The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Theosophy and Rosicrucianism VI

[ 1 ] When a person has progressed so far within that spiritual realm we discussed yesterday that they have, so to speak, transformed all the abilities and talents they acquired during their earthly life, then the time comes when they prepare for a new incarnation. We must be clear that what we encounter in a human being consists of two distinct elements. One is what is passed down through physical heredity; the other is what the person brings into this world from their previous lifetimes.

[ 2 ] We will have to describe humanity’s descent into this world; however, you must not take offense at the word “descent,” for it is not a spatial descent, but rather a process of emerging from the world around us. Yesterday we saw that this spiritual world is not to be sought in some afterlife, but that it is right here all around us; it is simply that modern human beings lack the ability to perceive this spiritual world. From this spiritual world emerges what is called a new incarnation. We have seen that the human being has retained an essence from both his etheric and astral bodies from his previous life—an overview of his experiences; and whatever he has already refined within his astral body, he has taken with him into the spiritual world. Only the unrefined has fallen away.

[ 3 ] We will gain a clearer understanding of reincarnation if we consider a few more aspects of life after death. We have seen that immediately after physical death, a person continues to live in their etheric body for about three and a half days, and that during these three and a half days, their past life unfolds before them like a kind of tableau. Then the etheric body dissolves, and this is followed by the Kamaloka period: this is the time of purification and cleansing of all astral elements that require purification and cleansing.

[ 4 ] But now I must mention one more experience. At the very moment this memory image arises immediately after death, a person has a significant experience. The person has the sensation of suddenly becoming larger, as if they were rapidly breaking through their own surface and expanding out into space. This feeling does not fade away until the next birth. The person feels as vast as the world to which they belong, as vast as the entire universe. This gives you an idea of how it is possible for a person to see and perceive their body as something foreign, for they see their passions, as it were, outside their body. It is a peculiar feeling, this sense of being spread out throughout the universe.

[ 5 ] Then there is something even more difficult to understand. Throughout this entire Kamaloka period, a person feels as if they were truly divided within space. You’ll understand this better this way: When, during the Kamaloka period—as I’ve described to you—a person relives their life back to childhood, they feel everything they’ve experienced as if in a mirror image. Thus, a person truly feels the slap they gave someone back then; they truly feel as if a part of them is in the place the other person occupied. For example, if you died here in Kassel and the other person whom you slapped back then lives in Paris, then you feel as if a part of you is there. And so you feel as if you were divided across the cosmos; you feel, piece by piece, everywhere you have something to seek, so to speak. This means that you feel nothing in the space between Paris and Kassel. So that, when you consider all the events of your life in this way, you feel literally fragmented throughout your entire journey through the period after death.

[ 6 ] Consider the following analogy: A wasp consists of two parts—a front section and a rear section connected by a very thin thread. Imagine this rear section completely severed, yet the wasp still drags it along with her. This is roughly how you can picture the description above: You feel as though you consist of separate pieces, and there is no connection between these pieces. But when a person enters Devachan, they feel once again as they did immediately after death, as if they were filling the entire universe.

[ 7 ] But once a person in Devachan has transformed all their predispositions into talents and abilities, the “I” once again feels drawn to the physical Earth and strives to descend once more to Earth for a physical incarnation. First, the “I” surrounds itself with an astral body. This takes place as the “I” draws all astral matter toward itself: it is like a convergence. It is as if you were holding a magnet near iron filings: just as the iron filings are drawn together in certain patterns, so the “I” draws the astral matter toward itself. However, it has retained impressions of all the experiences it had during its passage through the realm of souls and spirits, and all of this forms the fundamental forces that contribute to the formation of the new astral body. Thus, this new astral body incorporates everything the person has experienced in previous lives and in the Kamaloka. All the impressions the person has gained there have a decisive influence on their integration into their new astral body.

[ 8 ] At this point, the human being has only the astral body; but he must now also acquire the other members. The astral body has been formed solely by the individual’s own forces of attraction. Before conception, the human being is clothed only in this astral body. The seer therefore constantly sees these astral human embryos awaiting their birth or conception. He sees them flying around at tremendous speed: bell-shaped formations moving through space at tremendous speed. Distances play no role at all; they move so fast that distances simply do not matter.

[ 9 ] Next comes the process of being clothed in an etheric body; however, this is something that a human being can no longer achieve through his or her own powers alone. The human being’s own inner powers can no longer provide for the etheric body; instead, the human being requires the assistance of certain spiritual beings who must cooperate in this process. You can get an idea of these beings when you consider that you sometimes use words to which you usually attach no specific concept—for example, the terms “national soul” or “national spirit.” Today, when people utter these words, they either imagine nothing at all or think of something entirely abstract. The seer, however, has a different conception of them. “In fact, there are—just as real as we ourselves are—beings of a higher order who do not incarnate in the flesh, and who are nothing other than national or tribal souls. Speaking of the ‘national spirit’ is not merely a vague term; the national soul is a real being, only it has no physical body—instead, its lowest member is the etheric body. This national spirit also has an astral body, the “I,” Manas, Buddhi, Atma, and then a higher aspect that human beings cannot attain—which Christian esotericism calls the Holy Spirit and which Theosophy is accustomed to calling the Logos.

[ 10 ] In this way, the seer can address the national spirit just as he addresses other people. Today, people have no real conception of such things and believe only that this term refers to a summary of the characteristics of individual peoples; but that is not true—it has a real existence. Due to the materialistic mindset, understanding of such things had to be lost, but it will be regained. Today, humanity tends to dismiss such things as empty concepts. But this was bound to happen. And so, in our time, a book had to be written that is, so to speak, the opposite of the theosophical view. This book had to be written, and it is also greatly admired: The Critique of Language by Fritz Mauthner. Fritz Mauthner is a spirit who dissolves everything that lies beyond the sensory realm. Only a radical thinker abandoned by all good spirits could write in this way—one who had the courage to break with everything that is spirit and reality. Future centuries will have to turn to this very book if they wish to know how people thought at the turn of this century.

[ 11 ] The national soul is a tangible reality: like a mass of fog, it spreads out, and all the etheric bodies of the individual members of that nation are embedded within it, and its forces flow into the etheric bodies of the individual members.

[ 12 ] Now there are spirits precisely from this level of the national soul who assist in the formation of the etheric body of the new soul. This being ensures that the human being is guided toward a specific people that is best suited for him or her. However, this etheric body does not always fit perfectly; and all the disharmony you find in life very often stems from the fact that a person cannot create his or her etheric body solely through his or her own efforts. This complete harmony will only occur at a much later stage of the Earth’s development.

[ 13 ] This process of donning the etheric body takes place at a breakneck speed—one that you cannot even begin to imagine based on physical conditions. And then, guided by even higher beings, the human being is led to the couple who can provide the suitable material for his physical body.

[ 14 ] Today’s materialistic person, seeing how a son resembles his parents, will not be able to believe that anything else is connected to this body inherited from the parents. Certainly, we see our ancestors reflected in the body, but that does not contradict what has been said at all. Let us consider a specific case: the Bach family. Over the course of two hundred and fifty years, more than twenty-nine musicians of varying degrees of importance have emerged from this family. The materialist will say: “There you have it—it’s clearly hereditary!” — Similarly, the Bernoulli family produced eight mathematicians in a short period of time. How is that possible? We understand this best when we focus specifically on the laws of heredity. Since this is easier to understand in the case of musicians, let us consider the Bach family. So let us assume that a young Bach had been in Rome, for example, in a previous incarnation, had developed his talents, and wished to reincarnate. Suppose he had brought with him the greatest musical talents as a result of his previous incarnations: if he did not find a well-trained ear, he would be unable to make use of all his talents; without a well-trained ear, he would be just as helpless as a virtuoso without an instrument. It was absolutely necessary for this individual to integrate into a body that possessed a suitable organ for the talents he had brought with him. Now, however, the external form of the internal and external organs is hereditary, and this individual, if he wanted to become a musician, had to have a well-trained auditory organ for his next life. Where could he most easily obtain it? In a family of musicians. Thus, they are guided to where they can find the best environment for the further development of their innate talents—and at that time, that was precisely the parents of Johann Sebastian Bach.

[ 15 ] What about the Bernoulli brothers? Mathematical thinking is not based on the nature of the brain, for mathematical logic is nothing other than logic in general; rather, mathematical talent is based on the exceptionally precise organization of the three semicircular canals. This is an organ, not much larger than a pea, embedded in the center of the temporal bone, consisting of three semicircular canals that correspond exactly to three-dimensional space. Thus, if one canal lies exactly vertical, the second runs from right to left, and the third from front to back. They are all perpendicular to one another at an angle of exactly ninety degrees. This precise alignment is therefore crucial: the more accurately the right angle is maintained, the better the organ functions. If the organ is damaged in any way, vertigo sets in and you can no longer orient yourself in space. And mathematical talent—or rather, the ability to exercise that talent—is based on the exceptionally fine development of these canals. And this organ is inherited just like a musical ear.

[ 16 ] The brain thinks about space in exactly the same way as it does, for example, about philosophy; but whether someone has a sense for spatial forms depends on these three semicircular canals. Thus, an individual gifted with high mathematical talent will incarnate into a family in which this organ is best developed, and that was the case in the Bernoulli family.

[ 17 ] To be morally upright, one also needs the right tools. An individual with high moral standards therefore seeks out the parents who promise to provide the best tools for this purpose. Thus, the proverb often used in a superficially trivial way—“One cannot be too careful in choosing one’s parents”—is true in the deepest, most serious sense, for the child, so to speak, chooses its parents. Now some may object: Where does that leave a mother’s love? For surely it stems from the fact that the mother knows the child is a part of herself. — Viewed in the proper light, a mother’s love suffers in no way; on the contrary, one comes to understand it even more deeply as a result. Why is the child born to this particular mother? Because its spiritual qualities draw it to a mother who is spiritually akin to it, and indeed, the child loves the mother even before conception; a mother’s love is, so to speak, the reciprocal love of this primary affection. Such an insight, therefore, actually deepens our understanding of this concept.

[ 18 ] Essentially, it depends on the characteristics of the father and mother to determine how they provide the opportunity for incarnation; and in this regard, the father and mother have different effects. When a human being descends for a new birth, the “I,” which possesses greater powers of will, is more drawn to the father, while that part which possesses greater astral powers is more drawn to the mother. The father, therefore, has more influence on the “I,” the will, and the character, while the mother has more influence on the astral body—that is, on the imagination. Of course, it is best when both parents are a good match for the individuality that wishes to incarnate.

[ 19 ] However, during the descent, the forces that were imprinted on the person during the ascent also come into play. All of this creates forces of attraction, and the person will be drawn into the sphere that has always been connected to him. He will thus be led to those people with whom he has had some connection in the past. I would like to give you an example based on a real case. There was once a case in which a man was sentenced to death by a court of four or five judges and subsequently executed. Now, using a spiritual-scientific approach, the previous lives of these six people were investigated, and it turned out that all these men had been together on Earth in a previous life—but in such a way that the executed man was their chieftain, and the others had been executed by him. Thus, the final execution was a kind of compensation. This particular case illustrates the law of karma especially clearly. This is how the various forces that a person has attracted to himself in his previous life interact; they determine, upon reincarnation, not only the constitution of his body but also the place where he is born, as well as his later destiny. Even more so than with the etheric body, dissonances often manifest in the physical body.

[ 20 ] All of these are things that show how, upon reincarnation, the human being is clothed in the three bodies, and with each incarnation, the “I” works on the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. We will hear later how the human being ascends to this high perfection. But the astral body and the etheric body are increasingly transformed, and the refined astral body increasingly becomes Manas, the refined etheric body becomes Buddhi, and the refined physical body becomes Atma. This is how one can imagine the ever-increasing perfection of the human being from incarnation to incarnation.

[ 21 ] This is most beautifully expressed in the Lord’s Prayer, which, however, can only be properly understood if one interprets it in the true Christian sense, as it was interpreted by Paul’s secret school. It was this school that explained the Lord’s Prayer in this true Christian sense. It told its students, for example: Imagine the higher aspects of human nature, which develop as a person increasingly refines their three lowest aspects. — Early Christianity regarded these three higher aspects—Manas, Buddhi, Atma—as the divine nature of the human being. By increasingly developing these three higher aspects, a person draws ever closer to the Divine. From this perspective, the ancient esoteric Christians called the three highest aspects the Divine Nature, and they called the Highest Atma “the Father.” This is the deepest aspect of divinity within the human being: the Father in Heaven. This Father is that toward which all human beings are evolving; He is the center of the creation of the worlds. The best way to imagine creation in the Christian sense is to understand the concept of sacrifice. Picture your reflection in a mirror, and suppose you could be so selfless as to give your life to that reflection. This is how one must imagine selfless creation: that one is absorbed within the very thing one has created. Imagine the Father Spirit at the center of a hollow sphere reflecting itself; then the image of God will meet you in a thousand different ways. Thus said the ancient esoteric Christian: Look at the world—all beings, what are they but reflections of God! —And in their esotericism, they called this self-reflecting Divinity “the Kingdom,” that is: the God who reflects Himself everywhere. — Now develop your sense further. If you see God in everything, then you have dissolved the divinity into an immense number of details, and if you wish to distinguish them, you must give each one a name. This name must be sanctified, for every single creature is, after all, a reflection of the divinity.

[ 22 ] It is through these three that human beings evolve toward God. But you must not believe that human beings become God. Take a drop from the ocean: it is of the same essence as the ocean, but it is not the ocean. Likewise, the drop of divinity within us is indeed of the same essence as the Divinity, but it is not the Divinity. Thus, as human beings increasingly develop these three highest aspects, they become more and more one with the Kingdom, for the spiritual world descends to them. Here you have the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer: first, in invoking the Father; second, in imploring that the Kingdom come to us; third, in the sanctification of the Name. Then we will always strive not to perform any action that is not in harmony with the Father Spirit, from whom we have sprung and toward whom we are evolving as we develop the three highest members within ourselves. And in contrast to the three higher members, esoteric Christianity now considers the four lower members of the human being, which must also become ever more perfect.

[ 23 ] The physical body consists of the same substances as the external natural world, which are, after all, constantly entering and leaving this physical body. And they must constantly enter and leave if the physical body is to remain healthy.

[ 24 ] The etheric body possesses forces that, just as the physical body interacts with the entire external natural world, also interact with the entire national soul. For the physical body to be in balance, physical substances must flow into and out of it daily. For the etheric body to be in balance, it must not develop in isolation, but must bring itself into harmony with the entire national soul and all higher beings.

[ 25 ] The word “guilt” is related to the word “debt.” Debt is something that clearly shows you that you do not stand alone, but that you are part of a social context, that you owe something to your fellow human beings. What can throw the human astral body into disorder—this is what early Christian esotericism viewed as something pertaining to one’s inclinations and passions, drives and desires; and everything that can throw these into disorder is expressed by the word “temptation.” Guilt, then, is something that places a person in a relationship with the social community, whereas temptation is something into which every person, as an individual being, can fall.

[ 26 ] If physical substances did not enter and leave our physical body, this physical body would fall into disarray: “Give us this day our daily bread.” If the etheric body did not enter into a harmonious interrelationship with the collective soul—that is, if it did not integrate harmoniously into the entire social fabric—then it, too, would fall into disorder: “Forgive us our debts.” If a person were to fall into the error of succumbing to every temptation that comes his way, this would throw his astral body into disorder: “Lead us not into temptation.”

[ 27 ] The ego can fall into those errors that are referred to as “evil.” These transgressions of the ego—which is, after all, our self—include everything that transforms a normal and healthy sense of self into evil, that is, into selfishness. This includes, therefore, all excesses of self-interest and egoism: “Deliver us from evil.”

[ 28 ] The physical body can thus develop in a healthy way if we provide it with its daily bread in the right way. The etheric body can develop in a healthy way if we bring ourselves into harmony in the right way with the social body in which we live. The astral body can develop in a healthy way—that is, be purified and cleansed—if we overcome all temptations. The “I” can develop in a healthy way if we make an effort to transform all egoism into altruism and all selfishness into selflessness.

[ 29 ] Thus, we see the Lord’s Prayer as a prayer that encompasses the development of the whole person.

[ 30 ] Now, someone might object—and you will in fact encounter this objection quite often: Isn’t the Lord’s Prayer a prayer given by Jesus Christ as a prayer for everyone? What good is such an interpretation, which most people know nothing about?

[ 31 ] The naive person doesn’t need to know any of this either. Look at the rose. The highest wisdom created the rose, and yet even the most naive person can take joy in it. Knowledge of this wisdom is not necessary. And so it is with the Lord’s Prayer. It has its power over the human mind, even if the simple-minded person knows nothing of it. But the Lord’s Prayer would never have this power if it were not drawn from this deepest wisdom. All great forms of prayer, like this greatest of them all, are created from the deepest wisdom, and the power of these forms of prayer rests solely on that. Even if you think this is something that has been contrived, that is not true; rather, the Being who gave us the Lord’s Prayer has imbued it with this profound power.

[ 32 ] This shows how it is only through spiritual science that one can understand what one practices daily—and whose power humanity has experienced for two millennia.

[ 33 ] But now the time has come in human development when progress can no longer continue without this deepening of understanding. In the past—that is, up until now—humanity was able to sense the spiritual powers inherent in this prayer without knowing their deeper meaning. But now humanity has advanced so far in its development that it must ask, and therefore the answer must now be given to it.

[ 34 ] The Christian religion will not lose its value as a result; on the contrary, it will reveal itself in all its depth. Through the greatest wisdom, religious truths will be rediscovered. An example of this is the esoteric interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer. It shows us the path that human beings must follow through their many incarnations. The four lower petitions, when followed in their true spirit, help them accomplish the work that leads to the development of their higher aspects of being, as expressed in the first three petitions.