The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] The day before yesterday, we described the realms and worlds that a human being must traverse after death, once everything in the Kamaloka—or, as it is called in Rosicrucian Theosophy, the elemental world—that still binds one to the physical instrument of this world has been shed. We have also described the so-called Rupa-Devachan, or the realm that has been called the heavenly or inspiring world. We have seen that this realm—the true realm of the spirits—exhibits a fourfold structure, just like the realm of our physical world. We have the continental region, which is interspersed with a kind of oceanic and riverine region; however, we can better compare it to the form of the blood circulation in the human organism. We have seen that in Devachan as well—as an analogy to Earth’s atmosphere—within the so-called “air sphere,” one finds everything that pervades the souls of beings in the physical world in terms of joys and sorrows, pains and afflictions, albeit on a far grander scale, because entirely different beings live there who are not incarnated in physical bodies. Finally, we have seen that in the fourth region, everything that is original—from the smallest idea to the highest achievements of inventors and artists—can be found as a model. There lies the true driving force that propels our Earth forward. In addition to these elements of the actual spiritual world, however, we also find what connects our Earth to even higher worlds.

[ 2 ] So far, we have discovered only what relates to the evolution of our Earth; we have not yet discovered what lies beyond that. Those who receive an initiation come to know what our Earth once was and will be, and what connects it to other worlds outside our solar system.

[ 3 ] Above all, there is one thing that is important—something we encounter in Devachan, in this so-called world of reason. It is what we are accustomed to calling the Akashic Records. It is not as if it were created in Devachan; it is produced in an even higher realm, but once one has ascended to Devachan, one can begin to see what is called the Akashic Records.

[ 4 ] What is the Akashic Records? We can best understand it if we realize that everything that happens on our Earth or anywhere else in the world leaves a lasting impression on certain subtle essences, which can be discovered by those who are initiated and capable of perceiving them. It is no ordinary chronicle, but rather one that could be described as a living chronicle. Let us suppose a person lived in the first century A.D. What he thought, felt, and willed at that time—and what was expressed in his actions—has not been erased, but is preserved in this subtle essence. The seer can “see” it—not as if it were written down in a history book, but exactly as it happened. How a person moved, what they did, or how they undertook a journey, for example—all of this can be seen in these spiritual images. One can also see the impulses of the will, the feelings, and the thoughts. But we must not imagine that these images look as if they were imprints of the physical personalities here; that is not the case. To use a simple example: When one moves one’s hand, the person’s will is present everywhere in the tiniest parts of the moving hand, and this force of will, which is hidden there, can be seen. What is now at work spiritually within us and has flowed out into the physical realm—that is what one sees there in the spiritual realm.

[ 5 ] Let’s take Caesar as an example. We can trace everything he has done. But let’s be clear that in the Akashic Records, we can see Caesar’s thoughts more clearly. When he set out to do something, one can see the entire sequence of volitional decisions up to the point where the action manifested in life. It is not easy to trace a specific event in the Akashic Records; one must aid oneself by connecting to things one has experienced externally. If the seer wishes to trace something about Caesar and visualizes a historical date as a point of reference, the rest unfolds with ease. Although historical dates are often unreliable, they can sometimes be helpful. When the seer turns his gaze back to Caesar, he truly sees Caesar as an active figure, almost ethereal, as if Caesar were standing before him, speaking to him. But if the person who is capable of having visions is not well-versed in these higher worlds, various things can happen to him when he turns his gaze to the past.

[ 6 ] Although the Akashic Records are found in Devachan, they extend down into the astral world, so that one can often find images of the Akashic Records there, like a mirage. However, these images are often disjointed and unreliable, and it is important to bear this in mind when conducting research into the past. An example will illustrate the danger of such confusion. When we trace the Earth’s evolution through the information in the Akashic Records back to the times when Atlantis existed—before the great flood came and swept it away—we can follow the events in that ancient Atlantis. These same events later repeated themselves in a different form. Long before the Christian era, events took place in northern Germany, in Central Europe, east of Atlantis—before Christianity spread northward from the south—that were a repetition of the Atlantean events. It was only afterward, through influences coming from the south, that the population became independent. — Here is an example of how easily one can fall prey to errors. If someone follows the astral images of the Akashic Records—not the Devachanic images—they may confuse these with the repetitions of the ancient Atlantean events. This was indeed the case with Scott-Elliot’s accounts of Atlantis, which are certainly accurate when examined in relation to the astral images, but no longer so when applied to the devachanic images of the actual Akashic Records. This needed to be stated once and for all. The moment one recognizes the source of the errors, one can easily arrive at a true assessment of the information.

[ 7 ] Yet another source of error can arise when one relies on information provided by mediums. Mediums, if they possess the appropriate mediumistic abilities, can see the Akashic Records, although usually only their astral reflections. Now, there is something peculiar about the Akashic Records. When we visit a person, they behave like a living being. When we visit Goethe, he responds not only with words he spoke at the time, but he answers in the spirit of Goethe. It can even happen that Goethe recites verses in his own style and spirit that he did not actually write himself. The Akashic image is so vivid that it continues to work as it originally did in the person’s mind. Therefore, it can happen that one confuses it with the person himself. Mediums believe they are dealing with the deceased who lives on in spirit, whereas it is in fact only his astral Akashic image. Caesar’s spirit may already have been reincarnated on Earth; his Akashic image responds during the séances. It is not Caesar’s individuality, but only the lasting impression that Caesar’s image has left in the Akashic Records. This is the basis for the error in numerous mediumistic séances. We must distinguish between what remains of the human being in his Akashic image and what continues to develop as the individuality. These are very, very important matters.

[ 8 ] Once a person has left Kamaloka, he has weaned himself from all the activities for which he needs the physical body. He enters the realm that has just been described. This is a very important period that is now beginning for him. We must understand clearly what happens to a person at this point.

[ 9 ] Everything that a person once merely thought, their feelings and passions, everything they experienced here—all of this comes to meet them in Devachan in the form of the things around them. First, one sees one’s own physical body in its archetype. Just as we walk here on Earth over rocks, mountains, and stones, so there one walks over all the forms that exist here in the physical world; thus, one also walks over one’s own physical body there. This is, in fact, a hallmark of the human being after death—that he has his own physical body as an object separate from himself. By this he recognizes that he has ascended from Kamaloka to Devachan. Here, one says to one’s body, “That is me!” There, one sees it and says, “That is you!” Vedanta philosophy has its students meditatively practice this “That is you!” so that, through exercises of this kind, they may gain an understanding of saying to their body, “That is you!” Furthermore, one sees all around oneself everything one has experienced here on Earth. If a person here harbors revenge, hatred, or all sorts of negative feelings toward their fellow human beings, then these negative feelings confront them like a cloud outside of themselves, and this serves as a lesson for the person. They can learn what significance and effect all of this has here in the world.

[ 10 ] We must understand quite clearly what is happening to human beings here. Let us consider the physical human being here on Earth. How were his organs—his eyes, for example—formed? There was a time when there was no eye yet. It was formed by light. Light formed the eye out of the physical organism. Light is the cause of the eye. In this way, the things that surround us create the organs of the physical world. On Earth, they create organs in physical bodies and matter; in Devachan, the things that surround us work upon our soul being, so that everything a person has acquired here—both good and bad feelings—is present there in their surroundings, works upon their soul, and thus creates the soul organs. If one has been a good person here, then the good qualities live there in the Devachan atmosphere. They work in the spiritual realm; they create organs. These organs serve as architects, as formers for the new construction of the physical body at a new birth. Thus, what a person had within—because it is transferred to the outer world in Devachan—works in preparation for the next birth. It prepares the forces that will rebuild the human body.

[ 11 ] But do not think that human beings have nothing to do but care for themselves; they also have very important work to do in the Devachan. We can gain an understanding of this by briefly considering the evolution of our Earth. Let us look back a few millennia! If we look at the same regions, how different they looked back then! There were different plants, different animal species, and even a different climate. The Earth’s surface is constantly changing in terms of its natural products. In Greece, for example, what once sprouted from the soil of ancient Greece could never grow there again. It is precisely through this—the constant changing of the Earth’s face—that the Earth’s evolution takes place.

[ 12 ] It takes a very long time after a person has died for them to be reborn. When a person reappears on Earth, they do not find the same world again. They are meant to experience something new; they are not born twice into the same form of the Earth. A person remains in the spiritual realms until the Earth offers them entirely new realms. There is a good reason for this. They learn something entirely new, and through this, they develop in a completely different way. Let us consider, for example, a Roman boy. He did not live as a schoolboy as we do. And when we are reborn, we will again find entirely different circumstances. This is how it goes from incarnation to incarnation. While a person remains in the realms just described, the face of the Earth is constantly changing.

[ 13 ] Who is at work here, who is changing the face of the Earth? — we ask ourselves. This brings us at the same time to the answer to the question: What does the human being do in the meantime? — From the spiritual worlds, the human being himself, under the guidance of higher beings, works on the transformation of the Earth. It is human beings themselves, between death and rebirth, who carry out this work. When they are then reborn, they encounter the face of the Earth differently—in a form they themselves have helped to shape. We have all worked in this way.

[ 14 ] When we ask, “Where is Devachan? Where is the spiritual world?”—I answer: “It is all around us at all times.” — It is truly so. Therefore, all the souls of people who have shed their physical bodies are also all around us. They are working all around us. While we build cities and construct machines, people who stand between death and a new birth are working from the spiritual realm all around us.

[ 15 ] When we, as seers, seek them out, we can find—if we do not merely perceive the light with our senses—the dead within the light. The light that surrounds us forms the bodies of the dead. They have woven a body out of light. The light that washes over the earth is the substance for the beings who live in Devachan. When we see a plant outside that feeds on sunlight, it receives not only the physical light but, in truth, the activity of spiritual beings—and among them are these human souls. They themselves radiate as light upon the plants; they hover around the plants as spiritual beings. When we observe the plants with the spiritual eye, we say: The plant delights in the influence of the deceased human beings who hover around it and who work and weave in the light surrounding it. — And when we now observe how the vegetation on Earth changes, and ask: Who has brought this about? — we say: The deceased work within the light that washes over our Earth; there truly is Devachan. — We enter this realm of light after the Kamaloka period. This is concrete truth. Only he who can point out where the deceased are truly to be found truly knows Devachan in the sense of Rosicrucian theosophy.

[ 16 ] As the seer’s eye develops, he often experiences a peculiar sensation. When he stands in the sunlight, his body blocks the light. He casts a shadow. When he looks into this shadow, that is often the first moment in which he discovers the spirit. The body blocks the light, but not the spirit, and in the shadow cast by the body, one can discover the spirit. That is why primitive peoples, who have always possessed clairvoyance, also call the shadow the soul. They say: shadowless — soulless. This idea unconsciously underlies a novella by Adalbert von Chamisso: The man who has lost his shadow has also lost his soul, which is why he is so sad.

[ 17 ] Such, then, is the work of human beings between death and rebirth in Devachan. It is truly no idle rest; from Devachan they actively shape the course of the Earth, and thus we understand how the world comes into being. It is not, as is often said, as if people were living in blissful repose, as if in a dream; rather, life there is just as active as it is here on Earth.

[ 18 ] When a person has reached the point where he has transformed the activities he performed in his last life into spiritual powers, and when he has experienced all the events of the Devachanic external world to the extent that they have had an effect on him, then he is ready to descend from Devachan into a new physical birth. Then the Earth’s sphere draws them back.

[ 19 ] The first thing a person encounters upon descending from Devachan is the astral realm, called the elemental world in Rosicrucian Theosophy. This region provides him with a new astral body. If one scatters iron filings on a piece of paper and moves a magnet beneath it, shapes and lines form according to the magnet’s forces; and in exactly the same way, the astral substance—which is irregularly distributed—is drawn together and organized according to the forces within the soul and in accordance with what that soul has achieved in its previous life. In this way, the human being shapes his or her own astral body. The seer perceives these nascent human beings—who initially possess only an astral body—as beings that resemble a bell shape opening downward. They shoot through the astral plane at tremendous speed. It is almost impossible to imagine the speed with which they whiz through space.

[ 20 ] Now these developing human beings must receive an etheric body and a physical body. What has happened up to this point—up to the formation of the astral body—depended on them themselves, according to the powers they had developed. However, how the etheric body forms does not depend solely on the human being at this stage of development; rather, with regard to this formation, the human being is dependent on external beings. That is why, although a human being always has a suitable astral body, it is not always the case that this astral body fits perfectly into the etheric and physical bodies. Hence the frequent disharmony and dissatisfaction in life. The reason why human beings-in-the-making flit about in this way is primarily because they are seeking a suitable pair of parents who will give them the best opportunity to acquire an etheric and physical constitution that harmonizes with their astral nature. It can only ever be the relatively best and most suitable pair of parents who provide this for them. In this search, beings are at work who link the etheric body to the astral body and who are similar to what is often called “folk spirits.” This is not the incomprehensible abstraction that the folk spirit is usually regarded as; to the spiritual observer of the world, it is as real as our soul, which is embodied in our body. Thus, while an entire people does not collectively possess a physical body, it does have an astral body and the beginnings of an etheric body. It lives, as it were, in an astral cloud, and this is the body of the national spirit. These are the guides of the etheric formations surrounding human beings, and thus human beings are no longer in control of themselves.

[ 21 ] Now comes an extraordinarily important moment, just as important as the moment after death, when one sees one’s entire past life as a series of memories. When a person slips into their etheric body and does not yet have a physical body—this is only a brief moment, but one of the utmost importance—they have a preview of their next life; not all the details, but merely an overview of everything that lies ahead in their future life. There they can tell themselves—though they will forget it again upon incarnation—that they have a happy or an unhappy life ahead of them. Now it happens that when a person has had many terrible experiences in a previous life, they experience a shock and do not want to enter the physical body. This can result in them not fully entering it, so that the connection between the various bodies is not fully established. This then results in idiocy in this life. This is not always the cause of idiocy, but it is often the case. The soul, as it were, resists becoming physically embodied. Such a person cannot use their brain properly because they are not fully connected to it. Only when a person allows themselves to be properly born into their physical instrument can they use it properly. While the etheric body normally protrudes only very faintly, in the case of people with intellectual disabilities one can often see parts of the etheric body as an ethereal glow extending far beyond the head. Here we have a case where something that appears inexplicable from a purely physical perspective is explained by spiritual science.