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

Now for the spiritual investigator who has to investigate those things, an important question arises out of such considerations. He has first to place this question before himself. And the posing of the question is then a kind of introduction to the answer which must then arise from the clairvoyant observation. For example; one must say: Here on earth, according to the normal course of life Man is destined to reach old age and to use up his life slowly. To this end his etheric body, astral body, and Ego are adjusted. This would occur, if the course of life were normal: but now, through a shell that suddenly strikes a man, the whole connection is disturbed. Through this, a certain faculty of the etheric body (I will for the present limit our consideration to the individual man), that force which would have been able to work as if prophetically through the entire life, which would have been able to lead him through many other relations in life—that force is torn out of life; it is separated from the physical plane. Just suppose that the shell had not struck the man. (We can put this hypothesis and not consider the fact that all this is of course karmic). Well, he would then have gradually used up that force in his etheric body, perhaps during many years. That force is nevertheless in the inner part of his soul. It does not cease to exist, and it may be perceived when the man, who has been killed by a shell, gazes on his life-tableau, looks back in the etheric body. I have already indicated that this life-picture has a quite special characteristic. It has the characteristic of seeming to come from the outer world, rather than of having to be produced from within.