The Supersensible Human Form After Death

It is during this period of existence that the human being who has become such a “physiognomy” learns to know the Beings of the Third Hierarchy—the Angels, Archangels and Archai. For these Beings are themselves always, by their inherent nature, physiognomy. They have come forth from the Beings of the higher Hierarchies and let their whole nature of spirit and soul be impressed upon their spirit-form, making it thus perceptible to Imaginative vision. This contact with the Beings of the Third Hierarchy is thus an experience which is added to that of association with our fellowmen with whom we are connected by destiny. The spectacle of all the other human beings with whom we are connected by destiny is, of course, full of variety. Among them are, for example, some who on Earth would have preferred to have us at the opposite side of the globe, but are nevertheless bound to us by destiny. We know exactly what feelings they have harboured about us and what they have done to us. The spectacle is indeed one of very great variety! And among these wandering forms move the Beings of the Third Hierarchy, figures radiant and shining like the Sun. The words I use, are, of course, comparative; one has after all no other possibility than to employ earthly language. But we are speaking here of absolute reality, when we tell how during this period after death man meets the other human beings who are bound to him by destiny. Strange to say, it is only those with whom he is connected by destiny that a man can perceive and understand. Human souls to whom he is not actually bound by destiny remain to all intents invisible to him. He has no means of reading their moral-spiritual physiognomy. He does not notice them,—nor can he, for it is precisely the link of destiny which gives one the power to see. If it were the fate of human beings here on Earth to see with their physical eyes as they see in this period after death, they would not see very much; for here on Earth men like to be passive in their seeing and let the objects rise up before them. In our present epoch of civilisation people are little inclined to bestir themselves, in order to be awake to their environment. Many of those who are devoured to-day by a passion for the cinema, many of those who crave for impressions to which they can passively surrender themselves, would, if they were equipped here on Earth with the same kind of sight as after death, not see their fellowmen at all. For after death our sight of other human souls depends entirely upon our attentiveness, which has then, of course, been implanted in us by the way in which destiny binds us to them. The first period of the life after death is thus a time when we learn to know one another; and during this time we learn also to know how souls are received in the spiritual world by the Beings of the Third Hierarchy. We behold the joy with which the Angels, Archangels and Archai receive the spirit-forms of human beings,—or again, we perceive how little joy they experience in meeting them. We observe what impression human souls make upon those Beings of the Hierarchies who stand nearest to them in the invisible world.