10. Between Death and Rebirth of the Human Being

I already mentioned at the beginning of today's reflection that what has now been said is still very much opposed to the consciousness of the times. But how could the consciousness of the times look favorably upon what has been said in today's and other lectures? On the one hand, contemporary consciousness feels a longing to know something about the soul; on the other hand, however, it is eager to restrict the powers of cognition when one wants to know something. Spiritual science is often criticized for being illogical and superstitious. Well, spiritual science can bear that. For when it looks at the “logic” that you believe must be opposed to it, it knows where it comes from that spiritual science can only slowly find its way into people's minds. And again—I have had to mention many a book and many a contemporary phenomenon here in my lectures—I can refer to a book that presents thoughts on death. There is a strange statement in it, which I quote only for formal reasons: Immortality cannot be proven. Even Plato and Mendelssohn, who based his work on Plato, were unable to substantiate the immortality and simplicity of the soul; for even if one is willing to admit the simplicity of the soul, the soul is still an object of inner persistence that is unproven and unprovable. There is no need to go into further detail, for anyone who is capable of writing the sentence: Plato and even Mendelssohn were unable to prove the immortality of the soul from its indestructibility, should also write: One cannot prove the immortality of the rose from its red color. For when one speaks of the immortality of the soul, one cannot, unless one is thoughtless, speak of it as not being immortal because it cannot be proven. Such things are written down today and appear in a work that will have and does have a large audience, because such books appeal to our contemporaries and because such things, as they have just been characterized, are overlooked. Thus, many things are overlooked that are fundamental to what most strongly opposes spiritual science. If spiritual science is accused of being illogical, one should first of all look at one's own logic. All other objections to spiritual science have often been discussed here; I therefore do not want to return to them, but only to quote what I have already presented as a concluding thought in other lectures: