Death and Immortality in the Light of Spiritual Science

GA 69d — 16 April 1914, Prague

24. How Does the Human Soul Find its True Nature?

Spiritualism; the human soul could never know anything about spiritual beings and things if these spiritual beings and things had characteristics that also exist in the physical world. Poor memory: because [one] has not been taught [or has not taught oneself] to develop attentiveness. Attention is one thing, the other is that we always remember what our ego experiences, that humans can always connect to their past. Attention must always be directed to things that have already been experienced. What already exists in ordinary life, this inner attention, must be increased to infinity; this is concentration of the soul's powers. It is best to make it a duty in free soul activity out of free will. It is not that concentrating on this or that idea is effective, but that one repeatedly devotes oneself to this concentration. Constant dripping hollows the stone; not like a drop hollows the stone.

Then [one practices] devotion, negative soul activity. One [should] become completely absorbed in this negation. The first [soul activity is] concentration, the second is meditation, devotion. They [work] like a pendulum. The two exercises must be performed at different times. Then [follows] an experience outside the physical body. [This] can never be dangerous with proper training, but it is always shocking. Perhaps [it happens at night], [or in] daily life, in the middle of the street. [They appear to me] delusional [?]; [in which] I am not at their highest point, but at their lowest level. The spiritual world is truly different in all its details from the sensory world. One is looked at by the spiritual beings, one feels their gaze when one looks at them oneself. A problem of fear and dread is the problem of materialism; the fear of experiencing one's self in the flowing spiritual life. [In this way] memory can grow stronger, then [one can] look back on the time before ego memory, before birth, on earlier earthly lives. Previously, [these powers] were used as powers to adapt the soul, [to adapt it] in an unconscious way. You would have become a perfect being if you had not told this lie. [One must] reverse the view that the spirit grows out of the body like a flower; no, on the contrary, [the] effect of the spirit is the physical. It is habits of thought that turn judgment into prejudice, and we need only clear away the prejudices; only this is necessary: to become unbiased. This puts an end to prejudices, and only the soul's own independent, unbiased judgment unfolds. Judgment does not resist, only prejudice resists. Even in the nineteenth century, writings appeared that contradicted Copernicanism. Giordano Bruno, on the basis of Copernicanism, presented what was actually a worldview. Blue shell, limited—[this is how the firmament was previously seen]. It is significant [that] people have become accustomed to saying: the worlds extend out into infinity. Not just the boundary; that cannot be expanded and reinforced. So much ingenuity has been expended to show that the spiritual human being cannot penetrate the spiritual worlds. Before that, the microscope and telescope. These objections can be correct, astute, ingenious. The opposition is against spiritual science because so much can be proven against it. And it is not this evidence that matters, but the whole. What the spiritual researcher experiences in the early stages can be imagined as something that delights the soul. But ...: Returning to the body causes moods in the soul of the spiritual researcher that can lead to the greatest pain, to the greatest suffering. People often become spiritual researchers out of a mere desire to learn something about the higher worlds. What one consumes from waking up to falling asleep, which is like killing life, the forces [will] flow into [one] during sleep. Immortality [can thus] truly become an experience.

Question and answer

Question: Why does anthroposophy not appear in public as a religion in the Jesuit sense?

Rudolf Steiner: I can't really imagine anything very specific in response to this question: because it does not want to be one, in the sense of historical religions. However, it does provide content that can be perceived as religious by people, and indeed must be perceived as such. There is a misunderstanding here: many people wish to have a religion handed down to them through spiritual science. Columbus; spiritual sun of the soul life. The old religious traditions, the old traditions are gradually losing their strength. Transition period; it is important to understand what the transition consists of for one's own time. [In our time this means:] “Not distinguishing — at least not in scientific recognition — between good and evil.” It [spiritual science] does not present itself as a religion because, above all, it does not want to adopt the forms of dissemination of the old religions as its own. Spiritual science wants to have an effect through what it can say. One must be able to respond to it with inner understanding. This requires something different from the dissemination of religions.

Question: What is heredity based on?

Rudolf Steiner: The spiritual researcher could really provide the concept for all opposing objections. A person falls into the water and [consequently] gets wet. In spiritual research, [a] much finer logic is necessary than in ordinary science, where a much coarser logic is usually sufficient. At the river, someone falls in; now it may be that death is the cause of falling in and not at all the effect of falling in. Things are connected according to cause and effect. — Certainly, they are. But causality is taken far too lightly: it is not enough to prove that the cause really causes something. When a person stands before us, we cannot immediately conclude that he is the father of a son. Not only can something be the cause, but it also causes something in each specific case, and we must look at that. In the Bach family, it is the physical organization of the ear to which the individual always feels attracted. Such is heredity for human life.

It would be quite different if one were to discuss it in relation to animal life; or in relation to death, if one were to think that death is the same for [inanimate] plants as it is for [animate] animals and humans. Only the outward appearance [is similar]; in fact, [it is] something quite different in plants, animals, and humans. [One objection to this necessary differentiation is: There must] be plant souls, [since there are carnivorous plants that] cause animals to disappear inside them. [This is] by no means a logical necessity: Small creatures can also disappear inside [can also be done by] a mousetrap, [which has no soul].

Question: When [does the] animation of the egg take place?

Rudolf Steiner: [At] midnight of the world, then there is already an interaction between the generational series and the human soul that wants to incarnate. Not “when,” but [it happens] gradually and gradually, three to four weeks after conception; but [it is a] continuous connection; the spiritual takes over the still unorganized, the nervous system, gradually finds its place; [it is a] natural process that takes place gradually.

Question: Where is the soul in a mentally ill person?

Rudolf Steiner: I only answer [questions] within the limits of what I know; not [with] speculation. In Kant's case, [there was] a severe decline in mental faculties in old age: none of this is an objection. When the physical body approaches its dissolution or weakening, the soul can no longer express itself through it: Nietzsche. There is no sick soul, there is no sick mind. The whole body, the whole nervous system acts like a mirror. The soul is based on a physical process, that is true; but it is the soul that creates this process. [Look into a] concave mirror, [and you will] look as you do not actually want to look. In the same way, [the sick body cannot] properly reflect the soul. Everything [is] only a figurative expression, even when science speaks of a shock; [even the] mirror [is] only a figurative expression.