GA 00 From a Branch Lecture in Essen on 23 April 1913

Schmidt Number: S-2768

On-line since: 15th June, 2019

By Rudolf Steiner

Unknown translator
Bn/GA/CW None

This single lecture does not have a Bn/GA number assigned to it. It was published in the Goetheanum News, Vol. 45, 1977, no. 5/6
(May/June). This text is from a Branch lecture given in Essen on the 23rd of April 1913.

This lecture is presented here with the kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

This e.Text edition is provided through the wonderful work of:

Various e.Text Transcribers

23 April 1913

Rudolf Steiner

Many souls are sleeping their lives away without a glance toward the spiritual world, without any connection,
through prayer or otherwise, with the spiritual world. Think of a sleeping city where the souls have all gone out of
their bodies. Whatever these souls took in of a spiritual nature during the day now lives on in them. If they took in
nothing, nothing can live on in them during the time between falling asleep and waking up. But if something
spiritual is experienced while awake, or if something is raised to the spiritual through prayer or meditation, then
this will be for the dead, when it has been carried over into sleep, just what the cornfields are for living persons. If
nothing thrives in the cornfields, people starve. What people take with them into sleep is like seeds for the fields
where the dead sojourn. What we bring with us in the way of spiritual thoughts, of devotion to the world of soul
and spirit, is what the dead live on, nourish themselves with, consume. And as famine ensues here on earth if the
fruits do not thrive, so a sort of famine ensues when souls live materialistically and carry nothing with them into
sleep. This is the connection between life in the spiritual world and life on earth.

Now someone might say: Maybe there will be a great number of deaths over there. That cannot happen. The
dead souls can experience hunger and the pangs of hunger, but the dead cannot die. This brings us to an important
question.

You see, death is something known only in the physical world. It is present only in the physical world, and not
at all in the supersensible world.

Let me point out something to you. If you go through all the sciences here, you will find that they have
worked out all sorts of laws. But science has one ideal, an ideal that one would have to say was fantastic, even if it
could be attained; and that, is to know life directly. Chemical and physical laws can be investigated any time, but
to investigate life is an ideal. Life can never be understood by means of physical laws, because it flows into the
physical world from the higher worlds.

Thus, life is something that is not known here, while death is something that is not known in the higher
worlds. It is senseless to think that death could occur in the higher world. Pain and suffering have a meaning in
the supersensible world, but not death. The beings of the higher hierarchies know nothing about dying.
 The angels veil their faces before the mystery of man's creation, they know nothing of it ... They can learn
about it only through what they are told by beings who enter the physical plane; they cannot know it directly. This
is true of all the beings of the higher hierarchies. Only one of them learned to know death, the Christ. This is the
profound significance of the Mystery of Golgotha, that a being became acquainted with death through terrible
suffering.

If one thinks this over, meditates on it, one may come to understand the Mystery of Golgotha and to see Christ
as the only being that learned to know death.

So, what happens to the souls who are starving over there for the reasons we have described? They feel their
connection with the earth fading away. They are living in a world where they must say to themselves: The earth is
being withdrawn from us, it no longer enters into our existence. And for the disembodied persons this means great
pain, terrible suffering. It means that these souls begin to long for death. But since there is no death there, their
hunger causes endless pain as they long for death.

Thus, we see how spiritual science works as seed for the dead, filling them with the proper nourishment. Only
if we know things like this can we form a right opinion of spiritual science and see that it is not a theory but an
elixir of life, and that it bridges the gulf between the living and the dead. We must see that: through it our souls
can build a living bridge to the dead. And because this is so, we must shape the anthroposophical work in the
branches in such a way that we learn what a living person can do for one who has died before him. The simplest
thing he can do for him is to read to him, read ideas, concepts, notions that are related to the supersensible world.
Spiritual science is a language that can be understood by the dead as well as the living. And it can be of service
not only to those who occupied themselves with anthroposophy While they were alive, but also to those who
would have nothing to do with it. Those who were already anthroposophists here will feel it as an especially good
deed if we read to them.

It is often objected that the dead, being already in the supersensible world, must know all about it and thus
have no need of what we read to them on the subject.

My dear friends, the earth is not only a vale of tears, it is something that has a real efficacy. The dead can look
at the supersensible world, but they cannot form ideas and concepts from merely looking. After all, there are
animals on earth. They can look at things, but they cannot form concepts as men do. If the earth had never come
to be, the human soul would live in higher worlds but it would never attain concepts about the higher worlds. Men
have to go through life on earth if they are to form concepts and ideas. So, a soul that goes through death without
an inkling of the spiritual world will live there without experiencing any of the concepts and ideas that we are able
to study here through spiritual science. It would have to return to earth to do this.

Thus, a soul can be helpful on earth by reading to the dead, because it can be understood by the dead. And
even if the dead persons took in nothing of spiritual science while on earth, we need not assume that they will
reject it after death. On the contrary, many who raged against anthroposophy and wanted to know nothing of it are
now yearning to hear about it. Not only the things around us are entangled in Maya. There can be a Maya that
overcomes a person who rages against spiritual science. What happens in the depths of the soul is often very
different from what is on the surface. A person may work up a rage in his daily consciousness, yet have a great
longing in him. It is quite hopeless to try to bring such a person to anthroposophy, but in his soul, he may be a
better anthroposophist than others. After he dies, however, the Maya is lifted. Then we see what was in the depths
of the soul. Here the soul raged, but now the longing comes to the fore. It may be that our reading is in rain, but
this we must risk ...

We come into closer connection with the dead if we devote ourselves to anthroposophy in the right way. We
must fill ourselves with understanding for the necessity that spiritual science should make an impression at the
present time.

The more we work with spiritual science, the more we notice that the dead also work back upon the living. For
example, in educating children who have lost their fathers at a very early age, we must take this into account.
Often one can feel the father sending an influence from the spiritual world. I once had to tutor children whose
father had died early. I tried to train them in my own way, but it would not work, simply would not work. But
when it occurred to me to allow for the influence of the father from the spiritual world, then it went very well ...
 If you work out something about incarnations in a clever theoretical way, it will usually be wrong. It must
seem strange that Raphael was the same person as a thorny character like John the Baptist.

How could it happen that this thorny man, who had to pave the way for the Mystery of Golgotha in such a
violent way, reappeared as the gentle, pliable, charming Raphael? But look at this. Raphael's father, Giovanni
Santi, died when Raphael was eleven. He was a painter. He was not a great painter so far as external achievements
go, but he had great ideas in his head, although he could not put them on camas because he had no technical skill.
He was also a poet. There was a great deal of fantasy in him, but the physical capacities simply were not there. He
went early through the portal of death, and then his forces worked into his son. In Raphael's hands and
imagination worked all that his father could send into the physical world. One can say that the old Giovanni Santi
was a painter without hands in the supersensible world, for in a wonderful karmic relationship he supplied, in
combination with the Christ-filled individuality of the Baptist, what came to expression in Raphael. The
supersensible world had to work with the physical world to achieve this result. It shows how the so-called dead
are able to influence those who have been left behind ...

Life on earth has another important mission. When we have gone through the portal of death, if we are not to
be lonely, if we are to know something of other souls, we must meet these other souls. We could be together with
them there, yet know nothing about them. We must make some connection with the souls here in order to be
acquainted with them over there. In the spiritual world souls can walk through each other and know nothing about
each other. It is important for those over there that they be read to by persons whom they have known here. The
connections we make here are also connections over there. We found societies and build up friendships on a
spiritual basis in order to establish connections that will endure beyond death. Not as a mere whim, but as a need
that extends beyond death, we are trying to bring our spiritual life into a sort of societal form. Thus we see that, by
building up connections with other souls here on earth, we make sure that we will not be hermits in the world
between death and a new birth, that we will have a sociable life there as well as here. We will have understanding
for the other souls after death only if we try to see into them now.

Therefore, in order not to be shut off from more remote souls, we interest ourselves in their life. For instance,
we study religions because we cannot know much about other souls if we are not familiar with their beliefs. We
build a close tie with the souls that are near to us. But we can also have some connection with the people whose
religious beliefs we study. We must learn to understand seers and to perceive that they cannot do otherwise than
bring to other men what they themselves see, in order that what is needed may come to pass in the world and the
mission of the earth may be fulfilled.

It must be conceded that over there only those souls who have taken in something spiritual here can have a full
consciousness of their influence on the physical world. And since we should learn more and more about these
matters. I will mention a fact that is important even if it is not easy to understand. Let us take a soul that never
bothered about the supersensible world while it was here. This soul can work on the physical world with its
intentions. But although this soul can see the souls that have remained behind — at least, if they know something
about the spirit — it is not aware that its intentions are working on the physical world. This knowledge is lacking.
There is after all a certain difference between living in immediate communion with your fellow men and being
hindered from having such communion so that your intentions reach them only invisibly. You would see
everything as in a mirror. The dead person who entered the spiritual world without spiritual knowledge sends
down his intentions, but he is not conscious of doing so. This is far less satisfying for him than if he knew: Now
you have this intention and you are sending it down.

This direct knowledge of the connection with the living is available only to those who had some kind of
spiritual life here or to those who are instructed by the reading of spiritual ideas after death. The reading can
replace the knowledge. And it will more and more be the case that men here on earth will achieve consciousness
of the influences of the dead, so that there will not be a one-way influence by persons here working on the
spiritual world, but persons here, as they learn more about the supersensible world, will be aware of what is
coming from over yonder.

We are only at the beginning of anthroposophical development. Therefore, what is being said now will be
little heeded. But it will be heeded more in the future. One will have moments when one sees quite clearly how
the dead are working. Not every moment of our lives is favorable, but people who fill themselves with spiritual
science will base such moments. We really experience very little of what is going on around us. We experience
only what happens near us from hour to hour. But that is the least of what is really there, or could be there. Take
the following example. Someone goes to work at eight o'clock every morning. His way leads through an old
garage. One day he is delayed in starting, and when he comes to the garage he sees that it has collapsed. This
happened just at the moment when he would normally be passing through.

Such a case shows how much does not happen that really could happen in our lives. How do you know what
would have happened to you if you had crossed the street three minutes earlier than you did? Admittedly there are
karmic necessities here, but there are also thousands of possibilities that do not become facts. What actually
occurs is one of innumerable possibilities. Just these moments when something could have happened but did not
do so because we, so to speak, missed the opportunity. Just these are the right moments for glimpsing the spiritual
world. Take another example: You miss a train through being delayed. You should accept this calmly because
there may be karma behind it. You should cultivate calmness, and if you do, you will notice a shadowy thought
arising in such moments when some accident could have occurred but did not. This thought will be something that
a dead person is saying to you, something that may be an important communication from over yonder.

In order to receive a direct communication from the spiritual world, we need a certain soul-training. Spiritual
science can furnish such a training. This can go so far that through someone who has died before us we
experience, for example, that he is continually concerned about us. If he died very young, he has conserved
certain forces that he had in his life. These forces are still available to him and, if the conditions are favorable, he
can project them into earth-life. Perhaps the dead person loved us and wants to send us his forces. And we use
these forces, although we are not conscious of this. Then it happens that we avoid an accident, by missing a train
or something of the sort. Then we see, like a living dream-picture, the imagination of the person who loved us and
is sending us his forces. We have an inkling of him, and he shows us that he is concerned about us. We will know
how to understand this.

Think how the love that souls have for one another can be increased if one knows that one is not torn away
from those whom one leaves here, but can still work for them. And this working will gradually reach the point
where a bridge can be built to the souls. If one thinks in this way of the souls that feel themselves close to the
dead and strengthen their love through the possibility of further active loving, then the love between soul and soul
will be kindled through what spiritual science can give, and this can really be something very substantial when
compared with what usually exists as love today. Souls will be brought together in the right way for the first time
when people realize that the dead and the living belong to one world.

To bring people to understand that life here and life yonder are only changes of form, this is part of the
mission of anthroposophy in our time. And we understand this mission only if we see that through spiritual
science we tear away the wall that now seems so threatening because materialistic attitudes are spreading so
widely over the earth ...

In the life between death and a new birth the soul is no less occupied than here. The circumstances over
yonder are not the same as here, but they are prepared here in earth-life ... Continually flowing into the physical
causes are forces that come from the powers of the higher worlds. If on has had no conscience here, he will have
to go through something terrible. He will become the slave, the servant, of the beings who have to bring illness
and early death into the world.

There are persons who generate enthusiasm and love, zeal for their work; who do gladly what they must do in
accordance with their capacities and their karma. There are also many vocations in which people really cannot
work with any enthusiasm, and this will be the case more and more. Therefore, it is necessary that souls who, in
spite of it all, punctually discharge their duties, should have something else to which they can turn with
enthusiasm. Through spiritual science one can have something that he can do with love and enthusiasm, and
through which forces will develop in one's soul. Thus, we can become the servants over yonder of those beings of
the higher hierarchies who pour freshness, growth, and health into earth-life.

All these connections enable us to look beyond death and know that we belong to the macrocosm, that we are
not living for physical existence alone while on earth but are developing important forces that will come into their
own between death and a new birth. We become able to live in such a way that we do not hinder the fruitful
development of mankind, but rather generate forces that can further it. We can regard this as the mission of
anthroposophy.
Answers to Questions

It should be a selfless service that one does with the reading. The dead understand our speech for 4 or 5
years after dying. Our thoughts for a longer time.

Photographs are of no use in finding the dead. Handwriting is better. You will not succeed in finding them
with photographs. The connection is achieved much better by quietly concentrating on their handwriting.

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