The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. More Intimate Questions About Reincarnation

[ 1 ] It is now my task to speak in the various branches about a very specific topic, because this topic should become more and more deeply familiar to us and permeate our being—namely, the topic of “More Intimate Questions of Reincarnation” and various related matters. Therefore, today as well, we will have a great deal to discuss regarding these more intimate questions of reincarnation and their significance for the entire life of humanity. We will have to begin with very ancient times, but will then gradually approach important questions of the present. In our spiritual science, it is the case that one must proceed differently than in other worldviews or, for example, in social issues. In spiritual science, one must first address the facts of life in general and then work them out in greater detail. In our worldview, in the most elementary sense, we first speak of how the inner core of the human being—his divine “I”—continually evolves from one life to the next, how it reincarnates. However, this only addresses the question of reincarnation in a basic sense, and the task now is to describe these matters more precisely and in greater depth. For this does not exhaust the matter of the human self passing from one life to the next; rather, there are many other aspects connected to these questions of reincarnation that actually shed the proper light on them and their connections to life. When we now look back at ancient times, let us characterize them from this perspective.

[ 2 ] We have often spoken of the fact that humanity must seek its ancestors in ancient Atlantis—that is, in the landmass between present-day Africa and Europe on the one hand, and America on the other. There, in bodies that were, in part, quite different from those of modern humans, all the souls now sitting here were already incarnated. That is where we must look for humanity’s immediate ancestry. This Atlantean humanity had its own distinct leadership. However, the soul forces—indeed, all the abilities of the Atlantean people—were different from those of modern humanity. Therefore, ancient Atlantis did not have what we might call leadership today. And if we single out a few aspects of this ancient Atlantis: there were no churches, places of worship, or schools as we understand them today. There was something of a hybrid between a place of worship and a school; what existed to the greatest degree were what we know as mystery temples. In terms of knowledge and outward life, these certainly guided the Atlanteans. One might say that the spiritual leaders were at the same time the kings of the Atlantean tribes. A word—which, of course, was coined only later—can convey to us the meaning of the mission of these Atlantean mysteries, these Atlantean places of worship and schools, from which the Atlantean initiates worked, from which they both enriched individual human beings with knowledge and exercised leadership over them. This word, which was coined later but today conveys the purpose of the mystery sites, is the word “oracle.” Therefore, we speak of the Atlantean oracles as the great centers of Atlantean culture.

[ 3 ] We need to understand what these oracles were supposed to do. Their task was to impart teachings to humanity about the spiritual world that lies beyond the physical one. This teaching about the spiritual world is not—if we emphasize just this one aspect for now—limited in space in the same way as our knowledge of the physical world. Whoever knows, for example, the mysteries of Mars knows a great deal about the spiritual mysteries of our world. All these physical celestial bodies of our solar system, for one thing, are connected with one another; they are the outer expression of spiritual beings. Whoever knows these spiritual beings also knows the forces that flow from planet to planet—forces that are active in the spiritual world where we find ourselves between death and rebirth. There was an oracle whose primary task was to proclaim and convey to humanity the mysteries of Mars, another whose task was to proclaim and convey the mysteries of Jupiter, and so on; and from these individual insights, one gained the ability to lead certain masses of people. We will speak about why this was the case another time; today we will merely hint at it. Our task today is a different one.

[ 4 ] The Atlantic peoples were divided into groups, and as part of the overall course of development, one group of people in particular had to be governed by the forces that could be gained through knowledge of Mars. Another group was to be governed by the forces that could be drawn from the knowledge of Jupiter, or from that of Venus, Mercury, and so on. In ancient Atlantis, there were indeed what one might call Jupiter people or Mars people. There were seven oracle sites because life in Atlantis was divided into seven groups according to the various characteristics of racial formation. There were the Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Jupiter oracles, and so on: all names that were coined later but are applicable to these oracle sites. And the leadership—the supreme authority over them, so to speak—was held by the oracle that we can refer to as the ancient Atlantean Sun Oracle. The oracles that existed in Greece, Egypt, and elsewhere after the Atlantean era, as well as all the oracles in Asia, were latecomers to the great Atlantean oracles. The Oracle of Apollo in Greece was a later development of the Sun Oracle of the Atlantean era. The initiate who stood at the head of the Sun Oracle was the bearer of the deepest mysteries of our solar system. Together with his subordinates, he was tasked with investigating the spiritual life of the Sun itself. He was thus entrusted with proclaiming all the mysteries of our entire planetary solar system as a message to the Atlantean people, and he was to exercise supreme authority over the other oracle sites.

[ 5 ] This initiate of the Solar Oracle was entrusted with a very special task. His task was to guide and lead humanity so that, once the great Atlantean catastrophe—which ended with the downfall of Atlantis—had passed, humanity could carry on into the post-Atlantean era and establish the cultures we have often referred to as the post-Atlantean ones. Thus, the great initiate of the Solar Oracle had the task of preparing humanity already during the Atlantean era so that, in the post-Atlantean era, the ancient Indian, ancient Persian, Egyptian-Babylonian-Jewish, and Greek-Latin cultures could emerge, and so that suitable human material would be available for this purpose.

[ 6 ] Now we must learn a little about the role of this great initiate of the Solar Oracle. What, exactly, was Atlantean culture? It was quite different from later cultures. In ancient Atlantis, the person at the pinnacle of culture—much like a great leader today in scholarship, art, industry, or commerce—possessed special clairvoyant powers and knew how to work magic in a unique way. What today makes a person a leader, a scholar, and so on did not yet exist back then, or at most existed only in its very earliest stages. Arithmetic, counting, reasoning, and intellectual judgment as we know them today did not exist. What existed were primitive clairvoyant powers—clairvoyant abilities—that could peer into the spiritual worlds. Without the self-awareness we have today, people in those days looked into the spiritual world, and whoever could see into it most clearly was the bearer of Atlantean culture. We have emphasized that the Atlanteans mastered certain inner forces of nature—for example, the seed forces of plants—and that they used these to propel their vehicles just as people today use the power of coal to propel theirs. Thus, the leaders of Atlantean culture were not like people today, who seek to explore the mysteries of the world through their power of judgment; rather, it was the greatest clairvoyants and magicians who led the way. And those people who possessed the very first seeds of development in calculation, counting, combination, and intellectual judgment were, in a certain sense, despised for their simplicity; they did not belong to what constituted the cultural aristocracy. But it was precisely these people—who possessed the very earliest beginnings of these post-Atlantean abilities and who had the least of clairvoyance and magical powers—whom the great leader of the Solar Oracle gathered from all regions. They were the simplest, and in a certain sense the most despised, people of ancient Atlantis; it was them he gathered. With them, after all, he had to lay the foundation for what was to become post-Atlantean culture. Those who marched at the forefront of Atlantean culture—those most dominated by twilight clairvoyance—were not suitable material to be led across the great Atlantean catastrophe. The call of the great initiate of the Solar Oracle went out to the simple people of Atlantis, who were the first to develop intellectual abilities.

[ 7 ] It should be mentioned in passing that we are living in a similar time today, that a similar call is once again being issued to humanity; though, of course, in the way it must be today, when humanity sees only outwardly, only on the physical plane: From unknown spiritual depths, which humanity will gradually come to know, the call goes out to humanity to once again prepare something that is to emerge as a new culture of the future, once more permeated by clairvoyant powers. A catastrophe will come, similar to that of Atlantis, and then a new culture with spiritual abilities will arise, one that will be linked to what we call the all-encompassing idea of the brotherhood of humanity.

[ 8 ] Even today, this call cannot be directed to—or understood by—those at the forefront of our culture. The position once held by the Atlantean clairvoyants and magicians—who were destined, so to speak, to die out along with their culture—is now occupied by those at the forefront of scholarship and outward industrial life: the great inventors and discoverers of the present day. No matter how much they still have to do, they occupy the same position. They look down with contempt upon those who are beginning to sense something of the spiritual life that is to follow. This awareness must be planted in the soul of the one who is to be strengthened today in his or her collaboration within the theosophical working groups. When the leaders of today’s culture look down with contempt upon the small gatherings, then the one who is diligently working within his or her soul to prepare for the future must say to himself or herself: Those who stand at the forefront today with their intellectual power—they are not counted on. It is precisely those whom they despise—those said not to be on a par with today’s scholarship—precisely these people are being gathered today —just as the simple people of ancient Atlantis were gathered by the leader of the Solar Oracle—to prepare a future culture, to be its dawn, while in the realm of scholarship the twilight of today’s culture lies before us. Let this be said in passing to strengthen those who must endure and withstand the attacks from those who wish to lead our culture.

[ 9 ] This great initiate of the Sun Oracle now gathered his simple people in a region roughly west of present-day Ireland. Now we must understand the situation clearly. Atlantis perished over the course of long, long periods of time. Time and again, powerful peoples migrated from west to east. In various regions of Asia, Europe, and Africa lived peoples who had arrived at different times and intermingled. Then the great leader of the Sun Oracle, too, set out with his small band to found a colony in the heart of Asia, from which the currents that would give rise to the post-Atlantean cultures were to emanate. Along with his simple people, however, the great leader had taken something else with him. And here we come to one of the chapters where we need a heart that has been strengthened and somewhat fortified through the practice of spiritual science in order to have even the slightest inkling of the truth of what is being said here.

[ 10 ] The great leader, as it were, inspected the other oracular sites, and he had to seek out the greatest initiates of the various oracles. Now, there is a certain method by which what might be called “spiritual economy” can be put into practice. As you know—and it is quite correct to describe it this way—after a person dies, their etheric body dissolves. Only an essence remains and is taken along. But that is merely the elementary truth. This truth must be modified as one ascends further in spiritual knowledge. Not all etheric bodies of all people dissolve in this way into the general ether. Such etheric bodies, as possessed by the greatest initiates of the seven ancient Atlantean oracles, are valuable. Woven into them are the spiritual works of these initiates, and it would be contrary to spiritual economy if these etheric bodies of the great initiates were simply dissolved. They are preserved as models for a later time, and the great initiate of the Solar Oracle was charged with preserving the seven models of the seven most significant initiates. He took them with him. As he led his humble company across to Asia, he took with him the seven etheric bodies of the seven most significant initiates of ancient Atlantis. Such a thing is possible through the methods taught in the Mysteries. It is indeed possible to do this. You must certainly imagine spiritual processes and not, for example, that one can pack the etheric bodies into boxes; but one can preserve them for later times.

[ 11 ] Over in Asia, the leader did the following: From generation to generation, the simple people who had gathered around the leader as a group continued to multiply. Above all, they possessed immense devotion and boundless loyalty to their great leader. From generation to generation they multiplied, and their upbringing was guided in a certain way—wisely and with spiritual significance—so that after many generations the following became possible, once again through one of the methods developed in the mysteries that take place behind the scenes of outer life. We shall see how such methods work. Today’s lecture is intended to be the first of many that will then explain these matters in detail.

[ 12 ] Through such methods, it is entirely possible that when a person descends once more into a new incarnation—where they must once again surround themselves with an etheric body—an old etheric body that has been preserved may be woven into this new etheric body. And so, when the time came—thanks to the careful upbringing of the immigrant group and their descendants—there were seven people with whom such a procedure could be carried out; at their birth, the preserved seven etheric bodies of the seven most eminent initiates of the Atlantean oracles were woven into them. One of those who were around the great leader of the Solar Oracle had the etheric body of the most prominent Saturn initiate woven into his own; another, that of the Mars initiate; a third, that of the Jupiter initiate; and so on. And so the great leader had seven people into whom were woven the seven etheric bodies of the seven most significant initiates of the ancient Atlantean oracles. If you had encountered these seven people somewhere in everyday life, you would have found them to be ordinary people, for they were not the reincarnated “I’s” of the Atlantean initiates, but were simply ordinary people with the new abilities of the post-Atlantean era. In their “I,” they did not differ particularly from what was, so to speak, the first simple, primitive culture of that time immediately following the Atlantean catastrophe. But in their etheric bodies they possessed the powers of the seven great Atlantean initiates. What we have here is a reincarnation not of the “I,” but of the etheric bodies of the Atlantean initiates. Thus we see that not only can the “I” reincarnate, but that the second member of the human being can also reincarnate in its own right. And because these seven, from the retinue of the great Initiate of the Solar Oracle, received these etheric bodies imbued with the powers that originated from the Atlantean era, they were great inspired beings. At certain times, they had the ability to allow the forces that revealed the mysteries of the Sun, Mars, Saturn, and so on to flow into their etheric bodies. Hence they appeared as inspired beings whose message extended far beyond what they could have judged in their astral body or in their “I.” Like a wondrous, harmonious choir, the messages—which resonated from the most diverse parts of the world—came together through these Seven, who were united in the Lodge of the Seven Rishis and sent down to India, where they were to inspire the ancient Indian culture. Much that is great and magnificent from this culture has been preserved for us in a wondrous form in the Vedas; wondrous insights into the profound scientific nature of this Indian culture have been preserved for us in the Upanishads, in Vedanta philosophy, and so on; but what the ancient holy Rishis taught—where nothing had yet been written down—far surpasses even the most beautiful teachings conveyed to us in the Indian scriptures. What was written down later proves to be but a faint echo. For nothing from the ancient, sacred culture of the Rishis was written down; it was passed down spiritually through the mysteries.

[ 13 ] Today we should be interested in how etheric bodies can be reincarnated and how what was developed in the ancient Atlantean era was carried over through the mysteries by the great initiate of the Solar Oracle into the post-Atlantean era and into the first culture—the Indian culture—which shines so brightly.

[ 14 ] Only the secrets of the Solar Oracle itself could not be directly revealed in ancient India. Therefore, these seven Rishis speak of a being that lay beyond the scope of their knowledge. They spoke of that being who guides the Sun itself and channels the Sun’s powers to the Earth—and of whom they said that he lay beyond the reach of their understanding—the Vishva-Karman. This Vishva-Karman is none other than the later Christ. He was already proclaimed in ancient Indian culture.

[ 15 ] The second significant disciple of the initiate of the Sun Oracle, who was now entrusted with the mysteries of the Sun Being, was the one who would one day found the second post-Atlantean culture: Zarathustra. Not the Zarathustra of whom scholarship speaks. In ancient times, it was customary for the successor of a great teacher of humanity to take the same name as the great ancestor. However, no book speaks of the Zarathustra we are now discussing; rather, the books speak only of his last successor. It was this ancient Zarathustra who founded an ancient Persian culture, which first pointed out to the Persian peoples that there is indeed a spiritual power in the Sun, just as there is a physical one that streams down to Earth. The ancient Zarathustra sought to awaken in his people something that we can characterize by saying: When we turn our eyes to the plants and everything else that is alive around us, when we do that, we must ask: What would it be without sunlight? But just as physical sunlight streams down, so does the spiritual power, led by a great, transcendent being. Just as human beings have their physical body and their aura—the aura we call the “small aura”—so too does the sun have its physical body and its aura: Ahura Mazdao, the “great aura,” the host of great solar beings with their leader. It was of this Ahura Mazdao—or Aura Mazdao—the great aura, that Zarathustra spoke. Just as Zarathustra proclaimed this power of the solar aura that brings about further development, so too did he proclaim the forces hostile to the solar being as Ahriman. Such were Zarathustra’s teachings on the surface. But Zarathustra had his inner circle of disciples, whom he initiated into the great mysteries of the world. Two of Zarathustra’s disciples are of particular interest to us. To one of these disciples, Zarathustra imparted all the wisdom that leads to clairvoyance in the astral body. He imparted to him everything that can be perceived in the world of physical and spiritual space, so to speak, at the very moment one is living in. Thus, he had a disciple whom he had made clairvoyant in the astral body, one who could look into the spiritual worlds of the astral and devachan spheres and into even higher worlds. Everything that is simultaneously unfolding in terms of physical and spiritual mysteries was imparted to this disciple. To another disciple, he imparted everything that could be described as “reading the Akashic Records”—that clairvoyant power which arises when the etheric body becomes clairvoyant, enabling a person to perceive the various phases of development that unfolded one after another. While one disciple received what unfolds simultaneously, the other received what the Akashic Records of the Earth and the Sun themselves actually are—that which unfolds successively and can lead to an understanding of the evolution of the Earth and the Sun. By imparting this to his disciples, Zarathustra worked to ensure that the culture of the post-Atlantean era could continue. For one of the disciples was reborn as the great inspirer, as the initiator of Egyptian culture, as the being we know by the name of Hermes, Hermes Trismegistus. This Hermes had, in addition, received a transmission—so that he could proclaim the message of the higher worlds and their mysteries and incorporate them into Egyptian culture—he had received, through processes known in the Mysteries, the astral body of Zarathustra. Thus we see that the astral body of Zarathustra had been preserved through those processes which we shall gradually come to know, and was now transferred at the time of one disciple’s rebirth—transferred to Hermes. Hermes wore this reborn astral body of Zarathustra like a garment.

[ 16 ] The other disciple, too, was reborn. He was to come to understand everything that is revealed in the Akashic Records of the Earth. He was to receive the etheric body of Zarathustra as an integral part of himself. For this to happen, a very special event had to take place. In a certain sense, the powers of this etheric body had to be kindled within him. What happened there is hinted at in a beautiful, wondrous way in the relevant religious text. Let us visualize how this must actually have unfolded.

[ 17 ] This reincarnated disciple of Zarathustra did, after all, have his own astral body, his own “I,” and he received Zarathustra’s etheric body interwoven with his own. As a small child, he therefore had to feel the forces arising from this etheric body of Zarathustra, before his own power of judgment from the astral body had yet been awakened, before the “I” interfered. A kind of initiation had to take place. As a very small child, before his own individual development had yet come into play, the forces of Zarathustra’s etheric body had to be awakened within this reincarnated disciple. For this reason, the child was placed inside a small box and set in water, so that he was sealed off from the rest of the world and it could not interfere. There the forces of Zarathustra’s etheric body began to germinate. For this reincarnated disciple of Zarathustra is none other than Moses, and in the story of Moses and his abandonment we have presented nothing other than that profound mystery which took place behind the scenes of the outer world—the preservation of Zarathustra’s etheric body and its reawakening in Moses. This enabled Hermes and Moses to carry on the post-Atlantean culture in the way that it did.

[ 18 ] Here we have examples of the reincarnation of etheric bodies and of the reincarnation of an astral body. So we are not merely speaking of a reincarnation of the “I,” but of the reincarnation of the components of human nature that we have otherwise come to know: the etheric body and the astral body. It is inherent in the spiritual economy that what has been conquered does not perish, but is preserved and passed on to posterity. But what has been said can also come to pass in other ways. Let us consider another example to see how there are, in turn, other methods for carrying the past into the future.

[ 19 ] You will recall a figure mentioned in the Bible, one of Noah’s sons, the progenitor of the Semitic peoples: Shem. Behind Shem—and this can also be demonstrated occultistically—lies an individuality that we must describe as the tribal individuality of the Semitic peoples. The Semitic peoples are descended from this forefather. When something like this occurs—that a number of people are descended from a single progenitor—then a special arrangement must be made in the spiritual world. In the specific case of Shem, this arrangement took place as follows: A unique etheric body was woven for Shem from the spiritual world. Sem thus possessed an etheric body that had been specially woven from the spiritual world. Through this, he had become capable of carrying within his own etheric body a particularly high being from the spiritual world—a high being that otherwise could not have incarnated on Earth, a being that would not have been able to to descend all the way to the dense physical body, but which now incarnated in such a way that it could enter Sem’s etheric body—so that Sem, first of all, was himself—he had his physical, etheric, and astral bodies and his “I”—but that, at the same time, woven into Sem was an etheric body that had been specially prepared for the purpose just described: the founding of a tribe. But woven into this etheric body was another high being from the spiritual world. So that to the clairvoyant consciousness, had it been confronted with Sem, Sem himself would have appeared, and emerging from him, like a second being, connected to Sem’s etheric body, this higher being—a being that, descending—that is, not Sem—embodied itself, as it were, in a human being for a special task. This being, therefore, does not have various incarnations behind it like human beings do, but descends into this one incarnation. Such a being is called an avatar. It is not native to our world, but descends to dwell within this world for a specific mission.

[ 20 ] Because such an avatytic entity dwells within a human being, the part of the human being that it inhabits possesses a very special quality. Namely, it can multiply. Just as when you plant a seed in the ground and the stalk grows out, and you find a multiplication of the seed in the ear of grain, so the etheric body of Sem multiplied into many images, and these were woven into all those who belonged to the tribe of Sem. That is how it works. Thus, in those who were true descendants of Sem, the images of the etheric body—which had been specially prepared at that time as the archetype within Sem—were woven into their own etheric bodies.

[ 21 ] But this etheric body of the Sem was later used in yet another way. We can best bring this use to mind through a comparison. You may be a highly educated European. But if you wish to bring your education to the Hottentots, you must learn the Hottentot language. In the same way, when high beings descend to guide humanity, they must weave together the forces through which they can speak to people on Earth. Now, in a later phase of the Semitic people’s development, it became necessary for a very significant being to descend to Earth in order to communicate with humanity and advance their culture. This being, who is mentioned under the name Melchizedek, had to, as it were, don the preserved etheric body of Shem, so that we have woven into Melchizedek’s etheric body that etheric body which once belonged to Shem, which was inhabited by an avataric being, and which is now being used again by Melchizedek so that he can give Abraham the impulse to advance Semitic culture further. Thus we have once again come to know a peculiar way in which the etheric body develops within a particular human being and then, from that particular human being, passes on to a predestined individual.

[ 22 ] We can trace such examples right up to the present day. And as we trace them back in this way, it gradually becomes clear to us what occultism can truly tell us today: For most people today, we no longer have an original etheric body or an original astral body that was woven from the general fabric of the world. Almost every person has a fragment in their etheric and astral bodies that has been preserved from ancient times, because in the spiritual economy, what is useful is preserved further and further.

[ 23 ] Let us mention two examples from modern times that can illustrate to us the way in which mysteries work from time to time. First, the example that ties in with the figure you mentioned in my Mysticism at the Dawn of Modern Intellectual Life and Its Relationship to the Modern Worldview—Nicholas of Cusa. If you read his writings, you will find one that he calls “De docta ignorantia,” or “learned ignorance,” although it contains more scholarship than many a book that calls itself a work of learned knowledge. It is called this for certain reasons. If you read his other writings, you will find that the prophetic foreshadowing of Copernicus’s worldview is woven into them in a remarkable way. It is right there for those who wish to read it. It was only with Copernicus that the world was ripe to receive this worldview in its immediate form. If one explores the connection, one discovers the following. Within Nicholas of Cusa, in one of his essential elements, lay a very high, ancient individuality. This made it possible for the astral body of Nicholas of Cusa to be preserved and guided over in such a way that it could be woven into Nicholas Copernicus, so that the latter had woven the astral body of Nicholas of Cusa into himself. Thus, what Nicholas of Cusa possessed within himself was, as it were, able to be resurrected in him. This is an example of how the astral body has reincarnated.

[ 24 ] Here is another example: Those of you who have given this matter some thought know what immense significance Galileo has for modern thinking. For, in fact, our entire field of physics would not exist if it weren’t for Galileo. The entire way of thinking about physics today can be traced back to Galileo. Every schoolboy today learns in the very first, elementary textbooks that there is the principle of inertia, which states that a body in motion tends to remain in that state until it encounters an obstacle. So when we throw something, it will continue to fly by virtue of its own inertia until it encounters an obstacle. That is how people think today, and that is what children are taught in their textbooks. Before Galileo, people did not think that way. Back then, they thought: If a stone is thrown, it could not fly unless the air propelled it forward, pushing it from behind. People thought about these things quite differently back then. So the laws of falling bodies, pendulum motion, the laws of simple machines—all of that can be traced back to Galileo. Galileo drew his insights from a certain inspiration. I just want to remind you of how he discovered the laws of the pendulum by observing that swinging church lamp in the Cathedral of Pisa. Galileo’s discovery of the laws of the pendulum was a stroke of genius! Many people have walked past that lamp, and nothing occurred to them. But to Galileo, the great fundamental laws of mechanics became clear. A person who can be inspired in this way possesses an etheric body; to allow it to decay would contradict spiritual economy. This etheric body was also preserved, and after a relatively short time, it reappeared. It was woven into the personality of someone who, in turn, accomplished something significant. It was woven into the personality of a person who grew up in a remote farming village in Russia, who one day left his parents and set off for Moscow. Very soon, this person developed a remarkable talent, and he quickly worked his way through the schools of Russia and Germany, mastering everything that could, so to speak, bring him up to the cultural level of his time. He merely had to catch up on what had transpired on Earth since the time he had died—as Galileo—in his etheric body. And then this very same person became, so to speak, the founder of all classical literature in Russia. As if out of nowhere, he produces these writings. But not only that—he also becomes a significant driving force in all fields of mechanics and in the physical and chemical aspects of scientific life. It is Mikhail Lomonosov, who could only achieve his reformatory work precisely because the etheric body of Galileo was interwoven within him. When we see how Galileo died toward the end of the 17th century and Mikhail Lomonosov was born at the beginning of the 18th century with the same etheric body, we see one of those intimate reincarnations in which a part of the being other than the “I” is reincarnated. Such things lead us deep into an understanding of the entire course of human development, and they lead us to an understanding of many other facts that have unfolded over the course of time and have brought us to the present.

[ 25 ] The greatest Avatar on Earth was Christ Himself—the Christ who dwelt for three years in the three bodies of Jesus of Nazareth. Because the Christ dwelt in the three bodies of Jesus of Nazareth as an Avatar, it also became possible for these three bodies—above all for the astral and etheric bodies of Jesus—to undergo what I have just described: a multiplication. In fact, after the Mystery of Golgotha had been accomplished, the astral and etheric bodies of Jesus of Nazareth were present in the spiritual world in many, many images through this wondrous economy. So: it was as if we had the archetypes in the astral and etheric bodies of Jesus of Nazareth, and now there were many images of them. When an avatar enters a human vessel, it causes that vessel to expand and manifest in many images. Now, these images of the astral and etheric bodies of Jesus of Nazareth possessed a special quality in comparison, for example, to the images of the etheric body of Shem. The images of Shem’s etheric body could be implanted only in those descended from Shem, whereas the astral and etheric bodies derived from the astral and etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth could be implanted in all people of the most diverse peoples and races. Anyone who, through their own development, had become ready to receive such a thing woven into their own astral or etheric body—regardless of their race—could have these astral and etheric bodies implanted; the images were of the archetype of the astral and etheric bodies of Jesus of Nazareth. And in the subsequent development of Christianity, we see how, behind the outward historical events, remarkable things take place that alone make the outward course of the events themselves understandable.

[ 26 ] How did Christianity spread? In the early centuries, we can say that this spread depended on the physical plane. We also see clearly that Christianity is propagated through that which lives on the physical plane. After all, the apostles emphasize that the propagation of Christianity is based on immediate, sensory perception. “We have laid our hands on his wounds”—this is cited as proof that Christ walked in human form. In a sense, what was emphasized was what the physical plane could offer as a foundation for the development of Christianity. It is always mentioned how those who were themselves disciples of the apostles propagated Christianity, with the emphasis placed on the fact that they knew those who had followed the Lord himself. Thus, so to speak, reliance is placed on outward appearance. And in an even deeper sense, up until Augustine, the emphasis was on outward appearances. Augustine says: “I would not believe in the truth of the Gospels if the authority of the Catholic Church did not compel me to do so.”—So why does he believe? Because he is of the opinion that the visible Church has perpetuated this Gospel from decade to decade, from century to century, on the physical plane. But in the centuries that followed—from the 5th to the 10th century—this transmission took place in a different way. Why and how? This is instructive if we wish to trace the spiritual progress of human development.

[ 27 ] You can get a sense of the nature of spiritual development during this period by examining, for example, a work such as the Old Saxon Gospel Harmony, the “Heliand.” There you have what the Christ-idea is—the conception of the Christ-being—as portrayed by a kind of initiate. The Heliand, as portrayed by the Saxon initiate, is supernatural; but he is not clothed in the events of Palestine, but rather as a prince of a Germanic tribe. The disciples are individuals from Germanic lands. The whole of Christianity is steeped there in a Central European context. Why? Because the initiate behind the Heliand—who, inspired by Louis the Pious, wrote this story—possessed clairvoyant abilities that allowed him to see Christ in a manner similar to that of Paul himself at the event on the road to Damascus. Because, through the event at Golgotha, the Christ-being united itself with the astral body of the Earth, thereby permeating the Earth’s aura with its power; and when Paul had become clairvoyant, he was able to perceive: the Christ is here. He was not moved to faith by what had happened in Palestine; but because he saw him himself—the one who was interwoven with the Earth—Saul became Paul. Similarly, the author of the Heliand saw the eternal, the risen Christ—the Christ who has lived in the spiritual world since Golgotha—and to him, this Christ was more important than the historical Christ of Palestine. He clothes him in a different image; for it was not the outer image that mattered to him, but the spiritual Christ. Why was the author of the Heliand able to convey such an image based on clairvoyant perception? Because interwoven with his etheric body was an image of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth. For in those centuries—from the 5th and 6th centuries through the 9th and 10th centuries—an image of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth was woven into the etheric bodies of those who were to contribute to the advancement of Christianity. One such person, who had an image of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into his own, was the author of the Heliand.

[ 28 ] But many have received such an image of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into their consciousness. Therefore, we see that during these centuries, these people lived in imaginings connected to the events of Golgotha. All those who created the archetypal images of the Savior on the cross and of Mary with the infant Jesus—images that were later repeated—were people who had arrived at these pictorial representations of the events of Golgotha and everything connected with them because an image of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth had been woven into their own etheric bodies. In those times, these images typically arose because these people possessed clairvoyant abilities. This gave rise to the works that were then passed down through tradition. The pictorial representations of the events at Golgotha that we have today stem from people in whom such images of the etheric body of Jesus were woven. It was precisely through this that they beheld in their visions the event at Golgotha and all that is connected with it. Even Johannes Scotus Erigena, who wrote The Division of Nature during the time of Charles the Bald, had an image of the etheric body of Jesus woven into his own being. And from the 11th, 12th, 13th, through the 15th centuries, there came people who had woven into their own astral bodies an image of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 29 ] Thus, over the centuries from the 5th to the 10th century, people are born who have received, woven into their etheric bodies, an image of the etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth; in later people, from the 11th to the 15th centuries, we see images of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into their own astral bodies. This helps us understand many personalities of that time. How will such a personality—who has had an image of the astral body of Jesus woven into their own astral body—appear to us? For the “I” of Jesus is not, after all, embodied in these people; the “I” belongs to this personality itself. Through the judgment of the “I,” certain errors may find their way into his life, but because this great image of the great archetype is interwoven into the astral body, devotion arises, thereby causing something to emerge in all feelings, in everything that permeates this astral body—something with which the “I” itself may be at odds, but which precisely makes everything rooted in the astral body appear as something special. Take Francis of Assisi! There you have a personality in whose astral body was woven an image of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth. You may find many extremes in Francis of Assisi: his “I” was responsible for them; they were not on the same level as the astral body. But if you now study the soul of Francis of Assisi on the assumption that his “I” was not always able to make the correct judgment regarding the wondrous feelings and the wondrous humility of the astral body, then you will understand him. In Francis of Assisi, an image of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth was reincarnated. In very many people at that time, such images were reincarnated precisely in the astral body. Among the Franciscans and Dominicans, you will find many who embodied such images of the astral body at that time. This was also the case with other figures of that era, whom you can only understand if you view them in this light. For example, the famous Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia was such a figure, in whom an image of the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth was woven. Thus, what happens outwardly only becomes understandable to us when we see how the spiritual is bestowed from time to time, how it perpetuates itself over the course of time.

[ 30 ] When the Christ incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth, something like an imprint of the “I” was also created in the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth. We can easily imagine that when the Christ-being enters the astral body, something like an image is formed in the surrounding parts of the astral body [It was apparently drawn on the blackboard]. This image of the “I” of the Christ [in the body of] Jesus had now given rise to numerous copies, which were, so to speak, preserved in the spiritual world. Some individuals had, as it were, woven something into their own “I” as prophets of a new age—for example, some of the German mystics, who proclaimed the inner Christ with such fervor precisely because something like an image of the Christ’s “I” had become embodied within them; but an image, of course! Only those people who are gradually preparing themselves for a full understanding of Christ—who, through knowledge of the spiritual worlds, will come to understand what Christ is—will, as He appears time and again, in ever-changing forms, is found again and again in the course of Earth’s evolution—it is they who gradually become ripe to have this experience of Christ within themselves, to receive, so to speak, the waiting images of the Christ-I that Christ formed in the body of Jesus through an imprint.

[ 31 ] It is part of the inner mission of the Spiritual World Movement to prepare people to bring their souls to such a state of maturity that an ever-increasing number of people can now receive within themselves an image of the “I”-essence of Christ Jesus. For such is the course of Christian development: first procreation on the physical plane, then procreation through the etheric bodies, then through the astral bodies—which were, in many cases, the reincarnated astral bodies of Jesus. Now the time is to come when, within human beings, the “I” nature of Christ Jesus himself will increasingly dawn as the innermost essence of their soul. Yes, these imprinted images of the individuality of Christ Jesus are waiting to be received by the souls—they are waiting! And here you see from what depths the spiritual-scientific world current operates. It is not a theory, not a collection of concepts merely presented to enlighten people; it is a reality, and realities are to be given to the soul through spiritual science. Whoever comes to understand Christianity spiritually and experience it within themselves will contribute to the weaving into their “I”—either in this present incarnation or in a later one—of an image of the “I” of the Christ-Jesus Individuality. Those who understand the true inner, authentic reality of the spiritual-scientific world movement are preparing themselves not merely for a realization, but for a real fact; for this is their true inner spiritual reality. Do you sense that our world movement is not merely about communicating theories, but about preparing for facts—about receiving something that awaits in the spiritual world and that people can receive from the spiritual world if they prepare themselves accordingly?