3. The Subconscious Strata of the Soul-Life and the Life of the Spirit After Premature Death

Thus, while we regard these depths of the soul's life, we see in a wonderful manner our connection with the spiritual world. We men in ordinary human life are only given what we are able to receive, because the Ego is reflected in the physical body: but behind this rests a widely extended earthly knowledge, which is in the etheric body. Behind this again rests a clairvoyant knowledge which is already in the astral body, and a still more clairvoyant knowledge which is in the true Ego. It is good to place these things before the mind, before going on to what I now have to say. Let us consider the case which at the present time is speaking so deeply to the soul in such manifold ways, of a man who in early youth is led through the gates of death from the battle-field. It then happens that the more deeply-lying principles of human nature (etheric body, astral body, and Ego), are torn out of their connection with the physical body, in quite a different way from what occurs when one becomes old and slowly dies in bed. A quicker separation from the physical body often takes place—I have already spoken of the prophetic nature of the etheric body. We have said that even in dreams if we were able in a sense to interpret the pictures we see, we should know that in our etheric body, through the dream which arises because the astral body turns to the etheric body, which then receives as a reflection what the astral body is experiencing—that in these pictures there is something which indicates our future life, something of a prophetic nature.