I. Anthroposophical Spiritual Science and the Great Questions of our Present Civilization

After one has learned to experience the state of independence from the physical body, one finally comes to realize not only that the soul during sleep lifts itself out of the body only to return to it upon awakening, but also that this return is caused by the soul’s intense desire for the physical body. Supersensible cognition enables us to recognize the true nature of the soul, whose re-entry into the physical body upon awakening is due to a craving for the body as it lies asleep. Furthermore, if one can make this true conception of falling asleep and awakening one’s own, one’s understanding expands to such an extent that one eventually learns to know the soul before it descends—through conception and birth—from the spiritual world into the physical body offered by heredity.