Reincarnation and Clairvoyance
Nearing the end of his life in 1924, Rudolf Steiner stressed to the members of the Anthroposophical Society the urgency that they awaken to the super-sensible world so that in Dornach there would be created a living center of spiritual knowledge. To guide the movement forward, Rudolf Steiner commenced articulating the core tenets of anthroposophy in succinct, powerful statements published monthly to members and compiled later in the book Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts. Also, to an audience of seasoned students of Anthroposophy, Rudolf Steiner delivered Anthroposophy: An Introduction which contains advanced, yet foundational material required of his students. He further gave the first of what he intended to be three classes for the School of Spiritual Science of the re-founded Anthroposophical Society as a further development of his earlier Esoteric School, Esoteric Instructions. In this last year of Rudolf Steiner's speaking engagements he produced eight volumes of material on Karma and Reincarnation. The following is an excerpt of a lecture given on June 15, 1924. Would there be any initiates to carry on his legacy after he was gone the next year?
"Now that we have looked at the metabolic-limb system in order to consider this, let us turn our attention to the system that is polar opposites to it—the nervous-sensory system, which, although it is also present throughout the entire human being, is primarily located in the head. Let us look at the human head. Through his head, the human being in fact experiences only a reflection of the present external world. His thoughts and ideas—in which, as I told you, he is solely awake—are, in fact, merely reflections of the outside world through the head. But when one ascends to the science of initiation—first to imaginative knowledge—one then, as you know, returns through imaginative knowledge, its transformation into inspirational knowledge, and then through intuitive knowledge, to one’s earlier earthly lives. One then looks into these earlier earthly lives, but one sees them in their spiritual form. In the spiritual world, knowledge is also something entirely real. And the one who, with true initiatory knowledge, goes through the experience of looking into past earthly lives does not feel as though he were merely present here and now, on June 15, 1924, but rather becomes present within the course of those past earthly lives; he does not merely look into them, but looks back upon himself in his entire being. It is not an abstract, intellectual gaze; it is a transformation back, a oneness, a becoming one with what one was. The inner self becomes very alive, deeply moved and stirred, when one returns to those past earthly lives. But by going back, one gains the ability to change the perspective of one’s worldview.
What, then, is the perspective of the external worldview that people usually hold? The perspective of the external worldview that people usually hold is the head. This head, which is based on the physical structure of the head—this head that you had in earlier earthly lives, even in your previous earthly life—you cannot make it the point of view for your worldview once you have gone back into earlier earthly lives; you cannot do that, for it is long gone, it is no longer there. Only the spiritual aspect that lived in the head can serve as the starting point for your worldview. Initiation, therefore, consists in a person becoming spiritualized by returning to their past earthly lives. And in fact, all clairvoyance—in the best sense of the word—means a return to past earthly lives. To be initiated means not to remain stuck in one’s “present earthly life,” but to view the things of the world through the eyes of the person one was in a previous earthly life. Whereas in the ordinary course of life one is such an imperfect being in earthly existence that one sees only the outer physical world, the person one was in previous earthly lives has, in the meantime, already become clairvoyant. And as a rule, when one returns to the immediately preceding earthly life, one makes the discovery: the person one was back then has, in fact, already become a much more perfect human being.
Yes, why is it that what one could be after a previous earthly life is not, in fact, that? Why is that? You see, if a human being had only a head and passed from one earthly life to the next, then in the next earthly life one would be exactly the same as in the previous one, just as I have explained. But one does not have just the head; one has the other systems attached to it. And because the metabolic-limb system contains the magical principle of the human being—which in turn acts through karma—karma carries the human head over from one earthly life to the next. Karma is therefore directly at work in shaping your head. And when one begins to develop, in this field, an unbiased view of human nature, one will gradually learn to read much of a person’s karma from the physiognomy of their head. And again: looking at a person’s head as it is viewed today with ordinary consciousness is just like taking Goethe’s Faust and beginning: “H-a-b-e n-u-n a-c-h,” because one can only spell it out, not read it. One can no longer say “Habe nun, ach.” But once one has learned to read, one will penetrate these strange symbols that are written there and understand what they mean. I’ve already told you: this is brought about by the simple fact that, whereas one would otherwise perceive only about thirty different letter forms in all books, one has Goethe’s Faust in one book, Hegel’s Logic in another, the Bible in a third, and so on. The fact that one can have this stems solely from having learned to read. In the same way, one can learn to read in what surrounds one in life. And the progression from spelling out the shape of the human head to reading within it then leads one into the mysteries of the karma of the person in question. So that we can say, regarding what becomes visible in the shape of the head—truly visible on the outside—that every person has their own head; no two people have exactly the same head shape. — Although people often look similar, they are dissimilar in their karma. In the shape of the head, a person’s past karma becomes apparent to physical-sensory perception; in the metabolic-limb system, future karma; there it is spiritually hidden, invisible. Thus, when we speak of the human being in spiritual terms, we can say: The human being consists, on the one hand, in making his past karma visible, and on the other hand, in carrying his future karma invisibly within himself.
Read more: Rudolf Steiner, Esoteric Considerations of Karmic Connections, Volume V, Lecture 16, GA 239, 15 June 1924, Wrocław.