The Rudolf Steiner Archive

21. The Astral World and Devachan

[ 1 ] When a person has developed their spiritual faculties through meditation and concentration and consciously enters the astral plane, they see a completely different world. They see a world of images, a world of symbols, all around them. Usually, the astral world is viewed too sensually—that is, it is perceived and described by the clairvoyant, who is still a novice in this field, as too much like a material, sensually perceptible world. In addition, the clairvoyant often mistakes reflections of the etheric realm for astral images; some descriptions of the astral world are little more than reflections of this etheric realm. In the astral realm, everything is seen in colors: If a hostile being approaches us, the clairvoyant sees an orange-yellow image; if it is a being sympathetic to us, the image is indigo-blue. Everything there is seen—as in a mirror image—in reverse, including in relation to time. For example, one first sees the chicken and then the egg from which it hatched; or [one sees] first the flower and then the root of the plant. The same thing happens with our inner life: the passions and desires that radiate from a person flow toward them on the astral plane as animal-like beings emerging from space—as snakes, wolves, and so on—depending on the nature of the feelings and desires. Every noble desire and feeling that is held back on earth by circumstances comes to meet him there in magnificent colorful images. People who are immersed in materialism—often highly gifted individuals whose thoughts, however, extend no further than the world of sensory perception—see here the emptiness of their ideals. The artist and the scholar who love their art and science for the pleasure they provide, and who do not place them in the service of humanity’s progress toward the spiritual ideal, come to realize here the futility and vanity of their endeavors. The knowledge of the higher realms that Theosophy bestows upon us must provide us with the means to advance the spiritual development of humanity.

[ 2 ] We will now move on to the experiences on the astral plane after death. Death differs from sleep only in that not only the astral body, but also the etheric body, along with the higher bodies, leaves the physical body.

[ 3 ] The etheric body never leaves the physical body between a person’s birth and death unless the person undergoes certain initiatory states. The most important moment for a person after death is the moment immediately following death. This moment can last for hours, sometimes days. In this state, the life of the last incarnation passes before them as a series of memories. What is peculiar about this panorama of memories is that, as they view these life memories from the cradle to the grave, all subjective feelings of joy and pain have vanished from them. It is as if one were looking at the life story of another person; one stands before it in such an impersonal way. One experiences the same phenomenon when, due to a sudden shock—for example, when falling into an abyss or facing the danger of drowning—an instantaneous separation occurs between the physical and etheric bodies. The etheric body is the carrier of our memory, not the astral body. As long as the etheric body remains bound to the astral body, the memory of our last incarnation remains with us. This depends on how long we are able to remain awake during our life in the physical body. If we can remain awake for three days, then the etheric body will remain connected to the astral body for three days. As soon as the etheric body releases the astral body, the panorama of memories disappears. But as a fruit, as a seed for a future incarnation, an essence of these life experiences remains, preserved in the causal body.

[ 4 ] From each life, one brings one’s experiences as the essence of life into the causal body; each life increases the power and substance of this essence of life. This is the reason for the diversity of innate abilities that every person brings into their new life as a result of their previous lives, whereby their life will be rich or poor according to those abilities and predispositions. In order to understand the life of the astral body after its separation from the etheric body, we must first take a look at the astral world and its conditions. The astral body is the body of desires. The seat of our desires and passions lies in the astral body. The physical body is merely the tool of the astral body, enabling it to act out its desires and passions in the physical realm. At death, the physical body—the instrument of desires—is shed, but the desires themselves remain alive. From this arises the burning fire of lusts and desires during the Kamaloka period.

[ 5 ] The Kamaloka period—the time one spends in the lower part of the astral plane—will be shorter or longer depending on whether we had stronger and coarser desires during our life on the physical plane. On average, the Kamaloka period lasts one-third of our lifetime on the physical plane. The peculiarity of the Kamaloka period is that one relives one’s life course once more, but this time in reverse: one begins with the most recent life experience and moves backward at three times the speed toward the time of childhood. Whereas at first the recollection of one’s life in the etheric body [immediately after death] was devoid of joy or pain, one now relives all the joys and pains of the past life once more, but in reverse—that is, one personally experiences everything one has done to others, both the suffering and the joy. These memories remain as impressions in the astral body, to fulfill our karma in subsequent incarnations, in which we are born to the very same individuals to whom we did good or evil in earlier incarnations. Now [after the Kamaloka period], the astral body is released. When a person has left their physical, etheric, and astral bodies, they reach the state that is mystically expressed in the Bible with the words: “Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

[ 6 ] We must now study the Devachanic world. It is just as diverse as our material world. There, just as here, we can speak of a continental region, an oceanic region, and an aerial region (atmosphere or sphere of mist) that interpenetrate one another. The continental region contains the archetypes of the material world, insofar as they are not animated by life—that is, the material forms of minerals, plants, animals, and human beings.

[ 7 ] Imagine a finite space filled with physical bodies. When viewed with a devachanic gaze, the physical forms disappear; instead, a radiance arises around the bodies, while the space once occupied by the physical bodies forms an empty space, a negative or shadow image. Animals and humans, viewed in this way, appear as negative images: Blood appears green—that is, in the complementary color of red. The entire material world is thus present as an archetype in the Devachanic realm.

[ 8 ] The second realm, the Oceanic Realm, does not consist of water, but of a flowing life force that courses through the entire Devachanic realm, just as the human bloodstream permeates everything. The unique substance, “prana,” which here [on Earth] flows in separate animal and human bodies, forms in Devachan an eternally flowing stream of life the color of peach blossoms. This element constitutes the creative primal force of everything that appears on Earth as a living being. In Devachan, we see that the life that animates us all is, in fact, a unity.

[ 9 ] The third realm can best be characterized by saying that everything that takes place here [on Earth] in the souls—whether it be an inner feeling of joy or pain, passion, or anger—manifests there as an atmospheric phenomenon. The quiet longing of a human soul is perceived there as a gently whispering wind; an outburst of passions like a gale; a battlefield caused by outbursts of hatred, rage, and murderous intent brings about a heavy thunderstorm with rolling thunder and blinding flashes of lightning. Just as the Earth is surrounded by its atmosphere, so too does Devachan have, scattered around it as its atmosphere, all the feelings that are harbored or expressed here on Earth.

[ 10 ] The fourth region of Devachan has no direct connection to the lower worlds. The archetypes found there are beings who govern the archetypes of the lower Devachanic realms and bring about their unification. They are thus more concerned with organizing and grouping the archetypes under their authority. Consequently, this realm exerts a greater influence than the lower three realms.

[ 11 ] In the fifth, sixth, and seventh realms of Devachan, we find the creative forces of the archetypes. Those who are able to ascend this far come to understand the objectives that underlie our world. The archetypes still exist here as animated germ cells, ready to take on the most diverse forms when they enter the lower regions. The ideas through which the human spirit acts creatively in the material world are a reflection, a shadow image, of these germ cells of the higher spiritual world. The harmony of the spheres of the Devachanic realm is translated here into spiritual language. Here one begins to hear the spiritual word, through which things express their inner essence not only in tones and sounds, but also in words. They tell [the human spirit] their “eternal names.”

[ 12 ] We can only begin to grasp the value of the stay in Devachan when we briefly trace the soul’s pilgrimage through the three worlds. As long as a person lives in his body, he acts and creates in the material realm, but he acts there as a spiritual being. What his spirit creates is expressed in material forms; as an emissary of the spiritual world, he must animate matter with his spirit. However, as long as he is bound to the material body, his spiritual life cannot reach its full potential. He must return again and again to the Devachanic realm to gain there new spiritual strength and new insights into the purpose and aspirations of the soul and the world. Thus, the material world is at the same time a place for creation and for learning; that is to say: [Human beings] must learn to recognize the properties of matter in the material world and know how to make them serve the purpose of revealing the spirit. In Devachan, what has been learned—the experiences of the material realm—are transformed into spiritual qualities. Human beings work on themselves so that with each reincarnation they may better fulfill their life’s mission. Thus, their gaze is always directed toward the Earth, their present place of work, in order to bring it ever closer to perfection.

[ 13 ] What he thought on Earth, he experiences in Devachan. There, a person lives among thought-images that are reality there. One sees the world of thought in action—creating and shaping thoughts and sending them down to Earth. Among the thought-images one sees there is also the thought-image of one’s own body. One no longer feels any connection to it there, but identifies completely with the spirit and asks oneself: Who are you? One learns to regard one’s body as part of a greater whole; one learns to comprehend the unity of everything that surrounds us. Thus, from the realm of Devachan, one surveys one’s entire life, as if viewed from a higher vantage point from the outside. The fruits of life’s experiences are gathered here in the causal body so that they can be carried over into subsequent incarnations. One looks back on many past incarnations and strives to incorporate one’s life experiences into the life plan for future incarnations. The past and the future are illuminated for a moment by a blinding light before the person descends once more into a new incarnation.