The Astral World: Images, Beings, and Moral Responsibility

GA 94 — 29 June 1906, Leipzig

Lecture II

Yesterday, we sought to reveal the essence of human beings, insofar as the three bodies and the core of our being are concerned. Now we want to consider the ascent of human beings into the supersensible worlds. To do this, we must take a look at what are known as the three worlds, and only when we have described the peculiarities of these three worlds can we discuss karma, reincarnation, and so on. The physical world, which we perceive with our senses, is the first; this is where human beings live. Then we have a second, the astral world, and then the third, the spiritual world or Devachan. Deva means God and Chan means realm, dwelling place; Devachan therefore means God's realm. Insofar as human beings are spiritual beings, they have a share in the spiritual world. There is no need to describe the physical world, as everyone knows it well. The astral and devachanic worlds will be described in narrative form.

The first thing to realize is that the other worlds are not in other places, but that they surround us just as the physical world does and permeate it. That is why, after death, human beings do not wander to other places, but rather the nature of their perception and consciousness changes. Just as a person born blind who suddenly gains sight is not transported to another world, but rather has a new sense opened up to them, so it is with human beings when they die or are initiated. Then there is not a new, completely different world around them, only their senses for the physical world are switched off, whereas they now perceive what they had previously missed, what had remained hidden from them until then.

Let us first consider the astral world. This is the world in which human beings find themselves every night and also immediately after death. When they cease to open their senses to the physical world, their senses for this astral world can open up. When human beings become clairvoyant, they are initially in the astral world and perceive what has been described as the etheric body and the astral body. The astral world is extremely different from the physical world. Those who enter it are confronted with a confusing array of phenomena. What can be perceived is so different that one must first become accustomed to seeing it. One will misread things if one tries to read them in the same way as in the physical world. Everything there is seen as in a mirror, reversed or opposite. The number 365 would be 563 in the astral world. This is very confusing, especially in the beginning. When dealing with time, in the physical world everything is counted from the beginning to the end. In the astral world, it is the other way around. For example, a human life is not followed from birth to death in the astral world, but backwards from the last moment of life. Here in the physical world, we first see the egg and then the chick hatching from it; in the astral world, we first see the chick and then the egg. The most important thing, however, is that in the astral world, all the images of our moral qualities, such as pleasure and displeasure, pain and joy, hatred and love, appear to be rushing toward us. The clairvoyant notices them all flowing toward him.

For an inexperienced person, this is very confusing. They may experience all kinds of animal figures approaching them, as well as terrifying human figures and so on. There are people who recount such experiences. They are truly in a very unfortunate situation if, due to an illness, the astral world has become visible to them in an irregular way. When one begins to meditate seriously, to train oneself, then clairvoyance develops regularly, and then one knows what the astral world is all about. For those other people, however, the view into the astral world has opened irregularly due to a brain disease or something similar. The terrifying figures they see coming toward them, rushing at them, are in reality their own passions emanating from them and reflected in the astral world. Because everything is reversed in the astral world and they do not understand how to read it, everything rushes at them. Everything appears in images. For example, an outburst of rage can appear in the image of a tiger attacking them. It is the same with all these wild figures. For every desire, every passion becomes a demon. But the untrained person does not know what to make of this and considers what they see to be an illusion, a fantasy, but that is not the case at all. It is an image, a reflection.

Why is it that some people have to experience this today? It is because of our materialistic age. Let us take a look back at the 13th and 14th centuries and imagine a German city of that time. Everything was shaped by the sense of beauty of the souls of that time. Every house, every door lock, every key expressed something special; every object had its own character and was made with love. Those who created them did so out of a feeling that still affects us today. In our time, things are very different. In a modern city, what we see does not appeal to our feelings, nothing touches us, at most the things on display in the shops, such as books and so on, attract our attention. Nothing sacred, nothing religious is spread out in the outside world anymore. At that time, there were still very few books, but in those few one could find something for one's soul. Consider what is read today: things that arouse sensation and sensuality. When the soul no longer receives anything from the outside, it still carries a deep longing for the religious within itself. It locks this longing deep inside. This is not to say that we long for something from the Middle Ages. In people who no longer hear anything about the higher worlds, but who feel a lively urge for them deep within, this religious longing can suddenly break through, so that it shows itself as religious passion in the mirror image, as I indicated above. For everything that exists in the physical world as, so to speak, real reality, shows itself in the astral world in images. In the astral world, you do not immediately see pain or joy, but you see pain as a dark-colored figure and joy as a bright, yellow, friendly figure. You gradually learn to understand these images. There is absolutely nothing arbitrary or vague about this vision; you very soon learn how pain and joy of a certain kind always appear as images of a certain kind.

Therefore, the student on the astral plane first learns to read gradually and becomes familiar with the images. Bright images always indicate something on the sympathetic side, dark images and colors always indicate something on the antipathetic side. Visual perception: that is the essence of the astral world. Goethe, who was able to see astral to a certain extent, characterizes this characteristic of the astral world very beautifully at the end of his “Faust”: “Everything transitory is only a parable...”

However, the astral plane does not only contain mirror images of the physical world, but also beings that humans can never get to know on the physical plane. Our spirit has descended to the physical plane and, so to speak, clothed itself in flesh, enveloped itself. On the astral plane, however, one also finds beings who have never clothed themselves in flesh. They constantly flit around our physical forms, but ordinary people do not perceive them. They are therefore not an invention, not a fairy tale. Anyone who consciously experiences the astral world perceives them. And there are other beings that surround human beings, namely their own thoughts. Let us imagine the effect of a thought. The thought is first in the soul, for example: This person is a bad guy. This thought takes shape in the astral world. Every thought that emanates from you takes shape there. Thoughts are realities on the astral plane. Every thought we put into the world takes on astral substance, just as a child in the womb takes on physical matter. So when we have a thought, it envelops itself in astral matter and condenses into certain forms. There are beings for whom human thoughts are a welcome opportunity to incarnate, to acquire an astral body. These beings have a craving to materialize astralistically. This important fact points to the responsibility we have in life. Let us take a room in which men are sitting together drinking in the evening. What are their thoughts? They talk simply out of a desire to communicate; their thoughts are without any value. Afterwards, such a room is populated by very strange beings for the clairvoyant. The lust for idle chatter, the urge to communicate that does not arise from the intention to share something noble with others, gives very bad entities the opportunity to incarnate, and they then do all sorts of horrible things because they incarnate in such large numbers.

In occultism, it is said that on the physical plane, a lie is just a lie, but on the astral plane, it is murder. This is because when you tell a story, you create a corresponding thought form. But the fact that is being told also radiates a thought form. If your thought form corresponds to that of the other person, if it agrees with it, then the two forms flow together on the astral plane and reinforce each other. In this way, you have strengthened the life of this being. But in the case of a falsehood, the thought form that emanates from your statement does not correspond to the one that emanates from the thing itself. The forms collide and destroy each other.

Thus, untruth, lies, have a life-destroying and killing effect on others. Speaking of morality in the occult sense means not only preaching it, but also justifying it with facts from the higher worlds. Schopenhauer rightly said: Preaching morality is easy, justifying morality is difficult.

When a person sleeps, what happens to them? Their physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, while their astral body and ego step out. The clairvoyant sees the astral body actively at work during the night. During the day, a person uses up their physical energies in work and so on. That is why they become tired. These energies must be replenished. And this work is done by the astral body during the night. But what does it do during the day? It perceives the physical world. When the astral body has left the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, the human being sees and hears nothing. For it is through the astral body that the human being perceives. The eyes, ears, and all the sense organs are only the tools of the perceiving astral body. For example, it converts all vibrations in the air into sound sensations. During the night, it is spared this work and instead creates new forces for the physical body and, above all, for the etheric body. It must leave the physical body in order to be able to perform this work of restoring balance. If a person has many dreams, this work is interrupted, as it were. That is why restless dreams are harmful to health.

What changes take place during sleep in someone who is gradually becoming clairvoyant? Night becomes something completely different for such a person. Ordinary people lose consciousness when they fall asleep and regain it when they wake up. They cannot perceive what is happening in the astral world because they lack the organs to do so. For the clairvoyant, the night becomes something completely different. They do not lose consciousness like ordinary people. The untrained person experiences the astral world in a chaotic way in their dreams. For the trained person, it becomes regular in its appearance. At first, these will be fleeting, fluctuating, but regularly forming perceptions. Let us assume that a person falls asleep and a dreamlike image appears, a brownish-red figure with human but distorted features, which gradually takes on the likeness of a friend. The person wakes up and asks himself: What is that? His friend is in New York, he thinks – and considers the image to be pure imagination. After some time, they learn that their friend was in danger, perhaps in an accident, but that it ended happily. They investigate and realize that the nocturnal impression came when their friend was in danger. This event had presented itself pictorially before their soul.

Such experiences can be the beginning of clairvoyance. The regular images then become more and more frequent, and this new world takes on more and more shape. The inner life of human beings is no longer hidden from the clairvoyant. When you become clairvoyant, you will see the aura of human beings, the image of their soul life that surrounds them. The souls of human beings will lie open before your eyes. Just as you see the color of a person's skin and their hands, you will then have the images of their soul life before you.

So far, I have only spoken of images. Do only images rise and fall? Is the astral world silent? Indeed, this is how it is at first for the clairvoyant. This astral world is initially a silent one. But there comes a time when these images begin to sound, voices from the spiritual world can be heard. Pythagoras speaks of the music of the spheres. This was not a fantasy of his: the path that a star takes becomes a sound for the clairvoyant. Goethe also knew about this. In “Faust” it says:

The sun sounds, as in ancient times,
a song of rivalry in brotherly spheres,
and it completes its prescribed journey
with a thunderous roar ...

And further:

Resounding to spiritual ears
the new day is already born ...

Of course, scholars say that Goethe meant this figuratively. But after a certain development, the clairvoyant begins to hear sounds. Goethe means the spiritual essence of the sun. And when the ancients named the stars, they meant the spirit of the planets with the names they gave them. What we see as the sun is only the physical body of the sun, and Goethe knew very well that there is a spirit of the sun. When the clairvoyant first perceives sounds after a certain time, he later perceives the “inner word.” The gift of hearing the inner word is called inspiration, just as the gift of perceiving the images of the astral world is called imagination. In imagination one sees, in inspiration one hears. When Jakob Böhme and Paracelsus spoke of inspiration, they meant this gift. And so one also speaks of religious documents as being inspired. Those who wrote them were inspired, that is, initiates who had the inner word. When a person develops the ability to see, the astral world opens up to them. Through inner hearing, the devachanic world, the spiritual world, opens up to them.