The Presence of the Dead on the Spiritual Path

The etheric body is the bearer of thoughts that are also mirror images. People could easily discover that our thoughts reflect the super-sensible. Thoughts will never lend themselves to inspection under the microscope because in reality they live in the etheric body. They are formed by our thinking, which is mirrored in the physical body. We can see from this that understanding and knowledge are dependent on the physical and etheric bodies, which are affected only by the impressions of the physical world. Completely different thoughts have to take hold in our soul, in our astral body, and all our feeling, willing, and thinking not limited to the physical plane. Otherwise we will remain inwardly dead. All thoughts that represent objects are meaningful only on the physical plane. This is implied in the very question, “Are thoughts that do not represent objects justified?” Only with the thoughts living freely in the spirit, living freely in the astral body and the I can we gain insight, only with those thoughts can we live. These thoughts not only represent things, but are also inwardly active and alive; they create something out of themselves and out of us.