dem oder jenem Fortgegangenen, dem wir Schwierigkeiten machen durch unser eigenes Verhalten, und diese Schwierigkeiten drücken sich aus dadurch, daß sich ins Bewußtsein diese oder jene Unbefriedigtheiten heraufdrängen. Kurz, wir werden gut tun, wenn wir in einer pietätvollen, heiligen Weise den Zusammenhang uns ins Bewußtsein bringen, der nicht bloß besteht zwischen unserer Welt und einer abstrakten, pantheistisch-verschwommenen geistigen Welt, sondern der realen geistigen Welt, worinnen diejenigen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, reale Wesenheiten sind, die mit uns sind, so wie sie im Leben waren, nur daß dasjenige, was sie mit uns zusammen wirken, viel näher unserer Seele geht als das, was sie im Leben gewirkt haben, wo wir immer durch unseren und ihren Leib getrennt waren, der wie eine Barriere zwischen uns stand.
Dann kommt eine spätere Zeit, in der der Mensch völlig frei geworden ist von dem Astralleib, er das Astralische abgelegt hat, und einige Zeit danach kann der Mensch dann in einer noch viel intensiveren, weil innerlicheren Weise herunterwirken aus der geistigen Welt in die physische. Nach solchen instinktiv gewußten Wahrheiten richtete sich früher vielfach das äußere Leben ein, auch wenn man dasjenige, was im äußeren Leben entstand, oftmals aus gewöhnlichen äußerlichen Gründen herleitete. Aber diesem Äußerlichen liegt - oftmals wußte man dies nur durch Instinkt — ein Innerliches zugrunde. Ich habe gesagt, daß die Toten, nachdem sie durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, mit den Menschen, die sie hier zurückgelassen haben und denen sie insbesondere in Liebe verbunden sind, in einem unmittelbaren Zusammenhang so stehen, daß sie auf die Gewohnheiten wirken. Deshalb hat man in den Zeiten, in denen man solche Dinge noch recht instinktiv gefühlt hat, Rücksicht darauf genommen, daß der Sohn möglichst wenig aus dem Kreise seines elterlichen Zusammenhanges kam. Da war der Zugang leichter. Das Lernen desselben Geschäftes, das Darinnenstehen im selben Berufe, überhaupt das ganze real-konservative Festhalten an derselben Strömung, das war instinktiver Ausdruck für eine Erleichterung des Hereinwirkens der durch die Todespforte Gegangenen auf diejenigen, die sie hier zurückgelassen hatten. Waren die in ähnlichen Situationen wie die Verstorbenen selber, dann war es diesen Verstorbenen auch leichter, den Weg zu ihnen zu finden. Und man wird einmal solche feinen Impulse und Gründe in dem geschichtlichen Werden der Menschen schon verfolgen.
Wenn der Mensch nun seit längerer Zeit gestorben ist, hat er seinen astralischen Leib vollständig abgelegt. Dies geschieht erst nach Jahrzehnten, weil die Bewegung, die wir in der geistigen Welt absolvieren, eine viel langsamere ist als die Bewegung in der physischen; dreißig Jahre geistiger Welt entspricht ungefähr einem Jahr physischer Welt. Der Mensch hastet hier in der physischen Welt; in der geistigen Welt hat er immer eine Umdrehung gewissermaßen in einem viel größeren Kreise zu vollführen als hier in der physischen Welt. Kurz, ein Jahr physischer Welt entspricht dreißig Jahren geistiger Welt, in dreißig Jahren geistiger Welt erlebt man etwa dasselbe Weltstück wie in einem Jahr physischer Welt; man erlebt das Weltstück dadurch innerlicher, intensiver.
Überhaupt hängt das, was der Mensch hier durchlebt, in vieler Beziehung zusammen mit der großen Welt, mit dem Makrokosmos, so daß immer ausgedrückt werden kann dasjenige, was hier erlebt wird im Mikrokosmos, im Menschen, auch in den Verhältniszahlen zum Makrokosmos. Ich will zum Beispiel auf eines aufmerksam machen: Wenn wir die Zahl der menschlichen Lebenstage berechnen, so bekommen wir dieselbe Zahl heraus, welche die Sonne an Jahren braucht, um durch das ganze platonische Jahr, das Weltenjahr, zu gehen. Also der Mensch lebt eine Lebenszeit von so viel Tagen, als die Sonne Jahre braucht, um im ganzen Weltenkreise, von einem Tierkreiszeichen zum anderen vorzurücken. Wenn sie alle Tierkreiszeichen durchgemacht hat, hat sie also ungefähr 25 900 und eine Anzahl von Jahren gebraucht dazu. So viel Tage lebt der Mensch ungefähr - selbstverständlich ist das nicht bei allen gleich - in seinem Einzelleben zwischen Geburt und Tod.
Und ein anderer interessanter Zusammenhang ist der: daß der Mensch auch wiederum in einem Tage so viele Atemzüge hat, der Zahl nach, als er Tage lebt, und als die Sonne herumgeht an Jahren durch den ganzen Tierkreis durch. Sie sehen, die Welt ist wirklich in einem allertiefsten Sinne nach Maß und Zahl angeordnet. Und man sollte glauben, daß einfach diese feine Einordnung des Menschen in die Welt, dieses Entsprechen der Harmonien die groben Materialisten unserer Tage hinausführen sollte über ihre Weltanschauung, die nichts sehen will in dem Weltenall als einen Mechanismus. Allerdings ist es ein sonderbarer Mechanismus, der seine einzelnen Wesen in sich herein so gliedert, daß sie in wunderbaren, zahlenmäßig harmonisch geordneten Verhältnissen zu dem Ganzen stehen.
Und so ist es auch sehr merkwürdig, daß wir wirklich, wenn wir geistig die Welt betrachten, sagen können: Der Mensch rückt, indem er die Entwickelung zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt durchmacht, langsamer vor, um alles gründlicher zu machen. Und zwar rückt er so viel mal langsamer vor in der geistigen Welt, als der Saturn langsamer um die Sonne herum läuft als die Erde. Der Saturn läuft um so viel mal langsamer um die Sonne herum als die Erde, als der Mensch sich in der geistigen Welt langsamer bewegt als hier auf der physischen Erde. Aus diesem Grunde - nicht weil sie weniger gewußt haben als die heutigen Astronomen - haben die Alten den Saturn als den äußersten Planeten, der noch zum Sonnensystem gehört, gerechnet. Es ist auch astronomisch richtig; denn die anderen Planeten, die man heute dazurechnet, Uranus und Neptun, sind später zugeflogen und haben sich angegliedert und kreisen auch in einer ganz anderen Ordnung, sogar in einer anderen Rotation als diejenigen Planeten, die zum eigentlichen Sonnensystem gehören.
Nun, mindestens ein solches Geistesjahr, das heißt dreißig Erdenjahre müssen verflossen sein, bis die Seele, wenn sie ein normales Lebensalter von siebzig bis achtzig Jahren erreicht hat, nun nicht bloß in die Gewohnheiten, sondern für diejenigen, die hier zurückgeblieben sind oder die sich freiwillig anschließen, in die ganze Anschauungsweise, in das ganze geistige Leben eintreten kann. Aber in dieser Weise wirken auch in sehr umfänglicher Art die Toten in unser Leben herein. Es ist durchaus so, daß wir in uns tragen in bezug auf die ganze geistige Art, in der wir stecken, die Impulse der längst verstorbenen Menschen, die da hereinwirken. Dadurch wird überhaupt der Zusammenhang der Zukunft mit der Vergangenheit bewirkt, daß ein solcher Zusammenklang der Toten mit den Lebenden stattfindet. So wie die mittelbare Offenbarung der Toten durch den Ätherleib, den sie abgelegt haben, auf die imaginative Erkenntnis wirkt, so wirkt dasjenige, was in die Gewohnheiten eintritt in der geschilderten Weise, auf die inspirative Erkenntnis, und das, was ich zuletzt geschildert habe, was erst wirken kann, nachdem der Mensch ein Geistesjahr durchgemacht hat, das wirkt herein, wenn es bewußt werden soll, in die intuitive Erkenntnis. Aber es wirkt fortwährend. Man kann nur, ich möchte sagen am richtigsten den Sinn der Evolution treffen, wenn man solche Dinge bewußt ins Auge faßt.
Verzeihen Sie, wenn ich an dieser Stelle — Sie wissen, ich tue das nicht gern und deshalb sehr selten - etwas ganz Persönliches einschalte. Wer versucht, dasjenige, was ich jetzt schon vor Jahrzehnten zu schreiben begonnen habe, sich anzusehen, der wird sehen können, daß ich damals ganz abgesehen habe von dem, was ich als meine eigene Meinung vorzubringen hatte. Ich habe über Goethe nicht geschrieben meine Meinung, sondern ich habe versucht, die Gedanken auszudrükken, die aus Goethe kommen konnten; ich habe eine «Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung» geschrieben, nicht meine Erkenntnistheorie. — In solcher Weise kann man sich ganz bewußt anschließen an längst Verstorbene und kann aus ihrem Geiste heraus wirken. Das ist auch dasjenige, was einem gewissermaßen das Zerufikat gibt, auf die Lebenden wirken zu dürfen. Denn das ist ein schlechtes Zertifikat, auf das insbesondere in unserer Gegenwart die Leute pochen, daß ein jeder, kaum daß er eine Meinung gefaßt hat, diese sogleich wiederum an zahlreiche, möglichst viele Anhänger weitergeben will. Derjenige, der aus der geistigen Welt heraus die Bedingungen des Daseins kennt, die Grundgesetze des Daseins, der weiß, daß der Mensch eigentlich, so sonderbar, so paradox das ist, in die Tiefen der Seelen seiner Mitmenschen erst hineinwirken darf, wenn er gestorben ist, und da erst, nachdem er ein Geistesjahr, das heißt dreißig Jahre, durchgemacht hat. Ungeheures würde gewonnen, wenn jene Selbstlosigkeit in der Welt etwas weiter um sich griffe, daß die Späterlebenden sich anschließen würden an die Verstorbenen und versuchen würden, die Kontinuität in der Evolution wirklich in bewußter Weise aufrechtzuerhalten. Ob es eine reine Wahlverwandtschaft ist, ob es eine durch das Karma herbeigeführte sonstige Verwandtschaft ist: die Anlehnung an diejenigen, die sich da bemühen, aus der geistigen Welt die Strahlen ihres Wirkens zu senden, ist, wenn wir sie bewußt leben, etwas ungeheuer Bedeutungsvolles.
Ich habe versucht, in Ihnen ein Empfinden hervorzurufen von der Art des Zusammenwirkens zwischen den sogenannten Toten und den sogenannten Lebenden. Wir müssen uns nur klar sein darüber, wie die Bedingungen ganz andere sind in der geistigen Welt als hier. Einen guten Teil dieser Bedingungen und der Bedingungen des Erlebens in der geistigen Welt finden Sie in dem Vortragszyklus «Über das Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt», den ich vor einigen Jahren in Wien gehalten habe. Allein man kann von diesen Dingen immer nur einiges herausgreifen, das nach der einen oder nach der anderen Seite wichtig ist. Da muß gesagt werden, daß etwas Ähnliches und wiederum sehr Unähnliches gegenüber unserem physischen Leben vorhanden ist in der geistigen Welt. Bevor wir in vollem Sinne hier in die physische Welt eintreten, machen wir ja die Embryonalzeit durch, in der die Bedingungen des Lebens ganz andere sind als von dem Momente an, wo wir voll in die physische Welt als Atmer der äußeren Luft eingetreten sind. In einem gewissen Sinne und Stile ist die Zeit, die wir im ersten Geistesjahr durchmachen - was so oftmals die Kamalokazeit genannt worden ist -, schon ähnlich der Embryonalzeit. Denn wie der Mensch gewissermaßen ein anderes menschliches Wesen zu Hilfe nimmt, von dem er sich durch zehn Mondenmonate hereintragen läßt in die physische Welt, so läßt er sich durch all das, was ihn zusammenhält an Wünschen und Begierden mit der physischen Welt, die er langsam abstreift, in die geistige Welt hineintragen. Und es ist das Bewußtsein in diesem ersten Geistesjahr — dreißig Jahre nach dem Tode - noch etwas ähnlich dem Bewußtsein hier in der physischen Welt, wenn auch die Fertigkeiten und dergleichen, die nur in der physischen Welt angeeignet werden können, nur mittelbar durch den ätherischen Leib vermittelt sein können. Dann aber treten andere Bedingungen des Bewußtseins ein; ein viel höheres Bewußtsein als dasjenige, das wir hier im physischen Leibe haben können, tritt dann ein. Sie können, wenn Sie sich an manches erinnern, was in dem vorhin genannten Zyklus gesagt worden ist, sehen, wie dieses Bewußtsein in der geistigen Welt einen anderen Charakter hat. Sie müssen nur ins Auge fassen, wie sehr das Bewußtsein abhängig ist von dem, was in dieses Bewußtsein hereinkommen kann. Und wenn wir hier in der physischen Welt als gewöhnliche Menschen herumgehen, so kommen die Erscheinungen des mineralischen, des pflanzlichen, des tierischen Reiches und des physischen Menschenreiches in uns herein mit anderen Seelenerlebnissen, Kulturerlebnissen und so weiter. Nach dem Tode nehmen wir die mineralische Welt als solche ja gar nicht mehr wahr, von der pflanzlichen Welt nur das allgemeine Leben. Lesen Sie nach in meiner «Theosophie», wie die Dinge sind im Aufstiege in der sogenannten Geisteswelt.
Das alles ist auch verknüpft mit einem ganz andersartigen Erleben in der geistigen Welt. Nun, für all das gibt es eigentlich keine Worte, wie Sie begreifen können. Unsere Sprache ist im Grunde genommen für die physische Welt geschaffen; man hat also immer Schwierigkeiten, diese andersartigen Verhältnisse richtig zu schildern. Daher kann man so leicht mißverstanden werden. Vor allen Dingen kann man sich auch nur vergleichsweise ausdrücken. Hier in der physischen Welt stehen Sie, ich möchte sagen in einem Punkte des ganzen Weltgebäudes; Sie blicken mit Ihren Augen hinaus nach allen Richtungen im Umkreise. In der geistigen Welt ist es nicht so. Da sind Sie im Umkreise und blicken vom Umkreis herein gewissermaßen nach dem Innenraum einer Hohlkugel, nur daß dies vergleichsweise ist, denn es ist keine Hohlkugel, weil die Zeit eine viel größere Bedeutung hat als der Raum. Also aus dem Umkreis herein schauen Sie alles an; da sind ganz andere Bedingungen des Vorstellens, ganz andere Bedingungen des Anschauens! Und im Inneren des Vorstellens selber sind wiederum ganz andere Bedingungen. Nehmen wir einmal an, der Mensch ist mit sechzig, siebzig, achtzig Jahren oder auch früher durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen: Nun fühlt er deutlich ein inneres Erlebnis. Wenn Sie hier im physischen Leben Hunger oder einen Schmerz fühlen da oder dort an einer Stelle des Leibes, sagen Sie nicht: der Hunger ist da oder dort, sondern der Hunger ist in Ihnen. $o fühlen Sie, indem Sie aus dem ganzen Umkreis hereinschauen, an irgendeiner Stelle etwas, Sie wissen, da ist etwas, das will etwas mit Ihnen zu tun haben. Jetzt müssen Sie die Anstrengung beginnen, das, was sich da manifestiert, was sich geoffenbart hat, wegzuschaffen! Und erst wenn Sie es weggeschafft haben, tritt das Wahre auf, das sich hier manifestieren will. Also wir können sagen: Wir haben als geistige Wesen in uns eine Vorstellung; aber diese Vorstellung sagt uns noch gar nichts, sondern sie muß erst weggeschafft werden, und erst wenn wir sie weggeschafft haben, finden wir in uns — ja, so paradox es klingt, es ist so - einen Engel oder Erzengel, der sich uns offenbart! Wir müssen uns die Anwesenheit erst erringen, indem sich uns zunächst diese Gegenwart in der Vorstellung ankündigt. So ist das Begreifen der geistigen Welt mit entschiedener Kraftanstrengung, mit entschiedener Arbeit verbunden. Nur dann können sich Seelen, die hier im physischen Leibe zurückgeblieben sind, mehr oder weniger, ohne daß sie diese Kraftanstrengung durchmachen, hinaufmanifestieren zu dem Toten, wenn sie wirklich die Gedanken hier an den Toten entfalten oder dem Toten irgend etwas, durch Vorlesen oder dergleichen, vorführen.
Ich will Ihnen durch das, was ich gesagt habe, eben nur begreiflich machen, wie ganz anders die Bedingungen des Wahrnehmens, des Lebens, des Erfahrens in der geistigen Welt sind. Und wenn das so ist, dann werden Sie es auch nicht verwunderlich finden, daß gewissermaßen dreißig Jahre Geistzeit ein Jahr physische Zeit sind; denn im Geistigen stehen wir im Umkreise und schauen auf den Mittelpunkt herein. Und es ist sehr wichtig, das festzuhalten.
Wie schwierig es ist, über gewisse geistige Dinge zu sprechen, das sehen Sie daraus, daß manches, weil man es in physische Vorstellungen kleiden muß, sich geradezu in der entgegengesetzten Weise ausnimmt, und man daher sehr leicht Mißverständnissen ausgesetzt ist. Nicht wahr, man sagt, weil man die Sache zunächst von der physischen Welt ansieht, mit Recht: Der Mensch macht wiederholte Erdenleben durch. - Das ist richtig. Aber warum macht er wiederholte Erdenleben durch? Indem er hier zwischen Geburt und Tod lebt, lebt er ein gewisses Stück Zeit durch. Dann geht er durch die Pforte des Todes in die geistige Welt ein, macht einen Umkreis durch, kommt aber in dem Umkreis wiederum auf dasselbe Stück Zeit zurück. Und immer wiederum, wenn wir ein Leben durchleben, sind wir eigentlich an derselben Weltstelle. Das ist sehr interessant! Im Reiche des Geistes herrscht nicht eigentlich die Zeit, sondern die Dauer. Wir kommen wiederum an dieselbe Stelle zurück. Wir wiederholen tatsächlich in denselben Verhältnissen mit dem, was wir mittlerweile durchgemacht haben, an derselben Stelle der Welt das Leben. Wir gehen immer wiederum zum Ausgangspunkt zurück. Wir vollführen wirkliche Umkreise. Sie werden sagen: das ist schwer vorstellbar. Es ist auch schwer vorstellbar, und ich will unter dem mancherlei leichter Vorstellbaren, was ich heute auch vorgebracht habe, in Ihrem Seelenleben solch eine Sache auch einmal zum Gegenstand Ihrer Meditation machen. Man muß über solche Dinge manchmal lange, lange nachmeditieren, wenn man sie in ihrer vollen Tragweite verstehen will.
Als vorzügliche Aufgabe habe ich mir eben heute vorgenommen, ein wenig zu schildern die Art und Weise, wie herunterwirken diejenigen Seelen, die durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, in die Welt herein, in der die Menschen zurückgeblieben sind, mit denen sie im Zusammenhang gestanden innerhalb ihres physischen Leibes. Und von einer anderen Seite her haben Sie also wieder gesehen, daß die Welt wirklich ein zusammengehöriges Ganzes ist, daß die Toten nur für das äußere physische Anschauen in Wahrheit tot sind. Denn in dem Augenblick, da sie durch die Pforte des Todes gehen, haben sie einen anderen Zugang zu unserer Seele, und das ist der ganze Unterschied. Sie wirken nun von innen in uns herein, während sie als Lebende von außen in uns hereingewirkt haben. Solche Dinge sollten immer mehr und mehr nicht nur äußere Theorien sein, sondern sich ins "Bewußtsein der Menschen einleben, sollten nicht bloß werden Weltvorstellungen, sondern Weltanschauung, ja, ich möchte sagen Weltempfindung. Dann wird Geisteswissenschaft diejenigen Früchte tragen, die sie tragen soll, die sie aber auch tragen kann.
Zum Schluß noch die eine Bemerkung. Bedenken Sie einmal, was es heißt, daß der Mensch das Gefühl in sich tragen muß, nämlich in einer bestimmten Zeit zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, daß er die Hierarchien als seine innere Erfahrung in sich trägt! Das ist so! Das könnte den Menschen in den furchtbarsten Hochmut hineinführen, der als ein dunkles Gefühl in seiner Seele leben könnte, wenn er wiedergeboren wird. In alten Zeiten war dadurch eine Barriere gegen diesen Hochmut geschaffen, daß die Menschen, indem sie durch die Pforte des Todes gingen und in die geistige Welt hineinkamen, gewissermaßen wußten: sie schauen nicht selber an, sondern in ihnen leben die höchsten Wesen der höchsten Hierarchien, die ihnen das Schauen vermitteln. Aber diesen Zusammenhang hat der Mensch in der geistigen Welt ebenso verloren, wie er in der physischen Welt hier verloren hat das alte atavistische Hellsehen. Dafür aber muß eintreten dasjenige, was Paulus ausgesprochen hat mit den Worten: «Nicht ich, sondern der Christus in mir», und was eine wirkliche Geistesempfindung erlangt durch das Wort: «Aus dem Gotte sind wir geboren; in den Christus hinein sterben wir.» Wir werden, wenn wir das in aller Tiefe lernen durch die Empfindung, die uns aus der Geisteswissenschaft kommen kann, daß der Christus für die Erde ist, wir werden in der richtigen Weise uns hineinstellen in dieses Anschauen aus dem Umkreise. Und wenn wir mit den richtigen Gefühlen des «In Christo morimur» die Pforte des Todes durchleben, dann finden wir, vom Umkreis schauend, unter denjenigen Wesenheiten, die wir anschauen, die den höheren Hierarchien angehören, die auch Elementarwesen sind, aber auch solche Wesenheiten, die hier verkörperte Menschenseelen sind oder schon entkörperte Menschenseelen sind, wir finden unter all diesen auch unser eigenes Ich-Wesen. Und wir schauen das Verhältnis dieses unseres Ich-Wesens zu den anderen Wesenheiten, die ich eben gekennzeichnet habe, von außen an. Diese Empfindungen haben zu können, nachdem man durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen ist, ist etwas ungeheuer Wichtiges. Denn nur dann vermögen wir uns richtig wiederum in die Verkörperung des Fleisches hineinzufinden, wenn wir diese Empfindungen zu unserem eigenen Ich haben können. Die können wir aber nur haben, wenn wir sie verdanken können dem richtigen Durchgehen durch die Todespforte mit dem Gefühle: «In den Christus hinein sind wir gestorben.» Dieses Verbundensein mit dem Christus gibt uns die Möglichkeit, auch gewissermaßen mit dem Seelenauge des Christus unser Verhältnis in der geistigen Welt zu schauen, uns selbst als ein Ich-Wesen unter anderen Geistwesen zu schauen.
Das möchte ich immer erreichen, daß wir nicht nur aus solchen Betrachtungen, wie den heute angestellten, wiederum gewissermaßen ein Wissen mitnehmen, sondern daß dieses Wissen sich umwandelt in Empfinden, in Fühlen. Und wenn uns alle Vorstellungen, die heute aufgestellt worden sind, nur wie 'Träume vorübergegangen wären, wenn uns nur ein Grundgefühl bleibt, das ich zusammenzufassen versuchte in diese Schlußworte, wie das «In Christo sterben», uns richtig hineinzustellen vermag in die geistige Welt, so daß wir es durch die physische Welt in der nächsten Erdeninkarnation zu tragen vermögen, wenn dieses Gefühl uns bleibt, dann tragen wir das Richtige von einer solchen Betrachtung ins Weiterleben hinaus.
In solchen Gefühlen wollen wir denn auch zusammensein, indem wir sie als die intensivsten verbindenden Gefühle betrachten, und das wird die rechte unsichtbare Gemeinde der Anthroposophie-Beflissenen nach und nach in der Welt geben: dieses Zusammenhalten in solchen Empfindungen und Gefühlen, die aus den Vorstellungen der Geisteswissenschaft heraus geboren sind. Die Welt braucht, möchte ich sagen, diese unsichtbare Gemeinde von Seelen, welche die Kräfte eines solchen Zusammenhaltes, wie er charakterisiert worden ist, in die Welt hineinzutragen vermögen. In diesem Sinne wollen wir in der Zukunft auch dann zusammensein geistig, wenn wir physisch für eine Zeit nicht zusammen sind. Und so soll es immer unter uns sein, daß die geistige Zusammengehörigkeit unsere physische immerdar trägt.
The Connection Between Humans and the Spiritual World
From yesterday's public lecture, you were able to see how the spiritual world in which we find ourselves between death and a new birth is intertwined with the physical world, just as, in essence, the spiritual world and the physical world are intertwined in our so-called physical life between birth and death. We give ourselves, as it were, the direction for the way in which we are born with these or those characteristics by being connected between death and a new birth with what happens here in the physical world, and thus also with the stream of heredity that ultimately leads to our birth.
We can now look at the whole development, which we considered yesterday from a more external point of view, in a somewhat more internal way, by trying to bring the connection between the human being and the spiritual world before our soul from a certain point of view. Between birth and death, we live here in the physical world. We know this physical world through our sensory perceptions. It is a triviality, hardly worth mentioning: if we did not have our sense organs, we would know nothing of our connection with the physical world. But everything that our sense organs convey to us about our connection with the physical world naturally separates from us when we pass through the gate of death, so that we can say that It is our task between birth and death to become acquainted with the physical world. We are incorporated into this physical body in order to become acquainted with the physical world through it.
However, we are not only members of the physical world, but we are just as much members of spiritual worlds. The next spiritual world, which in a sense borders on our physical world, is the one we have become accustomed to calling—whether the expression is appropriate or not is of little importance—the etheric world, or the elemental world. This elemental world is initially unknown to human beings as they live in the physical world. It is the first supersensible world. But because it is the first supersensible world, it is no less significant for human beings than the physical world, the sensory world. As soon as human beings become aware of this elemental world, which happens when they are able to perceive imaginatively, it becomes clear to them that this elemental world is just as richly populated by beings as the physical world. Human beings themselves, insofar as they have an etheric body, belong to this elemental world. As etheric beings, they are citizens of this elemental world. However, the conditions in this elemental world are somewhat different from those in the physical world.
First, I would like to make a remark about the fact that perception in the elemental world can only begin when human beings are able to free themselves completely from what makes them earthly human beings. This freeing of oneself from what makes human beings earthly human beings is generally not difficult. However, it is more difficult for people today than it was for people in ancient times. We all know about the atavistic clairvoyance of ancient times. This consisted largely in the fact that human beings were able to free themselves from what makes them earthly human beings. As earthly human beings, we are only to a very small extent made up of solid matter. We consist largely of fluid. The moment we can emancipate ourselves from what is solid within us, when we feel only our fluid nature, the emergence of the imaginative can begin. Only our existence in the solid world prevents us from knowing what surrounds us as an elementary world through imaginative perception. This imaginative perception will return just as it was lost to humanity. However, the lost imaginative clairvoyance was a kind of unconscious, dreamlike state. What will gradually form in our fifth post-Atlantean epoch will be fully conscious imaginative vision. But this will become integrated into human beings through a completely natural process of development.
Returning to what I said earlier, that our relationship to the elemental world is different from our relationship to the ordinary physical world, I would first like to give an example that will confirm this: In the physical world, we form our relationships to this or that being out of free human will, at least apparently at first; we form our friendships and other relationships to the beings around us. In the elemental world, where we exist through our etheric body, this is not immediately the case in the same way, but rather we stand more or less in a closer relationship to certain other elemental beings throughout our entire life. Thus, we can truly compare our relationship as independent elemental beings — which we are through our etheric body — to a number of other elemental beings that actually accompany us throughout our entire life with the relationship of the sun to the orbiting planets. Our own etheric body is a kind of solar elemental being, and it is accompanied by a number of elemental beings that belong to it as the planets belong to the sun, so that these elemental beings together with it form a kind of sevenfold being, just as the planets form a kind of sevenfold being with the sun according to older views.
Throughout our entire physical life, between birth and death, there is a constant interplay between these elemental companions and ourselves. Not only does our well-being depend on the way our elemental or etheric body relates to its satellites, but our relationship to the outside world, to certain external beings, especially to other people, is also regulated by the interrelationships between these satellites and our own etheric body. In the future, there will be a kind of medicine that will take into account what I have just said. There will be a medical-physiological approach that will determine how one or the other of the satellites relates to the etheric body, and on this basis it will be possible to assess whether a person is sick or healthy. For what we actually call illness today is in truth only the outer physical image of what is really there. In reality, there is some irregularity in what I have compared to a planetary system, and illness is only a reflection of this irregularity.
One could now say: Those who know such things should establish a doctrine of disease today: Hic Rhodus, hic salta! — one could say — and occultism should show its art here. Certainly, it will do so the moment its legs are freed, for one cannot dance with one's legs tied; and the tying of the legs consists precisely in the existence of the present materialism that has taken hold of the entire medical science. This cannot be improved by one person or another doing this or that, but only by the collective will of a large number of people to truly enforce a medical system that allows spiritual principles to penetrate medicine.
In this connection, it is particularly important to realize that Paul did not utter a tremendously significant word in vain, but one that is never really understood because people always believe they are Christians when in reality they are not at all. Paul explained that sin came into the world through the law, that is, that sin is there because of the law. In a broader sense, that which disturbs order is there because of the law. Even today, one can only hint at these things, because in general, our materialistic age always cries out for laws whenever something is not right, without knowing that it is precisely that which is not right that comes from the laws that are made. But, as I said, this can only be hinted at, because a great deal is still needed to understand these things. I said: People only believe that they are Christians. For something like this in Paul is read by countless people, but little understood.
So, because we are ethereal beings, we stand in an elemental world, and a certain system is more closely related to ourselves. This system, that is, those elementary beings, etheric beings, which accompany us, are also those who, through their powers, because they are arranged in a certain way, when we pass through the gate of death, first pull our etheric body out of our physical body and then transfer it, and thus the human being himself, into the elementary world. This elemental world, as I have already indicated, can be perceived through imaginative cognition. In this elemental world there are a number of beings that can be called nature spirits. But at first there are also all the human beings who have passed physically through the gate of death, but only for a short time, as we know, only a few days. Then what we call the etheric body is handed over to the elemental world. It is laid down like a second corpse. But one must not believe that this second body, which has been laid aside, is now hastily destroyed in the elemental world. That is not the case. Rather, it dissolves, so to speak, in the elemental world, but this dissolution, this becoming thinner and thinner, does not mean that it is not perceptible to beings who are capable of imaginative perception. Above all, this elemental body, this etheric body, is always perceptible to those who have themselves passed through the gate of death. Man has laid down this elemental body and now lives on between death and a new birth, but he remains in constant connection with this discarded etheric body. It is not like the physical body, with which the human being loses all connection when he has laid it down; with the elemental body, the opposite is true: the human being retains his connection, and this connection that the human being has with his elemental, etheric body can also continue down into the physical world.
When a person here in the physical world has made their soul receptive by acquiring elementary, imaginative perception, they can also consciously maintain a connection in their ideas — which are then naturally much finer than ordinary ideas — with the dead. This is conscious connection with the dead. But what becomes conscious in this way is actually always present unconsciously if there was a relationship during life between the one who remained here in the physical world and the one who ascended into the spiritual world. Let us assume that we have lost a beloved person through death. Whether we know it or not — those who have developed imaginative perception can know it — the dead person acts as if they were sending their will into the etheric body they have left behind, as if into a mirror, and the mirror in turn sends the rays back to us; the dead person acts back on the living through the elemental and etheric bodies. This is the influence that is, in a sense, indirect.
If we want to characterize how this indirect influence is expressed, I can say: within our ideas, which we carry with us through the world. For the most part, human beings, especially in our materialistic age, are only aware of the ideas that are reflected in the external physical reality. But among the ideas that we carry through the world in this way, there are constantly those that are, so to speak, subtle, so that they are not directly perceptible. We simply do not pay attention to them. If we were accustomed to paying closer attention to our soul life, and if we did not allow the coarser ideas flowing in from the physical environment to drown out the finer soul life, we would see how finer ideas are always there. And these come from those who have been in contact with us, who have passed through the gate of death before us, and who, especially in the first period after passing through the gate of death, can convey their deeds, actions, and thoughts to us in the manner described.
Thus, for a time, we ourselves carry within our ideas the essence of the dead, because we belong to the elemental world as etheric beings. When one speaks of monism and wants to stand on the ground of reality, one must speak mainly of the monism I have just indicated, of the monon that is formed from the interaction of the living and the dead. In truth, those who have passed through the gate of death are not at all far from us. They are much closer to us than we believe.
Now, as human beings live through the time between death and a new birth, they develop more and more, so that they can also directly influence the world here from themselves. And from a certain point in time, we perceive the influence of the departed dead, as if their rays of energy were penetrating our soul life. But these rays, this direct influence, cannot enter directly into our imagination, into our thoughts, but rather live themselves into our habits, into the way we are, into the way we conduct ourselves here; into this flows what works down from the spiritual worlds and what comes to us from those who have passed through the gate of death before us. We must only be clear that such interaction between the dead and the living is bound to many different conditions. The dead person is in an environment where there are beings like themselves, that is, soul beings, all the entities belonging to the higher hierarchies down to the human being, and through their discarded etheric body, which acts as a mediator, they can also have perceptions of the people who are, in a sense, veiled from them by the physical body; but he penetrates this veil with the help of his etheric body. Those who have passed through the gate of death are subject to the conditions under which one lives in the soul world and the spirit world, and they must submit to them. Now I need only point out one main thing, and you will understand what is actually meant here. We know that Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces are at work in the world in which we live in the most diverse ways. If these Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces did not exert their attraction on us, then what is expressed in human beings as wrong or evil actions would not exist in the world. The Luciferic and Ahrimanic must have an effect on human beings; they must give human beings the opportunity to follow them.
If we really think about this, we will realize that human beings are something other than the beings we often make them out to be in our criticism. If we had the ability in the physical world to always see how the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces work in human beings, we would judge people very differently. Not that we would perhaps be less critical, for when we divert our judgment from human beings, we must fight not human beings, but Lucifer and Ahriman. But we would be infinitely more tolerant toward human beings as human beings. Those who live in the soul life between death and a new birth practice this tolerance both toward the beings who are with them in the spiritual world and toward those beings who are still embodied here as human beings in physical life. And it is simply part of the nature of those who have passed through the gate of death that they acquire this tolerance, that they always see through: this or that part of a human being belongs to Lucifer or Ahriman. They do not say: This is a bad person who follows evil desires — but they see through: Lucifer has this much share in him. He does not say, “That is an envious person,” but rather, “Ahriman has such and such a share in him.” This is how those who live up there between death and birth judge, because it belongs to their nature, just as it belongs to our nature to have healthy eyes when we are naturally healthy. Since this belongs to the nature of the dead, it causes the dead immense pain when they maintain the connection they established in physical life and encounter a different attitude here. Let us suppose that, out of personal antipathy, we harbor a particular hatred toward a person who was also connected with the dead. then this hatred causes immense pain to the deceased, who may be connected to us, and this hatred must always be overcome by the deceased like a sword, like a barbed sword, like a spear drawn against him, when the deceased, as he must, because he is connected to us, wants to approach us.
Thus, the way in which the dead want to influence us and how they themselves experience this influence depends very much on the mood of our soul. The influence always occurs, but the nature of the influence depends very much on the mood of our soul. These immediate influences from the dead, which I have described, play into our ordinary ideas borrowed from the environment, into our sensations, into our emotional tendencies, into our temperament, into our habits. But there is a constant interrelationship between what is happening in the realm of those who have passed through the gate of death and our own souls.
If you now consider all this, you will say to yourself: There is a complicated workings within what we carry within us as soul, and much is needed to understand all that pulsates mysteriously in a human soul, all that pulsates in such a way that the human soul itself has little awareness of what is pulsating there. But the overall mood of the soul, what one can or cannot do, depends on it. For all this is in turn largely determined by our karma; the fact that we are brought together here with precisely these or those people, who then in turn affect us in the way I have described, is of course connected with our karma in the broader sense.
By keeping this in mind, we must be clear that our time, according to what spiritual science is supposed to bring to humanity, has real, genuine longings, but that these real longings are still being satisfied in many ways that are most mistaken. There are a number of people today who have completely overcome the prejudice that was widespread among people in the middle, and even in the last third of the 19th century, that everything spiritual can be explained solely by physical, physiological effects. But half-truths or quarter-truths often have a much worse effect than complete errors. And such half-truths or quarter-truths underlie what is so often referred to today as analytical psychology or psychoanalysis.
People search, but they search blindly. They sense that something is hidden at the bottom of their souls, but they cannot bring themselves to take the steps into the spiritual world to find what is hidden there. What do psychoanalysts say today? They say: When a person comes to us in life, their overall state of being depends not only on what is in their consciousness, but on a whole series of factors that lie in the unconscious, below the threshold of consciousness. A person comes along and feels, in a sense, depressed. An irregularity occurs in their entire nervous system. The psychoanalyst believes that one must then look for what the person may have experienced many years ago, what they have not fully processed as an experience, but have suppressed into the subconscious. But just because it has been forgotten does not mean it is not there. The psychoanalyst suspects that what has been removed from consciousness has not been removed from reality; it is just down there in the subconscious. He then assumes that if you lure it up into consciousness through a kind of catechism, you will discover what is eating and consuming you down there. Starting from this point—I cannot, of course, discuss psychoanalysis in all its ramifications here, but I will show some aspects of it—the psychoanalyst now searches for many things in the depths of the soul. Years ago, the person had these or those ideals in life, these or those hopes, these or those plans. He did not carry them out, could not carry them out. Certainly, they are out of his consciousness, for the reason that he lives in his present life; but they are not out of the reality of his soul. There they feed, there they eat, and his entire well-being depends on what is down there in his consciousness. He has had some kind of unhappy love affair—and this is what psychoanalysts find most often, because they look for it. This is an isolated province of his soul consciousness; he has fought against it, it is no longer in his consciousness, but it continues to have an effect. According to psychoanalysts, it continues to have an effect especially when only the feelings of love were there and the beloved was not, when he remained unsatisfied. Then, deep down in the soul life, the psychoanalyst searches, apart from the destroyed hopes of youth, apart from what I have just indicated, for the “animalistic sludge” of life, that which continually works up as the “animalistic sludge” of life, the connection with everything that man has as an animalistic, as an animal being, and which plays into his soul life. And such analytical psychologists who go further say: If one penetrates further and further down, one finally finds what arises in the soul from racial connections, from national connections, and so on, what plays into the soul in a more or less unconscious way, but finally, at the very bottom, the demonic, the most indeterminate thing that lies beneath the “animalistic sludge.” Such people, who today are particularly fond of psychoanalysis, often quietly suggest that in these demonic depths below there are impulses that lead to gnosis, theosophy, anthroposophy, and the like. Even if this is sometimes hinted at in a somewhat hidden way, it is still hinted at. Read one of the latest issues of “Wissen und Leben” (Knowledge and Life), and you will sometimes find such hints, albeit hidden between the lines.
Now, I said that half-truths and quarter-truths often have a worse effect than complete errors. In analytical psychology, half-truths and quarter-truths lie in the search for the subconscious reasons of the soul. But let us compare this with what we have pointed out today, that everything that lives at the bottom of the soul in reality has an effect from the realm of the dead, then we are driven to a completely different way of thinking, then we will not search for the “animalistic sludge” of the soul or for the devious eroticism behind some mood of the soul, but we will often have to look for the cause of a mood of the soul in this or that departed person whom we are making difficulties for through our own behavior, and these difficulties express themselves in the fact that this or that dissatisfaction pushes its way into consciousness. In short, we would do well to bring to our consciousness in a reverent, sacred way the connection that exists not only between our world and an abstract, pantheistic, vague spiritual world, but also the real spiritual world in which those who have passed through the gate of death are real beings who are with us as they were in life, only that what they interact with us is much closer to our soul than what they did in life, when we were always separated by our bodies, which stood like a barrier between us.
Then comes a later time when man has become completely free from the astral body, has cast off the astral, and some time after that, man can then work down from the spiritual world into the physical in an even more intense way because it is more internal. In the past, external life was often organized according to such instinctively known truths, even if what arose in external life was often derived from ordinary external reasons. But underlying this external aspect — often known only through instinct — is an inner aspect. I have said that after passing through the gate of death, the dead stand in such a direct connection with the people they have left behind here, and to whom they are especially attached in love, that they influence their habits. Therefore, in times when such things were still felt quite instinctively, care was taken to ensure that the son left the circle of his parental connection as little as possible. Access was easier there. Learning the same trade, working in the same profession, and in general the whole real-conservative adherence to the same current were instinctive expressions of a facilitation of the influence of those who had passed through the gates of death on those they had left behind here. If they were in similar situations to the deceased themselves, it was also easier for the deceased to find their way to them. And one will one day be able to trace such subtle impulses and reasons in the historical development of human beings.
When a person has been dead for a long time, they have completely shed their astral body. This only happens after decades, because the movement we undergo in the spiritual world is much slower than the movement in the physical world; thirty years in the spiritual world correspond to approximately one year in the physical world. Human beings rush about here in the physical world; in the spiritual world, they always have to complete a revolution, so to speak, in a much larger circle than here in the physical world. In short, one year in the physical world corresponds to thirty years in the spiritual world; in thirty years in the spiritual world, one experiences roughly the same part of the world as in one year in the physical world; one experiences this part of the world more inwardly, more intensely.
In general, what human beings experience here is connected in many ways with the greater world, with the macrocosm, so that what is experienced here in the microcosm, in human beings, can always be expressed in terms of its relationship to the macrocosm. I would like to draw attention to one example: if we calculate the number of days in a human life, we arrive at the same number that the sun needs to pass through the entire Platonic year, the world year. Thus, human beings live a lifetime of as many days as the sun needs to advance through the entire circle of the world, from one sign of the zodiac to the next. When it has passed through all the signs of the zodiac, it has taken approximately 25,900 years. This is approximately how many days a human being lives – of course, this is not the same for everyone – in their individual life between birth and death.
And another interesting connection is that humans also take as many breaths in a day as the number of days they live and as the sun travels through the entire zodiac in years. You see, the world is truly organized according to measure and number in the deepest sense. And one would think that this fine classification of humans in the world, this correspondence of harmonies, would lead the crude materialists of our time beyond their worldview, which sees nothing in the universe but a mechanism. Admittedly, it is a strange mechanism that structures its individual beings in such a way that they stand in wonderful, numerically harmonious relationships to the whole.
And so it is also very remarkable that when we look at the world spiritually, we can truly say: As human beings go through the development between death and a new birth, they move forward more slowly in order to make everything more thorough. In fact, they move forward in the spiritual world as many times slower than Saturn moves around the Sun slower than the Earth. Saturn revolves around the sun as many times slower than the earth does, as human beings move more slowly in the spiritual world than here on the physical earth. For this reason — not because they knew less than today's astronomers — the ancients considered Saturn to be the outermost planet still belonging to the solar system. This is also astronomically correct, because the other planets that are now included, Uranus and Neptune, flew in later and joined the system, and they also orbit in a completely different order, even in a different rotation than the planets that belong to the actual solar system.
Now, at least one such spiritual year, that is, thirty Earth years, must have passed before the soul, when it has reached a normal age of seventy to eighty years, can enter not only into the habits, but also into the whole way of looking at things, into the whole spiritual life of those who have remained here or who have voluntarily joined them. But in this way, the dead also influence our lives in a very comprehensive manner. It is absolutely true that we carry within us, in relation to the entire spiritual nature in which we are embedded, the impulses of people who died long ago, which continue to influence us. This is what brings about the connection between the future and the past, that such a harmony between the dead and the living takes place. Just as the indirect revelation of the dead through the etheric body they have shed acts upon imaginative knowledge, so what enters into habits in the manner described acts upon inspirative knowledge, and what I have described last which can only take effect after a person has gone through a spiritual year, has an effect on intuitive knowledge when it is to become conscious. But it has a continuous effect. I would say that the meaning of evolution can only be understood correctly if one consciously takes such things into account.
Forgive me if I insert something very personal at this point—you know I don't like to do this and therefore do so very rarely. Anyone who tries to look at what I began writing decades ago will see that I completely disregarded what I had to say as my own opinion. I did not write my opinion about Goethe, but tried to express the thoughts that could come from Goethe; I wrote an “epistemology of Goethe's worldview,” not my epistemology. In this way, one can consciously connect with those who have long since passed away and work from their spirit. That is also what gives one, in a sense, the certificate to be allowed to influence the living. For it is a poor certificate, which people insist on, especially in our time, that as soon as someone has formed an opinion, they immediately want to pass it on to as many followers as possible. Those who know the conditions of existence from the spiritual world, the fundamental laws of existence, know that, strange and paradoxical as it may be, human beings can only influence the depths of their fellow human beings' souls after they have died, and only after they have gone through a spiritual year, that is, thirty years. It would be a tremendous gain if this selflessness were to spread a little further in the world, so that those who live longer would join the deceased and try to consciously maintain continuity in evolution. Whether it is a pure elective affinity or some other kind of kinship brought about by karma, if we live it consciously, drawing on those who strive to send the rays of their activity from the spiritual world is something tremendously significant.
I have tried to evoke in you a feeling of the kind of interaction that exists between the so-called dead and the so-called living. We just need to be clear about how different the conditions are in the spiritual world compared to here. You can find a good part of these conditions and the conditions of experience in the spiritual world in the lecture series “On Life Between Death and a New Birth,” which I gave in Vienna a few years ago. But you can only ever pick out a few things from these things that are important from one side or the other. It must be said that something similar and yet very dissimilar to our physical life exists in the spiritual world. Before we enter the physical world in the full sense, we go through the embryonic period, in which the conditions of life are completely different from those at the moment when we enter the physical world as breathers of the outer air. In a certain sense and style, the time we go through in the first spiritual year—which has so often been called the Kamaloka period—is already similar to the embryonic period. For just as human beings, in a sense, take the help of another human being who carries them into the physical world over ten lunar months, so they allow themselves to be carried into the spiritual world by all that holds them together in the physical world, which they slowly shed, namely their desires and cravings. And consciousness in this first spiritual year — thirty years after death — is still somewhat similar to consciousness here in the physical world, even though skills and the like, which can only be acquired in the physical world, can only be mediated indirectly through the etheric body. But then other conditions of consciousness come into play; a much higher consciousness than we can have here in the physical body then emerges. If you remember some of what was said in the cycle mentioned earlier, you can see how this consciousness has a different character in the spiritual world. You need only consider how much consciousness depends on what can enter into it. And when we go about here in the physical world as ordinary human beings, the phenomena of the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms and of the physical human kingdom enter into us with other soul experiences, cultural experiences, and so on. After death, we no longer perceive the mineral world as such, but only the general life of the plant world. Read in my “Theosophy” how things are in the ascent into the so-called spiritual world.
All of this is also connected with a completely different experience in the spiritual world. Now, as you can understand, there are really no words for all of this. Our language is basically created for the physical world, so it is always difficult to describe these different conditions correctly. That is why it is so easy to be misunderstood. Above all, one can only express oneself in comparative terms. Here in the physical world, you stand, I would say, at one point in the entire structure of the world; you look out with your eyes in all directions around you. In the spiritual world, it is not like that. There you are in the periphery and look in from the periphery, as it were, into the interior of a hollow sphere, only that this is comparative, because it is not a hollow sphere, since time has a much greater significance than space. So you look at everything from the periphery; there are completely different conditions of imagination, completely different conditions of perception! And within the realm of imagination itself, there are yet again completely different conditions. Let us assume that a person has passed through the gates of death at the age of sixty, seventy, eighty, or even earlier: now they clearly feel an inner experience. When you feel hunger or pain here in physical life, in one place or another of your body, you do not say: the hunger is there or there, but rather the hunger is within you. You feel this by looking in from the whole environment, at some point you know that there is something that wants to do something with you. Now you must begin the effort to remove what has manifested itself, what has revealed itself! And only when you have removed it will the truth that wants to manifest itself here appear. So we can say: As spiritual beings, we have an idea within us; but this idea does not tell us anything yet; it must first be removed, and only when we have removed it will we find within ourselves—yes, as paradoxical as it sounds, it is so—an angel or archangel who reveals himself to us! We must first earn this presence by allowing it to announce itself to us in our imagination. Thus, understanding the spiritual world requires decisive effort and decisive work. Only then can souls that have remained here in the physical body, more or less, manifest themselves to the dead without going through this effort, if they truly unfold their thoughts here toward the dead or present something to the dead, through reading aloud or the like.
Through what I have said, I simply want to make it clear to you how completely different the conditions of perception, life, and experience are in the spiritual world. And if that is the case, then you will not find it surprising that, in a sense, thirty years of spiritual time are equivalent to one year of physical time; for in the spiritual world we stand in a circle and look in toward the center. And it is very important to keep that in mind.
You can see how difficult it is to talk about certain spiritual things from the fact that, because we have to clothe them in physical concepts, some things appear to be exactly the opposite, and we are therefore very easily exposed to misunderstandings. Isn't it true that, because we initially view things from the physical world, we rightly say: Man goes through repeated earthly lives. That is correct. But why does he go through repeated earthly lives? By living here between birth and death, he lives through a certain period of time. Then he enters the spiritual world through the gate of death, makes a circuit, but returns to the same period of time in that circuit. And every time we live through a life, we are actually in the same place in the world. That is very interesting! In the spiritual realm, it is not time that reigns, but duration. We return to the same place. We actually repeat life in the same circumstances, with what we have gone through in the meantime, in the same place in the world. We always return to the starting point. We perform real circles. You will say: that is difficult to imagine. It is also difficult to imagine, and among the various things that are easier to imagine, which I have also presented today, I would like you to make such a thing the subject of your meditation in your soul life. One must sometimes meditate long, long on such things if one wants to understand them in their full significance.
As an excellent task for today, I have set myself the task of describing a little the way in which those souls who have passed through the gate of death work down into the world in which the people with whom they were connected within their physical bodies have remained. And from another point of view, you have seen again that the world really is a coherent whole, that the dead are only dead in the physical sense. For at the moment they pass through the gate of death, they have a different access to our soul, and that is the whole difference. They now work upon us from within, whereas when they were alive they worked upon us from without. Such things should increasingly cease to be mere external theories and become part of people's consciousness; they should not merely become worldviews, but world perceptions, yes, I would even say world feelings. Then spiritual science will bear the fruits it is meant to bear, and indeed can bear.
Finally, one more remark. Consider what it means that human beings must carry within themselves the feeling, namely during a certain period between death and a new birth, that they carry the hierarchies within themselves as their inner experience! That is how it is! This could lead human beings into the most terrible arrogance, which could live as a dark feeling in their souls when they are reborn. In ancient times, a barrier against this arrogance was created by the fact that when people passed through the gate of death and entered the spiritual world, they knew, in a sense, that they were not seeing for themselves, but that the highest beings of the highest hierarchies were living within them and enabling them to see. But human beings have lost this connection in the spiritual world just as they have lost the old atavistic clairvoyance in the physical world here. In its place must come what Paul expressed with the words, “Not I, but Christ in me,” and what a true spiritual feeling attains through the words, “We are born of God; we die into Christ.” When we learn this in all its depth through the feeling that can come to us from spiritual science, that Christ is for the earth, we will place ourselves in the right way in this viewing from the circle. And when we pass through the gate of death with the right feelings of “In Christ we die,” , we will find, looking from the circle, among the beings we see, those who belong to the higher hierarchies, who are also elemental beings, but also beings who are human souls incarnated here or human souls who have already left the body, and among all these we will also find our own I-being. And we look at the relationship of this I-being of ours to the other beings I have just described from the outside. To be able to have these feelings after passing through the gate of death is something tremendously important. For only then can we find our way back into the embodiment of the flesh if we can have these feelings toward our own I. But we can only have them if we owe them to having passed through the gate of death with the feeling: “We have died into Christ.” This connection with Christ gives us the opportunity to see our relationship in the spiritual world with the soul's eye of Christ, so to speak, to see ourselves as an I-being among other spirit beings.
I would always like to achieve that we do not just take away a certain knowledge from such reflections as those made today, but that this knowledge is transformed into feeling. And if all the ideas that have been put forward today were to pass away like dreams, if only one basic feeling remained, which I have tried to summarize in these concluding words, such as “dying in Christ,” enables us to place ourselves correctly in the spiritual world so that we can carry it through the physical world into our next incarnation on earth, if this feeling remains with us, then we carry the right thing from such a contemplation into our future life.
Let us therefore be united in such feelings, considering them the most intense connecting feelings, and this will gradually give rise to the true invisible community of those devoted to anthroposophy in the world: this cohesion in such perceptions and feelings born out of the ideas of spiritual science. The world needs, I would say, this invisible community of souls who are able to carry into the world the forces of such cohesion as has been characterized. In this sense, we want to be together spiritually in the future, even when we are not together physically for a time. And so it should always be among us that our spiritual togetherness always carries our physical togetherness.