Between Death and Rebirth
GA 141
10 December 1912, Berlin
Lecture IV
In earlier lectures we have heard that the imperishable part of the human being which at death leaves the physical body and, to a considerable extent, the etheric body too, passes through a life between death and the new birth, and that during this period its forces are drawn from the world of the stars. We have also heard how the human being is able to draw these forces from the world of stars to the extent to which he developed moral and religious qualities during his life on Earth. It was said that, for example, from the region which receives forces radiated from the planet known in occult science as Mercury, a man will be able to draw the requisite forces if, during his life on Earth before death, he developed a genuinely moral disposition; from the Venus region he can draw the forces he needs for his further life in the spiritual worlds, also for his subsequent life on Earth, if he developed a truly religious attitude before his death. To sum up, we may say that as long as a human being is making use of his senses, as long as he lets himself be guided and directed by the intellect that is bound to the brain as its instrument, he is connected with the forces of the Earth; in the life between death and a new birth he is connected with the forces radiating from the worlds of the stars. In man of the present age, however, there is a certain difference between his connection with the forces of the Earth during his physical life and his connection with the forces of the stars between death and the new birth. The forces which man draws into his consciousness during his earthly life, that is to say, the forces he experiences consciously during earthly life, contribute nothing essential to what he needs for the up-building and vitalising of his own being; for they give rise to catabolic processes, processes of destruction. Evidence for this is the simple fact that during sleep the human being has no consciousness. Why not? The reason is that he is not meant to witness what happens to him during sleep. During sleep the forces used up during waking life are restored and man is not meant to witness this process, which is the antithesis of what is in operation during waking life and is concealed from human consciousness. The Bible uses profoundly significant words to express this fact. It is one of the passages in the Bible which, as is the case with all occult principles in religious records, is very little understood. In the story of the expulsion from Paradise it is said that the Divine Spirit resolved that when the human being had acquired certain characteristics, for instance, the faculty of distinguishing between good and evil, insight into the forces of life should be withheld from him. That is the passage in the Bible where it is announced that the human being was not to witness the revivification of his members either during sleep or during his entire existence on Earth. While man is awake the whole life-process is one of destruction, of wear and tear. During waking life nothing in man's being is restored. In the very earliest years of childhood, when any actual inflow of life can still be observed, the child's consciousness is still dim and the whole restorative process is concealed from the human being in his later years. Evidence for this is the fact that he does not remember his earliest childhood. We can therefore say that the whole life-giving, restorative process is concealed from man's conscious life on Earth. Processes of perception, of cognition, lie within the field of his consciousness; the life-giving process does not.
This is different during the period of existence between death and the new birth. The purpose of the whole of that period is to draw into the being of man the forces which can build up and fashion the next life, to draw these forces from the world of the stars. But this process is not as things are on Earth, when man does not really know his own being. What, after all, does he know about the processes working in his organism? He knows nothing of them through direct perception and what is learnt from anatomy or biology conveys no real knowledge of his being but is something quite different. In the life between death and rebirth, however, a man beholds how forces from the world of stars work upon his being, how they gradually rebuild it. From this you can gather how greatly perception between death and rebirth differs from perception on Earth. On Earth the human being stands at a particular point, directs his senses outwards and then his sight and hearing expand into space; from the centre where he is standing he faces the expanse of space. Exactly the opposite is the case during the life after death. There man feels as if his whole being were outspread and what he perceives is really the centre. He looks at a point. There comes a period between death and the new birth when the human being describes a circle which passes through the whole Zodiac. He looks out as it were from every point of the Zodiac, that is to say from different viewpoints, upon his own being, and he feels as if he were gathering from each particular section of the Zodiac the forces which he pours upon his being for the needs of the next incarnation. He looks from the circumference towards a centre. It is as if you could duplicate yourself, move around while leaving yourself at the centre, and could drink in the forces of the Universe, the life-giving ‘soma’ which, streaming as it does from different points of the Zodiac, assumes different characteristics as it pours into your being which you have left at the centre. Translated into terms of spiritual reality, this is actually how things are during the life between death and the new birth.
If we now think of the difference between a condition that is really very similar to life between death and rebirth, namely, the condition of sleep, this difference can be characterised very simply, although people who are not accustomed to these ideas will not be able to make much of it. Put simply, the condition of sleep can be characterised as follows.
When the human being sleeps during his earthly existence, that is to say when he has left his physical and etheric bodies and is living in his Ego and astral body which are then in the world of stars, he too is actually in that world. And it is a fact that our condition in sleep is objectively far more similar to the condition between death and rebirth than is usually imagined. Objectively, the two conditions are very similar. The only difference is that during sleep in normal life the human being has no consciousness of the world in which he is living, whereas between death and the new birth he is conscious of what is happening to him. That is the essential difference. If the human being were to awake in his Ego and astral body when these members are outside his physical body during sleep he would be in the same condition as he is between death and the new birth. The difference is actually only a state of consciousness. This is a matter of importance because as long as the human being lives on Earth, therefore also during sleep, he is bound to his physical body. Nor does he become free from the physical body until it passes into the lifeless condition and undergoes a change at death. As long as the physical body remains alive, the union is maintained between the spiritual man, that is to say, Ego and astral body and the physical and etheric bodies.
Our conception of the state of sleep is, as a rule, too simple; and that is quite comprehensible because usually we describe things from one point of view only, whereas when a human being passes into the higher worlds conditions are complicated. A complete picture becomes possible only as we progress patiently in Spiritual Science and learn to view things from all sides. We generally characterise the state of sleep—and rightly so—by saying that the physical and etheric bodies remain in the bed, while the Ego and astral body move outwards and unite with the forces of the stars. But correct as this is from one point of view, it nevertheless presents only one aspect of the matter, as we can realise if we consider from the standpoint of Spiritual Science the sleep that occurs at a more or less normal time. Objectively speaking, an afternoon nap is a quite different matter from ordinary sleep at night. What I have now said is concerned not so much with a man's ordinary state of health but rather with his whole relationship to the world. We will therefore not consider an afternoon nap but the sleep of a healthy human being, let us say at midnight, regarded from the standpoint of clairvoyant consciousness.
During the waking life of day there is a certain regulated connection between the four members of man's being: physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego. This connection can be indicated if I make sketches to show how the so-called aura of the human being appears to clairvoyant consciousness—but of course the sketches are only very rough.
The important point is that what may be called the auric picture of the Ego when a human being is asleep, actually becomes twofold. During the waking state the Ego-aura holds together in the form of an oval (A) but during sleep divides into two parts (B), one of which turns downwards as the result of a kind of gravity and spreads out below. This part of the Ego-aura appears to clairvoyance as a very dark area tinged with dark red shades. The other, upper part streams upwards from the head and then expands into the infinitudes of the world of stars. The Ego-aura is thus divided—in appearance at all events; we cannot, however, speak of an actual division of the astral aura.
This occult spectacle is a kind of pictorial expression of the fact that the human being; with the Ego-forces that permeate him in the waking condition, goes forth into cosmic space in order to be united with the world of stars and draw its forces into himself.
(Note by translator. Dr. Steiner's drawings were probably made with coloured chalks which would have indicated the several members of man's being with greater clarity than is possible in the printed reproductions. Comments made in connection with the drawings have been abbreviated as follows:
Figure A. Waking state. The physical body is indicated by the innermost darker dotted outline, the etheric body by the fainter dotted outline, the astral body by the sloping lines; the Ego-aura seems to envelop the human form.
Figure B. Indicates the difference in the auric picture while a human being is asleep. The upper part of the Ego-aura radiates outwards and upwards without defined limit, and the lower part radiates downwards without defined limit.)
Now that part of the Ego-aura which streams downwards and becomes dark and more or less opaque while the part streaming up wards is luminous and radiant—all this lower part is particularly exposed to the influence of Ahrimanic powers. The adjacent part of the astral aura is, on the other hand, particularly exposed to the Luciferic forces. The account that has been given—quite rightly from a certain standpoint—that the Ego and astral body leave the human being during sleep is, however, strictly true only as regards the upper parts of the Ego-aura and astral aura. It is not correct as regards the parts of the Ego-aura and astral aura which correspond more to the lower areas of the human figure, particularly the lower parts of the trunk. Actually, during sleep, these parts of the astral aura and of the Ego-aura are more closely bound up with the physical and etheric bodies than is the case during the waking state, and below they are denser, more compact.
Now it is extremely important to know that in view of the evolution of our Earth and all the forces that have played their part in that evolution—which you will find described in the book Occult Science—an Outline,—it was ordained that man should not participate in this more lively activity of the lower aura during sleep, that is to say he was not to witness this activity. The reason for this was that the revitalising forces needed by man for the restoration of what has been used up during the waking hours, are kindled by the lower Ego-aura and lower astral aura. The vitalising forces must be drawn from these parts of the aura. That they work upwards and revitalise the whole man depends upon the upper aura developing powers of attraction drawn from the world of stars; it can therefore attract the forces which rising from below, act restoratively. That is the objective process.
Understanding of this fact is the best equipment for understanding certain information available to one who studies ancient records or records based on occultism. You have always heard—and from a certain standpoint the statement is quite correct—that man leaves his physical and etheric bodies in the bed and goes forth with his astral body and Ego; this is absolutely correct as regard the upper parts of the Ego-aura and astral aura, especially of the Ego-aura. But if you study Eastern writings, you will find a statement that is exactly the opposite. It is stated there that during sleep what is otherwise present in man's consciousness penetrates more deeply into the body. This is the opposite description of sleep. And especially in certain Vedanta writings you will find it stated that the part of man of which we say that during sleep it leaves the physical and etheric bodies, sinks more deeply into those bodies, and that what gives us the power of sight withdraws into deeper regions of the eye so that sight is no longer possible. Why is the process described in this way in Eastern writings? It is because the Oriental still has a different standpoint. With his kind of clairvoyance he pays more attention to what goes on within the human being; he pays less attention to the emergence of the upper aura and more to the permeation by the lower aura during sleep. Hence from his particular point of view he is right.
The processes which take place in the human being in the course of his evolution are very complicated and as evolution progresses it will become more and more possible for him to picture the whole range of these processes. But evolution consists in human beings having gradually acquired knowledge of particular processes, hence the differing statements in the different epochs. Although the statements seem to differ they are not for that reason false; they relate to the particular condition prevailing at the time. But the process of evolution as a whole becomes clear only when all the various processes are taken into account.
We ourselves have now reached the point when it is possible to survey a certain definite portion of the process of evolution. There is a most significant difference in the whole attitude and disposition of man's soul when we observe its development during incarnations, let us say in the Egypto-Chaldean period, then in the Graeco-Roman period and then again in our own. Even externally it is not difficult to discover what the soul is experiencing. I think that even in this enlightened audience there will be quite a number of individuals who when they look at a star-strewn sky cannot locate the particular constellations or perceive how their positions change in the heavens during the night. Speaking generally it can be said that the number of individuals who are still well-informed about the starry sky will steadily decrease. There will even be people, among town-dwellers for example, whom one might ask in vain: Is there now Full Moon or New Moon? This does not in any way imply reproach, for it lies in the natural course of development. What holds good for the soul now would have been utterly impossible during the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, particularly during its earlier periods. In those days men's insight into the heavens was very great. Our present age, however, has a definite advantage over the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, inasmuch as logical thinking—of which most people would be capable today if they were to make efforts—was quite beyond the men of that earlier epoch. They lived their lives and carried out their daily tasks more instinctively than we do today. It would be quite erroneous to imagine that when a building or, say, an aqueduct was to be constructed, engineers would sit in their offices and work out the project with the help of plans and the other methods employed nowadays. Engineers in those times no more worked from plans than the beaver does today when with such skill and accuracy he sets about building his den.
In those early times there was no logical, scientific thinking such as is general today; the activities of men during waking life were instinctive. They had acquired their knowledge—and stupendous knowledge has been preserved from the Egypto-Chaldean epoch—in a quite different way. They knew about the secrets of the stars in the night, about the heavens, although they had no Astronomy of the kind that is available for men of the present age. They watched the spectacle presented by the stars in the heavens on successive nights and the whole power of the astral forces in space worked upon them, not merely the sensory impressions made by what they observed. For example, the passage of the Great Bear or of the Pleiades was an actual experience within them and the experience continued while they were asleep, for they were sensitive to the spiritual reality connected with the passage of a constellation such as the Great Bear across the heavens; together with the spectacle perceived by the senses they were inwardly aware of the living spiritual reality in cosmic space. Something came into their consciousness which ours today is quite unable to experience. Nowadays man has eyes only for the material picture of the stars in the sky. And being very clever he looks at a chart of the heavens into which figures of animals are inscribed, and says: The ancients inscribed symbols here and there to represent their idea of the grouping of the stars, but we have now progressed sufficiently to be cognisant of the reality. A man of the modern age does not know that the ancients had actually seen what they inscribed into their charts; they drew something of which they had had direct vision. Some of them were more skilful draftsmen than others, but they drew what they had actually perceived. They did not, however, perceive in the way that is customary in physical life. When they experienced, for example, the passage of the Great Bear across the heavens at night they saw the physical stars implanted in a mighty spiritual Being whom they could actually perceive. But it would be childish to imagine that they saw an animal moving across the heavens in the way we should see a physical animal on the Earth. This experience of the passage of the constellation of the Pleiades, for example, across the heavens affected them intimately. They felt that the experience had an effect upon their astral bodies and caused changes there.
You can form an idea of this experience by picturing that there is a rose in front of you but you are not looking at it; you are merely holding it and what you experience is your own contact with it. You then form an idea of the rose. It was in this way that the ancients ‘contacted’ as it were with their astral bodies what they experienced about the constellation of the Great Bear; they ‘felt’ the astral reality and experienced their own contact with it. This brought about changes in their very being, changes which are still brought about today but are unnoticed.
Evolution leading into our modern scientific age with its power of rationalistic judgement consists in the fact that direct experience of spiritual processes has ceased and that we are left with the world of the senses and the brain-bound intellect. Thus when in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch men spoke of the spiritual Beings in space and drew figures of these Beings, inscribing physical stars as focal points, this was in keeping with the reality—which was an actual experience. Hence in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch men had a faculty of perception far more in line with the life between death and rebirth than is our present physical consciousness. When it is realised how the astral body and the Ego experience what is happening in the heavens it is also obvious that we are then living outside our physical and etheric bodies and there is not the slightest reason for believing that a life in which such experiences occur is impossible when the physical and etheric bodies are actually laid aside (at death). Thus in the men of old it was a matter of direct knowledge that between death and the new birth they would experience the happenings in the world of stars. A man living in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch would have thought it ridiculous if anyone set out to prove to him the immortality of the soul. He would have said: ‘But that needs no proof!’ He would not even have understood what a proof is in our meaning of the word, for logical thinking did not yet exist. If he had learnt in an occult school what in the future would be meant by ‘proof’, he would still have insisted that it is unnecessary to prove the immortality of the soul, because in experiencing the nocturnal starry heavens one is already experiencing something that is independent of the body. Immortality was thus an actual experience and the men of those times knew a great deal about what we today describe in connection with perception in the disembodied state.
And now, turning from the more remote worlds of stars to the planets, these men of old experienced the spiritual sphere that is connected, for instance, with Saturn. They were able to perceive—this is true especially of the earlier periods of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch—what remains of a human being during his life in the Saturn sphere between death and the new birth. People would have thought it very strange if it had been suggested to them that they should try to establish connection with Mars as is sometimes hinted at today, for they were quite conscious of being related to these worlds. If someone has knowledge of Saturn or Mars or other planetary sphere and can follow its functions in our planetary system, this leads to knowledge of the pre-earthly conditions of Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon described in the book Occult Science—an Outline. This was once a matter of actual experience. There would have been no need to lecture about it. All that was necessary would have been to make men conscious that it was simply a matter of inducing in those no longer capable of perceiving such things conditions which made perception possible. This could not otherwise have been achieved.
By the time of the Graeco-Latin epoch this state of things had already changed. Men had lost their sensitivity for everything I have been describing and remembrance of it alone remained. In the Graeco-Latin epoch, among the leading peoples, for example of Southern Europe, there was no longer any equal possibility of direct vision of the spiritual Beings of the heavens, but remembrance of that vision remained. Just as a man remembers today what he experienced yesterday, so did souls in the Graeco-Latin epoch still remember what they had experienced of the Universe in earlier incarnations. This radiated into the souls of men and was a living experience. Plato speaks of it as ‘recollection’, but men do not always call it so. Progress in evolution consisted in the suppression of this direct experience and the development during the Graeco-Latin epoch of the faculty of judgement and the formation of concepts. Hence the earlier vision was bound to recede and could survive only as recollection, remembrance. This is exemplified most clearly of all in Aristotle who lived in the fourth century BC. and was the founder of logic, of the art of judgement; he himself was no longer able to perceive anything of the spiritual realities in the worlds of the stars, but in his writings he brings all the old theories back again. He does not speak of the physical heavenly bodies as we know them today but of the ‘Spirits of the Spheres’, of spiritual Beings. And a great many of his utterances were an enumeration of the individual planetary Spirits and of the fixed stars, finally leading to the one universal Godhead. The Spirits of the Spheres still play an important role in the works of Aristotle.
But even the remembrance in Graeco-Latin times of the Spiritual Beings in the Universe was gradually lost to humanity and it is interesting to watch how the ancient knowledge disappears gradually as later epochs approach. The more spiritually minded among men still drew from their remembrance the consciousness that spiritual Beings are connected with all physical bodies existing in space—as Anthroposophy describes today. A great deal in this connection was presented magnificently by Kepler. But the nearer we come to modern times, the more does the possibility fade of even a remembrance of what the soul experienced in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch from contemplation of the heavens. As the age of Copernicanism approached even the remembrance that still survived in the Graeco-Latin epoch faded, and men had eyes only for the physical globes moving through space. Occasionally something plays into the consciousness of more modern men that there is still a possibility of gleaning from the constellations in the heavens genuine knowledge of spiritual events. Kepler, for example, set out independently to calculate from the stars the date of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Such a calculation was possible because Kepler's whole being was still permeated through and through with spirituality. The same applies to his realisation that a certain constellation of stars in the year 1604 would be followed by further suppression of the ancient remembrances.
The nearer we come to the modern age the more is humanity dependent upon the physical senses and the brain-bound intellect, because what the souls of men experienced in ancient times has been thrust down into the deeper strata of consciousness. The souls of all of you once harboured the experiences known to men when they were still able to be aware of the spiritual life pervading cosmic spheres. This is everywhere present in the depths of your own souls. But it is not possible today to lead souls during the hours of darkness and guide their vision, let us say, to the constellation of the Great Bear and enable them to experience as realities the spiritual forces emanating from that group of stars. It is not possible because the powers of vision and perception lie in such depths of the soul. During sleep at night man experiences the heavens with the radiating upper part of the aura but is not conscious of it. Hence for souls of the present age the right procedure is to raise into consciousness by valid methods the forgotten impressions received in olden times. And how is this done? As we do it in Anthroposophy! Nothing new is imposed upon souls but what they experienced in earlier epochs is drawn forth. What souls could no longer actually experience in the Graeco-Latin epoch but had not yet entirely forgotten—today it is entirely forgotten but can be drawn forth again. Anthroposophy is the stimulus for drawing forth the forces of knowledge which lie deep in the souls of men. All human beings who have partaken in evolution up to the time of Western culture have in the depths of their souls the conceptions which should be kindled to life through Anthroposophy; and the methods used in Anthroposophy are the stimuli for achieving this.
We will now consider the difference between these two attitudes to the world, between that of a human soul incarnated in the Graeco-Latin epoch and one incarnated today. We have heard that during the Graeco-Latin epoch, in earthly life too, the soul had a certain connection with and capacity for perception of what is lived through in the period between death and the new birth. These experiences had not yet withdrawn into such deep strata of the soul. Hence in those very ancient times there was much less difference between men's consciousness on Earth and between death and rebirth than there is today. The ancient Greeks had some remembrance of what they had once experienced, but even so the difference was already great. Conditions today have reached the stage when between death and the new birth, consciousness can still be kindled in a human being in the Venus sphere if, on Earth, he has cultivated a moral and religious attitude of soul. But in and especially beyond the Sun sphere it is impossible for consciousness to be kindled if during his life on Earth a man has made no attempt to raise to the level of waking consciousness the concepts lying in the depths of the soul. Here, in earthly life, Anthroposophy seems to be a kind of theoretical world-conception which we master because it interests us. After death, however, it is a torch which from a certain point of time onwards between death and rebirth illumines the spiritual world for us. If Anthroposophy is disdained here in the physical world, no torch is available in that other world and consciousness is dimmed. To pursue Spiritual Science is not merely a matter of imbibing so many theories; it is a living force, a torch which can illumine life. The contents of the spiritual teachings here on Earth are concepts and ideas; after death they are living forces! But this applies to consciousness only. It will be clear to you from what I said at the beginning of the lecture that already in earthly existence the spiritual ideas we acquire are life-giving forces. But a man cannot witness the outcome of these life-giving forces because knowledge of the powers from which they originate is withheld from him. After death, however, he actually beholds them. Here on Earth, Anthroposophy seems to be so much theory and the human being in his waking state has no consciousness of what is spiritually life-giving but nevertheless objectively present. After death man is a direct witness of how the forces he took into himself together with the spiritual teachings received during his life on Earth have an organising, vitalising, strengthening effect upon what is within his being when he is preparing for a new incarnation.
In this way spiritual teaching actually becomes part of the evolution of humanity. But if this spiritual teaching were to be rejected—at the present time it suffices if only a few accept it but in the future more and more individuals must do so—then, as they return to incarnations on Earth, human beings will gradually find that they lack the life-giving forces they need. Decadence and atrophy would set in during the subsequent incarnation. Human beings would quickly wither, be prematurely wrinkled. Decadence of physical humanity would set in if the spiritual forces were not received. The forces that were once drawn by men from the worlds of stars must now be drawn from the depths of their own souls and used for furthering the evolution of humanity.
If you reflect about these matters you will be filled through and through with the thought that existence on Earth is of immense significance. It was necessary that the human being should be so inwardly deepened by his union with the worlds of stars that the forces he had otherwise always drawn from those worlds would become the inmost forces of his soul and be drawn up again from its depths. But that can be done only on Earth. One could say: in primeval times the soma-juice rained down from the heavens into individual souls, was preserved there and must now be drawn forth again from those souls. In this way we acquire a conception of the mission of the Earth. And having presented this conception today we will proceed to study the life between death and the new birth in even greater detail.
Vierter Vortrag
In den vorangegangenen Betrachtungen über das Leben zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt haben wir gesehen, daß derjenige Teil der menschlichen Wesenheit, welcher beim Durchgang durch die Todespforte den physischen Leib und zum großen Teil den Ätherleib verläßt, also der unvergängliche Teil der menschlichen Wesenheit, ein Leben durchmacht, das seine Kräfte aus der Sternenwelt zieht, und wir haben darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie diese menschliche Wesenheit aus den Sternengebieten ihre Kräfte zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt zieht. Wir haben darauf aufmerksam gemacht, wie der Mensch mehr oder weniger befähigt wird, in der richtigen Art seine Kräfte aus der Sternenwelt zu ziehen, je nachdem er hier im Erdenleben gewisse moralische oder religiöse Stimmungen entwickelt hat. So konnten wir darauf hinweisen, wie der Mensch zum Beispiel aus dem Gebiete, das seine Kräfte ausstrahlend hat von dem, was man im Okkulten den Merkur nennt, seine richtigen Kräfte zieht durch eine entsprechend ausgebildete moralische Stimmung während des Lebens vor dem Tode, wie er aus dem Venusgebiete die entsprechenden, ihm dann für das weitere Leben, auch für das weitere Leben auf der Erde, notwendigen Kräfte ziehen kann durch ein entsprechendes religiöses Erleben vor dem Tode. Wenn wir diese verschiedenen Gedanken zusammenfassen, die wir bisher vor unsere Seele führen konnten, dann können wir sagen: Greradeso, wie der Mensch, solange er sich seiner Sinne bedient, solange er sich lenken und leiten läßt von dem Verstande, der an das Gehirn als an sein Instrument gebunden ist, mit anderen Worten, wie der Mensch hier während seines Erdendaseins mit den Kräften eben dieser unserer Erde zusammenhängt, so hängt er im Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt mit den Kräften zusammen, die von den Sternenwelten ausstrahlen. Allerdings besteht ein gewisser Unterschied für den gegenwärtigen Menschen in dem Verhältnisse seines Wesens zu den Erdenkräften während des physischen Lebens und in seinem Verhältnisse zu den Sternenkräften zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt. Die Kräfte, welche der Mensch während des Erdenlebens in sein Bewußtsein hereinnimmt, also die Kräfte, die er bewußt während des Erdenlebens erlebt, tragen nicht Wesentliches bei zu alle dem, was der Mensch für seine eigene Wesenheit zum Aufbau, zur Belebung braucht. Es sind Abbauprozesse. Daß dieses der Fall ist, sehen wir ja einfach aus dem Umstande, daß der Mensch während des Schlafes kein Bewußtsein entwickelt. Warum nicht? Er entwickelt einfach aus dem Grunde kein Bewußtsein, weil er nicht Zeuge sein soll desjenigen, was mit ihm während des Schlafes geschieht. Denn während des Schlafes werden die im wachen Leben verbrauchten Kräfte wiederhergestellt. Diese Wiederherstellung seiner verbrauchten Kräfte während des Schlafes soll der Mensch nicht mit ansehen. Dieser ganze Vorgang, der entgegengesetzt ist dem Wachvorgang, wird sozusagen dem menschlichen Bewußtsein verhüllt. Die Bibel hat einen bedeutsamen, tiefen Ausdruck für diese Tatsache. Es ist dies einer von denjenigen Aussprüchen der Bibel, die, wie alle okkulten Grundlagen der religiösen Urkunden, recht wenig verstanden werden. Da, wo es mit Bezug auf das Paradiesesleben heißt: Der göttliche Geist beschloß, daß der Mensch, nachdem er sich dieses oder jenes angeeignet hat, zum Beispiel die Urteilsfähigkeit über Gut und Böse, nicht auch erhalten solle einen Einblick in die Kräfte des Lebens. — Da ist die Stelle, wo in der Bibel aufmerksam gemacht wird, daß der Mensch nicht mit ansehen soll die Wiederbelebung seines Wesens während des Schlafes, überhaupt nicht mit ansehen soll die Wiederbelebung seines Wesens während seines physischen Erdendaseins. Dessen soll er nicht Zeuge sein. Und wenn der Mensch aufwacht, ist der ganze Lebensprozeß eigentlich ein Zerstörungsprozeß, ein Abnutzungsprozeß. Da wird im Menschen eigentlich nichts hergestellt. Wo noch eine eigentliche Belebung, eine Herstellung ist, nämlich in der allerersten Kindheit, da ist auch das Bewußtsein noch dumpf, und der ganze Herstellungsprozeß wird dem Menschen später doch verhüllt, indem er sich nicht mehr an die Zeiten seiner ersten Kindheit zurückerinnert. Also wir können sagen: Für das bewußte Erdenleben bleibt dem Menschen verhüllt, was man Belebungs-, Herstellungsprozesse nennen kann. Es sind Wahrnehmungs-, Erkenntnisprozesse, welche das Bewußtsein des Menschen erfüllen, nicht aber eigentliche Belebungsprozesse.
Das wird nun anders in dem Leben zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt. Dieses ganze Leben zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt ist ja dazu bestimmt, in die menschliche Wesenheit die Kräfte hereinzubekommen, welche dem Aufbau des nächsten Lebens dienen können, diese Kräfte sozusagen hereinzusaugen in die menschliche Wesenheit aus der gesamten Sternenwelt. Nun aber ist es bei diesem Vorgang nicht so, wie es auf der Erde ist, daß man sozusagen sich als Mensch selber gar nicht kennt. Denn auf der Erde kennt man sich ja nicht. Was weiß der Mensch von den Vorgängen, die in seinem Organismus stattfinden? Nichts weiß er davon durch unmittelbare Anschauung; und was durch die Anatomie, durch die Biologie und so weiter gewonnen wird, ist ja kein wirkliches Wissen von der menschlichen Wesenheit, sondern etwas ganz anderes. Aber in dem Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt schaut der Mensch an, wie die Kräfte aus der Sternenwelt auf ihn, auf seine Wesenheit wirken, wie sie ihn nach und nach wieder aufbauen. Daraus können Sie entnehmen, wie anders die Anschauung ist zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt als hier auf der Erde. Hier steht der Mensch an einem Punkte der Erde, richtet die Sinne hinaus, und dann geht das Schauen oder das Hören in die Weiten hinaus. Er sieht also von dem Mittelpunkte, in dem er sich befindet, hinaus in die Weiten. Gerade umgekehrt ist es im Leben nach dem Tode. Da fühlt sich der Mensch, wie wenn er mit seinem ganzen Wesen ausgebreitet wäre, und was er anschaut, das ist eigentlich der Mittelpunkt. Er sieht auf einen Punkt hin. Es kommt eine Zeit für den Menschen zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt, wo er einen Kreis beschreibt, der den ganzen Tierkreis durchläuft. Da schaut er gleichsam von jedem Punkte des Tierkreises, also von verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten aus, auf seine eigene Wesenheit hin und fühlt sich dann so, wie wenn er gleichsam aus den einzelnen Partien des Tierkreises die Kräfte schöpfen würde, die er auf seine Wesenheit ergießt, damit diese das hat, was sie für die nächste Inkarnation braucht. Man schaut also von dem Umkreis auf einen Mittelpunkt hin. Es ist so, wie wenn Sie hier auf der Erde sich verdoppeln könnten, aus sich heraustreten könnten, und Sie ließen sich in der Mitte stehen, gingen um sich herum und würden fortwährend die Kräfte des Weltalls, den belebenden Soma, einsaugen, der aber, weil er von den verschiedenen Seiten einen verschiedenen Charakter annimmt, sich in verschiedener Weise in die Wesenheit, die Sie in der Mitte stehengelassen haben, ergießt. So ist es, ins Geistige übersetzt, tatsächlich im Leben zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt. Wenn wir uns nun den Unterschied vor das Auge führen wollen, der da besteht zwischen einem Zustande, der eigentlich ziemlich nabe ist dem Erleben zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt, nämlich zwischen dem Schlafzustande und diesem Leben zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt, so können wir diesen Unterschied eigentlich sehr einfach charakterisieren, obwohl der, welchem solche Vorstellungen ungewohnt sind, sich nicht viel dabei vorstellen kann. Aber man kann es in einfacher Weise folgendermaßen charakterisieren. Wenn der Mensch in seinem Erdendasein schläft, also seinen physischen Leib und Ätherleib verlassen hat und in seinem Ich und astralischen Leib lebt, die dann in der Sternenwelt sind, so ist er auch draußen in dem ganzen Sternengebiete. Und es ist tatsächlich so, daß unser Zustand im Schlafe objektiv viel ähnlicher ist dem Zustande zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt, als man gewöhnlich glaubt. Objektiv sind diese beiden Zustände einander ganz ähnlich. Sie sind nur dadurch voneinander verschieden, daß der Mensch im Schlafe beim normalen Leben kein Bewußtsein hat von der Welt, in derer während des Schlafes ist, und zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt hat er ein Bewußtsein, da weiß er, was mit ihm vorgeht. Das ist der wesentliche Unterschied. Würde der Mensch in seinem Ich und astralischen Leib, wenn diese im Schlafe außer dem physischen Leibe und dem Ätherleibe sind, einfach aufwachen, so würde er in demselben Stadium sein, in welchem er ist zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt. Der Unterschied ist tatsächlich nur ein Bewußtseinszustand. Und dieser Umstand ist aus dem schon angeführten Grunde sehr bedeutsam. Er ist bedeutsam, weil der Mensch, solange er auf der Erde weilt, also auch während des Schlafzustandes, an seinen physischen Leib gebunden ist; er ist nicht frei von dem physischen Leibe im Schlafzustande. Er kann erst frei werden vom physischen Leibe, wenn dieser physische Leib in den leblosen Zustand übergeht, wenn er eine Veränderung erleidet, wie es geschieht, wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geht. Solange der physische Leib lebensfähig ist, bleibt eine Verbindung zwischen dem eigentlichen geistigen Menschen, Ich und Astralleib, und zwischen dem physischen Leib und Ätherleib aufrechterhalten.
Nun stellt man sich gewöhnlich den Zustand des Schlafes zu einfach vor. Das ist durchaus begreiflich, weil man bei den komplizierten Dingen, um die es sich handelt in dem Augenblick, wo man die höheren Welten betritt, sozusagen immer nur von einer gewissen Seite her die Dinge charakterisieren kann. Eine vollständige Charakteristik der wahren Verhältnisse gewinnt man erst, wenn man nach und nach geduldig vorrückt in der Geisteswissenschaft und allseitig die Dinge kennenlernt. Man charakterisiert - und dies mit Recht den menschlichen Schlafzustand dadurch, daß man sagt: Im Bette bleiben liegen physischer Leib und Ätherleib; heraus bewegt sich und vereinigt sich mit den Sternenkräften das, was wir nennen das Ich und den astralischen Leib. Nun ist aber diese Charakteristik, so richtig sie von einer Seite aus ist, eben nur von einer Seite aus gegeben. Und man kann sich gewissermaßen eine Vorstellung machen, wie diese Charakteristik nur von einer Seite aus gegeben ist, wenn man den Schlaf eines Menschen ins Auge faßt vom Standpunkt der Geisteswissenschaft, wenn dieser Schlaf sozusagen zu einer einigermaßen normalen Zeit ausgeführt wird. Denn in Wahrheit ist, objektiv genommen, ein Nachmittagsschläfchen etwas ganz anderes als ein ordentlicher Schlaf in der Nacht. Nicht so sehr für den menschlichen Gesundheitszustand oder für sonstige Dinge am Menschen selbst, aber für das ganze Verhältnis des Menschen zur Welt kommt in Betracht, was ich jetzt angeführt habe. Und wir wollen daher nicht ein Nachmittagsschläfchen ins Auge fassen, sondern einen Schlaf, der den Menschen ungefähr um die Mitternachtsstunde erfaßt. Also den Schlaf eines gesunden Menschen um die Mitternachtsstunde, und diesen Schlafzustand, vom Standpunkte des hellsichtigen Bewußtseins aus betrachtet, wollen wir ins Auge fassen.
Wenn wir im täglichen Wachzustande sind, dann ist, können wir sagen, im menschlichen Wesen in einer gewissen geregelten Verbindung dasjenige, was wir die vier Glieder der menschlichen Natur nennen: physischer Leib, Ätherleib, astralischer Leib und Ich. Wir treffen das, was die richtige Verbindung zwischen den vier Gliedern der menschlichen Natur ausmacht, am besten, wenn wir es etwa so zeichnen, wie das hellseherische Bewußtsein die sogenannte Aura des Menschen sieht. Was ich Ihnen dabei zeichnen kann, ist selbstverständlich nur ganz skizzenhaft.
Wenn wir also den gewöhnlichen Wachzustand des Menschen ins Auge fassen, dann würden wir den aurischen Zusammenhang des Menschen etwa in der folgenden Weise zeichnen: der physische Leib die schärfere Linie; innerhalb der punktierten Linie der Ätherleib; was dichter schraffiert ist, ist der astralische Leib; und die Ich-Aura würde etwa so zu zeichnen sein, daß sie den ganzen Menschen durchdringt, aber ich zeichne sie als Strahlen, die ihn, ohne eigentliche Grenzen, nach oben und unten strahlenartig umgeben.
Daneben werde ich nun zeichnen den Unterschied in der aurischen Zusammensetzung beim Schlafzustande eines Menschen, der etwa um die Mitternachtsstunde schlafen würde, beziehungsweise das aurische Bild desselben (siehe Zeichnung): physischer Leib und Ätherleib wie in der ersten Zeichnung; das dunkel Schraffierte wäre der Astralleib; dessen nach unten unbestimmte Fortsetzung würde sich herausheben, aber bliebe doch in einer vertikalen Lage. Die Ich-Aura würde ich dann strahlenförmig in der Weise zu zeichnen haben, wie man es hier sieht. In der Halsgegend ist die Ich-Aura unterbrochen und beginnt erst wieder in der Kopfgegend, aber so, daß sie strahlenförmig nach außen gerichtet ist und ins Unbestimmte nach oben geht, wenn der Mensch in der horizontalen Lage ist, aber nach aufwärts gerichtet ist, vom Kopf nach aufwärts. So daß im wesentlichen der Anblick der Aura des schlafenden Menschen so wäre, daß der Astralleib wesentlich verdichtet und dunkel ist — in der in der Zeichnung dunkel schraffierten Gegend -, in den oberen Teilen ist er dünner als am Tage. In der Halsgegend ist die Ich-Aura unterbrochen, unten ist sie wieder strahlenförmig und geht dann ins Unbestimmte fort.
Das Wesentliche ist, daß sich bei einem solchen Schlafzustande das, was man das aurische Bild des Ich nennen kann, in der Tat in zwei Teile gliedert. Während des Wachzustandes hängt die Ich-Aura wie ein Oval zusammen, trennt sich während eines solchen Schlafzustandes in der Mitte auseinander und besteht während des Schlafes aus zwei Stücken, von denen das eine durch eine Art von Schwere nach unten gedreht wird und sich nach unten ausbreitet, so daß man es nicht mit einer sich schließenden, sondern mit einer nach unten sich ausbreitenden Ich-Aura zu tun hat. Dieser Teil der Ich-Aura ergibt sich für das hellseherische Bewußtsein dem Anblick nach als ein wesentlich sehr dunkler Aurenteil, der dunkle Fäden hat, aber in starken, zum Beispiel dunkelrötlichen Nuancen tingiert ist. Was sich davon nach oben abtrennt, ist wieder so, daß es von der Kopfgegend aus schmal läuft, dann aber ins Unbestimmte sich ausbreitet, sozusagen oben in die Sternenwelt hin sich ausbreitet. In gleicher Weise in der Mitte auseinandergeteilt ist die astralische Aura nicht, so daß man von einer wirklichen Teilung derselben nicht sprechen kann, während die IchAura, wenigstens für den Anblick, zerteilt wird.
So haben wir auch in diesem okkulten Anblick eine Art von bildhaftem Ausdruck dafür, daß der Mensch mit demjenigen, was ihn als Ich-Kräfte während des tagwachenden Zustandes durchdringt, hinausgeht in den Weltenraum, um den Anschluß zu gewinnen an die Sternenwelt, um die Kräfte aus der Sternenwelt sozusagen hereinzusaugen.
Nun ist derjenige Teil der Ich-Aura, der sich nach unten hin abschnürt und dunkel wird, mehr oder weniger wie undurchsichtig sich ausnimmt, während der nach oben gehende hell leuchtend und glänzend ist, in hellem Lichte erstrahlt, zugleich der, welcher am meisten dem Einfluß der ahrimanischen Gewalten ausgesetzt ist. Der angrenzende Teil der astralischen Aura ist am meisten den luziferischen Kräften ausgesetzt. Wir können daher sagen: Die Charakteristik, die man von einem gewissen Standpunkte aus mit Recht gibt, daß das Ich und der astralische Leib den Menschen verlassen, ist für die oberen Partien der Ich- und astralischen Aura absolut zutreffend. Für diejenigen Teile der Ich- und astralischen Aura, die mehr den unteren Teilen, besonders den unteren Teilen des Rumpfes der menschlichen Gestalt entsprechen, ist es nicht eigentlich richtig; sondern für diese Teile ist es sogar so, daß während des Schlafens die Aura des Ich und des Astralleibes mehr drinnen sind, mehr verbunden sind mit dem physischen Leibe und dem Ätherleibe, als es im Wachzustande der Fall ist, daß sie nach unten dichter, kompakter sind. Denn man sieht auch, wie beim Aufwachen das, was ich unten so stark gezeichnet habe, wieder herausgeht aus den unteren Teilen der menschlichen Wesenheit. Gerade wie der obere Teil beim Einschlafen herausgeht, so geht der untere Teil der Ich- und astralischen Aura beim Aufwachen in einer gewissen Weise heraus, und es bleibt nur eine Art von Stück von diesen beiden Auren drinnen, wie ich es in der ersten Figur gezeichnet habe.
Nun ist es eben so außerordentlich wichtig zu wissen, daß durch die Evolution unserer Erde, durch alle die Kräfte, die dabei mitgespielt haben und die Sie aus der «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» ersehen können, die Einrichtung getroffen ist, daß der Mensch dieses regere Arbeiten der unteren Aura während des Schlafes nicht mitmacht, das heißt dieses Arbeiten nicht als Zeuge mitmacht. Denn von diesen Teilen der unteren Ich-Aura und der unteren astralischen Aura werden die belebenden Kräfte angeregt, die der Mensch braucht, damit das wieder ausgebessert werden kann, was während des Wachzustandes abgenutzt ist. Die wiederherstellenden Kräfte müssen von diesen Teilen der Aura ausgehen. Daß sie nach aufwärts wirken und den ganzen Menschen wieder herstellen, das hängt dann davon ab, daß der nach oben hinausgehende Teil der Aura Anziehungskräfte entwickelt, die er aus der Sternenwelt hereinsaugt, und dadurch die Kräfte, die von unten kommen, anziehen kann, so daß sie regenerierend auf den Menschen wirken. Das ist der objektive Vorgang.
Nun gibt uns das Verständnis dieser Tatsache auch gewissermaßen das beste Verständnis für gewisse Mitteilungen, die der Mensch empfängt, wenn er die verschiedenen okkulten oder auf Okkultismus gebauten Urkunden verfolgt. Sie haben ja die, wie ich eben gesagt habe, von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus durchaus gerechtfertigte Charakteristik immer gehört, daß der Schlaf darin besteht, daß der Mensch seinen physischen Leib und Ätherleib im Bette liegen läßt und mit seinem astralischen Leib und Ich herausgeht; was also für die oberen Partien der Ich- und astralischen Aura in einem gewissen Sinne durchaus richtig ist, namentlich für die Ich-Aura. Wenn Sie aber morgenländische Schriften verfolgen, dann finden Sie diese Charakteristik nicht, sondern gerade das Umgekehrte. Sie finden da charakterisiert, daß während des Schlafzustandes das, was sonst im menschlichen Bewußtsein lebt, sich tiefer in den Leib hineinzieht. Also Sie finden dort die umgekehrte Charakteristik des Schlafes. Und namentlich in gewissen Vedanta-Schriften können Sie die Sache so charakterisiert finden, daß dieses, von dem wir sagen, daß es sich aus dem physischen Leib und Ätherleib herauszieht, sich während des Schlafes tiefer in die physische und ätherische Leiblichkeit hineinsenkt, daß das, was das Sehen sonst bewirkt, sich in tiefere Partien des Auges hineinzieht, so daß das Sehen nicht mehr zustande kommen kann. Warum wird dieses in morgenländischen Schriften so charakterisiert? Das ist deshalb, weil der Morgenländer eben noch auf einem anderen Standpunkte steht. Er sieht durch seine Art von Hellsichtigkeit mehr das, was im Innern des Menschen vorgeht, was sich da im Innern abspielt. Er achtet weniger auf den Vorgang des Herausgehens der oberen Aura und mehr auf die Tatsache des Durchdrungenseins während des Schlafes mit der unteren Aura. Daher hat er von seinem Standpunkte aus selbstverständlich recht.
Man kann sagen: Die Vorgänge, die im Menschen in seiner Entwickelung stattfinden, sind sehr kompliziert, und immer mehr und mehr wird es dem Menschen möglich werden, sich im Verlaufe der Evolution sozusagen den ganzen Umfang jener Vorgänge zu vergegenwärtigen. Aber die Entwickelung bestand darin, daß die Menschen in ihrem Anschauen nach und nach einzelne Partien kennengelernt haben. Daher die einzelnen Mitteilungen, die in den verschiedenen Epochen gemacht werden. Wenn sie auch scheinbar nicht gleich lauten, so sind sie doch darum nicht falsch, sondern sie beziehen sich immer auf das Einseitige, das sich ja auch immer vollzieht. Aber der ganze Vorgang der Entwickelung wird einem erst klar, wenn man die ganzen Vorgänge zusammenfaßt. Darauf kommt es an.
Wir stehen jetzt an dem Punkt, wo wir ein gewisses Stück der Evolution recht gut werden überschauen können. Es ist wirklich ein ganz bedeutsamer Unterschied in der ganzen Seelenverfassung, Seelenstimmung des Menschen, wenn wir die menschliche Seelenentwickelung überschauen zum Beispiel in denjenigen Inkarnationen, die in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Periode verlaufen sind, dann wieder in der griechisch-lateinischen Periode und dann wieder in unserer Zeit. Schon äußerlich können wir ja das, was die Seele erlebt, recht gut verfolgen. Ich glaube, es wird selbst hier in diesem erleuchteten Kreise eine große Anzahl von Menschen geben, die, wenn sie einem sternenbesäten Himmel gegenüberstehen, heute sich nicht genau auskennen, wo nun die einzelnen Sternbilder sind und wie die einzelnen Sternbilder ihre Lagen im Himmelsraume während der Nacht ändern. Im ganzen können wir sagen: Die Menschen werden immer seltener und seltener, die am Sternenhimmel noch ordentlich Bescheid wissen. — Es wird sogar Menschen geben, zum Beispiel unter der Stadtbevölkerung, die man vergeblich fragen könnte: Ist jetzt Vollmond- oder Neumondzeit? — Das soll durchaus kein Tadel sein, das liegt in der naturgemäßen Entwickelung. Aber was jetzt für die Seele gilt, das wäre in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit, besonders in der älteren ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit eine vollständige Unmöglichkeit gewesen. Da haben tatsächlich die Menschen am Himmel Bescheid gewußt. Die Gegenwart hat ja wieder einen anderen Vorzug vor jenen Menschen der ägyptischchaldäischen Zeit: an logisches Denken — wie die Menschen heute denken könnten, wenn sie sich Mühe geben würden -, daran haben die Menschen der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit noch nicht einmal gedacht. Sie lebten bei Tage hin, und was sie zu ihren täglichen Verrichtungen taten, das taten sie mehr instinktiv. Man würde vollständig fehlgehen, wenn man glaubte, daß damals ein Bauwerk oder eine Wasserleitung ausgeführt wurde, indem sich zunächst die Ingenieure zusammengesetzt hätten in ihren Büros und die ganze Sache mit den Mitteln, wie man heute Pläne und so weiter zustande bringt, ausgeführt hätten. Das haben damals die Ingenieure ebensowenig getan, wie heute der Biber einen Plan seines Baues entwirft, den er ganz kunst- und regelrecht macht.
Also ein so logisches, wissenschaftliches Denken, wie wir es heute haben, gab es nicht, sondern was die Menschen im Wachzustande taten, das arbeiteten sie instinktiv. Sie hatten das, was sie wußten, und wir wissen ja, daß gewaltiges, großes Wissen aus der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Epoche erhalten ist, auf eine ganz andere Weise erlangt. Sie kannten den Sternenhimmel, den Nachthimmel; sie wußten am Himmel Bescheid, aber eine solche Astronomie hatten sie nicht wie die heutigen Menschen. Sie setzten sich dem Anblick des Sternenhimmels aus, sie hatten die aufeinanderfolgenden Bilder in den aufeinanderfolgenden Nachtzeiten, und auf sie wirkte nicht bloß, was auf die Sinne Eindruck machte, nicht bloß diese Sinnesbilder, sondern auf sie wirkte das Ganze der astralischen Kräfte, welche im Raume ausgebreitet sind. Das lebten sie mit. So war für sie zum Beispiel der Weg des Großen Bären, des Siebengestirnes ein Erlebnis; ein Erlebnis, das auch andauerte, wenn sie schliefen, denn sie waren empfänglich, sensitiv für das, was geistig mit dem Großen Bären über den Himmel hinzog. Das alles nahmen sie auf. Sie nahmen mit dem sinnlichen Anblick das auf, was als Geistiges im Weltenraume lebt. Es drang noch etwas in ihr Bewußtsein herein von dem, wofür das gegenwärtige Bewußtsein ganz und gar ungeeignet ist es aufzunehmen, denn heute nimmt der Mensch nur das sinnliche Bild des Sternenhimmels auf. Und da er sehr gescheit ist, so nimmt er sich also die Sternkarte, wo die Menschen alle die Tierformen hineingezeichnet haben, und sagt: Da haben die Menschen früher Symbole hingezeichnet, da haben sie so die Sterne zusammengefaßt; doch jetzt ist der Mensch so weit gekommen, die Wirklichkeit so zu sehen, wie sie ist. - Aber der Mensch der Gegenwart weiß nicht, daß die Alten das, was sie gezeichnet haben, auch gesehen haben; daß es reale Gebilde waren, die sie abgezeichnet haben nach dem unmittelbaren Anblick, der sich ihnen darbot. Der eine konnte besser, der andere schlechter zeichnen, aber sie haben die Wirklichkeit abgezeichnet. Das haben sie gesehen. Aber sie haben nicht so gesehen, wie man im Sinnesleben sieht. Sondern wenn sie zum Beispiel den Großen Bären erlebt haben, wie er über den Nachthimmel hinschweift, so haben sie die physischen Sterne nur so eingebettet gesehen in ein mächtiges geistiges Wesen, das sie wirklich wahrgenommen haben. Aber das war nicht so, daß sie an jener Stelle ein Tier über den Himmel hinschweifen gesehen haben, wie man ein physisches Tier auf der Erde sieht — das wäre eine kindliche Vorstellung -, sondern dieses Erlebnis des Hineilens des Siebengestirnes war innig verbunden mit der eigenen Natur. Die Leute fühlten, wie es auf ihre astralischen Leiber wirkte und dort Veränderungen hervorrief.
Eine Vorstellung davon, wie das etwa gewesen sein mag, können Sie sich bilden, wenn Sie sich vergegenwärtigen: Hier ist eine Rose. Sie würden dieselbe nicht anschauen, sondern bloß greifen, und dadurch, daß Sie sie greifen, erleben Sie eigentlich immer Ihre eigene Berührung mit der Rose. Also Sie würden die Rose nicht anschauen, nur greifen und Ihre eigene Berührung erleben und sich auf diese Weise eine Vorstellung von der Rose bilden. So «berührten » gleichsam mit ihrem Astralleib diese Menschen das, was sie erleben konnten am Großen Bären, «befühlten» das Astralische, und ihre eigene Berührung damit erlebten sie. Die rief aber Veränderungen in ihnen selber hervor, Veränderungen, die heute noch immer hervorgerufen, aber nicht mehr wahrgenommen werden.
Darin besteht gewissermaßen die Evolution in unsere moderne, wissenschaftliche Zeit herein, in unsere Zeit der Urteilskraft, daß das unmittelbare Erleben der geistigen Vorgänge aufgehört hat, und daß zurückgeblieben ist die Sinneswelt und der an das Gehirn gebundene Verstand. Wenn daher in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit von den geistigen Wesenheiten im Raume gesprochen wird und solche Wesenheiten auch aufgezeichnet werden, und da hinein, wie Anhaltspunkte, die physischen Sterne gezeichnet werden, so entspricht das der unmittelbar erlebten Wirklichkeit. So daß in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit eine Wahrnehmung der Menschen vorhanden war, die noch viel ähnlicher war dem Leben zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt, als unser heutiges physisches Leben im Bewußtsein ähnlich ist dem Leben zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt. Wenn man nämlich tatsächlich wahrnimmt, wie der astralische Leib und das Ich die Vorgänge am Himmel miterleben, dann weiß man auch das Folgende: Wie du da lebst mit dem Sternenhimmel, so lebst du außerhalb deines physischen Leibes und Ätherleibes, und es ist nicht der geringste Grund vorhanden, zu glauben, daß du, wenn der physische Leib und Ätherleib einmal nicht bei dir sind, nicht ebenso mit dem Sternenhimmel lebst. — So war also ein unmittelbares Wissen vorhanden von dem Miterleben der Sternenvorgänge in dem Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt. Wer in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit gelebt hat, würde es zum Beispiel als lächerlich gefunden haben, wenn man ihm die Unsterblichkeit der Seele beweisen wollte; denn er hätte gesagt: Das braucht man nicht zu beweisen! — Er hätte nicht einmal in unserem Sinne verstanden, was ein Beweis ist, weil logisches Denken nicht vorhanden war. Aber wenn er in einer okkulten Schule gelernt hätte, was einmal künftig ein Beweis ist, so hätte er gesagt: Die Unsterblichkeit der Seele braucht man nicht zu beweisen, denn wenn man den nächtlichen Sternenhimmel erlebt, so erlebt man das, was unabhängig ist von der Leiblichkeit. - Also für ihn war die Unsterblichkeit eine unmittelbare Erfahrung, und vieles von dem, was wir heute beschreiben über die Wahrnehmung im entkörperten Zustande, wußten diese Menschen. Sie wußten es unmittelbar. Denn sehen wir von diesen weiterliegenden Sternenwelten hin auf unsere Planetensterne, so war für diese Menschen zum Beispiel der Saturn etwas, was sie geistig wahrnahmen. Das heißt, sie nahmen wahr, was als geistige Welt mit dem Saturn verknüpft ist. Sie nahmen also tatsächlich wahr — namentlich für die älteren Zeiten der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Epoche gilt das -, was von dem Menschen zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt auf diesem Saturn lebt. Recht kurios würde es ja für einen Menschen der damaligen Zeit erschienen sein, wenn man ihm hätte sagen wollen, daß man eine solche «Mars-Korrespondenz» anstreben würde, wie man es sich vielfach heute denkt, denn für ihn war eine Verbindung mit diesen Welten für sein Bewußtsein durchaus vorhanden. Wenn man aber Saturn oder Mars oder sonst einen planetarischen Zustand kennt und verfolgen kann, wie er heute innerhalb unseres Planetensystems sich auslebt, dann führt einen das auch zur Erkenntnis derjenigen Zustände, wie sie zum Beispiel in der «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» beschrieben sind als Saturn-, Sonnen- und Mondzustand, die vorirdisch sind. Das ist also damals erlebt worden. Man hätte es nicht vorzutragen gebraucht, sondern man hätte es damals einfach so vor das menschliche Bewußtsein zu bringen gehabt, daß man die Leute, die so etwas nicht mehr unmittelbar wahrnehmen konnten, in Zustände gebracht hätte, in denen sie es wahrnehmen konnten. Anders wäre es nicht möglich gewesen.
Das war nun schon in der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit anders. Da war die Empfindlichkeit der Menschen für alles, was ich jetzt erzählt habe, schon verlorengegangen, und was noch vorhanden war, das war die Erinnerung daran. Also in der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit war bei den maßgebenden Völkern, zum Beispiel des europäischen Südens, nicht mehr in demselben Maße die Möglichkeit vorhanden, die geistigen Wesenheiten des Sternenhimmels zu schauen, aber die Erinnerung daran war vorhanden. Es hatte daher eine Seele, die innerhalb der griechisch-lateinischen Kultur geboren wurde, nicht mehr die Möglichkeit, hinauszuschauen in die Sternenwelten, um das Geistige zu schauen; man sah nicht mehr in demselben Maße wie in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit die geistigen Wesen, die zu den Sternenwelten gehörten. Aber wie der Mensch sich heute an das erinnert, was er gestern erlebt hat, so erinnerten sich die Seelen noch an das, was sie in früheren Inkarnationen über das Weltall erfahren hatten. Das strahlte herein in die Menschen, von dem wußten sie, daß es in ihren Seelen lebt. Plato deutet es als Erinnerung. Aber die Menschen deuten es nicht immer als Erinnerung. Und darin besteht der Fortschritt in der Entwickelung, daß dieses unmittelbare Wahrnehmen heruntergedämpft wurde und dafür während der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit das Urteilen, die Begriffswelt sich ausbildet, die ja erst in dieser Zeit kam. Dafür mußte das andere zurückgehen, konnte bloß in der Erinnerung leben. Am schönsten kann man das bei dem im 4. vorchristlichen Jahrhundert lebenden Aristoteles sehen, der ja der Begründer der Logik ist, der Kunst des Urteilens, der selber nichts mehr wahrnehmen konnte von dem, was als Geistiges in den Sternenwelten draußen ist, aber in seinen Schriften die ganzen alten Theorien wieder bringt, so daß er nicht von etwas redet, was wir heute als physische Weltenkörper kennenlernen, sondern er spricht von den «Sphärengeistern», von geistigen Wesenheiten. Und ein großer Teil der Ausführungen des Aristoteles ist der Aufzählung der einzelnen Planetengeister, der Fixsterngeister und so weiter bis zu dem einheitlichen Weltengotte gewidmet. Die Sphärengeister spielen bei Aristoteles noch eine große Rolle.
Aber auch die Erinnerung der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit an die geistigen Wesenheiten der Welt ging allmählich der Menschheit verloren. Und es ist interessant zu sehen, wie sozusagen Stück für Stück des alten Wissens nach der neueren Zeit zu verlorengeht. Die mehr spirituell veranlagten Naturen holten noch immer aus ihren Erinnerungen das Bewußtsein herauf, daß mit alle dem, was physisch als Weltenkörper im Raume ausgestreut ist, geistige Wesenheiten verknüpft sind, so wie wir es heute in der anthroposophischen Wissenschaft wieder darstellen. So findet man noch vieles in dieser Beziehung, man möchte sagen, sogar grandios für seine Zeit dargestellt, bei Kepler. Und je mehr wir der neueren Zeit entgegengehen, desto mehr schwindet auch diese Möglichkeit, die Erinnerung noch zu haben an das, was die Seele erlebt hat im Anblick des Sternenhimmels in der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit. Die Erinnerung, die noch in der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit vorhanden war, auch die schwindet, und immer mehr und mehr rückt die Zeit des Kopernikanismus heran, in der man nur die physischen Weltenkugeln sieht, die durch den Raum eilen. Nur manchmal glänzt, wie gesagt, bei neueren Geistern, indem etwas hereinspielt in das Bewußtsein, noch eine Möglichkeit auf, aus der Konstellation der Sternenwelt von den geistigen Zusammenhängen, von geistigen Vorgängen etwas zu verfolgen, wie es sich zum Beispiel Kepler hat angelegen sein lassen, die Geburtszeit des Jesus von Nazareth aus der Sternenwelt noch selbständig zu berechnen. Das war eine Rechnung, die noch von dem spirituellen Durchdrungensein bei Kepler herrührte; geradeso wie Kepler sich auch darüber klar war, daß aus einer gewissen Sternkonstellation im Jahre 1604 wieder das Heruntergedrücktwerden der alten Erinnerung folgte. Und je mehr wir in die neuere Zeit heraufkommen, desto mehr ist die Menschheit auf das äußere Sinnesvermögen und auf den an das Gehirn. gebundenen Verstand angewiesen, weil in tiefere Schichten des Bewußtseins hinuntergesunken wat, was die Seelen in der Vorzeit erlebt hatten. In allen Ihren Seelen war das einmal vorhanden, was die Seelen erlebt haben, als sie in der Lage waren, dieses lebendige geistige Leben in den Weltenräumen wahrzunehmen. In den Tiefen Ihrer Seelen ist das überall drinnen. Aber es ist heute nicht die Möglichkeit vorhanden, die Seelen nächtlicherweile hinzuführen und ihren Blick zum Beispiel zum Großen Bären zu lenken und auch die Kräfte, die ausgehen vom Großen Bären, die also geistige Kräfte sind, anschaulich zu machen. Das ist so unmittelbar nicht möglich, weil die Schaukräfte, die Wahrnehmungskräfte, tief drinnen sitzen in der Seele. Im nachtschlafenden Zustande erlebt es der Mensch mit dem nach oben hinausgehenden Teile der Aura, aber er ist nicht mit dem Bewußtsein draußen. Deshalb ist das wissenschaftliche Heraufholen der vergessenen Eindrücke der alten Zeiten für die Seelen der Gegenwart das Richtige. Und wie geschieht dieses Heraufholen? So, wie wir es in der Anthroposophie machen! Nichts Neues wird den Seelen gebracht, sondern es wird das heraufgeholt, was die Seelen in früheren Zeiten erlebt haben, was sie in der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit nicht mehr wahrnehmen konnten, aber noch nicht ganz vergessen hatten, was nun ganz vergessen ist, aber wieder heraufgeholt werden kann. So daß Anthroposophie nichts anderes ist als die Anregung zum Heraufholen tief unten in den Seelen sitzender Wissenskräfte. Alle Menschen, welche die Evolution bis in die abendländische Zeit mitgemacht haben, haben in ihren Seelentiefen unten die Vorstellungen, welche durch Anthroposophie angeregt werden sollen, und die anthroposophischen Methoden sind die Anregemittel, um diese in den Tiefen der Seele ruhenden Vorstellungen heraufzuheben. |
Nun wollen wir auf den Unterschied aufmerksam machen, der nun besteht, durch diese beiden Arten sich zur Welt zu verhalten, zwischen einer Menschenseele, die in der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit inkarniert war, und einer Seele, die heute inkarniert ist.
Wir haben gesehen, daß während der griechisch-lateinischen Zeit die Seele auch im Erdenleben einen gewissen Zusammenhang, ein Wahrnehmungsvermögen hatte für das, was sie damals durchlebte zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt. Das war damals noch nicht in so tiefe Schichten der Seele hineingezogen. Daher war der Unterschied im Bewußtsein auf der Erde und zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt in diesen alten Zeiten kein so großer wie heute. Aber weil die Griechen sich nurmehr erinnern konnten an das, was sie erlebt hatten, deshalb war der Unterschied schon ungeheuer groß. Heute ist die Sache schon soweit gediehen, daß der Mensch zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt noch ein Bewußtsein entwickeln kann durch eine moralische Seelenstimmung, durch eine religiöse Seelenstimmung, bis zum Hinaufleben in die Venus-Sphäre. Wenn er aber in die Sonnen-Sphäre, und namentlich über die Sonnen-Sphäre hinauskommt, dann fehlt ihm die Möglichkeit, sein Bewußtsein anzufachen, wenn er nicht hier auf der Erde darauf sieht, die in den Tiefen der Seele ruhenden Vorstellungen in das Tagesbewußtsein heraufzuholen. Hier im Erdenleben sieht Anthroposophie so aus wie eine Theorie, wie eine Weltanschauung, der man sich bemächtigt, weil sie einen interessiert. Nach dem Tode ist sie eine Fackel, die einem die geistige Welt von einem gewissen Zeitpunkte an zwischen dem Tode und der neuen Geburt beleuchtet. Und verachtet man sie hier in der Welt, so fehlt einem diese Fackel: dann tritt eine Herabdämpfung des Bewußtseins zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt ein. Spirituelle Wissenschaft zu treiben ist nicht etwa bloß etwas Theoretisches, sondern etwas Lebendiges. Spirituelle Wissenschaft ist sozusagen eine Lebensfackel. Der Inhalt der spirituellen Lehre sind hier Begriffe und Ideen; nach dem Tode sind sie lebendige Kräfte! Aber das gilt eigentlich auch nur für unser Bewußtsein. Denn durch das, was ich im Beginne der heutigen Betrachtung gesagt habe, wird Ihnen klar sein, daß auch schon im Erdenleben die spirituellen Ideen, die wir aufnehmen, belebende Kräfte sind. Nur ist der Mensch nicht Zeuge der belebenden Kräfte, weil ihm die Erkenntnis der belebenden Gewalten verschlossen wird. Nach dem Tode schaut er sie an, ist Zeuge davon. Hier ist Anthroposophie sozusagen eine Art Theorie, und es entzieht sich dem Menschen für das Bewußtsein im Wachzustande das, was spirituell belebend ist, was aber objektiv vorhanden ist. Nach dem Tode ist der Mensch unmittelbar Zeuge, wie die Kräfte, die er mit den spirituellen Lehren während des Lebens auf der Erde aufnimmt, tatsächlich organisierend wirken, belebend, erkräftigend wirken auf dasjenige in seiner Wesenheit, was dann da sein kann, wenn er sich wieder zu einer neuen Verkörperung auf der Erde anschickt.
So wird von der Menschheitsevolution das aufgenommen, was spirituelle Lehre ist. Wenn aber diese spirituelle Lehre nicht aufgenommen würde — gegenwärtig ist es ja genügend, wenn einige wenige sie aufnehmen, aber immer mehr und mehr Menschen müssen sie gegen die Zukunft hin aufnehmen -, so würden allmählich die Menschen, wenn sie wieder zu den Erdverkörperungen zurückkehren, nicht die genügend belebenden Kräfte haben, die sie dann brauchen. Es würde eine Dekadenz, eine Verkümmerung in der späteren Inkarnation eintreten. Die Menschen würden bald welk werden, früh Runzeln bekommen und so weiter. Eine Dekadenz, ein Welkwerden der physischen Menschheit würde eintreten, wenn nicht die spirituellen Kräfte aufgenommen würden. Denn die Kräfte, welche die Menschen früher aus den Sternenwelten aufgenommen haben, müssen aus den Tiefen der Seelen wieder heraufgeholt werden und zur Evolution der ganzen Menschheit verwendet werden.
Wenn Sie das überblicken, werden Sie sich so recht von dem Gedanken durchdringen können, wie Auf-Erden-Sein seine große, seine ungeheure Bedeutung hat. Denn das mußte einmal geschehen, daß sozusagen der Mensch von seiner Verbindung mit den Sternenwelten so verinnerlicht werde, daß dieselbe Kraft, die er sonst immer aus den Sternenwelten hereingesogen hat, innerste Kraft seiner Seele werde und von seiner Seele wieder heraufgeholt werde. Das kann aber nur auf der Erde geschehen. Man könnte sagen: Der Somasaft regnete in Urzeiten aus den Himmelsräumen in die einzelnen Seelen hinein, konservierte sich dort und muß nun aus den einzelnen Seelen wieder herausfließen. Auf diese Weise bekommen wir noch auf eine ganz besondere Art eine Vorstellung von der Erdenmission. Und wir werden, nachdem wir heute diese Vorstellung eingefügt haben, das Leben zwischen dem Tode und der nächsten Geburt noch genauer betrachten.
Fourth Lecture
In the previous reflections on life between death and rebirth, we saw that the part of the human being that leaves the physical body and, to a large extent, the etheric body when passing through the gate of death—that is, the imperishable part of the human being—undergoes a life that draws its strength from the starry world. We have pointed out how this human being draws its strength from the starry regions between death and rebirth. We have pointed out how human beings become more or less capable of drawing their forces from the starry world in the right way, depending on whether they have developed certain moral or religious moods here in earthly life. Thus, we were able to show how human beings, for example, draw their correct forces from the region that radiates its forces from what is called Mercury in occultism draws his right forces through a correspondingly developed moral mood during life before death, how he can draw from the Venus sphere the corresponding forces necessary for his further life, including his further life on earth, through a corresponding religious experience before death. If we summarize these various thoughts that we have been able to bring before our soul so far, we can say: Just as long as human beings use their senses, as long as they allow themselves to be guided and directed by the intellect, which is bound to the brain as its instrument, in other words, just as human beings here during their earthly existence are connected with the forces of this earth, so in the life between death and new birth they are connected with the forces that radiate from the star worlds. However, there is a certain difference for the present human being in the relationship of his being to the forces of the earth during physical life and in his relationship to the forces of the stars between death and new birth. The forces that humans take into their consciousness during their earthly life, that is, the forces they consciously experience during their earthly life, do not contribute anything essential to what humans need for the development and enlivenment of their own being. These are processes of decay. We can see that this is the case simply from the fact that human beings do not develop consciousness during sleep. Why not? They do not develop consciousness for the simple reason that they are not meant to be witnesses of what happens to them during sleep. For during sleep, the forces used up in waking life are restored. Man is not supposed to witness this restoration of his spent forces during sleep. This whole process, which is the opposite of the waking process, is, so to speak, veiled from human consciousness. The Bible has a meaningful, profound expression for this fact. It is one of those sayings in the Bible which, like all occult foundations of religious documents, are very little understood. Where it says, with reference to life in paradise: The divine Spirit decided that man, after he had acquired this or that, for example the ability to judge good and evil, should not also be given insight into the forces of life. This is the passage in the Bible that points out that man should not witness the revival of his being during sleep, nor should he witness the revival of his being during his physical existence on earth. He should not be a witness to this. And when man awakens, the entire process of life is actually a process of destruction, a process of wear and tear. Nothing is actually created in man. Where there is still actual animation, creation, namely in early childhood, consciousness is still dull, and the entire process of creation is later veiled from man because he no longer remembers the times of his early childhood. So we can say that what we call processes of animation and creation remain hidden from human beings during their conscious earthly life. It is processes of perception and cognition that fill human consciousness, but not actual processes of animation.
This changes in the life between death and rebirth. This entire life between death and rebirth is destined to bring into the human being the forces that can serve to build up the next life, to suck these forces, so to speak, into the human being from the entire starry world. Now, however, this process is not the same as it is on Earth, where human beings do not know themselves as human beings, so to speak. For on Earth, human beings do not know themselves. What does a human being know about the processes taking place in his or her organism? They know nothing of this through direct observation; and what is gained through anatomy, biology, and so on, is not real knowledge of the human being, but something completely different. But in the life between death and rebirth, the human being observes how the forces from the starry world act upon them, upon their being, how they gradually rebuild them. From this you can see how different the view is between death and rebirth compared to here on Earth. Here, the human being stands at a point on Earth, directs his senses outward, and then his seeing or hearing goes out into the vastness. He therefore sees out into the vastness from the center point in which he finds himself. It is exactly the opposite in life after death. There, the human being feels as if his whole being were spread out, and what he sees is actually the center. He looks toward a point. There comes a time for the human being between death and new birth when he describes a circle that passes through the entire zodiac. There they look, as it were, from every point of the zodiac, that is, from different points of view, at their own being, and then feel as if they were drawing from the individual parts of the zodiac the forces which they pour into their being so that it may have what it needs for the next incarnation. One looks, then, from the circumference toward a center. It is as if you could double yourself here on earth, step out of yourself, and let yourself stand in the middle, walk around yourself, and continually absorb the forces of the universe, the life-giving soma, which, however, because it takes on a different character from different sides, pours into the being you have left standing in the middle in different ways. Translated into the spiritual realm, this is actually what happens in the life between death and rebirth. If we now want to visualize the difference between a state that is actually quite similar to the experience between death and rebirth, namely between the state of sleep and this life between death and rebirth, we can characterize this difference very simply, although those who are unfamiliar with such ideas cannot imagine much. But it can be characterized in a simple way as follows. When a human being sleeps in their earthly existence, that is, when they have left their physical body and etheric body and live in their ego and astral body, which are then in the starry world, they are also out there in the entire starry realm. And it is actually the case that our state in sleep is objectively much more similar to the state between death and rebirth than is commonly believed. Objectively, these two states are very similar. They differ only in that during normal life, humans have no consciousness of the world in which they are during sleep, whereas between death and rebirth they do have consciousness and know what is happening to them. That is the essential difference. If a person were to simply wake up in their ego and astral body when these are outside the physical body and etheric body during sleep, they would be in the same state as between death and rebirth. The difference is really only a state of consciousness. And this circumstance is very significant for the reason already mentioned. It is significant because, as long as they are on earth, and therefore also during sleep, human beings are bound to their physical bodies; they are not free from the physical body in the state of sleep. He can only become free from the physical body when this physical body passes into a lifeless state, when it undergoes a change, as happens when a person passes through the gate of death. As long as the physical body is capable of life, a connection is maintained between the actual spiritual human being, the I and the astral body, and between the physical body and the etheric body.
Now, people usually imagine the state of sleep to be too simple. This is quite understandable, because when entering the higher worlds, one can only characterize the complicated things involved from a certain point of view, so to speak. A complete characterization of the true conditions can only be gained by patiently advancing in spiritual science and getting to know things from all sides. One characterizes—and rightly so—the human state of sleep by saying that the physical body and etheric body remain in bed, while what we call the I and the astral body move out and unite with the forces of the stars. Now, however, this characterization, however correct it may be from one point of view, is only given from one point of view. And one can, as it were, form an idea of how this characterization is only given from one point of view if one considers human sleep from the standpoint of spiritual science, when this sleep is carried out at a reasonably normal time, so to speak. For in truth, objectively speaking, an afternoon nap is something quite different from a proper night's sleep. What I have just mentioned is not so much relevant to human health or other aspects of the human being itself, but to the whole relationship of the human being to the world. And so we do not want to consider an afternoon nap, but rather sleep that overtakes a person at around midnight. In other words, the sleep of a healthy person at midnight, and this state of sleep, viewed from the standpoint of clairvoyant consciousness, is what we want to consider.
When we are in our daily waking state, we can say that within the human being, in a certain regulated connection, there is what we call the four members of human nature: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. We can best understand what constitutes the proper connection between the four members of human nature by drawing it as clairvoyant consciousness sees the so-called aura of the human being. What I can draw for you here is, of course, only a very rough sketch.
If we consider the ordinary waking state of the human being, we would draw the auric connection of the human being in the following way: the physical body is the sharper line; within the dotted line is the etheric body; the denser hatching is the astral body; and the ego aura would be drawn in such a way that it permeates the whole human being, but I draw it as rays that surround him, without any actual boundaries, radiating upwards and downwards.
Next, I will draw the difference in the auric composition during the sleep state of a person who would be sleeping around midnight, or rather the auric image of the same (see drawing): The physical body and etheric body are as in the first drawing; the dark shading would be the astral body; its downward continuation would stand out, but remain in a vertical position. I would then have to draw the ego aura in rays, as can be seen here. In the throat region, the ego aura is interrupted and only begins again in the head region, but in such a way that it is directed outwards in rays and goes upwards into the indefinite when the person is in a horizontal position, but is directed upwards, from the head upwards. So that essentially the appearance of the aura of the sleeping person would be such that the astral body is essentially condensed and dark — in the area hatched darkly in the drawing — and in the upper parts it is thinner than during the day. In the throat area, the ego aura is interrupted, below it is radiant again and then continues into the indefinite.
The essential point is that in such a state of sleep, what can be called the auric image of the ego is in fact divided into two parts. During the waking state, the ego aura hangs together like an oval, separates in the middle during such a state of sleep, and consists of two pieces during sleep, one of which is turned downward by a kind of heaviness and spreads downward, so that one is dealing not with a closing ego aura, but with one that spreads downward. This part of the ego aura appears to clairvoyant consciousness as a significantly darker part of the aura, which has dark threads but is tinged with strong, for example, dark reddish shades. What separates from this upwards is again such that it runs narrowly from the head region, but then spreads out into the indefinite, spreading upwards into the starry world, so to speak. The astral aura is not divided in the same way in the middle, so that one cannot speak of a real division of it, while the ego aura, at least to the eye, is divided.
Thus, in this occult vision, we also have a kind of pictorial expression of the fact that human beings, with what permeates them as ego forces during the waking state, go out into the world space in order to connect with the starry world, to suck in, so to speak, the forces from the starry world.
Now, the part of the ego aura that constricts downward and becomes dark, appearing more or less opaque, while the part that rises upward is brightly luminous and shining, radiating in bright light, is at the same time the part that is most exposed to the influence of the Ahrimanic forces. The adjacent part of the astral aura is most exposed to the Luciferic forces. We can therefore say that the characteristic that is rightly given from a certain point of view, that the I and the astral body leave the human being, is absolutely true for the upper parts of the I and astral aura. For those parts of the I and astral aura which correspond more to the lower parts, especially the lower parts of the trunk of the human form, this is not actually correct; rather, for these parts, it is even the case that during sleep, the aura of the ego and the astral body are more inside, more connected with the physical body and the etheric body than is the case in the waking state, so that they are denser and more compact towards the bottom. For one can also see how, upon awakening, what I have drawn so strongly at the bottom emerges again from the lower parts of the human being. Just as the upper part emerges when we fall asleep, so the lower part of the ego and astral aura emerges in a certain way when we wake up, and only a kind of fragment of these two auras remains inside, as I have drawn in the first figure.
Now it is extremely important to know that through the evolution of our Earth, through all the forces that have played a part in this and which you can see in “An Outline of Secret Science,” a mechanism has been established whereby human beings do not participate in this more active work of the lower aura during sleep, that is, they do not participate in this work as witnesses. For it is from these parts of the lower ego aura and the lower astral aura that the life-giving forces are stimulated which human beings need in order to repair what has been worn out during the waking state. The restorative forces must emanate from these parts of the aura. Whether they work upward and restore the whole human being depends on whether the upward part of the aura develops forces of attraction that it draws in from the starry world, thereby attracting the forces coming from below so that they have a regenerating effect on the human being. That is the objective process.
Now, understanding this fact also gives us, in a sense, the best understanding of certain messages that people receive when they study various occult documents or documents based on occultism. You have always heard, as I just said, the characteristic description, which is entirely justified from a certain point of view, that sleep consists in the human being leaving his physical body and etheric body lying in bed and going out with his astral body and I; which is entirely correct in a certain sense for the upper parts of the I and astral aura, especially for the I aura. But if you study Eastern writings, you will not find this characteristic, but rather the opposite. There you will find that during the state of sleep, what otherwise lives in human consciousness withdraws deeper into the body. So there you find the opposite characteristic of sleep. And especially in certain Vedanta writings, you can find the matter characterized as follows that what we say withdraws from the physical body and etheric body sinks deeper into the physical and etheric body during sleep, that what otherwise causes seeing withdraws into deeper parts of the eye so that seeing can no longer take place. Why is this characterized in this way in Eastern writings? It is because Easterners stand on a different point of view. Through their kind of clairvoyance, they see more of what is going on inside the human being, what is happening there. They pay less attention to the process of the upper aura leaving the body and more to the fact that the lower aura permeates the body during sleep. From their point of view, they are therefore quite right.
One can say that the processes taking place in human beings during their development are very complicated, and that in the course of evolution it will become increasingly possible for human beings to grasp the entire scope of these processes. But development has consisted in human beings gradually becoming acquainted with individual parts of these processes. Hence the individual communications made in different epochs. Even if they do not seem to be the same, they are not wrong, but always refer to the one-sided aspect that is always taking place. But the whole process of evolution only becomes clear when one summarizes all the processes. That is what matters.
We are now at the point where we can get a pretty good overview of a certain part of evolution. There is really a very significant difference in the entire soul constitution, the soul mood of human beings, when we survey human soul development, for example, in the incarnations that took place in the Egyptian-Chaldean period, then again in the Greek-Latin period, and then again in our time. Even outwardly, we can follow quite well what the soul experiences. I believe that even here in this enlightened circle there will be a large number of people who, when they look up at a starry sky, do not know exactly where the individual constellations are and how they change their positions in the sky during the night. On the whole, we can say that people who still have a good knowledge of the starry sky are becoming increasingly rare. There will even be people, for example among the urban population, whom one could ask in vain: Is it now full moon or new moon? This is by no means a reproach; it is part of natural development. But what is now true for the soul would have been completely impossible in Egyptian-Chaldean times, especially in the earlier Egyptian-Chaldean period. Back then, people actually knew what was going on in the sky. The present day has another advantage over the people of the Egyptian-Chaldean era: logical thinking — as people could think today if they made an effort — was something the people of the Egyptian-Chaldean era had not even thought of. They lived from day to day, and what they did in their daily tasks, they did more instinctively. One would be completely mistaken to believe that a building or a water pipe was constructed at that time by engineers first sitting down in their offices and carrying out the whole project using the means by which plans and so on are drawn up today. Engineers did not do that then any more than beavers today draw up a plan for their lodge, which they build with great skill and precision.
So there was no logical, scientific thinking as we have today, but what people did while awake, they did instinctively. They had what they knew, and we know that enormous, great knowledge has been preserved from the Egyptian-Chaldean era, acquired in a completely different way. They knew the starry sky, the night sky; they knew their way around the heavens, but they did not have the same kind of astronomy as people today. They exposed themselves to the sight of the starry sky, they had the successive images in the successive night hours, and they were not only affected by what made an impression on the senses, not only by these sensory images, but they were affected by the whole of the astral forces that are spread out in space. They lived with this. For example, the path of the Great Bear, the Seven Sisters, was an experience for them; an experience that continued even when they slept, because they were receptive, sensitive to what was moving spiritually across the sky with the Great Bear. They took all this in. With their sensory perception, they took in what lives as spirit in the world space. Something else penetrated their consciousness that the present consciousness is completely incapable of taking in, for today human beings only take in the sensory image of the starry sky. And since he is very clever, he takes the star map, where people have drawn all the animal shapes, and says: People used to draw symbols there, that is how they grouped the stars together; but now man has progressed so far that he can see reality as it is. But people today do not know that the ancients also saw what they drew; that they were real formations which they copied from their immediate view. Some were better at drawing than others, but they copied reality. They saw it. But they did not see it as we see in our sensory life. When they experienced, for example, the Great Bear sweeping across the night sky, they saw the physical stars only as embedded in a mighty spiritual being that they truly perceived. But it was not as if they saw an animal roaming across the sky in that place, as one sees a physical animal on earth — that would be a childish idea — but this experience of the seven stars rushing across the sky was intimately connected with their own nature. People felt how it affected their astral bodies and brought about changes there.
You can form an idea of how this might have been if you imagine the following: Here is a rose. You would not look at it, but merely touch it, and by touching it, you would actually experience your own contact with the rose. So you would not look at the rose, but only touch it and experience your own touch, and in this way form an idea of the rose. In this way, these people “touched” with their astral bodies what they could experience in the Great Bear, “felt” the astral, and experienced their own contact with it. But this brought about changes in them, changes that are still brought about today but are no longer perceived.
This is, in a sense, the evolution into our modern, scientific age, into our age of judgment, that the direct experience of spiritual processes has ceased and that what remains is the sensory world and the intellect bound to the brain. Therefore, when in the Egyptian-Chaldean era spiritual beings in space are spoken of and such beings are also recorded, and the physical stars are drawn in as points of reference, this corresponds to directly experienced reality. Thus, in the Egyptian-Chaldean period, human beings had a perception that was much more similar to life between death and rebirth than our present physical life in consciousness is similar to life between death and rebirth. For when one actually perceives how the astral body and the I participate in the events in the sky, one also knows the following: Just as you live with the starry sky, so you live outside your physical body and etheric body, and there is not the slightest reason to believe that when your physical body and etheric body are not with you, you do not live just as much with the starry sky. — So there was direct knowledge of the co-experience of the events of the stars in the life between death and rebirth. Those who lived in Egyptian-Chaldean times would have found it ridiculous, for example, if someone had tried to prove the immortality of the soul to them; for they would have said: There is no need to prove that! — They would not even have understood what proof is in our sense, because logical thinking did not exist. But if they had learned in an occult school what proof is, they would have said: The immortality of the soul does not need to be proven, because when you experience the starry sky at night, you experience something that is independent of physicality. So for him, immortality was a direct experience, and much of what we describe today about perception in the disembodied state was known to these people. They knew it directly. For when we look from these distant star worlds down upon our planetary stars, Saturn, for example, was something that these people perceived spiritually. That is, they perceived what is connected with Saturn as a spiritual world. They actually perceived—and this is especially true of the earlier times of the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch—what lives on Saturn between death and rebirth. It would have seemed quite strange to a person of that time if someone had told them that they were striving for such a “Mars correspondence” as is often thought of today, because for them, a connection with these worlds was very much present in their consciousness. But if one knows Saturn or Mars or any other planetary state and can follow how it lives out within our planetary system today, then this also leads to the recognition of those states which are described, for example, in “An Outline of Esoteric Science” as the Saturn, Sun, and Moon states, which are pre-earthly. This was therefore experienced at that time. It would not have been necessary to expound it, but simply to bring it into human consciousness in such a way that people who could no longer perceive such things directly would be brought into states in which they could perceive them. It would not have been possible otherwise.
This was already different in Greek-Latin times. People's sensitivity to everything I have just described had already been lost, and what remained was the memory of it. So in the Greek-Latin period, the influential peoples, for example in southern Europe, no longer had the same opportunity to see the spiritual beings of the starry sky, but the memory of it remained. Therefore, a soul born within the Greek-Latin culture no longer had the opportunity to look out into the starry worlds to see the spiritual; people no longer saw the spiritual beings belonging to the starry worlds to the same extent as in the Egyptian-Chaldean period. But just as human beings today remember what they experienced yesterday, so souls still remembered what they had experienced about the universe in previous incarnations. This radiated into human beings, and they knew that it lived in their souls. Plato interprets this as memory. But human beings do not always interpret it as memory. And this is the progress in development: that this immediate perception was dampened and, in its place, during the Greek-Latin period, judgment and the world of concepts developed, which only came into being at that time. For this to happen, the other had to recede and could only live on in memory. This can be seen most beautifully in Aristotle, who lived in the 4th century BC, who is the founder of logic, the art of judgment, who himself could no longer perceive anything of what is spiritual in the star worlds outside, but who in his writings brings back all the old theories, so that he does not speak of something we know today as physical world bodies, but speaks of “sphere spirits,” of spiritual beings. And a large part of Aristotle's writings is devoted to listing the individual planetary spirits, the spirits of the fixed stars, and so on, up to the unified world god. The sphere spirits still play a major role in Aristotle's work.
But even the memory of the spiritual beings of the world from the Greek-Latin period was gradually lost to humanity. And it is interesting to see how, piece by piece, so to speak, the ancient knowledge is being lost in modern times. The more spiritually inclined natures still drew from their memories the awareness that spiritual beings are connected with everything that is physically scattered in space as world bodies, just as we represent it again today in anthroposophical science. One finds much in this connection in Kepler, which one might even call magnificent for its time. And the closer we come to modern times, the more this possibility of still having the memory of what the soul experienced when looking at the starry sky in Egyptian-Chaldean times disappears. The memory that still existed in Greek and Latin times is also fading, and the age of Copernicanism is drawing ever closer, in which we see only the physical spheres rushing through space. Only sometimes, as I said, does a glimmer of possibility shine forth in newer minds, when something plays into their consciousness, enabling them to trace something from the constellations of the starry world to spiritual connections and spiritual processes, as Kepler, for example, took it upon himself to independently calculate the time of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth from the starry world. This was a calculation that still stemmed from Kepler's spiritual insight; just as Kepler was also aware that a certain constellation of stars in 1604 would result in the suppression of ancient memories. And the closer we come to the present time, the more humanity is dependent on the outer senses and on the intellect bound to the brain, because what the souls had experienced in earlier times has sunk down into deeper layers of consciousness. What the souls experienced when they were able to perceive this living spiritual life in the world spaces was once present in all your souls. It is everywhere in the depths of your souls. But today it is not possible to lead souls there at night and direct their gaze, for example, to the Great Bear and make visible the forces that emanate from the Great Bear, which are spiritual forces. This is not possible in such a direct way because the powers of vision, the powers of perception, are deeply embedded in the soul. In the state of nighttime sleep, human beings experience this with the upward part of their aura, but they are not outside with their consciousness. That is why it is right to bring up the forgotten impressions of ancient times scientifically for the souls of the present. And how does this bringing up take place? Just as we do it in anthroposophy! Nothing new is brought to the souls, but rather what the souls experienced in earlier times is brought up, what they could no longer perceive in the Greek-Latin period but had not yet completely forgotten, what is now completely forgotten but can be brought up again. So anthroposophy is nothing other than the stimulation to bring up the powers of knowledge that lie deep within the souls. All human beings who have gone through evolution up to the Western era have in the depths of their souls the ideas that anthroposophy seeks to stimulate, and the anthroposophical methods are the means of stimulation to bring these ideas, which lie dormant in the depths of the soul, to the surface. |
Now let us draw attention to the difference that exists between these two ways of relating to the world, between a human soul that was incarnated in the Greco-Latin period and a soul that is incarnated today.
We have seen that during the Greek-Latin period, the soul also had a certain connection in earthly life, a faculty of perception for what it was going through between death and new birth. At that time, this was not yet drawn into the deeper layers of the soul. Therefore, the difference in consciousness on earth and between death and new birth in those ancient times was not as great as it is today. But because the Greeks could only remember what they had experienced, the difference was already enormous. Today, things have progressed to such an extent that between death and rebirth, human beings can still develop consciousness through a moral soul mood, through a religious soul mood, until they rise up into the Venus sphere. But when he reaches the sphere of the Sun, and especially beyond the sphere of the Sun, he lacks the possibility of kindling his consciousness unless he looks back here on Earth to bring the ideas resting in the depths of his soul up into his daytime consciousness. Here in earthly life, anthroposophy appears as a theory, as a worldview that one embraces because it interests one. After death, it is a torch that illuminates the spiritual world from a certain point in time between death and new birth. And if one despises it here in the world, one lacks this torch: then a dulling of consciousness occurs between death and rebirth. Spiritual science is not merely something theoretical, but something alive. Spiritual science is, so to speak, a torch of life. The content of spiritual teaching here consists of concepts and ideas; after death, they are living forces! But this actually applies only to our consciousness. For from what I said at the beginning of today's meditation, it will be clear to you that even in earthly life, the spiritual ideas we take in are life-giving forces. Only, human beings are not witnesses to these life-giving forces because the knowledge of these life-giving powers is closed to them. After death, he sees them and witnesses them. Here, anthroposophy is, so to speak, a kind of theory, and what is spiritually animating, but objectively present, is hidden from human consciousness in the waking state. After death, human beings are direct witnesses of how the forces they have absorbed through spiritual teachings during their life on earth actually have an organizing, enlivening, and strengthening effect on that part of their being which can then be present when they prepare to incarnate again on earth.
This is how spiritual teachings are absorbed by human evolution. But if these spiritual teachings were not absorbed — at present it is sufficient if a few people absorb them, but more and more people must absorb them in the future — then gradually, when people return to earthly incarnations, they would not have the sufficiently invigorating forces that they would then need. A decadence, an atrophy would occur in later incarnations. People would soon become withered, develop wrinkles early, and so on. A decadence, a withering of the physical human race would occur if the spiritual forces were not absorbed. For the forces that people used to absorb from the star worlds must be brought back up from the depths of the souls and used for the evolution of the whole of humanity.
When you understand this, you will be able to grasp how being on earth has its great, its immense significance. For it had to happen once that human beings became so internalized, so to speak, from their connection with the star worlds that the same force that they had always drawn from the star worlds became the innermost force of their souls and was brought back up from their souls. But this can only happen on Earth. One could say that in primeval times, the soma juice rained down from the heavenly realms into the individual souls, where it was preserved, and now it must flow out again from the individual souls. In this way, we gain a very special insight into the mission of the Earth. And now that we have incorporated this insight, we will examine life between death and the next birth in even greater detail.