In the course of
this lecture cycle, I should like to set forth several things
connected in the most intensive way with the being of man,
the formation of man's destiny, and what might be called
the relationship of man in his entirety to world-evolution.
I shall proceed immediately to the center of this matter by
pointing out that the whole evolution of man's life on earth is
connected not only with what we observe with our ordinary waking
consciousness but also intensively with what takes place during
sleep, from the time of falling asleep until awakening.
Doubtless earthly
culture, civilization, derives its significance primarily from
what man is able to think, feel and accomplish out of his waking
state. Man, however, would be utterly powerless, in an external
sense, unless his human forces were continuously renewed in the
period between falling asleep and awakening by contact with the
spiritual world. Our spirit and soul or, as we usually
call it in Anthroposophy, our I and our astral body, withdraw
from the physical and etheric body when man falls asleep;
they enter the spiritual world, permeating the physical and
etheric bodies again only after awakening.
Thus, if leading a normal life, we spend one third of our earthly
existence sleeping.
If we look back
on our earth-life, we leave out of this conscious retrospection
all that we experience between falling asleep and awakening. We
skip all the things contributed by the divine worlds to our
earth-life. And we take into account only what is given us by
earthly experiences. If we wish to attain correct conceptions of
our experiences between falling asleep and awakening, we should
not spurn ideas which diverge from those of ordinary life.
It would be naive to assume that the same things occur in the
divine-spiritual worlds that occur in the physical-sensory worlds
where we dwell between awaking and falling asleep. For, on
falling asleep, we return to the spiritual worlds — and
there things are quite different from things in the
physical-sensory world. All this must be taken into account most
decidedly by anyone wishing to form a conception of humanity's
super-sensible destiny.
In religious
documents we find many strange allusions which can be understood
only by means of spiritual science. Thus a passage occurs in the
Bible which, although known to everybody, is generally too little
regarded: unless ye become as little children, ye may not
enter the kingdom of God.
Often such
passages are interpreted most trivially; nonetheless, they are
always intended to convey an extraordinarily deep meaning.
The knowledge
from which a conception of the spiritual, supersensible world has
often been called by me, as well as by others, initiation
science. We speak of this initiation science when we look back at
what occurred in the ancient Mysteries. Yet we also speak of
initiation science — modern initiation science —
if we wish to characterize Anthroposophy in its deeper aspects.
Initiation
science points to the knowledge of primeval conditions, original
conditions. We seek to acquire knowledge concerning what existed
in the beginning, which marked the starting-point. All these
endeavors are connected with a matter of yet greater profundity
which presently will be envisaged by our souls.
If we fell asleep
on May 16, 1923, and have slept until May 17, 1923, we assume
that this time has been spent by us in the same way as by a
person who happens to stay awake and roam all night long through
the streets of some city. We picture to ourselves the experiences
of our spirit and soul (ego and astral body) during the night as
though similar to the experiences — although in a somewhat
different state — of a reveler seeking nightly adventures.
Things, however,
are not as they seem to us. One must consider that on falling
asleep in the evening, or even in the daytime (it really does not
matter when; but I want first to discuss the nightly sleep
enjoyed by every respectable person), one invariably goes back in
time until a phase of life is reached lying at the very beginning
of one's earthly existence. Moreover, one goes back even beyond
one's earthly existence: to pre-earthly life; to that world from
which we descended after acquiring a physical body by means of
conception. At the moment of falling asleep, we are transported
backward through the whole course of time. We are brought back to
that moment when we descended from the heavenly realms to
earth. Therefore if we fall asleep, for instance, on May 16,
1923, we are transposed from this date to the
period which preceded our descent to earth; and also to the
time which we cannot remember, because our memory stops at a
certain point of our childhood. Each night, if we pass through it
in real sleep, we actually become children again with regard to
spirit and soul. And just as we can walk in the physical world
for two or three miles through space, so a person can
walk, at the age of 20, through time for a span of twenty
years, thus arriving at a stage before he was a child —
when he began to be a human being. We return, across time,
to the starting-point of our earth-life. Hence, while the
physical and etheric body are lying in bed, the I and astral body
have gone back across time to an earlier moment. Now the question
arises: if we go back every night to an earlier moment, what
happens to our I and astral body while we are awake?
We would not ask
such a question without being aware of this nightly going
backward – even this going backward is only an illusion. In
reality, our I and astral body have not emerged, even during our
waking day-time consciousness, from the state in which we existed
during our pre-earthly existence.
If we desire to
recognize the truth about these facts, we must grasp the idea
that the I and the astral body have no share in our earthly
evolution. They remain behind; they stop at the point where we
began to acquire a physical and an etheric body. Thus even when
awake we leave our I and astral body at the point marking the
beginning of our earth-life.
Fundamentally, we
live our earth-life only with the physical body and, in a certain
way, with the etheric body. Our physical body alone becomes old.
As for the etheric body, it connects our beginning with that
moment at which we happen to stand during a certain period.
Let us suppose
that someone was born in 1900. His I and astral body have come to
a standstill at the moment of his birth. The physical body
reaches the age of 23; and the etheric body connects the moment
at which this person entered earth-life with the moment
experienced by him as the present one. Hence, if we did not
possess an etheric body, we would awaken every morning as a
newborn babe. Only by entering the etheric body before entering
the physical body do we accommodate ourselves to the physical
body's actual age. This accommodation must take place every
morning. The etheric body is the mediator between the spirit-soul
element and the physical body. It is a mediator forming the
connecting link across the years of life. If a person reaches
sixty or more years of age, the etheric body still forms the link
between his very first appearance on earth — the point at
which his I and astral body remained — and the age of his
physical body.
Now you will say:
Well, after all, the I is ours; it has aged with us; so also has
our astral body aged with us, our thinking, feeling, and willing.
If someone has become sixty, then his I too has become sixty.
This would be
quite correct if our everyday I and our true I were identical.
Our everyday I, however, is not the same as our real I which
remains at the starting-point of our earth-life. Our physical
body reaches, let us say, the age of 60. By means of the etheric
body's mediation, the physical body reflects —
corresponding to the moment at which it is living — the
mirrored image of the real I. And what we see is the
mirrored image of the real I reflected back to us, from moment to
moment, by the physical body; but resulting from something that
has not accompanied us into earth-life. This mirrored image we
call our I. This mirrored image will naturally grow older as the
reflecting apparatus, the physical body, gradually loses the
freshness of early childhood and finally becomes wobbly and
unstable. Yet this “I”, which is only the mirrored
image of the real I, appears to age for the sole reason that the
reflecting apparatus functions less efficiently after the
physical body has grown old.
Like a
perspective, the etheric body stretches from the present moment
to the real I and astral body, both of which do not descend into
the physical world.
You can imagine
that these facts shaping human earth-life must acquire special
significance at the moment of death. The physical body is the
first that we discard in death. This body, however, is the one
that determines our earthly age. In discarding this body, what do
we retain? Primarily what we have not carried with us into
earth-life, but which we have filled with all the experiences of
earth-life: the I and the astral body. They have remained at the
starting-point. But they have always looked at what the physical
body, helped by the etheric body, has reflected back as a
mirrored image.
Thus, in passing
through the portal of death we stand at our life's
starting-point; not filled, however, with what we carried within
us when descending from the spiritual world, but filled with what
was reflected back to us during earth-life as the mirrored image
of this earth-life. We are filled to the brim with it. And this
fact engenders an especial state of consciousness at the end of
earth-life.
This special
state of consciousness at the end of earth-life can be
comprehended only by someone who, endowed with imaginative,
inspired, and intuitive knowledge, is able to see what generally
remains unconscious, what we experience between falling asleep
and waking. Then one recognizes how man, every night, retraces
the events of the past day. One person does it faster, another
slower — in one minute or five minutes. Concerning these
things, however, time-conditions are entirely different from
those of normal earth-life. If we are gifted with supersensible
knowledge, we may observe what is experienced by the I and the
astral body. You may, by going backward, recapitulate what you
have experienced in the physical world since waking up in the
morning. Every night we repeat the experiences of the day in
reverse order. Every night we first recapitulate the experiences
we had just before going to sleep; then the preceding hours; then
those lying back still further, and so forth. Having passed in
review, in reverse order, all the day's events, we usually awaken
after arriving at the moment when we started in the morning.
You might make
the following objection: But people are sometimes awakened by a
sudden noise. You must consider, however, that time may elapse in
different ways. For instance, someone goes to bed at 11 in the
evening, sleeps quietly until 3 in the morning and, having
recapitulated in reverse order all that he experienced during the
past day up until ten in the morning, is roused by a sudden
disturbance. In such a case, the rest of the time can be retraced
very rapidly in the last few moments before waking. Thus events
that have stretched themselves out over several hours may, in
such a case, be passed through again almost instantly. The
conditions of time change in the sleeping state. Time may be
completely compressed. Hence we may truthfully say that the human
being, during every period of sleep, passes through in reverse
what he has experienced during his last waking period. He
recapitulates the events not only by seeing them before him, but
also by interweaving his experiences with a complete moral
judgment of what he did during the day. The human being, as
it were, is summoned to judge his own state of morality.
And when, on awakening, we have finished this activity, we have
passed something like a cosmic judgment on our worth as human
beings. Every morning, having experienced in reverse what we did
during the day, we appraise ourselves as a being of greater or
lesser worth.
This description
conveys to you what man's spirit and soul elements undergo
unconsciously night, that is, during one third of our earth-life
(if spent in a normal way). The soul passes through life in
reverse; only somewhat faster, because merely one third of our
earth-life is taken up by sleep.
After our
physical body has been discarded in death, the part called by me
in my writings etheric body, or formative-force body, gradually
separates itself from the I and the astral body.
This separation
takes place in such a manner that the human being, having passed
through the portal of death, feels his thoughts, heretofore
considered by him as something inward, become realities which
acquire ever greater expansion. Two, three or four days after his
death he has this feeling: Fundamentally I consist of nothing but
thoughts. These thoughts, however, are driven asunder. The human
being, as a thought-being, takes on ever greater dimensions; and
finally this whole human thought-being is dissolved into the
cosmos. But the more this thought-being (that is, the etheric
body) is dissolved into the cosmos, the more arise experiences
derived from other sources than ordinary consciousness.
Essentially, all
that we have thought and visualized in the waking state is
scattered three days after death. This fact cannot be evaded by
hiding our heads in the sand. The content of conscious earth-life
has vanished three days after death. But just because the things
seemingly so important, so essential during earth-life are
dissipated within three days, there arise from the depth memories
of what could not come forth until now: memories of what we
experienced at night between falling asleep and awakening. As the
waking life of the day is scattered, dissipated, our inward depth
sends forth the sum of experiences undergone by us during the
night. These are none other than our day-time experiences, but
passed through in reverse order and acquired, in every detail, by
means of our moral sense.
You must remember
that our real ego and our real astral body are still standing at
life's beginning; whereas the mirrored images that we have
received from the physical body, regardless of its age, now
flutter away with the etheric body. What we have not looked at in
the least during earth-life, our nightly experiences, now come
forth as a new content. Therefore we do not really feel as if our
earth-life were ended until three days have passed and the
scattering of our etheric body has occurred. If someone dies, let
us say, on May 16, 1923, he seems to be carried to the end of his
earth-life by the appearance of his nightly experiences from
nocturnal darkness. At the same time he is seized by the tendency
to go backward.
Hence we pass
again through the period spent, night in and night out in the
state of sleep. This amounts to about one third of our
earth-life.
The different
religions describe this stage of existence as Purgatory,
Kamaloka, and so forth. We pass through our earth-life, just
as we passed through it unconsciously in successive nights, until
our experiences have gone back to our life's beginning. The wheel
of life, ever rotating, must return to its starting-point. Such
is the course of events. Three days after death our day-time
experiences have fluttered away. One third of our earth-life has
been passed through in reverse; a period during which we can
evaluate, in full consciousness, our human worth. For what we
have passed through every night unconsciously rises into full
consciousness once the etheric body has been discarded.
In ordinary life,
we can conceive only of paths leading through space.
Space, however, has no significance for the spirit and soul
element; it is significant only for the physical-sensory element.
When reaching the spirit and soul state, we must also conceive of
paths leading through time. After death, we must go
backward across the whole span of time traversed by our physical
body since breaking away — as might be said — from
the heavenly realms. Actually we go back thrice as fast, because
the time is balanced through the experiences undergone by us
every night. Thus we return anew to the starting-point; but
enriched by all that we experienced as physical beings. Enriched
not only by what remains as a memory — for what flew away
with the etheric body still remains as a memory — but also
by the judgment passed unconsciously each night on our worth as
human beings.
Thus, depending
on the kind of life lived by us, we sooner or later enter again
(approximately after several decades) into the spiritual world
whence we had departed — but departed only inasmuch as our
consciousness was concerned. Actually, we have stood still
at the starting-point, waiting until the physical body's earthly
course has been fulfilled, so that we might return again to what
we were before birth or conception.
In describing
these things, especially in public, we must beware lest people be
shocked by such unusual concepts. Speaking metaphorically,
it could be said that we advance after death. In reality,
however, we retrace our steps after death; we live our life in
reverse. Time, as it rotates, returns to its starting-point. The
following might be said: the divine world remains where it stood
at the beginning. Man but bursts out, wanders out of the divine
world. Then he comes back to it, bringing with him all that he
has overcome while dwelling outside of the divine realms.
Then, in its
turn, comes life. After returning once more to the spiritual
world, enriched not only by conscious but also by unconscious
earth-life; after “becoming as little children” who
stand again within the heavenly realms, we pass into a kind of
life that might be described in this way: now the human being
beholds what he really is. Just as he perceived, with his
ordinary consciousness, the plants, stones, and animals among
whom he dwelt on earth, so he now perceives his new surroundings.
What I am describing is life after death. Here man sees himself
surrounded by human souls who, having died or not yet having been
born, undergo no earthly experiences, but only those of the
divine world. Moreover, he perceives the higher Hierarchies, such
as the Angels, the Archangels, the Exusiai and others still
higher. You know these names and their significance from my book
Occult Science.
The human being
gathers experiences in this purely spiritual world. I could
characterize these experiences by saying: it is as if the human
being were carrying his own being into the cosmos. What he
experienced during waking earth-life and during nightly
unconscious earth-life, he now carries into the cosmos. It is
needed by the cosmos.
While standing
amidst earth-life we judge the whole surrounding cosmos, sun,
moon and stars, only from a terrestrial viewpoint. As astronomers
we calculate the movement of the sun, of the planets, the
latter's' relationship to the stars, and so forth. This entire
astronomical method, however, could be compared to the following
procedure: suppose that a man stood here and a tiny being —
a ladybug for example — observed him. Then this tiny
creature would found a science. An “Association of Ladybugs
for the Study of Mankind” would observe how people are
born. (I presume that ladybugs, too, have a certain life-span.)
This association would observe what happens to humans; would
investigate all the phenomena backwards and forwards. One thing,
however, would be ignored: that the human being eats and drinks,
thus renewing his physical being again and again. The ladybugs
would believe that man is born, grows by himself, and dies by
himself. They would not be able to recognize that man's
metabolism must be renewed from day to day.
As an astronomer
the human being behaves somewhat similarly in regard to the
world. He pays no attention to the fact that the world is a
gigantic organism which needs nourishment, otherwise the stars
would have been scattered long ago in all the directions of
cosmic space and the planets would have deserted their orbits.
This gigantic organism, in order to live, needs a kind of
nourishment that must be received again and again. Whence comes
this nourishment?
Here we encounter
the great questions concerning man's relationship to the
universe. It is simply stupendous how much physical science can
prove. Only, somehow or other, these proofs have little meaning.
People who have been told that Anthroposophy contradicts ordinary
science in many things are inclined to believe that this natural
science can prove anything. This is true and not denied by
Anthroposophy. Science can prove anything in the world. But
things happen to be constituted in such a way that, in certain
cases, these proofs have nothing to do with reality.
Let us suppose
that I could calculate how the physical structure of the human
heart changes from one year to the next. Then we might say: a man
of thirty-three will have such and such a heart structure; at
thirty-four he will have a certain heart structure; at
thirty-five he will have still another heart structure, and so
forth. Having made these observations over a period of five
years, I calculate how the heart structure of this man was
constituted let us say thirty years ago. This can be done. Now
the whole physical structure of the heart lies before me. I can
also calculate how it was constituted three hundred years ago.
Here, however, arises a slight difficulty: three hundred years
ago this heart did not exist and could, therefore, have had no
physical structure of any kind. The calculation was absolutely
correct. We can prove that the heart was constituted three
hundred years ago in such and such a way, only it did not exist.
We can also prove that the heart will be constituted three
hundred years later in such and such a way, only then it will
have ceased to exist. But the proofs are completely infallible.
Geology can be
handled today in the same manner. We can calculate that a certain
layer of soil indicates this or that fact. Likewise, we calculate
how everything was twenty million years ago, or will be twenty
million years later. The proof clicks with marvelous accuracy:
only the earth did not exist twenty million years ago. It is the
same as with the heart. Neither is the earth going to exist
twenty million years later. The proofs are flawless, but have
nothing whatever to do with reality. This is how things actually
are. The possibilities of being deceived by physical life are
immeasurably great. We must be able to penetrate spiritual life
if we desire to gain a standpoint from which the physical world
can be judged.
And now let us go
back to what I meant to explain by this digression concerning
proofs that have no contact with reality. Let us go back to the
moment after death, as I characterized it, and observe how the
human being adjusts his life to the world of spiritual facts and
spiritual beings. He brings into the spiritual world what he
experienced on earth while waking and sleeping.
Just consider
that these experiences are the nourishment of the cosmos; that
they are continuously needed by the cosmos in order to live on.
Whatever we experience on earth in the course of an easy or hard
life is carried by us into the cosmos after death. We thus feel
how our being is dissolved into the cosmos to furnish its
nourishment. These experiences, undergone by man between death
and a new birth, are of overwhelming grandeur, of immeasurable
loftiness.
Then comes the
moment when man appears to himself no longer as a unity, but as a
multiplicity. He appears to himself as if some of his virtues and
qualities moved, as it were, towards one star; others towards a
different star. Now man perceives how his being is scattered out
into the whole world. He also perceives how the parts of his
being fight with one another, harmonize with one another,
disharmonize with one another. Man feels how what he experienced
on earth by day or by night is scattered into the cosmos. And
just as we held fast to our nightly experiences when, three days
after death, our thoughts — that is, the essence of our
waking life — dissipated out into the cosmos and we,
concentrating on our nightly experiences, lived again over, but
backward, our whole earth-life until the starting-point of our is
reached; so now, when our entire earthly human experience is
scattered out into the cosmos, we hold fast to what we represent
as human beings belonging to a super-sensible world order.
Now our real I
emerges from what might be called the Dionysically disjointed
human being. Gradually there emerges the consciousness: You are
nothing but spirit. You have only dwelt in a physical body, have
only passed through — even in the nightly experiences —
the events brought upon you by the physical body. You are a
spirit among spirits.
Now we enter a
spiritual existence among spiritual beings. Our physical
substance is scattered and dissolved in the cosmos. What we
passed through here on earth is divided up and given to the
cosmos: so that it might nourish the cosmos and enable it to live
on; so that the cosmos might receive new incentives for the
movement and sustenance of its stars. Just as we must partake of
physical nourishment in order to live as physical persons between
birth and death, so must the cosmos partake of human experiences,
take them into itself. Thus we feel ourselves more and more as
cosmic people; find our whole being transfused into the cosmos —
but a cosmos taken in a spiritual sense. And then the moment
approaches when we must seek the transition from death to a new
birth; from man become cosmos to cosmos become man. We have
ascended by identifying ourselves more and more with the cosmos.
A moment comes — I have called it in my Mystery Plays the
Great Midnight Hour of Existence — which brings to us
this feeling: We must again become human beings. What we carried
into the cosmos must be returned to us by the cosmos, so that we
may come back to earth.
Today it was my
main purpose to describe man's being, as it is carried out of
earth-life into the vast cosmic space. Thus this sketch —
which will be enlarged upon during the coming days — has
placed us into the center of life between death and a new birth.
Thanks to The Rudlf Steiner Archive
