The Rudolf Steiner Archive

59. On the Necessity of Learning About Reincarnation and Karma

[ 1 ] Only theosophy will shed light on the words:

And the Elohim saw what they had made, and behold, it was very good.

[ 2 ] (It was for the best). Such words are read, but they are no longer understood today. In fact, they are so little understood that our religious texts, which contain the deepest wisdom, will find more and more opponents with each passing day—opponents who are relatively harmless in the circles of people who often profess to be materialists. How many are there among those who profess to be materialists who believe they can simply dismiss such words as childish fictions of earlier ages? These self-proclaimed wise people are, admittedly, regrettable in terms of the impact of the religious texts on humanity, but they are, in the final analysis, less dangerous. For they will be confronted with the fact that Spiritual Science will shed ever more light on the true meaning of the religious texts. And that, ultimately, due to their absurdity, these materialistically minded people will, so to speak, extinguish themselves along with their views. That is a regrettable thing.

[ 3 ] Far more dangerous is the fact that today, among theologians of the most diverse denominations, there is a large group of people who—even though they hold the official position of interpreting these documents—no longer make any effort to move beyond the materialistic, literal meaning of these documents. And this is all the more regrettable given that, from a theological perspective, it can be said that over the course of the nineteenth century, they expended unspeakable diligence to finally uncover what constitutes the most glaring error regarding religious texts. If one were to judge people by their diligence, one might say that one would have to admire everything that has been accomplished. (The Apocalypse and the Five Books of Moses). But if one wishes to judge the value of what has come to light, one arrives at a different conclusion—one that must indeed be grim—because any understanding of the spiritual content and depth of the religious texts has died out in the very circles that officially represent them, and because it is precisely there that a thorough rejection of any spiritual influence is now openly evident.

And the Elohim saw what they had made, and behold, it was very good!

[ 4 ] Such words are not written to be quoted in the trivial sense in which they are used today, but rather they are written so that they may strike deep into people’s hearts, so that they may serve to awaken a special spiritual wisdom that lies dormant in the soul and is to be brought forth by the thunderclap with which such words are to be received.

[ 5 ] What does that mean: “It was all very good”? The word “good” here means that at the moment in question, the Elohim saw that the creation of the world—the creation of the Earth, which had followed the embodiment of the Moon—was truly permeated by what one might call: the breath of moral goodness was present in everything above it.

[ 6 ] Yes, when a person looks out, they see air. And as a chemist, they conclude: It consists of oxygen and nitrogen and so on. They perceive clouds, wind, rain, the sun—the realms of nature. But they do not perceive that, along with the breeze and the wind, a moral breath has passed over the earth, that nature is at the same time a moral substance.

[ 7 ] However, the word at the beginning of the Bible means that, just as the mere natural air envelops the earth, so moral goodness was poured out over the earth, for the Elohim saw that “everything was good.”

[ 8 ] Let’s try to grasp the meaning of these words: They saw that everything was good. Let’s suppose things had remained as they were back then, when the Elohim looked upon them. Yes, then it would be the case on Earth that a person who tells a lie—who says something that is not true—would, upon telling that lie, upon uttering that untruth, feel the blood rush to his eyes and his eyes become clouded as a result of having spoken a lie. Of this profound effect, which was originally instilled by the Elohim, only a faint echo remains in human beings—namely, the faint echo of the sense of shame. Blood rushes to your face when you have told a lie. You feel ashamed, and it shows on your face. This was originally intended to a much greater degree, so that when a lie was told, blood would have rushed to the face—though the blood was not yet as thick—and it would have darkened the face. So that the one who had lied would have become blind for a time and could only regain sight once he had replaced the lie with the truth. And the same would have been true of all moral transgressions. And if someone had fallen into error, they would have had protection against it as well, for although their senses would not have failed them in the same way as with moral transgressions, they would have noticed it by the loss of blood to their senses. They would have realized from this that they had to make an effort to extricate themselves from the error.

[ 9 ] In short, whatever would have taken place within a person as moral events would at the same time have been natural events, and the person would have realized, through the powerlessness of his senses, that he had done wrong. A person’s senses were designed to serve as a barometer of his moral state.

[ 10 ] Thus, a person’s eyes would have been darkened by telling a lie, deceiving someone, and so on. A person’s ears would have been numbed if they had listened to anything dishonest or the like. A moral world order would have been poured out over the entire earth. And because this was so, the Elohim would have said: “And behold, it has remained so good everywhere.”—For goodness manifests itself in natural effects.

[ 11 ] Only then can one fully understand the profound influence of what we call the Luciferic impulse, when we realize that it is through Lucifer and his influence that things have become as they are today. And only then can one also understand Lucifer’s words:

Your eyes will be opened, and you will be able to distinguish between good and evil.

[ 12 ] In this case, “distinguishing” means: You will have left it solely to your judgment, no longer to your pain. You will have left it to the coolness of reason.

[ 13 ] And so one can say: Through Lucifer, something has come upon humankind that reveals to us a sleep quite different from the ordinary sleep of the night. A sleep in contrast to what is actually supposed to be the natural effect of morality—this is the sleep in which human beings are always immersed between birth and death. For it is only because their eyes have become so insensitive that they no longer blind themselves by lying that human beings have become what they are today. As a result, they are simultaneously in a state of sleep with regard to the natural effects of morality. That which comes from morality speaks to them through their moral judgment or through their conscience. But that which should actually bring about good in the world does not—due to the Luciferic influence. It does not bring it about!

[ 14 ] But we really have to say that it doesn’t have that effect between birth and death. Because when the Luciferic influence came, the human body was made so dense by the spiritual beings who bring about progress that the dense body can no longer function in that way. As I said, the blood would have remained thinner. It has been made dense so that, in the waking state, a person does not realize—when he tells a lie—that the greatest conceivable danger actually lies in store for him: namely, the danger of deceiving himself or impairing his other senses. But this danger is always present. And because this danger exists—and because human beings are merely lulled into a false sense of security against it by their dense body—the realization of this danger becomes all the more significant to them when they are not in the physical state between death and a new birth. Therefore, when a person tells a lie that should actually blind them but does not, a force arises within them, and this force remains. It is, as it were, a pent-up force. And it remains until the time comes when the following thought arises with particular vividness before the soul: “This is what should have happened to you because of the lie you told back then; it simply did not happen because your body was too dense.” But you will one day have to undergo a process of development, since this force has been dammed up. And then the will arises in the soul to make amends for the lie under the same circumstances under which it was told, in a future life.

[ 15 ] Here, the effects of karma are presented directly. A person cannot commit a wrong that does not leave behind a force which manifests itself clearly between death and a new birth. This force then stirs within the person a longing to make amends for the wrong. Thus is brought about what the Elohim had predetermined to [have] happened on Earth itself.

[ 16 ] The view that when a person has passed through the gate of death, they look back on their earthly life because all the forces are at work within them that show them what they did not do right on Earth—even Aristotle held this view. But he also held another view on the matter. For he knew nothing of reincarnation. And so we find a thought emerging in Aristotle—a thought that appears quite seriously in his work a few centuries before the Christian era—which is, in fact, terrible; yet it is there. Because Aristotle was not yet a fool like the modern materialists, and did not believe that life is extinguished with death, nor that all wrongdoing is erased, he still knew that the soul passes through death and that nothing is erased of what a person has done on Earth. But he knew nothing of a return, of reincarnation. Therefore, the time that was bound to come—when a soul has passed through death and must now look back eternally on its wrongdoing—was, for him, a terrifying prospect. We know today that half of the Aristotelian concept—which was, after all, the correct one in the Greco-Latin era—namely, that the soul must look back upon its wrongdoings—that this half of the Aristotelian view is correct. But we also know today that the soul can develop the counterforces and, in the next life, make amends for the wrongs it has committed. This is the great, profound significance of the doctrine of reincarnation: that it is also capable of reconciling us with a deeper insight into the spiritual interconnections of the worlds; capable of reconciling us on the grand scale that sweeps through us when we gain insight into the wise order of the worlds.

[ 17 ] But from this—if one adopts such a view of the world—one sees at the same time that life between death and a new birth depends on the life we have lived here.

[ 18 ] And here, too, I should probably point out a line of thinking that one used to hear often and still hears today—surely there are friends here who have already heard this: People sometimes say to you, “Well, we’ll see what happens over there. Why do we need to worry about it here? We’ll find out everything soon enough.”

[ 19 ] As natural as this idea may seem, it is just as nonsensical. For the person who pays no attention to the spiritual here passes through death in such a way that he then enters the world beyond death as if it were a world that is as dark as night to him. For we must make this clear to ourselves: although we do enter the spiritual world after death, we must carry within us the light that illuminates that world. We must have prepared this light here on earth; otherwise, we will see nothing in that spiritual world. So the person who believes they need not concern themselves here with spiritual and soul life enters the spiritual world at death like someone who walks into a dark room without bringing any light; they say, “Why should I turn on a light in the next room? I’ll see what’s in the dark room anyway.” What, then, must we gain over there? The powers we must take with us into our new earthly life. We are born with certain abilities. What is passed down to us through heredity does not extend to every detail regarding the finer structure of the brain.

[ 20 ] You’d be quite surprised if you could see what a brain would look like if it possessed only its inherited traits. If one could obtain such a brain, it would be sufficient only for what one has to do up to the age of fifteen. By then, one already possesses all the traits that have been inherited. One could not learn anything with such a brain. However, all the characteristics that are imprinted on the brain’s finer structure must be engraved into it. From the very earliest stages, the individuality must already be working on the brain’s finest structure. Yet the individuality must acquire all these powers between death and a new birth.

[ 21 ] She also receives these abilities when everything proceeds regularly from the Exusiai, Dynamis, the spirits of wisdom, and Kyriotetes. From each of these entities, when we pass by them over there, when we are together with them, we receive powers to develop the brain. However, we can only absorb these powers if we bring a light with us; otherwise, we do not receive them.

[ 22 ] Thus you can see how a person who does not concern himself with spiritual matters here stumbles into darkness; how he passes by the beings of the higher hierarchies and is unable to receive their powers because he cannot illuminate his own field. Therefore, we see how such a person, who pays no attention to these matters, passes through a darkness between death and a new birth; that he cannot properly receive the forces; that he therefore enters a new existence with insufficient forces and cannot develop the finer structures of the brain and the heart; with an underdeveloped body and a limited capacity to do what is right when they are reborn to balance their karma.

[ 23 ] In life, we meet people who, in a certain way, present a challenge to us, so that we say: No matter what we do with them, we cannot develop this or that ability in them. Why are they so untalented? Well, for the reason that in their previous incarnation they wanted to know nothing of the spiritual, and therefore, before their birth, they were unable to receive the forces that can prepare the organs. They were unwilling then; now they cannot equip themselves with abilities. They wander foolishly through the world. Here we see the connection between one incarnation and the next. We can already see [this connection] today because many people today were incarnated at a time when there was already enough materialism in the world. In the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, there were souls who paid no attention to the spiritual world. That is the source of today’s lack of talent in one area or another.

[ 24 ] Yes, we have experienced materialism before, and can therefore trace it back to the third incarnation. Now we can say that something strikes us as terribly sad when we consider this: Yes, when we hear all this—how unwilling the person was in a previous life and how he now enters the supersensible world once again without light and without any gifts—it must be terrible for the person to be passing through the darkness once more. He would indeed be powerless ever to reach the light.

[ 25 ] Because of that one time when a person voluntarily rejected the spiritual world, he enters it lacking any gifts. But when he then passes through the gate of death, although he has no light of his own, Lucifer has all the more [opportunity] to step by his side. And in the next life, Lucifer walks beside them with a lamp, illuminating the entire field for them. [Such a person] then acquires abilities, but abilities of a very special kind: intellectual abilities without morality; an intellect that looks only to its own advantage. Today there are many clever, intelligent people who, for example, are shrewd on the stock market in order to take advantage of their neighbors. They have a great deal of intellect. These are people whose path was illuminated by Lucifer in the period between death and rebirth in their last life. In their previous incarnation, they were untalented because, in an earlier incarnation, they had rejected the will to engage with the spiritual world.

[ 26 ] There we can follow three lives. However, a certain kind of freedom emerges once again. After all, Lucifer always brings freedom along with temptation. Such a person, guided by Lucifer, can also use their intellect to rekindle their spiritual life. In this way, they can turn back. So it’s not as terrible as it seems if a person fails to take a lamp with them. They can rise again.

[ 27 ] These are the profound insights that clairvoyant research into the human soul can reveal. Indeed, how many souls of the present, by their very nature, clearly point to the past centuries in which they were incarnated and thus prepared themselves for their present life.

[ 28 ] But there are also people who do not reject the supernatural world, yet are content with a comfortable form of mysticism. I knew someone who said: “Well, what’s there to know!” Everything you see is just maya. The spiritual is Atma. In other words: ‘I am Atma,’ and then: ‘God is in all people.’ That is a form of complacent mysticism in people. In this realm, we encounter all sorts of dreamers who do not want to engage with a true understanding of the spiritual world. How often do we meet people who pick up the thick book on “Esoteric Science,” only to put it down again and say: “Why do I need to know that? I just want to elevate myself through my soul.” Yes, people do elevate themselves, but they elevate themselves to the most abstract thoughts about some kind of unity they believe they have recognized, and so on.

[ 29 ] Yes, you see, people like that, who fall into a certain kind of abstract enthusiasm: when they pass through the gate of death, they, too, feel the consequences of not having truly engaged with the spiritual world. It’s not that they lack light, but rather that they now have too much of it. This light blinds them, and they, too, are then unable to receive in the proper way what they ought to receive. And the result is that they also fail to absorb the right forces to build their next incarnation in the proper way. Then they enter their new existence. And lo and behold, it turns out that such people are actually good for nothing in life, that they cannot get a foothold anywhere, and prove to be clumsy in every aspect of life. We all know people like this. They often cannot even sew on a button. This is an example of something that is widespread in the world: people who are useless in life, in whom everything points to an incarnation in which they indulged in abstract, mystical raptures. When these people pass through the gate of death, they receive Ahriman as their guide. There they then receive, in the proper way, the forces they lack—but they receive them in the form in which Ahriman is able to impart them. And the consequence of this is that these people appear in their next life in such a way that they lack any possibility of truly embodying what is called a calm, careful consideration of the facts of the world. [Gap in the transcript]

[ 30 ] The following objection is often raised: Children do not arrive at religious mental images on their own; since the soul does not arrive at religious mental images on its own, we should leave them out rather than instill them in people. — This is a line of thinking that makes sense to many people today. Yes, but one need only consider that it is well known that if a child is abandoned in the wilderness before it can speak, it will never learn a language. So one could also say: Human beings learn to speak only through their environment. And it would be consistent, then, to also prohibit “drilling” language into them. This shows that there are people who become fixated on a single idea, who fail to see anything that contradicts it. Anyone who is sensitive to such matters cannot read a newspaper today without feeling a pang of distress, because there is so much confusion in the world today. This is the result of having Ahriman as one’s leader. And so one could also trace three lifetimes here: confused people, fanatical people who cannot see the logic of the facts. This lifetime follows a lifetime of clumsiness. This clumsy lifetime follows one in which people indulged in mystical enthusiasm and refused to engage with the real facts of the world.

[ 31 ] You see, the reality of reincarnation really begins to take hold in our minds only when we recognize it in these specific cases. It is not merely a matter of believing in reincarnation, but of gaining insight into it, just as we have just attempted to do.

[ 32 ] Now that the groundwork has been laid, we can also discuss in the various branches what such concrete research can bring to light in these matters. It is very important that these things also be shared, for knowing them contributes immensely to true self-knowledge as well. And, fundamentally, catching oneself in this or that stubborn thought is a good, beautiful path to fruitful meditation. One doesn’t have to possess all the qualities listed there right away, but in many people, these traits are present in a mixed state. In certain respects, many people are stubborn, even though they otherwise have a very open mind toward many aspects of life. One can then catch oneself in this, and come to realize that such stubbornness stems from Ahrimanic influence. And then, if one wishes to make this fruitful for oneself—for one’s own perfection—one can turn everything one has heard about Ahriman into a subject of study. By perfecting oneself, one will then also be of service to the world. One will then have recognized one’s relationship to Lucifer and Ahriman.

[ 33 ] In this way, we come to understand more and more precisely what life is like between death and a new birth. And this is just as important as life between birth and death. But you can see from this how incorrect it is when someone says they can wait until death occurs—for then, they claim, they will see for themselves what the spiritual world is like. It must be emphasized again and again: We, as human beings, have not been brought into earthly existence for no reason. Everyone has a mission in the world. We are here not only to learn for the sake of the Earth, but also for the sake of the other world. Only when we take such things into account will we be able to allow the full, profound significance of the theosophical mission to take effect. Then we will be able to imbue ourselves more and more with the thought that this Theosophy is an absolute necessity for our age.

[ 34 ] Not only do human beings evolve, but human nature itself evolves. Everyone sitting here has been incarnated in past centuries. However, it is not only the souls that have changed from incarnation to incarnation, but also the bodies. Bodies change from age to age. Today’s anatomists would only believe this if they could dissect the bodies of people who died a thousand years ago. You can no longer see this in Egyptian mummies. But it is true that the body changes. And from now until the time when we will incarnate again, the body will have changed significantly. This is the divine process which, in addition to what the soul brings into the bodies, also exerts a transformative influence on all of humanity. Specifically, the bodies will then be such that they will be better suited than today’s bodies to consciously look back on the previous incarnation. Human beings will then possess the organ necessary for this. However, they will only be able to truly remember if they have something to remember.

[ 35 ] Let’s illustrate this with an example. In the evening, you might take your cufflink, set it aside, and say to yourself: “I’m putting this here now.” If you do this consciously, then the next morning you’ll go to the right spot to retrieve the cufflink. After all, you can only remember a thought that you’ve truly formed. You’ll only find the cufflink if you set it down consciously.

[ 36 ] How is a person supposed to remember in their next incarnation if they have not formed the thought of recollection? But this can only be achieved through Spiritual Science. Human beings will possess the organ for recollection. However, they will only be able to remember if they have formed thoughts now that they can recall. If they have not formed these thoughts, they will be born into a body with an organ that they feel they cannot use. This then leads to a neurasthenic state. For most people this is not yet the case, but by the second or third incarnation it will be the case for almost everyone on Earth that they are meant to recall past lives. But if they had not formed these thoughts, people all over the Earth would become neurasthenic. That is why Spiritual Science must now work with all its might to give people something they can remember. When you consider this, my dear friends, you will understand the necessity of Theosophy. And once you have understood the most essential tasks of Theosophy, you cannot help but be a Theosophist. Those who are not have not yet grasped the profound seriousness and necessity of Theosophy.