The Rudolf Steiner Archive

3. The Place of Purification and Devachan

[ 1 ] Once a person has shed his physical body, a period of purification begins for him on the astral plane. Desires, cravings, and passions follow them, yet they lack the tools—the tongue, the palate, and so on—to satisfy them. This state can be compared [to] the intensification of a burning thirst until [the person] weans themselves from satisfying their desires.

[ 2 ] People must seek the spiritual—[-, that which] shines through the pleasures of the senses—even while they are still alive. On the other hand, it is wrong to despise physical life. It has its great purpose in the sensory world. Without the senses, we could not experience the beauty of nature, the processes of life, or the bonds of love and friendship that flow from person to person—things the spirits would not wish to be without. Physical and sensory life is a necessary stage in development and should not be confused with asceticism that is hostile to the senses. We need only renounce the pleasures that the ego desires for its own sake. Enjoyment of food is necessary. What is to be condemned is the desire for pleasure for pleasure’s sake; through this, a person sinks deeper into the material world.

[ 3 ] The stay in Kamaloka lasts, on average, one-third of one’s lifetime, counting backward from death to birth—that is, three times as fast as in physical life.

[ 4 ] On this plane, we see everything as if in a mirror image. The sight is confusing because, for example, numbers appear upside down. It is indeed the case that the chicken eventually disappears into the egg. Human passions are reflected there as images of animals, and all selfish impulses as monsters or snakes. There are enough people in physical life who can see such animal images because spiritual life is seeking a way out through the dominance of materialism. To enter Devachan, a person must truly become like a child, shedding all selfishness. Hence the words of Jesus Christ: “Unless you become like children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

[ 5 ] All religious texts are gradually revealing their true meaning to us in a theosophical light. Kamaloka is the realm of consequences. A person is subjected to everything for which he was the cause. If, over the course of time, he struck another person and then returns retroactively to that moment, he feels the other’s pain; he, as it were, creeps into that person’s soul. He must experience [just as much] the consequences of his excessive selfishness as [he must] his good deeds.

[ 6 ] The spiritual world is the realm of permeability and is not limited to three dimensions, but to four and more. The laws of this space dictate that two or a thousand things—which need not be spatially together, for example, because they are located on another continent—can be united here as mirror images through the form of desire.

[ 7 ] When the soul sheds its etheric body, it experiences a sense of expansion into the infinite.

[ 8 ] The repercussions of all events in the place of purification remain as a mark, as a sense that desires and the like are obstacles to development. The essence in the etheric body—the desire to balance everything—accompanies the individual on their further pilgrimage as an overarching desire.

[ 9 ] Just as there is land, sea, air, and fire in the physical world, so it is in the world into which a person enters after their period of purification.

[ 10 ] In Devachan, physical things appear in a spiritual form as a foundation, as land. Just as we walk on rocks here, there one walks upon archetypes. Let us imagine a rock crystal; in Devachan it appears as a black cavity, surrounded by luminous masses. The flowing light is the blood of the spiritual realm. In the case of a plant, one will see its etheric body within the cavity. The radiations around a red rosebud, for example, would be yellowish, while those of the stem would be peach-red. Light radiates all around the objects; inside is the etheric body—and in the case of animals, the astral body as well. The blood vessel system and the like are clearly discernible. Just as rocks are on Earth, so too are the beings who are physically present here in Devachan as archetypes; there they are the skeletal framework.

[ 11 ] Like the sea and rivers, just as human blood does, the flowing, surging life appears, distributed among the individual organisms on Earth.

[ 12 ] What is felt in the earthly world appears there as clouds and lightning; a battle as a thunderstorm, when passions clash on Earth. All stirrings of the soul—joy and pain—appear as wondrous atmospheric phenomena. A warmth pervading everything can be perceived. Warmth is not merely a state, but a force. Four states can be distinguished:

1. Earth is solid in relation to the archetypes in Devachan.
2. Water is liquid; from an occult perspective, however, everything liquid—up to and including mercury—is considered water; in Devachan, it is the flowing life.
3. Air is gaseous; it can be compared to the sensations whose manifestations we see in Devachan.
4. Heat is the fire of Devachan. When a body becomes warmer, it also becomes softer.

[ 13 ] In the atmospheric sphere of Devachan, the harmony of the spheres can be heard; pleasure and pain are transformed into sounds.

[ 14 ] The realm of fire becomes sound, which expresses the inner meaning. Everything names itself. There is a true name for every thing. In this realm, the essence of a being resounds; they express themselves. Here, in the realm of fire of the word, lies an important boundary. Those who are clairvoyant or in the state following death can see the Akashic Records shining forth from higher realms. A record remains of everything that happens. The power of the spiritual remains in the spiritual realm; this is nearly indestructible. The Akashic image remains; the mortal aspect associated with it disappears. A strong sense of orientation is required to interpret the images correctly. An example: Let us imagine Goethe at the end of the eighteenth century and examine the corresponding image in the Akashic Records. We seek an explanation regarding Faust. The image can provide an answer in keeping with the spirit that Goethe possessed at that time. The images possess an inner life, without being the subject themselves.

[ 15 ] Just as the stars shine through, so does the Budhi plane shine through the astral plane. Here, the human being has shed his astral body and is having a significant experience. He sees his physical body and has the sensation: “That is you!”—the core of Indian Vedanta philosophy.