The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. The Cycle of Incarnation, Reincarnation Following the Death of a Child, Rebirth of High-Level Individualities

[ 1 ] This occult lodge lecture was inspired by the question: Do the souls of stillborn or deceased young children reincarnate even after 1,500 to 1,800 years? And does such reincarnation serve a purpose?

[ 2 ] 1,500 to 1,800 years is an average. There are souls that reincarnate only after 4,000 to 2,000 years. However, the question posed is connected to even deeper questions. There are seven great mysteries of existence in the evolution of our Earth. Of these seven great mysteries of existence, one of them is revealed to humanity from time to time as the human races succeed one another. Our present race will be entrusted with the fourth. Our theosophical movement is nothing other than the preparation for the revelation of the fourth of the so-called ineffable mysteries. We are permitted to share only a small part of what the Great Masters have learned about the fourth mystery in our lectures. There are things that it is sinful to utter in words, says the Apostle Paul.

[ 3 ] One of these things is the fourth mystery. It is the mystery of life and death. The theosophical movement has the task of enabling us to understand birth and death and how they are lawfully related to one another. The time has not yet come when the entirety of the fourth mystery can be revealed to us, but parts of it are being unveiled little by little. We have spirits who have already anticipated the stages of future development. Plato, for example, is a “Fifth-Rounder.” Gautama Buddha anticipated what humanity will not achieve until the sixth round.

[ 4 ] I will now try to say something about what reincarnation depends on. When a person dies, they do not simply cast off a worthless garment. This physical incarnation truly has a purpose. We carry the fruits of this incarnation into the next one. Learning to write may serve as an example here. One learns the hand movements, forms letters, and learns to put them together in a coherent whole. Just as you take one thing away from the various individual activities—namely, the ability to write—and just as you no longer remember your individual tasks later on, so it is with rebirth. The ability to write remains; the individual stages of learning are forgotten.

[ 5 ] The same is true of rebirth. Individual experiences are forgotten, but the abilities gained from them remain. The voice of conscience, the ability to distinguish between good and evil—we have learned all of this in previous incarnations. The savage, who originally eats his fellow human beings, gradually learns that he must not do this, because it invites the hostility of his fellow human beings and provokes enmity.

[ 6 ] Our organs are the means by which we acquire experiences and abilities. It is our organs that we receive in our new incarnation. If we are incarnated today and incarnate again in fifty years—or even immediately after our death—could we really learn something new that we could add, in a broader sense, to what we have already learned?

[ 7 ] No, things don’t change that quickly on Earth. What we learn up to the age of seventy is a lesson, and the following seventy years would not differ significantly from the preceding ones. We will therefore not be reincarnated until the Earth has changed enough for us to learn something substantial again. This is connected to a law stating that human beings are reincarnated after an average of two thousand years. [...] Within two thousand four hundred or two thousand six hundred years, cosmic conditions change. Then there is something new to learn again. Human beings must therefore wait until new constellations between the Sun and Earth arise that can influence our being in an entirely new way. However, deviations also occur because what human beings are meant to do within the cycles is not the only thing.

[ 8 ] At a certain stage of development, humankind will leave Earth. It will then continue to live on a new planet. However, humans can only enter the realm of the new Earth—or rather, the new planet—once they have reached a certain level of development. Humans must develop their sense of self to the point where they will be capable of entering this new realm.

[ 9 ] The thought that lives within you is not merely what lives in your head. Every thought is a living force. Just as any sound wave propagates and can still be perceived far from its original source, so too does my thought propagate. It continues to have an effect in the mental world. We must regard it as such a force. A thought is as powerful a force as if you were splitting wood with an axe. You can cut through and exert an influence—with your thoughts, and also with your instincts—deep into the astral world. The changes you bring about there are far more significant than any physical events.

[ 10 ] We must gain clarity about these forces and learn what changes we bring about. This is the first initiation: the experience and clarification of the inner drives, of the fearsome beings. We cannot think anything without thereby affecting a whole host of beings. The adept differs fundamentally from other people, for the adept does consciously what others do unconsciously.

[ 11 ] We influence the entire world around us. If human development were the only factor at play, we would be reincarnated on a regular basis. However, a higher individuality may be needed for human development, and in that case, it must incarnate more quickly. The laws that cause a person to reincarnate do not apply solely to the development of the individual; they also apply to the entire environment.

[ 12 ] When such conditions arise, such a personality may have died immediately before or a few years earlier, and they reincarnate immediately. In the Theosophical Society, we have such personalities who reincarnated almost immediately after death.

[ 13 ] The number of years it takes for an individual to reincarnate depends on a great many circumstances. A personality who has absorbed a great deal may need a long time to process the material they have absorbed. We know from a great figure in German intellectual development—Goethe—that he had previously incarnated in Greece during Plato’s time. And we know that he was reborn as Goethe in the eighteenth century. One of the most harmonious incarnations he experienced was the one in Greece. He was a student of sculpture. The sculptor’s apprentice had absorbed so much that it took him so long to process it all. “Iphigenia in Tauris” could only have been written with a deep knowledge of Greek sculpture. Plato’s lofty idealism flows toward us once more in the profound passages of Goethe’s “Faust.” The “fairy tale” of the green snake and the beautiful lily reveals Goethe’s harmonious development during the time of his Greek incarnation.

[ 14 ] Bismarck could not have had the same impact as Goethe.

[ 15 ] However, not all abilities need to be expressed through incarnation. If someone in Devachan is capable of performing a necessary task on Earth at a specific time, then they will simply reincarnate. They must then sacrifice themselves for the sake of all humanity.

[ 16 ] “Creare” is usually translated as “to create.” It shares the same root as the Sanskrit word “Kri,” which is the same root we recognize in “karma.” It means “to will.” The body is willed into being by certain forces, by so-called “guides of destiny.” The body is then brought into a suitable combination and mixture. Aristotle still used the word to refer to human labor, but at that time it still meant “to choose,” “to will.”

[ 17 ] The physical body is an instrument for the soul, just as a piano is for a person who wants to make music. When we use this instrument, we carry over the fruits of our development. However, even among the most highly developed individuals, a mistake can still occur regarding the choice of a body. It may be that a person who would be capable of accomplishing great things cannot find the body in which he can bring the powers dwelling within him to fruition. These are possibilities that must always be taken into account when researching in this area. A student of Plato will be able to carry something entirely different over into his next life.

[ 18 ] But whoever has only uniform and monotonous experiences in a single incarnation will have only a few embryonic forces to carry forward. And therefore, he will also be able to reincarnate quickly. Wild souls, who have had few experiences, spend only a short time in Devachan. Chelas, on the other hand—those who have already earned the right to mastery—can forgo Devachan. They do not go through Devachan. Therefore, they can reincarnate immediately after death to continue serving humanity.

[ 19 ] In childhood, there are weak, tender forces within the child’s soul that still need to be developed and refined. If, in a previous incarnation, you were unable to develop the astral body, it may be that you are reborn as a child for the sole purpose of developing the emotional body retroactively. A scholar who has a highly developed intellect but lacks emotions needs only a short period of guidance as a child and will soon leave the body again.

[ 20 ] However, an attempt to be born can also fail. In that case, a new attempt is made if the previous body was unable to express those forces. There are even examples in the Bible where reincarnation occurs immediately after death. It is important to understand that reincarnation does not serve just one purpose, but is a necessity. (The example of the clock was cited here.) The [clock] is a product of development. It could only come into being when various sciences had reached the same stage of development at the same time. It required the skill of metalworking and people who had mastered the laws of scientific mechanics. All these people come together at a certain stage, and one then has the ability to manufacture a clock in that era.

[ 21 ] Anyone who searches only in a single line is making a mistake. Anyone who has developed in a straight line in only one direction—such as a Darwinist—is also making a mistake. Monism is not a unity because it emerged from a unity, but rather the reverse: body and soul are one because they have become connected at a certain level and thus form a unity. The wheel in the clock broke, and with it, the unity. The clock is useless. The same is true when an organism has a “bad wheel.”

[ 22 ] The next question was whether there is a plan underlying the facts of the world or whether chance reigns supreme. (The answer was:)

[ 23 ] Development depends on temperature, on mountain air or sea air, on city or countryside. Let’s suppose a brick fell on a person’s head. Is that a coincidence, or is it part of a plan after all? One person falls into the water; another jumps in after him to help, but catches a cold and dies. Let’s now consider a contrasting scenario: A person sees his enemy and pushes him into the water. But he also falls in and subsequently dies. These are, after all, two entirely different internal circumstances. But outwardly, it seems as if they were the same situations. Both die as a result of falling into the water. We will address the question of whether a wise plan or mere chance governs the world in a future discussion.