10. Between Death and Rebirth of the Human Being

The first thing the human soul experiences when it has become bodyless after death in the natural way, just as the spiritual researcher can become bodyless for temporary moments of his life, is a change in its position to what we otherwise call the world of thoughts. We have often emphasized that the human soul carries within itself the powers of thinking, feeling, and willing. This division of the powers of the human soul is basically only correct for the life of the soul in the body, between birth and death, and today, in addition to the general boldness of the subject, I will also have to struggle with the difficulty of finding suitable expressions for a completely different world that human beings have to live through between death and the next birth. For the expressions of language are shaped by the sensory life we experience in the physical body; and only by attempting to characterize the very different soul experiences after death from a certain point of view, which makes use of words in an approximate way, will I be able to cope with this realm, which is remote from ordinary knowledge. It must be borne in mind that we are talking about a realm for which we actually lack the words.