Structure of Man between death and a new birth

At death the human being leaves behind the physical body, then shortly after his etheric body and then finally over a longer period also the unworked part of the astral body.

Then continues the journey between death and a new birth as a spiritual being, see also Man's higher triad.

Man grows into connection through his own Individuality and 'guiding' angel, with the angel and archangel organism of the third hierarchy H3.

Aspects

one lives within a certain folk spirit only for a single incarnation (1916-12-17-GA173) - see also Schema FMC00.550
for an explanation of what is meant with 'ahrimanic immortability', see 1917-01-22-GA174

aura - seen clairvoyantly (1912-12-19-GA130)
- Moon sphere : a seed or kernel, enclosed in a kind of auric cloud, dark, is perceived within the vast ether-body; ether-form of Man expands as far as the orbit of the Moon.
- Mercury sphere: aura is dark and remains so during the Mercury-period
- Venus sphere: one side of the auric cloud lights up; and if person was a moral, religious man, he is able, from that time onwards, to have contact with the beings of the higher hierarchies. Ether sphere expands to the outermost circumference of the Venus-sphere.

Causal body

The causal body is a term used by Rudolf Steiner in early lectures in the period 1905-1907 (also the period of the theosophical society).
It is the term for spirit-self or manas, a higher bodily principle or structure, see Man's bodily principles, part of Man's higher triad. After each incarnation, the part of the astral body that has been transformed by the human 'I' combines with the causal body; and what has not been so transformed falls away like a shade, a phantom; this is the astral corpse of the human being.
The causal body can thus be regarded as the 'Book of Life' or 'Book of Lives' into which a new page is added with every fruitful incarnation. It influences the next life and can be seen as a repository of developed qualities, talents, faculties. (1907-05-26-GA099, see more lecture references below, such as 1906-08-25-GA095, and 1904-12-16-GA093)

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.132 shows how Man, after death, grows into connection through his own Individuality and 'guiding' angel, with the angel and archangel organism. Man is already connected with the Third Hierarchy H3, see the Three meetings (and Schema FMC00.023A that extends the below) as H3 live in Man's 'I' soul activity during incarnation, see Man and the spiritual hierarchies.

Lecture coverage and references

GA088

contains the description to which areas of the spirit world Man rises depending on its spiritual development

1907-03-17-GA097

When a person dies, he leaves behind his physical body, and the part of the physical body he has already transformed is lifted out—powers, not matter. It is very little indeed which he takes with him, but it is the element which will serve to shape the new physical body when the individual incarnates again. Materialism calls this the 'permanent atom'.'23 First of all the part of the physical body which the individual has transformed departs, the ether body departs, the conscious awareness body departs and the I. After some time the part of the ether on which the individual has not yet been working separates off. The human being then goes into kama-loka, the place of purification. After some time the part of the astral body on which the I has not yet been working also separates off.
A time comes when the human being only retains the parts of the three bodies which the I itself has worked through. This goes through the realm of the spirit. It is the core of man's eternal essence, which will grow all the more the I has been working on the bodies.

The holy spirit is the eternal spirit in man.

The Christ is the eternal part of the life body,

the father the eternal aspect of the physical body.

These three go with the human being through all time, being the part of him that is eternal.

1912-12-19-GA130

[aura]
When a human being with his aura is revealed to the clairvoyant during the Moon-period of existence, a seed or kernel, enclosed in a kind of auric cloud, is perceived within the vast ether-body.
This aura is dark and remains so, even during the Mercury-period.
During the Venus-period, one side of the auric cloud lights up; and if, as clairvoyants, we then observe the human being, we perceive that if he was a moral, religious man, he is able, from that time onwards, to have real contact with the Beings of the higher Hierarchies. If he was a good and righteous man he lives in spiritual contact with higher Beings during the Venus-period; if he was an unrighteous man he cannot know or recognise these higher Beings and is thus condemned to the pain of isolation.

1916-12-17-GA173

more on: Descent influencing generations to incarnation#1916-12-17-GA173

This is a rough-and-ready comparison, as I said, because on the one hand we are dealing with two physical people, whereas on the other we mean one physical and one non-physical being, which differ totally from one another when examined concretely. Not until there is an understanding of the mysteries of repeated earth lives and of the karma which these involve will there really be a comprehension of what underlies all this, which it is highly necessary to understand if one wants to speak on a firm basis about these things. An immensely important truth lies in the fact that one lives within a certain folk spirit only for a single incarnation, whereas one bears within one's own individual being something quite different, something immeasurably greater and yet also immeasurably smaller than that which lives within a folk soul. To identify oneself with a folk soul is, in reality, totally devoid of meaning once one goes beyond what is described by such words as love of the fatherland, love of the homeland, patriotism and so on. We shall only understand these things properly, once we can look earnestly and deeply at the truths of reincarnation and karma.

1917-01-14-GA174

We shall speak on another occasion about what it is in the life between death and a new birth that binds those aspects that are bound by our physical body now, during life between birth and death. You will agree that we owe a great debt of gratitude to the cosmic order that here, between birth and death, we possess our physical organism, for without it we would have no prison for our higher components. When these higher components are set free, after we have laid aside our physical body, different conditions come into operation, which we will discuss another time. Suffice it to say that the higher components still retain some fetters, even then.

1917-01-22-GA174

see schema FMC00.132 above

[Physical body as a tool or instrument which envelops us, for 'waking life' experiences in the world]
Here on earth, bound to our physical body as we are between waking up and going to sleep, using this physical body as a tool for our experiences in the world, we feel a lack of ability to comprehend the spiritual world and grasp its revelations. As long as we are enclosed within our physical body, and in order to perceive anything, we have to use the rough and ready instruments of this physical body. We can¬not avoid using them. And when we are unable to use them, as is the case between going to sleep and waking up, our astral body and our ego-being — which are recent additions from the time of ancient Moon and the earlier periods of Earth — are too attenuated, too intimate, to detect anything. Of course the spiritual world is ever about us, just as the air surrounds us constantly. And if our astral body and our ego-being were — let me say — sufficiently dense, we should always be able to perceive, to grasp, what is all around us in the spiritual world. We cannot do so because in our astral body and our ego-being we are too attenuated; they are not yet fully-formed instruments, like the physical senses or the brain, which our capacity for forming ideas uses in order to attain waking experiences in the soul.
Having stepped through the portal of death, human beings find themselves on the whole, as you know — at least for the first few decades — endowed with a degree of substance similar to that of our sleeping state while on earth. This substance cannot remain quite so attenuated as that pertaining to the time of our physical incarnation, otherwise all experiences between death and a new birth would remain totally unconscious. They do not, as we know. On the contrary, a certainly different, but much brighter and more powerful conscious¬ness than that which prevails while we are in our physical body comes about between death and a new birth. So we must ask how this form of consciousness emerges while we dwell in our astral body and ego-being.
In physical life here on earth we possess our physical instrument which permeates us — or we could say envelops us — with all the ingredients which make up the physical world: that is, the mineral, the plant and the animal kingdoms. The physical body thus prepared for us is our tool for waking life.
[The equivalent instrument or tool between death and a new birth]
In a similar way a tool is prepared for us which serves us between death and a new birth. Because we are human beings, the first thing to be prepared for us after death, as soon as we have laid aside our etheric body, is something that comes from the hierarchy of the angeloi. We are mingled with the substance of the hierarchy of the angeloi. One being from this hierarchy actually belongs to us, is the leading being of our human individuality. As we now grow upwards into the spiritual world this being from the hierarchy of the angeloi who belongs to us is joined by other beings from this hierarchy, and together they mould in us — or rather for us - a kind of angeloi organism, the structure of which differs from that of our physical organism.
To make a diagram of this, we could say: We grow upwards through the portal of death into the spiritual world. This is a sketch of our own individuality (mauve in the diagram overleaf). Linked with it is the one angel being who, we feel, is given to us by the hierarchy of the angeloi (red).
But when we lay aside our etheric body, this angel being forms a relationship with other beings of the hierarchy of the angeloi — it links up with them, and we feel the whole of the world of the angeloi within ourselves. We feel it to be within ourselves, it is an inner experience — except, of course, for the external experiences which also result.
This permeation by the world of the angeloi makes it possible for us to relate to other disembodied human beings who have passed through the portal of death before us. Let me put it like this:
- Just as here our senses link us to the external world,
- so the condition of being embedded in the world of the angeloi links us to the spiritual beings, including human beings, whom we find in the spiritual world.
Just as here in the physical world, in accordance with the prevailing conditions, we receive an organism which is organized in a certain way, so do we receive an organism of spirit which is brought into being by this network of angeloi substances.
How this network of angeloi substances is structured, however, depends very much on the manner in which we work our way up to the spiritual world.
- If we work. our way up in such a way that we have little sensitivity for the spiritual world because we have far too many echoes of physical pleasures, urges and instincts, physical sympathies and antipathies, then the formation of our angeloi organism is difficult. This is why we tarry for a while in the soul world, as we called it, so that we can free ourselves from all that permeates us from the physical world and prevents us from forming our angeloi organism properly. It is gradually developed while we tarry in the soul world. We grow towards this angeloi organism.
But concurrently another necessity arises — the necessity to permeate ourselves not only with this angeloi organism but also with another substance, that of an archangeloi organism.
Our consciousness in the spiritual world between death and a new birth would remain exceedingly dull if we could not permeate ourselves with the archangeloi organism. If we were to be permeated only with the angeloi organism, we would be dreamers in the spiritual world. We would be woven out of all kinds of Imaginative substances belonging to the spiritual world, but we would dream away our time between death and a new birth. So that we do not dream this time away, so that a strong, clear consciousness can come about, we have to be permeated by the archangeloi organism (blue in the diagram).
This gives our consciousness the right clarity. Only through this do we wake up in the spiritual world.
Now the degree to which we wake up in the spiritual world determines the degree to which we can have a free relationship with the physical world. And a free relationship with this physical world is something we must have. Let us ask what is the relationship of the physical world with the excarnated human beings who have passed through the portal of death. You can find the answer to this, too, in the lectures given in Vienna. Here in the physical world it is difficult for human beings, however strong their yearning, to rise up in thought and feeling to a perception of the spiritual, heavenly world. Human beings thirst for ideas about the heavenly world, but they cannot easily unfold the powerful capacity for forming ideas necessary to bring this heavenly world into their reach. In a certain sense the situation is the opposite during life in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. Into this world we are followed by what we experience in the physical world; we are followed by what was important in the physical world, by what we perceived here. We are followed by all this in a very extraordinary way. The examples I give will show you how complicated these things are. In the light of our capacity to form ideas in the physical world, these examples will sometimes appear grotesque — even paradoxical — but it is impossible to enter in a concrete way into the spiritual world without also taking account of precisely these ideas.
Perception of all that exists in the mineral kingdom is lost almost as soon as we step through the portal of death. Here in the physical world, because we have senses, our capacity for perception is greatest with regard to the mineral kingdom. Indeed, we could almost say it is virtually exclusive, for other than the mineral kingdom there is not much that we can perceive as long as we are confined to our senses. You might say that we perceive animals and plants as well. Why do we? A plant is full of minerals, and what we perceive in the plant is everything mineral that streams and pulsates through it. The same goes for the animals. So it is true to say that here on earth human beings perceive with their senses almost exclusively what belongs to the mineral kingdom. When we die this mineral kingdom, so clearly perceived here, disappears. Take an example. Every day you perceive salt on your table, you perceive it as an external mineral product. But someone who has left his body and gone through the portal of death cannot see this salt in the salt-cellar. However, when you sprinkle the salt in your soup, and then swallow it, a process takes place within you, and that process, which is accompanied by the sensation of the salty taste, is perceived by the one who has died. From the moment when your tongue begins to taste the salt, from the moment when a process takes place within you, the one who has died can perceive the salt in the way it works. This is how things are. So those who have gone through the portal of death cannot perceive the mineral kingdom unless it has an influence in some way on a human or animal or plant organism. This shows that what might be called the external environment of the dead is quite different from what we are accustomed to calling our environment here between birth and death.
One thing, however, always remains perceptible to the dead, and it is important to pay attention to this. It is whatever has been filled with human thoughts and feelings; it is the human thoughts which are perceived. Salt in a salt-cellar, as a product of nature, is not perceived by the dead. Nor do they perceive the salt-cellar, whether it is made of glass or any other material. But in so far as human thoughts have come to rest in the salt-cellar during the process of its manufacture, these human thoughts are perceived by the dead. When you consider how everything around us, except what is purely the product of nature, bears the signature of human thoughts, you will have a good idea of what the dead can perceive. They also perceive all relationships between beings, including those between human beings. All this is alive for them.
There are certain things in the physical world, however, of which the dead endeavour to rid themselves; they want to expel them from their ideas and soul experiences — as it were, wipe them out. Their desire to do this is comparable to the longing on the part of human beings here on earth to gain certain insights about the world beyond.
Here we long to achieve ideas about the next world. After death, as regards certain human matters here on earth — the world beyond, from the viewpoint of the dead — we long to extinguish them, to wipe them away. But to do this it is necessary to be filled with the substances of the higher hierarchies of angeloi and archangeloi. Once the dead are filled with these substances they can extinguish from their con¬sciousness what must be extinguished.
This, then, gives you an idea of how the dead grow into the spiritual world by filling their individuality through and through with the substances of beings of the higher hierarchy. It is very important to understand that in order to remove from consciousness all the things with which they are more or less personally connected — and that means everything manufactured and consequently bearing within it human thoughts which enable the dead to perceive it — the dead must, above all else, fill themselves with the substance of the angeloi. Other things, too, must be cast aside, must be extinguished, so that the dead can find their way to a proper sojourn in the spiritual world. Strange though it may sound from our standpoint here on earth, there is an obstacle to growing into what gives us a clear, enlightened consciousness in the spiritual world. This obstacle standing in the way of growing easily into the spiritual world is, strangely enough, human language, the language we use here on earth for the purpose of a physical understanding from one human being to another. The dead have to gradually grow away from language, otherwise they would remain stuck in the affinities which bind them to language and which would prevent them from growing into the kingdom of the archangeloi. Language is definitely only suitable for earthly conditions. And within earthly conditions the human being has, in his soul, become very strongly linked with language. For many people, especially now in this materialistic age, thinking has come to be virtually contained in language. People today think hardly at all in thoughts but very strongly indeed in language, in words. That is why they find it so satisfying to find the right term for something. But such terms, such definitions in words, are only valid here in physical life, and after death our task is to extricate ourselves from definitions in words.
In such matters, too, spiritual science gives us a certain possibility to find our way into the realm of the supersensible. How often do I say to you that to reach a genuine concept we can only approximate; we can only, so to speak, feel our way all around the actual words. How often have I not shown you how we have to endeavour to reach the concept by approaching it from all sides, by experimenting with the use of different expressions in order to free ourselves of the actual words. Spiritual science in a certain sense emancipates us from language. Indeed it does this very fully, thus bringing us into the sphere which we share with the dead.
Emancipation from language is intimately bound up with the way the dead grow into the substance of the archangeloi. By emancipating ourselves from language in spiritual science, by creating concepts in spiritual science which are more or less independent of language, we build a bridge between the physical and the spiritual world.
Take a clear look at what I have just said. You will then find that you have understood an important connection between the physical and the spiritual world. And if you think the thought through in a living way you will discover an important means by which to understand all kinds of impulses that emanate from those brotherhoods about which we have spoken on numerous occasions in the past weeks. From various things I have said you will have gathered that these brotherhoods make it their business to fetter human beings to the material world. Just recently we spoke of how these brotherhoods are eager to make materialism super-materialistic or, in a way, to create a kind of ahrimanic immortality for their members. They can do this most strongly by representing group interests, group egoisms, and they certainly do this outstandingly.
One way of representing a group interest is followed by the most influential among these brotherhoods, whose point of departure is something I have already described to you. It is their aim to thoroughly immerse the fifth post-Atlantean cultural period in everything connected with the English language. To these brotherhoods the very definition of the fifth post-Atlantean period is that every English-speaking element belongs to the fifth post-Atlantean period. Thus, even in their primary principle, they restrict things to an egoistic group interest.
This involves something extremely important from the spiritual point of view. It means that their intention is nothing less than the aim of influencing not only human individuals while they are incarnated in physical bodies between birth and death, but indeed all human individuals, including those who are living between death and a new birth. They are striving to let human individualities enter into the spiritual world and become immersed in the hierarchy of the angeloi, but then to prevent them from becoming immersed in turn in the hierarchy of the archangeloi. The aim is, one could say, to depose the hierarchy of the archangeloi from the evolution of mankind!
Perhaps not those of you who have recently joined us, but certainly those who have been with us for some considerable time will discover, if you pay close attention to many things you have been told, that there are clear signs of such things, even in the Theosophical Society. Those of you who shared in the life of the Theosophical Society will surely remember that certain leading members of that society, especially the notorious Mr Leadbeater, said in so many words that in many ways the life between death and a new birth was a kind of dream-life. Those of you who had been members of the Theosophical Society for some time will know that such things were circulated.
It is not extraordinary that such things have been said, for in the case of some souls, who had been successfully influenced in this way and who were found by Leadbeater in the spiritual world, this had actually happened. These souls had indeed been prevented from contact with the world of the archangeloi and they therefore lacked any strong, clear consciousness. So in his way Leadbeater was observing souls who had fallen prey to the machinations of those brotherhoods, only he did not go so far as to observe what became of those souls after a while.
Such souls cannot spend their whole time between death and a new birth without the ingredients which would normally be given to them by the world of the archangeloi, so they have to receive something else instead. And they do indeed receive something that is an equivalent; they are indeed permeated by something; but what?
They are permeated by something that comes from archai who have remained behind at the stage of the archangeloi. So, instead of being permeated by the substance of the real archangeloi — as would be normal — they are permeated by archai, by time spirits, but by those who have not ascended to the level of the time spirits but have remained behind at the level of the archangeloi. They would have become archai if they had evolved normally, but they have remained behind at the level of the archangeloi. That means that these souls are permeated by ahrimanic influences in the strongest manner.
You need to have a proper idea of the spiritual world in order to comprehend the full significance of a fact such as this. When occult means are used in an endeavour to secure for a single folk spirit the rulership over the whole world, this means that the intention is to influence even the spiritual world. It means that in the place of the legitimate rulership of the dead by the archangeloi, is put the illegitimate rulership by archai who have remained at the stage of the archangeloi and who are, therefore, illegitimate time spirits. With this, ahrimanic immortality is achieved.
You might ask why human beings can be so foolish as to allow themselves to be programmed away from normal evolution and into quite another evolutionary direction. This is a short-sighted judgement, for it fails to take into account that out of certain impulses human beings can indeed come to long for immortality in worlds other than those that would be normal. It is well and good that you do not long for any part in some kind of ahrimanic immortality! But just as all kinds of things are incomprehensible, so you will have to admit that it must be allowed to remain incomprehensible, if people in the normal world — including life between death and a new birth — want to escape from this normal world, saying — as it were: We do not want Christ to be our guide, Christ, who is the guide for the normal world; we want a different guide, for we want to oppose this normal world. From the preparations they undergo — I have described these to you — from the preparations brought about by ceremonial magic, they gain the impression that the world of ahrimanic powers is a far more powerful spiritual world and that it will above all enable them to continue what they have achieved in the physical world — making immortal their materialistic experiences in physical life.
The time is ripe for looking into these things, because those who do not know about them, those who do not know that such endeavours exist today, are not in a position to understand what is going on. Behind everything visible in the physical world there lies something that is supernatural, something physically imperceptible. And there are today not a few who work, either for good or for bad, with means, with impulses that are hidden behind what the senses can perceive. It can be said that the world in which we live will follow its proper evolution if human beings place themselves in the service of Christ. But there are many and varied means by which this can be avoided, and some of these are so close to home that it is not easy to speak about them. People have no idea of what can spread through human souls, yet at the same time work as an immeasurably strong occult impulse.
You know — now this is close to home — that at a certain point of time the doctrine of infallibility was declared.' This doctrine of infallibility — and this is the important aspect — is accepted by many people. But someone who is a true Christian might wonder about this doctrine of infallibility. He could ask himself what the early fathers of the Church, who were much closer to the original meaning of Chris¬tianity, would have said about it. They would have called it a blasphemy! In a truly Christian sense, this would hit the nail on the head. And at the same time it would point to an exceptionally effective occult method of stimulating faith by means of something eminently anti-Christian. This faith represents an important occult impulse in a particular direction, away from normal Christian evolution. As you see, we can touch on something quite close to home, and wherever we do so in the world we find occult impulses.
A similarly powerful occult impulse, which failed, was sought by Mrs Besant when she launched the Alcyone fiasco. If a belief in the incarnation of Jesus in Alcyone had taken hold, this would have become a strong occult impulse. So you see that even the mere spread of certain concepts, certain ideas, can contain strong occult impulses. And since those brotherhoods of whom I have spoken have set themselves the task of making the fifth post-Atlantean period — in the egoistic interest of their group — into the long-term aim of earthly evolution, eliminating what ought to come into this earthly evolution in the sixth and seventh post-Atlantean periods, you will understand why these brotherhoods send out into the world the things that I have described. To achieve their aims they have to create impulses which are meaningful not only for incarnated human beings but also for those who are not incarnated. The time has come when it is necessary that at least a few solitary individuals understand these things so that they can gain an idea of what is actually going on and being accomplished.
For this to be possible, concepts about the life of mankind on earth must come into being which are ever more and more right. It is unthinkable that those concepts can continue which are causing so much harm in our time. For the more human beings there are who have the right concepts, the less will certain occult trends be able to stir up trouble. However, as long as the things which are being said continue to be said in Europe today, things deliberately distorting the truth about the relationships of nations with one another, this is a sign that many occult impulses are at work with the aim of distracting earthly evolution away from the sixth post-Atlantean period. After all, important things are going to be brought about by the sixth post-Atlantean period. I have stressed very strongly that Christ died for the individual human being. We must see this as an essential aspect of the Mystery of Golgotha. He has an important task during the fifth post-Atlantean period which we shall leave aside for the moment. But He also has an important task in the sixth period. This is to help the world to overcome the last vestiges of the principle of nationality. That this should not happen, that steps should be taken in good time to prevent any influence by Christ in the sixth post-Atlantean period — this is the purpose served by the impulses of those brotherhoods who want to preserve the fifth post-Atlantean period in the manner I have shown.
The only counter-measure is to create the right concepts and gradually imbue them ever increasingly with life. These right concepts must live. Nations could dwell so peacefully side by side if only they would endeavour to discover the right concepts and ideas about their relationships. As I have said, no programme, no abstract idea, but solely the right concrete concepts, can lead to what must come about. Difficult though it is in the face of current ideas, by which our friends, too, have of course been not a little infected, nevertheless it is necessary to draw people's attention to various aspects which can lead to the right concepts. You all have at your disposal the necessary materials on which to base these right concepts, but these materials are not illuminated properly. As soon as they are correctly illuminated you will arrive at the correct, concrete ideas.
Let us now take up something we have already discussed from a certain viewpoint. Here on this globe, in the Europe we inhabit, the relationships between nations are spoken about in a way that inflicts utter torture on the dead, for all the ideas and concepts are based on the peculiarities of language. By forming concepts about nationality based on the peculiarities of language, people persistently torture the dead. One way of torturing the dead, one way of failing to show them love, is to participate in spiritualist seances. For this forces them to manifest in a particular language. The dead person is expected to speak a particular language, for even with table-rapping the signs have to refer to a particular language. What is done to the dead by forcing the th to express themselves in a particular language might very well be compared with pinching someone living in the flesh with red-hot tongs. So painful for the dead are spiritualist seances which expect them to express themselves in a particular language. For in their nor¬mal life the dead are striving to free themselves from the differentia¬tions between languages.
So, simply by speaking about the relationships between the peoples of Europe in concepts based on language, we are doing something about which we are barely able to communicate with the dead. That is why I could say that it is necessary today, or beginning to be necessary, to form concepts of a kind which can be discussed with the dead, or about which we can have communication with the dead. Of course there is no need to inundate the world with Volapuk or some other constructed language, for though it is true that all people wear clothes, they need not all wear the same clothes. On the other hand, though, we cannot be expected to see our clothes as part of ourselves. Similarly something we need for the physical world, namely the differentiation between languages — which serve the purpose of bringing the spiritual realm into the physical world — cannot be seen as belonging to our inmost archetypal being. We must be clear about this.
So how can we arrive at concepts which gradually rise above the ethnic elements which are almost exclusively based on language? In this, too, Anthroposophy must rise above mere anthropology, which has really no other means of answering this question except by refer¬ring to the differentiations of language.
Taking our departure from what we have said so far, we could state that in Central Europe there existed what we might call the 'primordial soup' for what later streamed out to the periphery, particularly towards the West. Let us take a closer look at this 'primordial soup' (see diag, p.179). For a very long time it has been customary for the nation which represents this 'primordial soup' to call itself 'das deutsche
Volk'. The peoples of the West have exercised a kind of revenge on
this nation by refusing to call them by the name they have chosen for themselves, a name which signifies a profound instinct. They are
called `Teutons', `Allemands' , `Germans', all kinds of things, but
never, by those who speak a western language, 'Deutsche'. Yet this is the very name that has deep links with the nature of this people
which is, in a way, the 'primordial soup'. One stream of this went southwards. We described it as the papal, hierarchical cultic element.

1918-09-01-GA183

describes the make up of our body between death and rebirth

in DE

internet translation

That will lead you to the fact that it is justified, just as one speaks of the members of human nature here in life, physical body, etheric body, astral body and I, to speak of the members of human nature that this human nature between death and a has new birth. For when I have presented to you the central phenomenon that man constantly has between death and a new birth, this revelation of the spiritual meaning of death itself, the question must arise: what does this world actually look like, the one that follows to reveal itself to death for men? But you can't grasp this in any other way than by getting to know the nature and essence of the human being.
Today we want to try to describe the dead in the same way as one usually describes the living.
One can begin with that limb of the dead man which still has a lot of connection - not kinship, but connection - with what man experiences here between birth and death. We are then dealing with the first member of human nature, which we can also call the I, as we call the first highest member of human nature between birth and death. We now disregard the fact that immediately after death it still has the shell of the etheric body, which is then shed, and still has the shell of the astral body, which is also shed in the course of time; these are components that, in a sense, do not belong. When one speaks of the dead human being, the first thing that needs to be recognized as the very own member of this dead human being is the I. I said there is a connection with the I of life on earth, but not an actual relationship; for in fact this I presents itself after death in a completely different way than the I is experienced between of birth and death.
Between birth and death, the I is something fluid, so to speak, something that feels the power to change every day. Just think how terrible it would be in the physical life between birth and death if you weren't able to grasp the thought: I did something bad yesterday, but I can fix it, I can do something good for it. Or if you, still younger, had to say: I've learned little, but I can't learn anything more. In no moment of life between birth and death is the I something so solid that it cannot be changed from within by its own will power. What you experience as an I after death is something that has become fixed, that has taken on certain properties, which cannot now be changed directly; it stays the way it is. The transformation of the I, which is constantly fluid in life between birth and death, into a solid structure in which nothing can change, that remains as it was formed in life, is the essential thing that must be recorded in order to understand this I after death. There can be no question of a development after death, which we must speak of for the I between birth and death. After death the I is in a sense a solid mental entity that arises from the sight of death itself, and nothing about this I can be changed. One could say, if one wanted to put this matter more or less banally: Man is condemned after death to regard all the details of his life as something solid. As, If you look across a field, see the nearby plantings and the distant plantings side by side, and how you see nothing liquid in there, but a solid, extended, initially permanent structure, you overlook the entire course of your life, but not always in such a way that , as it is in the life of the physical body, the front is extinguished by the back, but you overlook it as a permanent concrete field in which you cannot change anything by just looking at it at first. It would also be bad for the dead person if that were not the case; for his gaze, the dead man's gaze, is authentic In this way you survey the entire course of your life, but in such a way that what is before is not always obliterated by what is behind, as is the case in the life of the physical body; can't change anything at first. It would also be bad for the dead person if that were not the case; for his gaze, the dead man's gaze, is authentic In this way you survey the entire course of your life, but in such a way that what is before is not always obliterated by what is behind, as is the case in the life of the physical body; can't change anything at first. It would also be bad for the dead person if that were not the case; for his gaze, the dead man's gaze, is primarily preoccupied with this I. He is spellbound into this I. And if this I were to disappear, it would be for the dead just as if the surrounding world of senses were to disappear for the living. The individual human being in his I is actually as important for himself, if I may put it this way - but with this we are expressing an important truth - as the whole world of senses, which we as human beings have in common, is for the human being here in physical life is. A tremendous abyss would open up, the abyss of nothingness, if we were not able after death to look at the frozen ego, the ego frozen from the liquid state.
Second, we have a type of spirit that we can also call spirit self, by analogy with what we already know. So as the second member of the human being after death we have a kind of spirit being. The human being becomes mainly so conscious of this spirit being that this consciousness of the spirit itself dawns on him as if from within. While the 'I' presents a kind of external sight, the consciousness of this spirit-self arises from within. And to the same degree that one feels: This spirit-itself comes to life - to the same degree emerge from consciousness, so that one knows they are there, the beings of the higher hierarchies. So I call this: "the spirit self" - I have to define it exactly as I write it now on the board,
What I have just written is roughly correct. You have the feeling: there is a being from the hierarchy of the angeloi, from the hierarchy of the Exusiai, who is now looking at you. By directing your gaze at the I, sometimes through some being of a hierarchy, at other times by knowing that your gaze is now directed at the I through a being of the other hierarchy, you learn this hierarchy within the workings of yours know spirit self. So in your own activity you get to know the hierarchies. You begin, through your spirit self to be in the company of the hierarchies. And while you still have the feeling, before this spirit self lights up, that only you are busy directing your gaze to your own I, you get the feeling that more and more beings of the higher hierarchies are taking care of you and get involved in your looking, direct your gaze. As you develop your higher sensory activity through the spirit self, you feel more and more that the beings of the higher hierarchies are involved in this sensory activity. What would be unbearable for the human being in the physical world here becomes the element of life for the human being in the state after death.
Imagine that you are standing here at the window and looking out and should take in the surroundings. One of you stood there and wanted to look at the surroundings, and the first one who is sitting here goes and turns your head to one side so that you can look at something in that direction; a second goes up and turns your head up a little so that you look at something else; a third again a little around, so that you look at something else again, and so the whole company sitting here would approach you from behind, and you would only have the aspect of your surroundings outside, that what is sitting here inside, who keeps banging your head on it. Don't think of this from the outside, but as an inner experience, as an inner feeling, but then you have something that is quite analogous to this experience that you have as your spirit self. You live your way more and more into the fiefdom of the higher hierarchies because these higher hierarchies come into your line of vision.
In the dissolving of the words, of which we have already spoken, the beings of the higher hierarchies are already at work. That is one side of what is being experienced there. But it is the ongoing enrichment of life that comes from gradually becoming more and more acquainted with the hierarchies. And in a very similar way one becomes acquainted with the beings with whom one was somehow karmically connected before death. And then you feel that you are being led and guided, so to speak. That is what can be said about the second member of the human being in the life between death and a new birth.
The third link is something that at first might seem somewhat shocking to human understanding. Little by little, as you live your way into this life after death, you feel permeated by a certain power, I could perhaps say by a combination of powers.
After first feeling that the hierarchies are approaching and guiding one in supersensible sensory activity - if I may use the expression - one gradually feels: these hierarchies trickle through one with strength, give one strength. One gradually feels filled with this power which the hierarchies infuse as they place themselves in one, by instilling their essence into one. You can feel this power gradually. One feels that the hierarchies not only steer one towards this or that, but one feels that through this activity of the hierarchies, which at first appears as an activity that mediates the seeing, one is inwardly filled with strength. One feels the forces of the cosmos, really of the cosmos, flowing into oneself like invigorating juices. But now, what's shocking is that the forces you feel pouring into you now are of a very peculiar kind. These are forces which at first do not promote, but rather dissolve and destroy what is called life here in the physical world. One gradually feels filled with cosmic, deadly cosmic power. really of the cosmos flow into itself like invigorating juices. But now, what's shocking is that the forces you feel pouring into you now are of a very peculiar kind.
It is important to absorb such strange ideas, because only then can the spiritual world really be understood. Just think about your soul and spirit being gradually filled with forces, of which you become aware by experiencing them within yourself: through these forces, everything that lives here on earth becomes when you touch it would, killed. Thirdly, you clothe yourself in what I can call, by analogy with something we already know, the spirit of life.
They clothe themselves in something that can be called life spirit, but which has its main characteristics in that it kills what can otherwise be called the power of the life body. And you get a third member of your being through which you are able to kill any etheric body that gets in your way. Everything you touch through this member of your being becomes dead in the sense in which death is spoken of here on earth. And when you kill with the strength you gain, you awaken something spiritual from what has been killed, initially actually the soul. but from this killing arises soul, soul is redeemed. it's a killing but at the same time it is a redemption of the soul from the bonds of life. So that one can say: The life spirit kills what is earthly living, releasing the soul in it. And one comes to this remarkable experience because in life, in the living, the soul is to a certain extent enchanted, and through this process, which is practiced after death, the enchanted soul is redeemed from the living. One might be inclined to see something terrible and unsympathetic in killing, in which the power we are talking about is essentially at work. This is not the case for life after death, because in killing, in the power to kill, there is a constant illumination of the soul, because it ignites the constant emergence of the soul. But the dead man must have this consciousness: Not only does he always look at the death he himself has gone through, but he must also be aware that what is the essence of his death unfolds, so to speak, on the basis of everything that he now experiences in the spiritual life world experienced. It is as if one were now living in the spiritual world in such a way that one can say: Here in this spiritual world spiritual formations are continually arising, initially actually soul formations; Soul lights up in the most diverse ways. But if you were to ask what the soil is from which all this soul sprouts, this is it what he now experiences in the spiritual world. It is as if one were now living in the spiritual world in such a way that one can say: Here in this spiritual world spiritual formations are continually arising, initially actually soul formations; Soul lights up in the most diverse ways. But if you were to ask what the soil is from which all this soul sprouts, this is it what he now experiences in the spiritual world. It is as if one were now living in the spiritual world in such a way that one can say: Here in this spiritual world spiritual formations are continually arising, initially actually soul formations; Soul lights up in the most diverse ways. But if you were to ask what the soil is from which all this soul sprouts, this is it killing power that we just discussed. Such a power, destroying the normal life here on earth, is our essential soul, which we have to acquire between death and a new birth, just as we have to acquire our fleshly body here in life.
As the fourth member I can say, again in analogy with what we already know: the spirit man. This spiritual being is felt to be something that one tends to count as one's self in the time between death and a new birth, because now again, with the forces that are already instilled through the hierarchies, as I have described, the possibility is now instilled in you not only to kill, destroy, dissolve life - what is called life here on earth - but to destroy forms or also to transform them into others.
So:

First, the I;

second, the spirit-self directed through the hierarchies to the I;

thirdly, the life spirit kills what is alive on earth, releasing the soul in it;

fourth, the spirit man.

Of course, it is becoming more and more difficult to describe these things. But essentially the power of this spiritual man, as one has it between death and a new birth, consists in doing the opposite activity - if I may put it that way - of what one might call the production of forms in the broadest sense. Here - if I want to settle down with a specific example - one draws triangles, squares and so on. After death, thanks to the forces that are developed here, one "undraws," one dissolves everything drawn, the forms. But the peculiar thing is that this does not just mean that one draws something, but at the same time it is one cosmic activity. One is now part of the cosmic activity, one is connected with the cosmic activity. Because this drawing out, this demolding, this dissolving of forms, that is a cosmic activity, and the human being, when he has appropriated this power of demolding after he has been permeated with the spirit of life, has become a part of the cosmic world. He works in the cosmos.
What is called destruction here on earth has a lot to do with formation, with formation in the spiritual worlds. And vice versa: Creation in the other, in the spiritual worlds has a lot to do with what looks to us like destruction, like downfall, like de-molding, de-drawing. So that when I speak of de-drawing, de-forming, I am not speaking of decline in the spiritual world, but only of decline in the world of the soul, on the contrary of the emergence of something spiritually new in the spiritual world.

1924-07-04-GA237

This, if I may so describe it, is the first act that is unfolded in the life between death and a new birth. Beyond the threshold of death, the beings of the Third Hierarchy approach that which loosens itself from the human being—which is entrusted to his etheric body as it dissolves away. The beings of the Third Hierarchy receive it into their care. And we as human beings on the earth utter a simple and good, a wonderful and beautiful prayer, when we think of the connection of life and death, or of one who has passed through the gate of death, in this way, saying:—
Angels, Archangels and Archai in the Ether-weaving receive the human being's Web of Destiny.
For as we say these words we turn our eyes to a real spiritual fact. Much depends upon it, whether human beings on the Earth think the spiritual facts or not: whether they merely accompany the dead with thoughts that remain behind on the eEarth, or accompany them on their further path with thoughts which are a true image of what takes place in yonder realm which they have entered.
This, my dear friends, appears so infinitely desirable to initiation science: That thoughts shall be within the earthly life, which are a true image of real spiritual happenings. By merely thinking in theories—enumerating so many higher members of the human being, and the like,—we achieve no union with the spiritual world. We can only do so by thinking the realities that are enacted there.
Therefore, human hearts should be ready to hear once more, what human hearts did hear in the old ages of initiation, in the ancient Mysteries, when they called out impressively, again and again, to those who were about to be initiated: ‘Accompany the Dead in their further Destinies!’ ‘Memento mori’ is all that is left of it now, a more or less abstract exhortation which no longer affects the human being deeply. For it no longer expands his consciousness into a life more living than this life in the world of the senses.
Now the reception of the human web of destiny by angels, archangels and archai, unfolds before us in this wise:we have the impression: it lives and moves and has its being in the bluish-violet ethereal atmosphere. It is a living and weaving in the bluish-violet atmosphere of the ether.

When the etheric body is dissolved, that is, when the thoughts have been breathed-in by the angels, archangels and archai, then, after a few days, Man enters into that backward course of life which I have described to you. There he experiences his deeds, his impulses of will, his tendencies of thought, in the way in which they worked on other men, to whom he did either good or evil. He enters right into the minds and feelings of other men. He does not live in his own mind. With the clear consciousness that it is his concern, he undergoes all that took place in the depths of other human beings' souls, with whom he entered into any kind of karmic relationship,—to whom he did anything whatever good or ill. And once again it shows itself, how that which the human being thus experiences is received. He experiences it in fullness of reality—a reality, which I had to describe not long ago as a reality more real than that of the senses between birth and death. He experiences a reality in the midst of which he stands more fully, more glowingly than in any reality of this earthly life down here.

1924-08-08-GA237

sheds an important additional perspective on Schema FMC00.132 of 1917-01-22-GA174: a divide between the guiding angels leads to disorder in the karma of men. And it is the power of the archangel Michael and its helpers and movement that restores this. A link with anthroposophy, see also lectures where the connection with Christian Rosenkreutz is made.

Synopsis of the lecture:

In the 9th century A.D., with the descent of the Cosmic Intelligence into men, the Sun-Intelligence of Michael and the Planetary Intelligences gradually came into cosmic opposition one with another. In the Ecumenical Council of 869 A.D. the signal was given for an overwhelming event in the spiritual world above: a split among the Angels who guide human souls, leading to disorder in the karma of men. This is the chaotic element in the history of recent times. With the penetration of Michael to earthly rulership, Michael brings the power which is to bring order again into the karma of those who have gone with him. The restoration of the truth in karma. The mission of Anthroposophy

Causal body

1904-02-18-GA090A

see: Man's higher triad#1904-02-18-GA090A

1904-12-16-GA093

1906-02-03-GA097 - Q&A

When people die today, the ether body separates from the physical body together with the astral body and the I. The ether body still stays with the higher members for a time, and during this first period after leaving the physical body a person's whole last life lies spread before him like a vast tableau. This is because the ether body supports not only the vital functions but also memory. In life it was limited by the physical brain and unable to function fully. As soon as the physical barriers have gone, the complete memory spreads before the human soul. This continues until the ether body separates from the astral body and I after a few days. It is only the ether substance which separates, however. The memory picture is taken along. The individual keeps this essence of the ether body, and the sum of such essences from all lives on earth is the causal body.

1906-08-25-GA095

1907-05-26-GA099

After the lapse of the time during which the etheric body together with the astral body is emerging from the physical body after death, there comes the moment when the astral body, with the higher members, leaves the etheric body. The latter separates off and the memory-tableau fades away; but something of it remains; it is not wholly lost. What may be called ether- or life-substance dissipates in the cosmic ether, but a kind of essence remains and this can never be lost to the human being through his further journeyings. He bears this with him into all his future incarnations as a kind of extract from the life-tableau, even though he has no remembrance of it. Out of this extract is formed what is called, with concrete reality, the “Causal Body.” After every incarnation a new page is added to the Book of Life. This augments the life-essence and, if the past lives were fruitful, causes the next life to develop in the proper way. This is what causes a life to be rich or poor in talents, qualities and the like.

Structure of Man between death and a new birth

Contents

Aspects

Causal body

Illustrations

Lecture coverage and references

GA088

1907-03-17-GA097

1912-12-19-GA130

1916-12-17-GA173

1917-01-14-GA174

1917-01-22-GA174

1918-09-01-GA183

1924-07-04-GA237

1924-08-08-GA237

Causal body

1904-02-18-GA090A

1904-12-16-GA093

1906-02-03-GA097 - Q&A

1906-08-25-GA095

1907-05-26-GA099

Discussion

Related pages

References and further reading