IV. The Influence of the Dead on the Living World

I said earlier that the dead can show us this and that. How does that come about? I will give an example here. I have said before how it is with Raphael's painting 'The School of Athens'. Usually, the two central figures are interpreted as Plato and Aristotle. This is a false representation, and anyone who, like the Baedeckers, deals with the picture and says that the individual figures represent these or those personalities will not be able to read much into this important picture. One of the figures is Paul, who appears among the philosophers in Athens. I could understand many things if I traced back through the Akasha Chronicle to see what had led Raphael to paint this picture. Through other research I had gained the conviction that the way the Gospels came about had nothing to do with the “School of Athens”. The writers of the Gospels had occasionally established their data according to the stars, and so had practised astrology. That is a fact in itself and initially has no connection at all with the painting by Raphael. Now I had the luck or the mercy: a soul who had died relatively young drew my attention to the connection between the right and left sides of the painting and I was told that the words from the Gospel of Luke that had been in the painting had been painted over later and words from the Pythagorean school were written on them. Now one also understands the gesture that over there is pointed to astronomy with the compass, and I could determine that on the right side of Raphael should be shown stellar research. And what was recognized there was written on the other side. So from astronomy gospels were written. Now, you see, it was important to me to draw your attention to the connection between the living and the dead. The one who undertakes something like this, when he has passed through the gate of death, can face spiritual events in the same way that a child faces nature. It looks at nature but does not understand it. But nevertheless, out of intuition, it can communicate wonderful things.