The Rudolf Steiner Archive

5. The Interrelationship of Human Beings in Devachan and on Earth

[ 1 ] Just like plant seeds, human beings take a multitude of seeds with them to Devachan to develop them anew there. All the forces needed to rebuild their bodies are contained there; the archetypes of the human being are also found there.

[ 2 ] Long ago, the physical eyes were formed by light. It drew the eyes forth; they are products of light. Before that, humans were still blind; the vital fluids, which otherwise provided the strength to feel, grasp, scratch, and so on, were transformed to form organs of sight. Thus, the ear was formed for sound, and the nose for scent.

[ 3 ] The archetype of the etheric body emerges from the water realm of Devachan. The archetype of the astral body emerges from the air realm of Devachan. From these realms, the human being creates the foundations for his physical body. The time between death and birth teaches us to recognize the reasons why we must return again and again. Human beings must continually gather new experiences; otherwise, it would be pointless for them to return to the same Earth. The Earth is constantly changing. A million years ago, people could not have lived here in Germany due to the tropical heat; at that time, the animals and plants of the equator thrived in what is now our homeland.

[ 4 ] About twenty thousand years ago, an ice age covered the North German Plain all the way down to Bavaria. From the time of Christ’s birth until the fourth century, Germany was still a land without civilization. A chronicle by an archbishop of Bremen records that the people in the east—that is, in the Mark—drank blood and practiced other barbaric customs. The children of the Greeks and Romans were raised differently than those of the Germanic peoples. A person does not set foot on the stage of the Earth until it has changed and he or she experiences an entirely new situation. There is always something new to experience, and the Earth always reveals a new face. Peoples whose spiritual life was shaped by the mystery schools of great teachers retained a certain sensitivity to the Earth’s transformations; they knew that these transformations were connected to events in the starry heavens.

[ 5 ] The point where the sun rises in the spring sky is shifting further and further. We are in the constellation of Pisces. At the time of Jesus’ birth, the sun had already been rising in the constellation of Aries for eight hundred years; two thousand one hundred and sixty years before that, it had risen in the sign of Taurus; before that, in the sign of Gemini; and before that, in the sign of Cancer. Thus, the sun passes through one constellation after another every approximately two thousand one hundred and sixty years, until it completes its cycle.

[ 6 ] Following the Atlantic Age came the Indian Age, under the sign of Cancer—whose symbol is a spiral vortex—the Indian sacred symbol. The Persian Age was under the sign of Gemini; the Babylonian, Assyrian, and Egyptian Ages were under the sign of Taurus. Each new sign of the zodiac brought a savior. Eight hundred years before Christ, the peoples hoped for the Lamb; hence the words of John the Baptist about the Christ: “This is the Lamb of God.” This also includes the Argonaut legend of the Golden Fleece, which Jason retrieved.

[ 7 ] It is always said: Nature does not make leaps. Yet it does make tremendous leaps. What a tremendous leap a newborn child is; what tremendous leaps are seen in a plant: root, stem, leaf, and flower! It represented a tremendous leap from the ancient Atlantean culture to the Indian culture. In nature, everything is formed in a spiral pattern; thus, Indian culture has spiraled into the Atlantean culture. As the sun has moved from one constellation to another, the Earth has always taken on a new face.

[ 8 ] The Indians, under the sign of Cancer, always longed to return to the Deity, their ancient homeland; the Persians, under the sign of Gemini, had to distinguish between light and darkness; the Egyptians worshipped the sacred bull. The length of time between two incarnations varies greatly because people’s inner circumstances differ; on average, there are two incarnations in one sun sign—one male and one female—for the same individual. Throughout the entire process of development, there are just as many male incarnations as female ones. Only in exceptional cases do up to seven consecutive male incarnations occur, when special tasks must be fulfilled.

[ 9 ] The natural foundation of a mother’s love becomes an ethical bond. The bonds that are already woven from soul to soul here on earth are much more intimate in the spirit world and last longer, because the body, as an obstacle, is no longer present. The reunion there brings the deepest satisfaction; the souls do not live beside one another, but within one another; time and space have ceased to exist.

[ 10 ] What work does a person do in Devachan? He would be a poor citizen of the world, and it would be sad if he merely sought to rebuild himself as best he could for his next incarnation. He has something important to do there: to contribute to the shaping of the world. It is wrong to imagine a stay in the spirit realm as idleness.

[ 11 ] The afterlife is all around us; we can already be blissful here. Disembodied, humans work there to transform the Earth; what they then encounter again is something they themselves [have helped to transform]; they make their own bed. The forces of nature are merely the outer, visible sound, which cannot exist without a spiritual influence.

[ 12 ] Let us consider the flowers of a meadow in the sunshine. Around the flowers, the open [spiritual] eye sees the etheric body shining, and in the sunbeams falling upon them, it can see the departed souls working among the flowers. It is our cosmic, divine duty to contribute to the planet’s evolution with joyful devotion. If we were to shirk this duty, we would be like a brick in a building that refuses to fit into place and causes the house to collapse.

[ 13 ] If we were to devote ourselves to an asceticism hostile to the world, we would destroy the divine edifice. Every incarnation is important as a part of the essence. There is nothing arbitrary about the personality. The limbs and the “I” are nothing more than what a person has acquired piece by piece.

[ 14 ] Everything around us is precious; we are called to transform the smallest things into the greatest. Every life is a pearl on a string that we must regard as infinitely precious.

[ 15 ] When the human archetype is formed, the astral body takes shape around it. Just as iron filings are drawn by the magnetic force of a magnet, so the astral substance forms a new body around the “I.”

[ 16 ] New souls are constantly striving to incarnate. Bell-like figures race through the astral plane at extraordinary speed, which is an expression of their power. The selection of parents takes place; this often drives them from one end of the earth to the other, hence their haste. The moment the human-to-be reaches the place where he or she fits best, higher beings attach the etheric body to the astral body. As soon as these bodies are reconnected, the person experiences the counterpart to his or her retrospective view after death—he or she sees his or her new life ahead. The soul may be horrified by what lies ahead. Some are seized by intense terror and prevent the higher beings from carrying out the integration. Then the etheric body hangs partially down from the head, and the people become idiots.

[ 17 ] It is a delicate subject to discuss, but the future child is already with its parents even before conception and integrates into the tiny embryo approximately by the seventeenth day after conception. The etheric body is already active by then, and the higher principles exert a decisive influence on the future human being from that point on.

[ 18 ] From his last stay in the place of purification, man carried with him the desire to make amends for the pain he had caused others—a pain he perceived as a hindrance. This is the mark that enables man to make amends for what he has done. Attractions—sympathy and antipathy—emanate from Kamaloka and form the causes of destinies. Through the causes of the laws, we are led to the strict laws of karma. The occultist can investigate how destinies are interwoven. Example: Five executioners killed a person. In a previous life, this person was an Indian chief and killed the other five.