Petsch, R.

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THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IMMORTALITYBY R. PETSCHTHE belief in immortality reflects in its development the mostdifferent phases and the most manifold turning points in the his-tory of mankind. Often denied and combated, often materializedand polluted, it is yet indestructable like the spirituality of mankinditself. It always arises again with new life when a generation suchas ours begins to turn away from the brutal reality and listens tothe voices which penetrate from the innermost soul. The monstrousmurder of the world war, the spendthrift policy which all the nationspartaking in it had to commit in real or imaginary necessity of de-fence of their existence, and carried on at the expense of their mostprecious possession, their youth, has brought out with a sort of super-compensation the incomparable value of man's soul. The ever-pres-ent consciousness of death laying in wait brought forth in the bestand most mature intellects the certainty of a higher and infinite des-tination, a destination transcending the bounds of life. The re-awak-ening of idealistic and personalistic thought, which had alreadystarted before the war. was here completed in an unforeseen way:namely, in the sense of the indestructible final substance, the soul-force acting according to its own constant life-laws. To the uncon-ditionally active soul, following impulses absolutely its own, withits infinite hunger for full and most personal development, for fur-ther extension, for eternal growth and continuous refinement, thethought of an end is inconceivable, just as to a logic schooled in theworld of the senses the thought of immortality is indemonstrable.Nevertheless, with a deeper and closer exposition of this series ofthoughts, the senses enter into their rights again ; just as no religiousexperience can exist or manifest itself without symbols, so must everythought of the immortality of the soul borrow its colors from thecolored reality, even if they be the most delicate and least obtrud-ing tones and shades. And as long as we remember this necessity as524 THE OPEN COURTsuch, and also incorporate into our ideas of the consciousness howinadequate all these indispensible symbols are, there is nothing toobject to in their use ; only with such deductions and limitations canman experience and enjoy in the highest sense that which is morethan human. But if we discard all conceptions of a heavenly land-scape, of a boundless life in aesthetically pleasing and ethically ele-vating forms, if we remove all earthborn ideal conceptions from ourpicture of the beyond, retaining them at most as necessary help forour concept, but for no more, there remains a question which fromearliest memory has occupied man again and again and which attimes stirred the best to their very depth. The question is : Shall wesee each other again in the beyond ? Is that, too, only an earthbornconcept, to be discarded critically ; or is there at least the possibilityof reality, with which we may anyhow reckon, and which we mayunite with the innermost kernel of our thoughts of immortality.Perhaps a few words to clarify this question may not be out of place.First of all, one point must be settled: What of us survives?Certainly not the body, without which we can conceive of no intel-lectual life : not any soul life based on our experiences and on thepeculiar construction of our soul. The expression of such soul lifeneed not. however, be identical in essence with what we clearly feelas corporeal. Just as we decline every materialism, so we refuseto accept every theosophical, esoteric teaching of the ethereal body, inwhich we can only see a sublimated form of materialism. What isthe entelechy in the sense of Goethe? It is the constructive prin-ciple of spiritual existence. It is the personal setting of an aim toour life process which by no means need be defined in a materialsense, but may be designated as a directive tendency, as the inclina-tion to self-development, to intensification of being, or to the calmenjoying of self in the fullness of life or in intellectual enlighten-ment—but which is still further characterized by the selection ofthe sensuous which it draws into itself, as well as by the individualtempo and rhythm of its life processes. That the latter forms ofmanifestation are given to us by existing earth conditions is undeni-able : but we are much too ready to regard these somewhat acciden-tal conditions as equally necessary and eternal with the essentialtraits, because we neither have nor can have any experience what-ever of the behavior of personality under quite dififerent and remoteconditions. Nevertheless not the mystic alone, but every man withany depth has at times the irrepressible need to think of his ego asfreed from all earthly ties, conditions, and definitions ; and to listenTHE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL IMMORTALITY 525to the innemiost driving force of his soul. But it is that innermostsoul alone which the spiritual man can. and wants, to think immortaland incorruptible. Who would want to drag through all eternitythese earth conditions, the slender sensory satisfactions of which hehas by unspeakable tortures and humiliations to purchase daily. Thusfor us the question arises : does being with those "nearest" to us,using the word in its highest and most daring sense, belong to theexternals ; or does it touch anywhere the core of our personality ?This can only be decided separately in each case. We come into con-tact with a countless number of persons in the course of a year with-out being fundamentally moved ; there may even be people who arequite unreceptive to any influence from other personalities ; thereare others who are "hungry for men" (Menschenhungrig) but whoconsider their neighbors as substance, or as an object for a certainaesthetic pleasure, perhaps also for moral judgment if not for blat-ant self-interest. Of all this, we do not speak here. All these typesof people do not interpenetrate, although a pure aesthetic devotionmay enjoy the manifestation of an inner power in some mode ofdeeper vision. But a real understanding of others we only getthrough the medium of "love," by apparently extinguishing our ownego, and by thinking ourselves into the soul of the other, which nowbecomes our own soul. The repression, and still less the extinction,of our own personality is only apparent : there is merely a changeof aim in the soul's energies, perhaps for a shorter, perhaps for alonger time. In all cases, the living thing which by love we haveacquired, will become an integral part of our personality; it willbecome one of the deciding factors in the force of our soul and assuch will act even when the bearer of this force has been lost to ourbodily eyes, and even when we no longer think of him. As theenergies and directions of force inherited from our father's' andmother's side continue to act in us, without our being conscious ofthem in most cases, so also with the influences of those personali-ties whom we have conquered through love. But we especiallytreasure and cleave to these influences because we attach to them avalue which we have experienced, and which life cannot take awayfrom us. For. in love, only that aspect of the loved one continuesto live in us which was of special value for us : that by which we feltintensified and deepened. And as we are conscious of this actionwe retain a livelier and more precious picture of the loved one thaneven his bodily presence or most effective portrait could give us.This is not a case of mere remembrance of loving thought : it is an526 THE OPEN COURTeffect of the personal life of the other in us, and of our personallife in him. Certainly it is not easy for us to see quite clearly intothese inner processes because of the duality of our nature. In otherwords, being spiritual as well as sensuous, we are bound to the cor-poral phenomenon, and by association the outward phenomenaalways appear before us with the inner being in order to react againon our sense-nature. Still, from what has been said already, itbecomes clear to us that this way of seeing is only the necessary out-come of the connection of our spiritual principle with matter andwith the relations of the world of experience. Thus it begins todawn on us that it might also be otherwise ; that the death of theother cannot hinder and interrupt this most tender, intimate inter-course of the soul. Often enough, it happens that the corporeal,final separation makes the relation of the living with the dead friendonly purer and deeper. But as soon as the continued existence ofthe proper spiritual man is assured, we shall be of firm faith thateverything which we grasped in love follows us into a far future,in a lasting communion, even when every remembrance of one's ownand of the others "empirical individuality" has vanished. What hasbeen acquired in love belongs to the active and moulding forces ofthe entelechy ; and in the beyond a Faust cannot, be without Gretchenjust as she will be drawn with magic force to her lover. We aremistaken when we believe that such a spiritual union and actingtogether gives no satisfaction, that it cannot replace a full union inan earthly sense. Here again our values are based on our earthlyposition which does not hold good for eternal life. In the deepestrecesses of our personality, we do not value in our friend and ourlover that which comes near to us in everyday life through thesenses, but the soul which is active in all these things and cannotbe grasped from without. This central core can become our sureproperty and the "meeting in eternity" signifies only the purest,closest, indestructible community, the glor}^ of which we can onlyconceive in rare moments of enlightened vision.In any case there is no other means given us to secure the lastingunion with the beloved one than to love with our whole soul, to lovein such a way that we appear no longer to live our life for ourselvesbut in heartiest wooing of the other soul. And if we succeed inkindling in that other soul an equal love, and an equal honest needfor our personality, then our friend remains as closely tied to usas we to him, whether he believes in immortality and a meeting afterdeath or not. and whatever his conception of such a meeting may be.

The Problem of Personal Immortality.

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3762&context=ocj

The Problem of Personal Immortality.

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