The Rudolf Steiner Archive

71. The Origin of Karma

[ 1 ] We understand karma to be something that began in the middle of the Lemurian epoch and will come to an end at the conclusion of the sixth root race. Individual karma arises through birth and death. A being that does not project a part of itself into the realm of manifestation has no individual karma. A world body passes from one form of manifestation to another. However, we call “karma” that which expresses itself through good and evil; only what lies between birth and death belongs to the chain of events we call individual karma. How did karma come into the world?

[ 2 ] Let us recall the situation in the middle of the Lemurian epoch. The physical form had developed to such an extent that a human body existed into which the mind could enter. Before that, however, what we call the human soul had become connected with this body; it had come over from the Lunar Man, and bodies had been formed according to his pattern. Initially, they were endowed with dual sexes. They were formed, but not yet perfect. We must still regard these bodies as perfect animals; they become human only after the entry of Manas. Therefore, just as with animals, we cannot speak of karma in relation to human beings either.

[ 3 ] The bodies were thus perfect in their own right; likewise, the souls that had come over were formed according to various degrees of perfection: Solars, Pitris, seven lower Pitris; there were also normal ones and those who had always remained at a lower level. Thus, seven degrees of development. The most perfect ones were already able to use their power to control their bodies. The others had not yet reached that stage; humans were like machines that they did not have the power to direct. Such Pitris became humans of the most perfect kind: the first Arhats. They possessed perfect bodies, perfect kamic creative power, and perfect Manas; few in number but extraordinary and select: teachers, rulers, and governors. Through highly developed Arhats, kamic influence was brought about. They possessed superhuman abilities and had perfect insight into what creative power is, almost at the level of earlier stages. As matter, human beings were much finer and therefore easier to create. They were initiated into nature. For the others, the spark of Manas did not help them quickly, for this can only happen when Kama sets the physical particles of the brain in motion. Thoughts are like a bed. It was a dreamlike state of thinking that took hold here: dreamers, higher-developed animals, dull-witted people.

[ 4 ] They would have continued to exist on Earth indefinitely had it not been for the arrival of a third group. Arhats could not accumulate karma because they saw everything clearly and chose what was good; the others could not accumulate karma because they were unable to discern.

[ 5 ] There were three groups of Pitris who refused to take possession of these bodies and who wanted to wait until they themselves could take possession of the bodies—until they could fully control them of their own accord. At that time, the bodies could only move Manas automatically. They waited, and from this arose the third group; they waited until they had been prepared by the second dhyanic entities to the point where they could steer themselves. So the bodies were there, but they were not occupied. They were taken over by much lower kamic entities. The result was that they descended, regressed, became like animals—and these are the amanasic entities. This is the original sin, which consists in the fact that Manas did not take possession of the bodies, and therefore something other than what was foreseen in the normal world plan came into being. It was an act of free will.

[ 6 ] The Arhats, of course, bequeathed only perfect qualities, while the dream beings bequeathed human qualities in ever-increasing potency. These bequeathed a degraded human form, and that is original sin. Through this step toward freedom, human beings have become self-determining, conscious beings. Only these Pitris, whom we call the Luciferic ones, have been able to lead them to attain this freedom.

[ 7 ] It would have been the will of the Elohim that all should incarnate. These beings came under the influence of those who had remained at an earlier Dhyanic stage; the latter refused to incarnate. Now the possibility of illness also arose. These bodies, left to their own devices, were subject to elemental influences. By the time the Pitris had matured, they found bodies that had already deteriorated. The descent into the physical realm must be rectified, and that is karma; original sin, one’s own sinful body.

[ 8 ] The Bible initially portrays this as the influence of the serpent. It continues with magnificent imagery. First, there were those who had come under the influence of the Elohim Arhats; they were completely under the guidance of the Elohim. They could use the forces of nature that were already there, but could not learn. The others, who came later and who later animated the bodies, had to create according to their own immediate perceptions. They were now further removed from their own creative natures, and this is beautifully illustrated in the story of Cain and Abel.

[ 9 ] Without sin, there would be no freedom, no possibility for self-aware human beings. Thus, what we have called the Luciferic principle is inextricably linked to human evolution. It is thanks to the Luciferic principle that human beings were able to use the seed force during the Atlantean era.

[ 10 ] It was only through the human beings who came into being in this way that science and the arts could emerge into the world. What the Arhats taught was supermundane knowledge—the ancient wisdom that our Theosophy brings. Earthly knowledge arose through these beings subject to karma.

[ 11 ] The intermingling of humans with animals: Because the bodies had deteriorated, ape-like beings came into existence, and these intermingled with the bodies inhabited by lower Pitris. The most highly developed apes are those humans who have lost their way in a dead end and fallen behind. They sometimes have more developed astral bodies than lower humans because their kama is free of guilt.

[ 12 ] It is the animal genera that are destined to become human, not individual animals; domestic animals evolve more quickly, while apes evolve more slowly. The human generic soul is dhyanic; the generic souls of those Pitris refused, and these were the Luciferians.

[ 13 ] The Arhats should not be confused with the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

From the Q&A section

[ 14 ] If humans had retained what they had shed, they would not have evolved so finely. Their high level of evolution is due to [gap in the transcript]

[ 15 ] Ancient truths live on among the people, grounded not in arbitrariness but in deep connections. You are all familiar with the wooden horse. Odysseus is the wise, cunning embodiment of reason—and thus the defining characteristic of our fifth root race. Back then, the legend was developed in such a way that Odysseus devised a wooden horse.

[ 16 ] We also find the horse as a representative of the fifth root race. Pegasus; often mentioned in the Bible; in Indian legend, where Vishnu rides the horse Kalki. All of this took place before Christ. In the Book of Revelation, when the seals are opened to us, the horse also appears—first [gap in the transcript], then yellow. The horse is portrayed as something special, in connection with the fifth root race. This is also true of the ancient Germans, who received this knowledge from Druid priests. There is hardly a nation of the fifth root race in which the horse does not enjoy special honor. Occult facts.

[ 17 ] Certain animals had to be shed so that specific characteristics could develop. In the past, there was only memory; now, intellectual mental activity began to take shape. However, he would not have been able to develop this activity if he had not transferred the characteristics that prevented him from doing so to the odd-toed ungulates. We must go back to times even older than the Lemurian era. Back then, what was to become the odd-toed ungulates was separated out. Back then, it was structured differently. Every being can develop only as its environment permits; back then, there were watery air masses, thin water. Everything was mist. Niflheim.

[ 18 ] They had to work their way through the states of condensation and thus became what they are today. Their form evolved from entirely different shapes, and this form came into being at the time when the Atlanteans developed their intellect. These were therefore interconnected for them. They said to themselves [gap in the transcript]

[ 19 ] We must therefore relate to the horse in a very special way. If we had this organization within us, we would never have been able to rise to our intellectual activity. It is, as it were, the flip side. Thus, the human being of the fifth root race reveres in the horse that to which he owes his intellectual activity. Hence the breaking of the seals in the Book of Revelation.

[ 20 ] If the occultists’ experiences are correct, then natural science should also be able to recognize or prove this. We would have to find the ancestors of our horse in the rubble from the time of Atlantis.

[ 21 ] The topmost layer of the Earth is the alluvium, beneath which lies the diluvium, followed by the Tertiary strata. Then come the Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene—formations in the rock. There we already find human-like skeletons. If we dig deeper, we reach the Cretaceous and Jurassic formations. Now, in the Eocene layers, we find fossilized horse bones, and this is the layer of the Atlantean race. Intellectual knowledge is characterized by the fact that it has the object outside itself and forms concepts about it. This was different among the original Atlanteans and Lemurians. They possessed an instinctive knowledge that was rooted in the brain. This sense has been lost; it now exists only in pure sexuality—an instinctive sense of belonging that humanity once possessed in the spirit. They had also perceived the kinship between their intellect and that of the horse. Thus, humanity owes its higher qualities to what it has left behind in nature.

[ 22 ] If we go back to the time of the Hyperborean race, we find that very specific human characteristics were acquired as a result of the separation of very specific groups of animals. Indigenous peoples have always had a vivid awareness of their original kinship with very specific animal forms. The totemism of certain peoples is based on this feeling. They kill everything except certain animals; these are considered taboo. The tribe names itself after this animal and declares it taboo—not to be killed. Totemism thus leads, in an occult sense, back to the shedding of certain animal essences.

[ 23 ] In recent cultural studies, it has repeatedly been noted that certain peoples carried Darwinism within them as a feeling. This is not a figment of the imagination; rather, stemming from a primal consciousness, they have retained the division of the animal kingdom as part of their collective memory. It is a division of forces. Among certain tribes, there is a custom that is inexplicable to modern people, but which can be traced back to the fact that there are interactions arising from perceptions other than external ones: psychic forces. Hence the practice of the man-child bed among certain primitive peoples. That original influence of human upon human, which was completely lost in the fifth root race. Things are preserved as customs that have lost their meaning. In just this way, an influence emanated from all of nature upon human beings; they felt an original kinship with the animal: the totem bear, the bear taboo, inviolable. Naivety does not invent symbols; these are based on facts. This is illustrated quite vividly in the centaurs. Man withdrew from the horse and preserved this image as a memory. Odysseus possesses cunning within himself, and he expresses it outwardly through the means by which Troy is conquered.

[ 24 ] There is something else underlying the love for the horse. In the next cycles, what had been rejected will be absorbed once again. The species souls will be redeemed once more. What the human being develops in the fifth cycle will again be the very thing through which he will redeem the horse. Thus, the human being now develops his intellect at the expense of the species soul of the horses. In the sixth cycle, he creates within the manasic-animal realm. He will even give life; the qualities he currently owes to the horse will become active within him, becoming world karma. The horse carries him across; he owes it to the horse that he will later become manasic-creative. This is why Plato uses the image of the two horses pulling the soul; this is why Pegasus; this is why the steeds of the sun chariot.