Fourth Lecture

Now it is just as necessary for the spiritual world to be able to proclaim that something exists up there as for something to exist down there in the world that has the potential of this coarse existence, but which does not live out as a coarse material existence. This proclamation is something similar for the spiritual worlds as the proclamation of ideals is for the physical world. These are the reverse idealists. Here below, life can take such a course that inclinations do not live out, that souls return from the physical world that have found violent death. This makes a proclamation up there among those who have not experienced this, which means the same as the proclamation of ideals here. Here in the physical existence one proclaims: Not only is valuable that which makes an impression on the senses, but also valuable are the ideals that come from the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, those who have been deprived of their bodies proclaim that there is an effective force that, although intended for the sensual world, does not enter into this sensual world, but enters the world in a different way, and that it animates the spiritual world just as ideals animate the sensual world. This is a very significant result of spiritual research, and it indicates to us that sacrificial deaths also have a significance for the spiritual world, not only the significance that I explained yesterday for the physical world, but also for the spiritual world. Among the souls of the spiritual world, there are those who look to the ordinary course of life, but there are also those who have learned that inclinations can be cut off with a single blow. And they are, so to speak, the reverse idealists for the spiritual world.