The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Popular Occultism VI

[ 1 ] Today we will follow the human being from death to a new birth and see how what originates from the past life is carried over into the next. After death, the human being leaves behind his physical body as a corpse and surrenders it to the earth. The etheric body, the astral body, and the I withdraw from it. At this moment immediately following death, the entire past life—from birth to death—stands before the soul all at once, as in a long series of images. This tableau of memories, however, does not entirely resemble the experiences themselves that one had here. For those experiences were linked to emotional and mental impressions; the soul was inwardly engaged with them. Now, however, all these experiences appear before the soul as a sum of external, objective experiences. All the suffering and all the joy that were once associated with them are now silent. This picture of life stands before the soul as something foreign. The moods are missing. I then see myself and my loved ones in an objective panorama of images. This image remains before the soul until the etheric body separates from the astral body. The etheric body then becomes the second corpse that a person leaves behind. This etheric body gradually dissolves on its own into the general world ether. If, as a clairvoyant, one observes a person with a crude emotional life in this state, one will notice that it takes a long time for their etheric body to dissolve. In the case of an idealist, on the other hand, the process is rapid. However, one will see almost no dissolution at all when observing a secret student or even an initiate after death.

[ 2 ] After the dissolution of the etheric body, the human being consists of the astral body and the ego. The images of the panorama of life are of great significance, for they now become forces that are imprinted upon the astral body. They are transformed as if they were a kind of nourishment for it. From this sum of forces, the causal body emerges, which is the fifth member of the human being. It is this body that the human being retains during the Devachan period and throughout all incarnations. When the human being first incarnated—we are no longer dealing with circumstances of that nature—he consisted of only four members: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. The causal body was present only in a very embryonic form. He carried it with him until the next incarnation. And with each incarnation, the causal body has grown. The images of memory are imprinted upon the causal body each time, enriching it and making it more multifaceted. After passing through Kamaloka, the human being possesses a Self and a causal body and is clothed in his astral body. Before that, he must relive his entire past life, down to the smallest action and in every detail. He must pause at every experience of this past life and relive it in reverse. Only then can he enter Devachan.

[ 3 ] The purpose of reliving one’s past life in such detail is that only now does one truly come to understand one’s own actions by experiencing their effects on oneself. For now, with every action, a person experiences the state of mind that the person against whom the action was directed had at the time. They experience from within the pains and joys they have caused other people. There is nothing one has inflicted on others that does not become one’s own experience in Kamaloka. Here, the saying applies: What you sow, you will reap.

[ 4 ] Take vivisection as an example of this regressive experience. It is closely linked to the materialistic trend in contemporary science. To a physician of the Middle Ages, it would have seemed utterly foolish to study life by cutting open a living body and destroying that life. Back then, many people—and especially doctors—still possessed clairvoyant powers, and thus they could see through the physical body. But this power of clairvoyance was lost, and since people could no longer see into the interior of the organism, they began to cut it open and dissect it. Yet whoever performs vivisection is cutting into living life. After death, karma—the law of cause and effect—takes effect. The intention leading to vivisection is of lesser consideration in this regard. The vivisector must experience the consequences of his actions upon himself. Every single pain he inflicted on the animals, he must now endure and go through himself in Kamaloka. The scientific intention is woven into his karma only later.

[ 5 ] This retrograde experience causes all evil attached to the human personality to be eliminated. When this process is complete, the person leaves behind the astral body as the third body and continues to live with the ego and the causal body. The shed astral body is actually unnecessary for the person’s subsequent states. Let us take another look at the effects of life in Kamaloka on the soul. If someone has caused suffering to another, they experience it themselves in Kamaloka: they experience the effect it had on the other person. By living through this, they are warned for the future. These experiences that a person has in Kamaloka are lasting and are deeply imprinted on the soul. However, the person leaves the astral body behind. These astral bodies can always be seen by the clairvoyant on the astral plane. This is because they dissolve only slowly. Later, the soul then enters the Devachanic world. There, the person is able to process everything that they have absorbed in Kamaloka, everything that has been inscribed upon them.

[ 6 ] All the experiences we have had become sources of strength in the continental realm of Devachan. In the atmosphere of Devachan, a person experiences what once arose within them as feelings and emotions. After recognizing the emotional effects of their own actions, these emotional experiences flow into them and become abilities. All the experiences of an earthly life reappear in later earthly lives as abilities and talents. In this process of transforming experiences into abilities, a human being feels a sense of unreserved bliss. It is like the feeling of a brooding hen, translated into the spiritual realm—a feeling of warmth that awakens new life, which flows through the human being there.

[ 7 ] When everything stored in the causal body has been transformed into abilities, the human being begins the journey back to Earth. It is extraordinarily interesting to observe these beings returning to Earth through clairvoyance. The clairvoyant perceives bell-shaped formations around them that shoot off in all directions at incredible speed through the astral plane. These formations arise because a person returning from the Devachan surrounds themselves with new astral matter. This is a process in which astral matter clings to the core of the human being’s being, which could be compared to the following: Imagine a box containing iron filings, with a magnet located beneath them. These filings align themselves according to the lines of force of the magnet. Like the magnet, the person returning from the Devachan attracts astral matter from various directions of the astral plane, and this matter arranges itself in accordance with the person’s nature. This state of astral matter swirling about prior to a new incarnation lasts only a short time, usually measured in hours. The bell shape is the general form, within which all shades of color are found. In this state, the human being consists of the “I” together with the causal body and now forms a new astral body from astral matter, which corresponds exactly to what the person has developed in Devachan. Their entire disposition thus takes on a hue corresponding to their transformed experiences.

[ 8 ] After that, the new etheric body must attach itself. With astral matter, it is as if it attaches itself all on its own. With etheric matter, it is different. There are beings who initially have nothing to do with the human individuality. They assist in the formation of the etheric body. They are called Mahadevas. They also play a certain role in human life in other ways. Human beings are not as much the masters of their physical nature as they believe. Other beings also dwell actively within their three bodies. Only in their fourth member, the “I,” do human beings reside entirely on their own. The Mahadevas are among these beings that live within human beings; they influence the etheric body and are able to provide the human being with the proper etheric body. He is then guided by other beings to the parental couple—based on hereditary factors—to the family and the physical human embryo that best match the abilities and characteristics of the reincarnating human being. Only in the rarest of cases does the newly incarnated human being fully adapt to his new physical body, which often gives rise to many inner conflicts. In our present time, only a roughly suitable physical body can ever be found. The moment a suitable place for incarnation is found, the Lipikas—elemental beings—guide the human being toward a suitable family, and it is only at the moment of conception that the astral body is clothed with the etheric body. Just as the Mahadevas are related to the etheric body, so are the Lipikas related to the physical body. All these processes usually take only a few moments. In the first weeks after conception, only the causal body is active and effective in the human embryo. Around the seventh week, the etheric body begins to function, and from the seventh month onward, the astral body approaches the human being with its forces.