Third Lecture

GA 191/1919-10-05/p021 ·1919-10-05 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
Record: unknown. How this text was taken down (shorthand transcript, listeners' notes or manuscript) is not on record here. Unknown is not an assurance of a stenogram: check the edition's own notes before resting an argument on one word.

Ordinary natural science sees the human being only until his death. Then it follows the remains, what is left here on earth, the body, how it is cremated or how it is returned to the earth, becoming dust. Now you could examine what components are in this human dust, which is left over from a human organism. Then science will say: the human substance is breaking down and returning to the earth. Yes, that is not even a quarter of the truth, not even an eighth, it is not the truth at all, if you say it out loud. For that which is given back to the earth, whether by burning or burial, had a human form, and also had a human form because, before birth or conception, a spiritual being descended from the spiritual worlds and worked in this physical body until death. Then this physical body is returned to the earth. Whatever is human form continues to work in the earth, regardless of whether it was cremated or buried. The earth continually receives what it would not have if human bodies were not given to it after death. It is good for the earth to receive human bodies after death. Otherwise the earth would only have earthly substances if human bodies were not imparted to it.

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Cite: GA 191/1919-10-05/p021 · edition English