The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] To gain an even better understanding of the law of karma, as it manifests in human life, I would like to describe a phenomenon that occurs immediately after a person’s death. Think of the tableau of memories that unfolds when a person is freed from the physical body and, for a short time, lives only in the sheath of the etheric and astral bodies before continuing on through the elemental world. To gain a deeper understanding of the workings of karma, let me describe a peculiar sensation that already arises during this grand tableau. It is a feeling of expanding, of growing out of oneself. This becomes stronger and stronger, even while the human being is still in his etheric body. He enters a peculiar state in relation to this tableau. At first, there are images of the past life, which he views as if in a panorama. Then comes a moment—it occurs not long after death and lasts for hours, even days, depending on the individual’s nature—when the person has the sensation: “I myself am all these images.”—They feel their etheric body expanding, as if it were encompassing the entire circumference of the Earth all the way up to the Sun.

[ 2 ] Then, when a person leaves their etheric body, another, most peculiar sensation arises—one that is downright difficult to describe with words from the physical world. It is indeed a feeling of expansion far out into outer space, but as if one no longer filled all the places in outer space. One can only describe it roughly. One feels, for example, as if one part of one’s being were in Munich, another in Mainz, a third in Basel, and yet another part far beyond the Earth’s orbit—perhaps on the Moon. One feels, so to speak, fragmented, and the spaces in between do not feel like they belong to oneself. This is the peculiar way of feeling astral: as if spread out in space, transported to various places, yet not filling the space in between. And this sensation lasts throughout the entire Kamaloka period, which a person experiences in reverse all the way back to birth. It is always a process of reliving such fragments that belong to oneself. This then interweaves with the rest of one’s Kamaloka life. It is important to know this in order to gain an understanding of how the law of karma actually works. One first feels oneself inside the person with whom one was most recently connected, and then back within all the people and other beings with whom one had dealings during one’s life.

[ 3 ] For example, if you once beat someone up in Mainz, after your death, at the appropriate time, you will experience the beating yourself—the pain that you inflicted on them. So if that person is still in Mainz at that time, a part of your astral body will be in Mainz after your death and will experience the event there. If, on the other hand, the person you beat has since died, you will find yourself where he now is in Kamaloka. Of course, we are not dealing only with this one person, but also with many others who are scattered across the Earth and in Kamaloka. You are everywhere; this is made possible by this fragmented nature that constitutes physicality in Kamaloka. It makes it possible to experience, within all the others, what you had to do with them, and in this way you form a lasting connection with all those with whom you have come into contact. You are now connected to this person whom you beat because you lived with him in Kamaloka. Later, you ascend to Devachan and then return to Kamaloka. Now, as your astral body is being formed, it finds what unites it with the person with whom you had grown close. And since there are many such connections, you see that everything related to you is linked to you by a kind of bond.

[ 4 ] A clear explanation will be provided by the event observed by the occultist, which I have already mentioned to you, in which five judges sentenced a man to death and also executed him. In his previous life, this man had been a kind of chieftain and had had the five executed; then he died and came to Kamaloka. During this time, he was transported to the place where the others were and into the bodies of the others, and had to experience the sensations the others had felt when they were killed. This is the starting point of the forces of attraction that bring people together upon their reappearance on Earth, so that the law of karma can be fulfilled.

[ 5 ] This is how karma works. You can see from this that there are ways of being and connections in the world that begin already on the astral plane. On the physical plane, there is continuity of substance; on the astral plane, however, related yet separate parts of physicality can be perceived. It is as if you felt your head within yourself, nothing between your head and heart, then your heart, then your feet, and nothing in between. One part of you could be in America and belong entirely to your astral body, another on the Moon, and a third on yet another planet, and there need be no astral connection visible between these parts.

[ 6 ] When we consider the law of karma in this way, it becomes clear to us that what occurs in human life during a single life cycle is the result of many causes that lie in past lives. How, then, do we reconcile the law of karma with external heredity? It is said that there are many contradictions between heredity and this law. Many say of a morally upright person that he must be the scion of an equally virtuous family, that he must have inherited it from his forefathers. When we view physical processes from an occult standpoint, we know that this is not the case. However, in a certain sense, we can describe them as processes of heredity. Let us clarify this with some examples.

[ 7 ] If we consider, for example, the Bach family, we see that twenty-nine musicians were born into that family over a period of two hundred and fifty years, among them the great Bach. For a good musician requires not only an innate musical ability, but also a physically well-developed ear—a specific form of it. Laypeople cannot distinguish what is essential; one must look deeply into the matter with occult powers. Even if the differences are small and insignificant, a certain form of the inner auditory organs is necessary for someone to become a musician, and these forms are inherited. They are similar in a person to those of his father, grandfather, and so on, just as the shape of the nose is inherited.

[ 8 ] Let us assume that, on the astral plane, an individuality is ready to incarnate and is searching for a physical body. Centuries or millennia ago, it acquired special musical abilities. If it cannot find a physical body with the right ears, it cannot become a musician. It therefore gravitates toward a family that will provide it with a musical ear. Without such an ear, its musical predisposition could not be fully realized, for even the greatest virtuoso can achieve nothing if he is not given an instrument.

[ 9 ] Mathematical talent, too, requires something very specific. Contrary to what many people believe, a mathematician does not need a special brain structure. Their thinking and logic are the same as everyone else’s. What matters are the three so-called semicircular canals in the inner ear, which are positioned relative to one another in such a way that they span the three directions of space. The specific development of these canals determines mathematical talent. This is where the aptitude for mathematics lies. It is a physical organ, and as such, it must be inherited. Thus, we see that eight prominent mathematicians have emerged from the Bernoulli family.

[ 10 ] Even a moral person needs, in order to exercise his moral disposition, a pair of parents who bequeath to him a suitable physical body. And he has these parents because he is this particular individuality and no other. The individuality chooses its own parents, albeit under the guidance of higher beings. There are some people who object to this fact from the standpoint of a mother’s love. They fear they might lose something if the child does not inherit this or that trait from the mother. The correct understanding, however, actually deepens the feeling of a mother’s love. It shows that it is a pre-birth feeling of love—one that existed even before conception—that drew the child to the mother. Even before birth, the child shows love toward the mother; a mother’s love is the love in return. Thus, from a spiritual perspective, we find that a mother’s love extends even beyond birth. It is based on feelings of reciprocity.

[ 11 ] It is often believed that human beings are subject to the immutable law of karma, and that there is nothing that can be done to change it. Let us use an analogy from everyday life to illustrate how this law of karma works. A merchant has debit and credit entries in his ledger. When he adds them up and compares them, they reflect the state of his business. The merchant’s business standing is subject to the inexorable accounting law of debits and credits. However, if he enters into new business transactions, he can record new entries, and he would be a fool if he refused to do so simply because he had once drawn up a balance sheet. With regard to karma, the credit side contains everything a person has done that is good, wise, true, and right, while the debit side contains everything he has done that is evil and foolish. He is free at any moment to enter new entries into the karmic book of life. Therefore, never believe that an unalterable law of fate reigns in life. Freedom is not impaired by the law of karma. And that is why, when it comes to the law of karma, you must think just as much about the future as about the past. We carry within us the effects of past deeds, and we are slaves to the past, but masters of the future. If we want to shape that future well, we must enter as many favorable entries as possible into the book of life.

[ 12 ] It is a grand, powerful thought to know that, whatever one does, nothing is in vain, that everything has an effect that extends into the future. Thus, the law does not weigh us down, but rather fills us with the most beautiful hope. It is the most beautiful gift of spiritual science. We find joy in the law of karma by looking into the future. It gives us the task of acting in accordance with such a law; there is nothing in it that can make people sad, nothing that could cast a pessimistic shadow over the world. It inspires our activity to participate in the course of earthly development. Knowledge of the law of karma must be transformed into such feelings.

[ 13 ] When a person suffers, people often say: He deserves his suffering; he must work through his karma; if I help him, I am interfering with his karma. — That is foolishness. Their poverty and misery are the result of their past life, but if I help them, my help will add a new chapter to their life. In doing so, I help them move forward. After all, it would also be foolish to say to a merchant whom one could save from ruin with 1,000 marks or 10,000 marks: “No, because that would alter your balance sheet.” — That is precisely what must compel us to help people. I help him because I know that, in the karmic context, nothing is without consequence. That should be an incentive for us to take real action.

[ 14 ] Many people dispute the law of karma from a Christian perspective. Theologians say: Christianity cannot acknowledge the law of karma, for if it were true, it could never allow for the principle of vicarious atonement. — But there are also Theosophists who say that the law of karma contradicts the principle of redemption. They say they cannot accept this help that a single being gives to many people. They are both wrong; neither of them has understood the law of karma.

[ 15 ] Consider a person in dire straits. You yourself are in a more fortunate situation; you can help him. Through this help, you write a new chapter in his life. An even more powerful person can help two people and influence the karma of both. An even more powerful person can help ten or a hundred people, and the most powerful can help countless others. This in no way contradicts the principle of karmic interconnections. It is precisely because of the reliability of the law of karma that we know this help truly intervenes in a person’s destiny.

[ 16 ] It is known that humanity did indeed need that help when the Christ Individuality was sent down to this plane. The Savior’s death on the cross—that of the one central being—was the help that intervened in the karma of countless beings. There is no conflict between properly understood Christian esotericism and properly understood spiritual science. We find a deep harmony between the laws of both and are by no means compelled to abandon the principle of redemption.

[ 17 ] We will be led even deeper into the law of karma as we turn our attention to both human evolution and the evolution of the Earth. We have cited several facts intended to help us understand the law of karma. We will understand certain other aspects even better when we turn to the evolution of humanity itself—not only on Earth but also across the other planets, which are other incarnations of our Earth. There we will be able to find some additional insights into the law of karma as we are taken back to ancient times and, at the same time, directed toward the distant future.

[ 18 ] To begin with, let us familiarize ourselves with an important fact. We have come to realize today that what we can see with our physical eyes in a human being—their outer physical body—is built up by the higher aspects of human nature; that their ego, astral body, and etheric body, and so on up to the highest aspect, the Atma, all work upon our body. The parts of the human being, as they exist today, are not of equal value; rather, they have different values within human nature. One need only make a fairly trivial observation to realize that our physical body is, in essence, the most perfect part of our nature. Take, for example, a section of the femur. This is not a compact, solid bone, but a part ingeniously constructed as if from interlocking beams. Anyone who contemplates this part not only with the intellect but also with the senses will be filled with admiration for the wisdom that created it—a wisdom that used no more material than is necessary to support the upper body according to the principle of least effort. No engineering art intended to build a bridge comes close to the wisdom that has brought about such a thing in nature.

[ 19 ] If one explores the human heart not only through the eyes of an anatomist and physiologist, one will find in it an expression of great wisdom. Do not believe that the human astral body is already as advanced in its own way today as the physical human heart. The heart is constructed with artistry and wisdom; the astral body, driven by its desires, causes people to pour nothing but poison into their hearts for decades, and the heart withstands this for decades. Only at a future stage of development will the astral body be as advanced as the physical body is today; indeed, it will then stand much, much higher than the physical body. Today, the physical body is the most perfect; the etheric body is less perfect, and the astral body even less so; and the “baby” among the bodies is the “I.”

[ 20 ] The physical body, as it stands before us today, is the oldest component of human nature. It is the one that has been worked on the longest. Only when it had reached a certain stage in the course of evolution was it permeated by the etheric body. After these two had worked together for a time, the astral body joined them, and only finally the “I,” which, however, will attain unimaginable heights of development in the future.

[ 21 ] Just as human beings repeatedly incarnate, so too has our Earth undergone incarnations and will undergo further ones. The process of reincarnation takes place throughout the entire cosmos. In its present form, our Earth is the reincarnation of earlier planets, and we can look back on three of them.

[ 22 ] Before it became Earth, our Earth was what is called the Moon in occultism—not in astronomy. Today’s Moon is, so to speak, a slag that has been cast aside as useless. If we could mix the Earth and the Moon together with all their substances and beings, we would obtain what we call the Earth’s predecessor, the occult Moon; and what remains today as the Earth is the remnant of the Moon that was left behind after the slag was cast off.

[ 23 ] Just as the present Moon is a cast-off remnant of the old lunar embodiment, so the Sun that stands in the sky is something that emerged from an even earlier state of the Earth. Before the Earth became the Moon, it was, as we say in occultism, itself a Sun, and this Sun consisted of all the substances and beings that today make up the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth. This Sun shed the parts it could not retain as a higher body—the substances and beings that today make up the Earth and the Moon—and thereby became a fixed star. For the occultist, a fixed star is not something that has always been a fixed star. The Sun only became a fixed star after it had been a planet.

[ 24 ] The Sun that we see today, which was once united with the Earth, has absorbed within itself many beings that were of a higher order than the Earth’s beings, just as the Moon that we see has received the worst parts and is therefore a discarded dreg. The Moon is a fallen planet; the Sun is an ascended planet.

[ 25 ] The Solar stage was preceded by yet another stage: the Saturn stage. Thus we have four successive incarnations of the Earth: Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, and, as the fourth, the Earth. When the ancestor of humankind developed on Saturn, only the principle of the physical body was present within him. On the Sun, the etheric body was added; on the Moon, the astral body; and here on Earth, the “I.”

[ 26 ] From the lecture “Blood Is a Very Special Fluid,” you will learn how the “I” is intimately connected to blood. This blood did not exist in a human body before an “I” incarnated, so this red human blood is linked to the evolution of the Earth itself. It could not have formed at all if the Earth had not collided with another planet—Mars—in the course of its evolution. Before that, the Earth had no iron; there was no iron in the blood; there was no such blood at all on which human beings depend today. In the first half of the Earth’s existence, the decisive factor in the Earth’s development was the influence of the planet Mars, just as the influence of the planet Mercury has been for the second half. Mars gave the Earth iron, and the influence of Mercury manifests itself on Earth by making the human soul increasingly free, so that it can become ever more independent. In occultism, therefore, Earth’s development is understood in such a way that one speaks of two halves of it: the Mars half and the Mercury half. While the other names refer to an entire planet, Earth’s development is referred to as “Mars-Mercury.” These terms “Mars” and “Mercury” do not refer to the stars we know today, but rather to the influences exerted by them during the first and second halves of Earth’s evolution.

[ 27 ] In the future, the Earth will incarnate as a new planet called Jupiter. By then, the astral body will have developed to the point where it no longer stands opposed to the physical body as an enemy, as is the case today; however, it will not yet have reached the highest stage. The etheric body will then be as developed as the physical body. It will have undergone three planetary evolutions, just as the physical body has today.

[ 28 ] In the next incarnation, the astral body will be at the same stage of development as the physical body is today; it will then have gone through the lunar, terrestrial, and Jovian stages of development and will have reached the Venusian stage. In the final incarnation, that of Vulcan, the “I” will have attained its highest level of development. Thus, the future incarnations of the Earth will be: Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan.

[ 29 ] These terms are reflected in the days of the week. There was a time when the naming of the realities that surround us originated with the initiates. Today, people no longer have an inner sense of the connection between names and things. The names of the days of the week were intended to serve as a reminder to people of their journey through the stages of Earth’s evolution.

[ 30 ] Let’s start with Saturday: Saturn’s day, or “Sonnntag” in German. Then Sunday: the Sun’s day. Monday: the Moon’s day. Then Mars and Mercury, the two states of our Earth: Mars Day—Tuesday, in Old High German “Ziu-” or “Dinstag,” and in French “Mardi,” in Italian “Martedi.” Wednesday: Mercury’s Day, in Italian “Mercoledi,” in French “Mercredi.” Mercury is the same as Wotan. Tacitus speaks of Wotan’s day; in English, it is still “Wednesday.” Then Jupiter’s day: Jupiter is the German Donar, hence the German “Donnerstag,” French “Jeudi,” and Italian “Giovedi.” Then Venus’s day; Venus, the German Freia: “Freitag,” French “Vendredi,” and Italian “Venerdi.”

[ 31 ] Thus, in the sequence of the days of the week, we have a reminder of the Earth’s evolution through its various incarnations.