The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] Today I would like to talk about the effects of the law of karma throughout individual human lives. But first, let me note that any such discussion must necessarily be incomplete, since no speculations or imagined cases are presented, but only facts and things that have been experienced, as should always be the case in occultism. So it is only said that this or that occurs when one has actually observed a person who was in such a situation. Karmic connections will be discussed solely on the basis of experience.

[ 2 ] Yesterday we already touched on the fact that the burning question of life is most important for human beings: How does our destiny come about in the first place, how do the various circumstances and predispositions at birth come about?

[ 3 ] If we want to understand these karmic connections, we must again take into account what we said about the composition of the human being from its various bodies: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body, and within them the I-body, which encompasses the remaining, higher part of the human being. In the case of karmic relationships, we will be primarily concerned with the question of how causes are related to effects in these different bodies.

[ 4 ] Let us first consider the physical body insofar as it is relevant to the law of karma. All our activities take place in the physical world; we must be in the same place as a person — not literally, of course — in order to be able to cause them joy or pain. Our actions depend on the movements of our physical body and everything that is conditioned by it. Our external destiny in later life is connected with our actions in this physical life. External destiny is, as it were, the environment, the circumstances into which we are born. Those who have done bad deeds create a bad environment for themselves, and vice versa. This is the first important karmic law: the deeds in a previous life determine external destiny.

[ 5 ] A second fundamental law arises from the following. Let us take a look at the development of a human being. In the course of life, human beings absorb a great many ideas, concepts, feelings, and experiences; they learn an extraordinary amount. This brings about great changes in human beings. Just think back a few years, before you knew about theosophy; how many new ideas have you gained since then, how has your life changed as a result! All this has changed the astral body, because the astral body, being the thinnest and finest, undergoes changes most quickly.

[ 6 ] People change much less in terms of temperament, character, and inclinations. A quick-tempered child, for example, changes only very slowly. Temperament, character, and inclinations often remain the same throughout life. Changes in experiences and ideas happen quickly in life, while changes in temperament, character, and inclinations happen slowly. They are very tenacious; they do change somewhat, but only extremely slowly. They stand in the same relation to what one learns as the small hand of a clock stands to the large. This is because all of this is connected to the etheric body, and it changes only slowly because it consists of a much less transformable substance than the astral body. But the physical body changes most slowly. It is something that is, so to speak, predisposed and remains with pretty much the same dispositions throughout life. We will see later how the initiate can also change his physical body and how he can influence his etheric body. Now we must first consider how these things extend beyond life.

[ 7 ] The ideas, feelings, and so on of a long life, which change the astral body, will only bring about a radical change in the etheric body in the next life. Therefore, if one wants to ensure that one is born with good inclinations and habits in the next life, one must try to prepare for this as much as possible in one's astral body in the present life. So if someone strives to do many good deeds, they will be born with a disposition toward good deeds. This will become a characteristic of the etheric body. For example, if someone wants to be born with a good memory, they must do as many memory exercises as possible here, must often look back on the individual years of their life and on their life as a whole. In this way, they develop something in their astral body that will become a characteristic of their etheric body in their next life: a good memory. A person who rushes through life will be born in their next life with little ability to remember individual things in their environment. On the other hand, someone who lives intimately with a particular environment will be born with a special fondness for everything that has formed that environment.

[ 8 ] Now we can also trace the different temperaments back to previous lives, because temperaments are characteristics of the etheric body.

[ 9 ] The choleric person has a strong will, is courageous, bold, eager for action, and has the urge to do a lot. Among historical figures, Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, and Napoleon were choleric. This character trait is already apparent in children. Such a child wants to play a leading role among his playmates.

[ 10 ] The melancholic person is very preoccupied with themselves, which makes them prone to isolation. They think a lot, mainly about how their environment affects them. They like to withdraw and are easily suspicious. This is also evident in children: they don't like to show their toys, are afraid that something will be taken from them, and want to have a key to everything.

[ 11 ] The phlegmatic person has no real interest in anything, dreams a lot, is inactive, lazy, and seeks sensory pleasure.

[ 12 ] The sanguine person, on the other hand, is easily excited by everything, but this does not last; it fades quickly and easily, and they change their hobbies often and frequently.

[ 13 ] These are the four basic character traits that a person can have. Usually, people have a mixture of all four temperaments, but one can always find a more or less dominant tone. These four temperaments are expressed in the etheric body. There are therefore four different main types of etheric bodies. These in turn have different currents and movements, which are expressed in a certain basic color in the astral body. This is not dependent on the astral body, it only manifests itself in it.

[ 14 ] The melancholic temperament is karmically caused especially when a person was forced in a previous life to live in the smallest, narrowest circle, to be alone a lot, to always be preoccupied with themselves, so that they could not awaken any interest in anything else. On the other hand, those who have experienced a lot, who have encountered many things and not just looked at them, but whose previous life has been hard on them, become choleric. If you have had a pleasant life without many struggles and hardships, or even if you have seen a lot and encountered many things, but only looked at them, you become phlegmatic or sanguine. Everything that happens in the astral body in this life is karmically transferred in the next life to the next densest body, the etheric body.

[ 15 ] From this we can see how we can work for our next life, and in occult schools people are consciously worked on in this direction. This was even more the case in the past than it is today. This has to do with the cyclical changes in development. About five thousand years ago, the secret teacher had a completely different task. At that time, he had to care for people more as groups; people were not yet at the stage where everyone had to care for themselves. Conscious work was done to ensure that entire categories and groups of people would harmonize in the next life. However, people are becoming increasingly individual and independent, so that today the secret teacher can no longer use a person as a means to an end, but must treat each individual as an end in themselves, bringing each individual as far as is possible for them. In the oldest cultures, for example in India, the entire population was divided into four castes and worked on in such a way that people would fit into a certain caste in the next life. The education of people was systematically designed to provide for millennia, to reshape the worldview for millennia, and it was precisely this that gave the occult leaders their great power.

[ 16 ] How does a person influence their etheric body with regard to the next life? Everything that a person develops in their etheric body evolves, albeit very slowly, and education can ensure that very specific habits are cultivated. What happens in the etheric body in one life comes into being in the physical body in the next life. All the inclinations and habits of the present etheric body give rise to a disposition toward health or illness in the next life. Good inclinations and good habits give rise to a disposition toward health; bad inclinations and bad habits appear in the next life as a disposition toward certain illnesses. The intention, the firm will to break a bad habit, already has an effect on the lower body and thus gives a disposition towards health. It has been particularly well observed how the disposition towards infectious diseases occurs in the physical body. Not whether one contracts a disease—that depends on one's actions—but whether one is predisposed to it, whether one is more or less exposed to it, depends on the inclinations of one's previous life. Infectious diseases, strangely enough, can be traced back to a particularly developed egoistic sense of gain in a previous life.

[ 17 ] If you want to learn about health and illness, you have to consider how many things interact. Illnesses do not have to be solely individual karma; there is also a collective karma in relation to illnesses.

[ 18 ] An interesting case of how strangely things are connected in spiritual life is the immigration of the Huns and Mongol tribes, who poured in from Asia to the West. These peoples, the Mongols, were latecomers from Atlantis. While the Indians, Germanic peoples, and others continued to develop upward, the Mongols were brothers who had remained at a certain stage. Just as animals have separated from the evolutionary path of humans, so too have lower peoples and races separated. These peoples, the Mongols, were backward Atlanteans who physically degenerated. In the astral body of such backward people, one sees abundant astral decay substances. The Mongols encountered the Germanic peoples and other Central European peoples, who were seized with fear and terror. Fear and terror, however, are qualities of the astral body; such astral decay substances thrive excellently in them. Thus the European astral bodies became infected, and this infection then manifested itself in later generations in the physical body, but not for the individual, but for entire peoples. This was leprosy, the terrible disease that wreaked such havoc in the Middle Ages. This disease was the physical consequence of the influence on the astral body.

[ 19 ] You cannot consult philological research here, because it knows nothing about these astral influences. But you can find clues to the ancestry of the ancient Atlantean race in the names themselves: Attila, the leader of the Huns, is called Attila in the Nordic language, which means one who descends from the Atlanteans.

[ 20 ] This is how widespread diseases have their origins. In ancient times, people still knew about such things, and the Bible expressed them through a truth that is often misunderstood: “He visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation”; for this does not refer to successive individual incarnations, but to generations, this kind of collective karma. This is to be taken literally, as many such sayings are to be taken more literally than one might think.

[ 21 ] One must first learn to read religious documents. There are four stages. The naive people of ancient times approached them by taking them literally. As people became more intelligent, this was less and less the case. The liberals who had become wise, the free spirits, interpreted the documents each in their own way, and so it came about that much was not interpreted but rather imposed. Then there is another stage, the symbolists. These are those who interpret everything symbolically, both the ancient myths and legends and the life of Christ Jesus. Of course, it all depends on the wisdom of the individual, because one can form wise and less wise images. But there is a fourth level, that of the secret knower, who can now understand everything literally again because he sees through the connections through his spiritual knowledge.

[ 22 ] From what has been said, you can see how what was previously present in spiritual life, in feelings and habits, comes out in physical life. An important practical principle can be derived from this: if you take care of people's habits in a favorable way, you not only improve the moral life of a people in the next generations, but also their health, and vice versa. This is then national karma.

[ 23 ] Nowadays, there is a widespread illness that was hardly known a hundred years ago; not that it was not recognized, but it was really not widespread: nervousness. This peculiar form of illness is the result of the materialistic worldview of the 18th century. Without the precedence of these materialistic habits of thinking, it would never have come about. The secret teacher knows that if materialism were to continue for decades, it would have a devastating effect on the health of the people. If these materialistic habits of thinking were not controlled, people would not only be nervous, but children would be born trembling and would not only feel their surroundings, but would experience pain in every environment. Above all, mental illness would spread rapidly: epidemics of insanity would occur in the coming decades. This was also the danger toward which humanity was heading: epidemic mental illness. And this worldview of the future was the real reason why the occult leaders of humanity, the Masters of Wisdom, saw the need to infuse some of the spiritual wisdom into humanity at large. Only such a spiritual worldview can give future generations a good foundation for health again. You see, theosophy is a profound movement born out of the needs of humanity.

[ 24 ] A century ago, a “nervous” person was someone who had strong nerves, nerves of steel. The change in the meaning of the word alone shows how something completely new has come into the world.

[ 25 ] How does the law of karma relate to physical heredity? Physical heredity plays a major role. We know that certain characteristics of the father and ancestors are found in the son; for example, there were twenty-eight important musicians in the Bach family within two hundred and fifty years. Bernoulli was an important mathematician, and eight important mathematicians followed in his family. People say that this is all heredity, but that is only partly true. For example, to become an important musician, it is not enough to have developed musical talent in one's soul; one must also have a correspondingly good ear physically. What is purely physical in a family of musicians, the fine hearing organs, is inherited from the parents to the child.

[ 26 ] In a family where music is cultivated, there are good ears trained for music. If a soul with a strong aptitude for music incarnates, it is understandable that it will not be born into a family where no music is played — there it would wither away — but into one where the appropriate physical organs are present. This fits in perfectly with the law of karma.

[ 27 ] The same can be said of moral courage. If a predisposition for this does not find the right blood, it will wither away. You see, one must therefore be careful in choosing one's parents! It is not that the child resembles its parents, but rather that it is born where its parents are most similar to it.

[ 28 ] Now the question arises: Does this not impair the mother's love? — That is by no means the case. Precisely because the deepest sympathy already exists before birth, this child goes to the mother, so that the love is actually traced back even further to its origin; it only continues after birth. The child already loved its mother before birth; no wonder that afterwards the mother reciprocates this love. Thus, maternal love is not denied, but rather explained according to its true causes.

[ 29 ] More on this tomorrow.