The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. Birth and Death in the Life of the Soul: A Glimpse into the Theosophical Worldview

Article in the “Hannover Courier”, May 19, 1905

[ 1 ] Birth and Death in the Life of the Soul. On Monday evening, the local Theosophical Society held a meeting at the vegetarian restaurant “Freia,” where Dr. Rudolf Steiner from Berlin gave a lecture to a large audience on the topic “Birth and Death in the Life of the Soul: A Glimpse into the Theosophical Worldview.”

[ 2 ] At the outset of his remarks, the speaker emphasized that the mystery of birth and death has equally preoccupied all people since time immemorial—from the simplest to the most educated. The question of the meaning of life can be broken down into two fundamental questions, namely the following: 1. “Does our human life have no other meaning than that which lies between birth and death, or is there something within a person that outlives the body?” 2. “What is the meaning of evil in the world?” — These two questions can only be answered in relation to one another. In the case of animals, one cannot speak of good and evil actions, since their lives are bounded by birth and death; humans, however, possess a sense of responsibility and, accordingly, a sense of right and wrong in their actions. It is precisely this circumstance, however, that proves that something higher and eternal is inherent in human beings, something independent of the brief life between birth and death. Building on Plato’s ideas about death and life, the speaker then developed the further line of thought in his lecture, which essentially aimed to demonstrate the immortality of the human psyche. In doing so, he drew upon the ideas common in antiquity that this immortality must be conceived not only forward, beyond death, but also backward, beyond birth. The spiritual core within human beings, he continued, strives for development; however, this is not possible for it during a single existence, but only over a long series of states of existence; the spirit must therefore continually incarnate—that is, create a body as a tool—until its development is complete. Only by learning to recognize human beings as beings whose lives between birth and death are merely one link in a long chain of lives can one explain the only seemingly unjust fact that happiness and suffering are so unevenly distributed among individuals; individual lives are linked to one another precisely through hidden causal connections, and in one life one reaps what one has sown in the previous one. In conclusion, Redner emphasized that the realization of these spiritual truths requires a certain level of spiritual development, and that promoting this development is the purpose of the Theosophical Society. The Theosophical Movement represents a reaction against the materialistic spirit of the times, as indeed all signs point to the fact that our one-sidedly materialistic culture will be followed once again by a period of predominantly spiritual culture.