The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. The Life of Souls Between Death and Rebirth

[ 1 ] We wish to address a question that can only be discussed among advanced theosophists: Do human souls have a history between physical death and a new birth, just as they have a history on the physical plane? Can something take place in the astral plane, in Devachan, that we can call a history? We must answer this question with “Yes.” And even though the history beyond the threshold of death is quite different from that which unfolds on Earth, it is nevertheless closely connected to the lives of souls on the physical plane.

[ 2 ] We must trace the evolution of souls back to the ancient times of Atlantis. The individual souls had once separated from the bosom of the Deity and descended into physical bodies, but even in our ancient Atlantean ancestors, these souls felt like strangers on Earth, and when they returned to the heavenly world during sleep or at death, they experienced this as bliss, as a homecoming to their true homeland. Their consciousness within their physical bodies was dull and murky, and they therefore felt confined and uncomfortable within them. This was still the case in the first subrace of our present race, among the ancient Indians. They, too, regarded the spiritual world as their true home, [as] the object of their longing.

[ 3 ] The souls delved even deeper into the subject in the very next subrace, the Persian one. There, humans became more settled on Earth, learned to cultivate it, and grew to love it.

[ 4 ] In the third subrace, the Egyptian, the souls have already become so accustomed to physical life that the physical body seems to them to be something of great value. This is expressed among the Egyptians in the custom of mummifying the physical body. This artificial preservation of the bodies effectively had the effect on the souls that had departed from them that they found it difficult to separate themselves from earthly conditions in order to ascend to higher worlds.

[ 5 ] Souls were most entangled in earthly life during the Greco-Roman era. Physical life seemed to them to be the only thing worth striving for, and they felt directly unhappy in Devachan and in the heavenly worlds, as if they were formless shadows. The bleak descriptions of the Greek underworld are not figments of the imagination, but the true expression of the deepest feelings of this people, who were so attached to the beauties of the earth. The saying of a Greek general—“Better to be a beggar on earth than a king in the underworld”—captured the sentiment of the entire people. The Greeks used all their artistic gifts to express these feelings in sculptural representations. The Greek statues and the magnificent temples are of the highest artistic perfection; and yet: when, for example, the observer stands before the ruins of the temple at Paestum, he can still appreciate the beauty of the forms and the structure, but on a spiritual level, a void hovers over the whole, which he clearly senses and which recurs in all Greek works of art. This is because the Greeks had so completely lost their sense of the spiritual. As beautiful as the creations they produced on earth were, their souls were all the more incapable—indeed, clumsy—when it came to the work that awaited them in Devachan.

[ 6 ] The seers have always served as messengers between the souls within and outside the body. What they brought down from Devachan to the souls on Earth was always of great value to them. And Buddha, along with many others, was able to recount many beautiful things from those worlds that were of benefit to humankind.

[ 7 ] Conversely, the situation was far more difficult. The seers could tell the deceased Greeks, who led their desolate, shadowy existence, nothing of the glories of the earth; doing so would only have increased their suffering.

[ 8 ] Then a great event occurred that, in an instant, changed life in Devachan and made it more colorful. The Mystery of Golgotha was of the most far-reaching significance not only for physical earthly evolution and for the evolution of humanity on Earth, but also for the life of souls in Devachan. Christ did indeed appear to the dead, and ever since—ever since this great spiritual impact—the souls have once again come to feel more deeply the beauty of the heavenly worlds and have become more adept at living in them.

[ 9 ] When people on Earth seek a living connection with Christ, their [existence in] Devachan becomes ever more richly structured, [and] the heavenly worlds once again become their home. One can perceive the unfolding of a rich spiritual life in the dome of a Christian cathedral—in contrast to a Greek temple. The appearance of Christ on Earth has a transformative effect on the entire world. He floods the shadow world with his light and his life. And when the initiates now come to the [deceased] souls, they can bring them a message from the physical plane—the message of the Mystery of Golgotha. This cosmic event, which had a transforming effect on our Earth, also permeated the shadow world and transforms it once again into a realm of light.

[ 10 ] Through the great Initiates, who are charged with bringing the message of the Spiritual Realm to the physical plane—while themselves dwelling within physical bodies—they commune in the higher worlds not only with the souls of human beings, but also with exalted spiritual beings, with the gods who are the guiding powers; with them they live, and from their wisdom they bring down light to the physical plane; [they are] the messengers of the gods and the bearers of truth to humanity. The one event that was able to transform the shadow world into heaven gives their messages ever greater power and penetrating force: the cosmic event of the Mystery of Golgotha.