The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Theosophy and Rosicrucianism VIII

[ 1 ] Today I want to give you some additional information on the question of reincarnation and karma. And then I would like to move on to the development of our earth itself, because only through such a consideration will we fully understand the true nature of man as it presents itself to us in the context of world conditions. I will conclude this lecture cycle by showing how man develops when the goal of his striving is the contemplation of the higher worlds. In order to penetrate into the spiritual worlds, we will therefore have to consider: first, pre-Christian schooling; second, Christian schooling; third, Rosicrucian schooling.

[ 2 ] What still needs to be said about reincarnation should be saved for a special chapter because it is most difficult for beginners to understand. What we have to discuss initially relates to the time that lies between two embodiments. It is already in and of itself a question that shocks the materialistic thinking of our time.

[ 3 ] The one source of knowledge available to the spiritual researcher cannot be verified by someone who does not yet have spiritual vision: that is the experience. But anyone who applies the training that we will discuss later is able to find out when most people currently living were last on earth in their previous incarnation. Then I will still have to discuss the means that were common in the Chaldean, Pythagorean and all secret schools of the pre-Christian era to enable people to enter the spiritual world.

[ 4 ] All those who can see into the conditions of the spiritual worlds, who are thus able to trace people back to their previous embodiments, will discover the majority of all human souls living now in the first period after the birth of Christ, up to the 8th and 9th centuries. But these are all average conditions; the time between two embodiments can also be shorter or longer.

[ 5 ] Another fact is connected with the one I have just mentioned, which has become particularly evident in our time. It is the fact that, especially in our present time, there are such unusually radical thinkers demanding equality. This is nothing more than the expression of the demand for equality in the first Christian centuries, transferred to the material realm, which was called: equality before God and equality before the worldly powers.

[ 6 ] Now many of those people who formulated these demands for equality in the early centuries of Christianity and who at that time passed through the gate of death with these unfulfilled demands, who thus all took these longings for equality before God and the worldly powers in their souls into the spiritual world, have now been re-embodied, and they bring with them, quite naturally, their attitude to these demands – but now in a metamorphosed form, corresponding to today's materialistic world view. Those who are now re-embodied overlook the completely materialistic slant that this demand has acquired in our time. It is not right to believe or claim that today's sense of freedom comes from Christianity.

[ 7 ] This realization of the demand for equality before God and the secular powers into today's demand for equality in all earthly circumstances can only be brought into the right channel by understanding the true context, as made possible by the theosophical world view. But anyone who has a grasp of the true connection and at the same time looks at what dominates people today as a materialistic world view will readily see that the demand for equality in the form in which it is being advanced today by the radical thinkers of the present is something that was bound to arise at some point in the natural course of events. But it is equally true that from now on people must rise again from materialism to spiritualism. Only then will it be possible to restore the social order to health. There is no other remedy for this than precisely spiritual science itself.

[ 8 ] This question is discussed in more detail in issues 30, 32 and 34 of the magazine Lucifer-Gnosis. It is shown there how all the other means, no matter how highly they are praised, suffer from amateurism because today's people know nothing of the higher worlds. If today's social thinkers would allow themselves to be inspired by Theosophy, they would find truly effective means to approach this question. Just as it is true that humanity had to descend from a spiritual past into materialism, it is just as true that it must ascend again to the spiritual. It is only from this spiritual world view that that which gives harmony, peace and love will come. So here too, Theosophy will be eminently practical.

[ 9 ] Now I will show how the view of the course of human development gained through clairvoyant observation leads us back to the events that occur between death and rebirth.

[ 10 ] I have already said that man does not appear on this physical earth again and again for nothing. We have already found the reason for this in the fact that he encounters completely new conditions on earth with each new incarnation, and that from each new physical life new fruits are always drawn for the future, because the earth has changed each time, both in cultural terms and in terms of purely external nature. Each time the face of the earth has become completely different when man enters a new incarnation.

[ 11 ] Now, according to the Chaldean view, the transformation of our Earth is connected with the relationship of the Sun to the other stars. You can find more details about this in some of the lecture cycles. I can only refer to it briefly here.

[ 12 ] If you were to pay attention to what the sky looks like when the sun rises at the beginning of spring, if you were to observe where it rises, what other constellations are there, then you would see that the sun's relationship to the other stars is different every spring. The vernal point moves forward every year, so that in about 26,000–25,920 years this vernal point will arrive again at the same point where it was 26,000 years ago – a cycle. But this is only seemingly the case: in reality it is not a circle that is described by the sun, but a spiral. The point at which the sun passes through the ecliptic was determined by the constellation that coincided with this point. The sun thus describes a circle around the sky, which is marked by the twelve constellations. It moves a little further each year and thus passes through all twelve constellations within 26,000 years.

[ 13 ] Thus, around 800 BC, the sun first rose in the constellation of Aries; and since the sun takes about 26,000 years to pass through all the signs of the zodiac, it takes the sun one twelfth of that time, or 2,000 years, to pass through one sign. And the change in the face of our Earth is really connected with the advance of this point of spring. Thus after such a period of about 2200 years the face of the Earth has changed so much that quite different conditions have arisen; therefore this is also the period of time in which man on average proceeds to a new embodiment. And so it is also according to the observations of occult science. The old nations have always associated a distinct feeling with the rising of the sun at the vernal equinox of Aries, which can be paraphrased as follows: “From the constellation of Aries, the sun sends us the rays again for the first time, which conjure up the plants from the earth.” It seems to them as if the constellation of Aries brings these rays, and therefore this constellation has been revered. Certain sacred feelings are associated with the naming of these constellations. Aries sends the forces of the spring sun; therefore, the peoples of ancient times saw in the lamb a symbol of these forces of revival of nature and the human soul. Many legends are associated with this, for example that of Jason, who fetches the Golden Fleece, which means something tremendously precious for humanity. This worship of Aries, or the Lamb, dominated for many centuries and was adopted by Christianity. That is why originally, instead of Christ on the cross, a lamb could be seen on crucifixes. And that is why Christ was called “the Lamb of God”.

[ 14 ] If this is the case, then since only since the 8th century BC has the spring sun risen under the sign of Aries, there must have been a different form of worship before that time; before that, the spring sun rose in the constellation of Taurus. And indeed, before the 8th century BC, the bull was worshipped in place of the lamb. This worship underlies the temple service of Apis in Egypt and the Persian service of Mithras. Some 2200 years earlier, the sun passed through the constellation of Gemini, and this symbol also played a role in those ancient cultures that preceded it. The ancient Persian religion goes back to this cult in Ormuzd and Ahriman.

[ 15 ] Thus we see how the ancient peoples linked important ideas with this passage of the sun through the individual constellations. And this is also connected with the reincarnation of the human being at a certain epoch of time, after an average of about 2200 years. But because it makes a big difference whether a person is embodied on this earth as a man or a woman in such an epoch, the calculation of the individual incarnations becomes somewhat more complicated. The experiences that a person has in an incarnation as a man or as a woman are so different that he has to incarnate twice during such an epoch, once as a man and once as a woman; so that two incarnations take place over the approximate period of two millennia, so in reality there are only 1100 to 1200 years between two incarnations. Therefore, on average, it is correct that a male and a female incarnation alternate. Exceptionally, however, several incarnations in the same gender may follow one another – the largest number observed was seven – but then the gender changes. However, these are exceptions; as a rule, the genders alternate in successive incarnations.

[ 16 ] So much for what can be said about the time that lies between two embodiments. But it also depends on many other things, and not only on the person themselves. For example, it may be the case that a particular individuality is suited to fulfill a certain task at a particular point in time for the conditions on earth. In this case, it may well be drawn into embodiment by the higher powers before the normal time is up; it is brought down because it is precisely suited, given its entire predisposition, to fulfill a particular mission. The great leaders of mankind belong here in particular. This evens out in the course of a human life, so that a longer life in Devachan follows later.

[ 17 ] The other thing that should be mentioned is that there is a kind of counterpart to that experience which I have said takes place immediately after death, where man looks back on his past life as if on a tableau. This counterpart is a kind of preview of the following life on earth.

[ 18 ] First, let us recall how the retrospective comes about at the moment of death. You know that the etheric body has two main tasks: first, to stimulate all the vital functions of the physical body, that is, to protect the substance of the physical body from decay and to regulate the structure of this substance; but then the etheric body is the seat of memory. When the etheric body leaves the physical body at the moment of death, it is thus relieved of this first main task, and at the same moment the second property comes to the fore particularly strongly, namely, the memory of everything that the person had experienced in his past life. And that is precisely the life tableau. At that moment, therefore, the human being consists only of an etheric body, an astral body and the ego.

[ 19 ] When entering a new embodiment, it is now as follows: The I descends from the spiritual world with all the imperishable essences of the etheric and astral bodies acquired up to that time. First of all, it naturally draws together all the astral qualities corresponding to its previous development into its new astral body, and only then the etheric qualities in the same way. All this takes place in the first few days after conception, and it is only from the eighteenth to the twentieth day thereafter that the new etheric body works independently on the development of the physical human germ, while before that the etheric body of the mother carries out what is later to be done by the etheric body. It is only with this eighteenth to twentieth day after conception that the individuality, so to speak, which wants to embody itself and which until then has clothed its ego with a new astral body and etheric body, takes possession of the physical body formed by the mother until then.

[ 20 ] In the moment before this occupation takes place, the human being consists of exactly the same elements as in the moment of death; in the latter case, it has just shed the physical body at that moment, in the former case, it has not yet taken up the physical body. From this it will be easy for you to understand how, at the moment when a person enters his new physical body, something analogous occurs to the moment when he discards it. At that moment, the person then has a kind of preview of his coming life, just as at the moment of death he had a review of the past life. But man forgets this preview because the constitution of his physical body is not yet suited to retain this preview by memory.

[ 21 ] In this moment, man can see: These are the family circumstances, these are the national circumstances, these are the local circumstances and these are the fateful circumstances into which I am born. And sometimes it happens that when a person has learned at this moment of foresight that something bad is in store for him, he is shocked, frightened by the life that lies ahead of him, and then the etheric body does not properly unite with the physical body, does not want to enter it. And then in life the consequences of such a fright — this unwillingness of the etheric body to properly enter into the physical — one encounters in the form of idiocy. The spiritually discerning person can see the etheric body of such people protruding above the physical head. And because the etheric body is not properly integrated, the brain lags behind in its development because the etheric body is not working properly on the brain. Many cases of idiocy today are caused in this way.

[ 22 ] And it is very understandable that the present time is particularly prone to cases of this kind, considering that the majority of people who are re-embodied today went through their previous incarnation around the 9th to 11th century AD. By applying a kind of physical treatment, one can influence the etheric body in such a way that it gradually moves into the physical body, and one can thereby improve the conditions. But this is only possible for a person who can see through the facts of the case in their spiritual cause and then intervene in the right way.

[ 23 ] From the preceding considerations, we now know that the human being as a whole is composed of the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and the I. All these members are not merely nested within one another, but they all interpenetrate and interact. Thus, they all work on the physical body and collaborate with it in such a way that it can develop in the way it has to develop. If you have a person in front of you, you see only the physical body if you have not yet developed your higher organs of perception. But this physical body appears to you as it does only because the etheric body, the astral body and the I are incorporated in it, and because all of these have in their own way contributed to the formation of that physical body. Yet the physical organs of this human body have not been built up in a chaotic manner by the three higher members; rather, we can distinguish quite precisely how these three higher members participate in the building of the physical body. Let us try to visualize this.

[ 24 ] First of all, we have what are, in a sense, purely physical organs in this physical body. These are the ones that have purely physical laws as their basis, that is, eyes, ears, larynx and so on. The eye is certainly a living organ and receives its life from the etheric body that permeates and nourishes it; but from a purely physical point of view, it is a physical apparatus in which the same forces prevail as in inorganic nature, for example in crystals. We can therefore observe the effects of the eye according to purely physical laws. These sense organs must first work their way out of the physical body. They are precisely those organs that we recognize in the narrower sense as being built of physical forces according to physical laws. Then we have a second group of organs: these are the organs of nutrition, growth and reproduction, which culminate in glandular activity. The etheric body is essentially involved in the formation of these organs. Then, as a third group, we have the nervous system, which is particularly built up by the astral body. Fourthly, we have what is specifically the red blood of higher animals and humans: the red, warm blood is built by the I.

[ 25 ] So, first of all, we have the actual physical parts, the sense organs, although later we also have the purely mineral bone system, which is built by the physical body itself ; secondly, the glandular system, reproductive organs and so on, these are built up by the etheric body; thirdly, the nervous system is built up by the astral body; fourthly, the blood system is built up by the ego. We will understand this much more precisely if we look more at the development of the earth itself.

[ 26 ] You must realize that the law of reincarnation applies to the whole world and not just to human beings. I am here now, alive; I am the re-embodiment of my former state. But not only I myself as a human being, but in a certain way it is the same with everything else that fills the universe, and so, among other things, with the planet itself. Just as we ourselves are the re-embodiment of former individualities, so also, among other things, our earth is the re-embodiment of a former planetary state.

[ 27 ] One cannot follow these re-embodiments of our Earth backwards and forwards to infinity; even the best clairvoyant cannot see further than a certain re-embodiment backwards or forwards, since there are limits to even his knowledge. The clairvoyant can look back over three previous embodiments of our Earth, and can also see as far as the three that follow, so that, counting the present state of the Earth, he can see seven embodiments.

[ 28 ] Some people who hear this for the first time may find it somewhat superstitious that the spiritual seer places the earth, so to speak, right in the middle of this development, and one could say that this would be a strange arrangement. But this can only be said on the basis of superficial judgment, for it is no more strange than the fact that in an open field I can see everywhere equally far and that I find myself in the center of the horizon. We also stand in the indicated seven-part division of the human being with the I in the middle: physical body, etheric body, astral body, I, spirit self, life spirit, spiritual man. This is based on the same point of view.

[ 29 ] What I have to say about the planetary development of our earth will also surprise some and seem strange to them.

[ 30 ] Our Earth has therefore developed from an earlier planet. This planet, from which our Earth emerged, is no longer in the sky. But a piece of what once was is the present Moon; it represents a piece of the predecessor of our Earth. So if you were to mix together the present Earth and the present Moon and all the spiritual beings living on them, you would get a rough idea of the previous embodiment of the Earth, which the occultist calls the Moon. Now you must bear in mind that such a hypothesis is put forward merely to make the process easier for you to understand, but that, like all hypotheses, it is of course not entirely correct. If someone were to mix the present Earth and the present Moon together, as one might mix two substances in a retort in a chemical laboratory, the result would be very far from resembling the Moon of long ago. For you must bear in mind that since the moment when the Earth and the Moon separated from each other, both worlds, each in its own way, have continued to develop. For example, since the beginning of our present-day evolution on Earth, only what we call the solid substance, the mineral kingdom, has been formed in this earthly body. Minerals in the modern sense did not exist before the beginning of our evolution on Earth.

[ 31 ] When the Earth and Moon were mixed together, we would have to imagine that everything that developed in the period that followed was absent. The old Moon had no mineral substance in it. Its consistency was only that of a liquid porridge. As already mentioned, such a hypothesis has been put forward to make the matter somewhat understandable to people who have never heard of the planetary development of our Earth and our entire cosmos. A great deal more is needed for a deeper understanding of this development, but it cannot be touched upon in such an introductory cycle, which is covered bit by bit. This development will then be completed and illuminated over and over again from a new point of view.

[ 32 ] Before the earth went through this old moon state, it was in one that the occultist describes as “sun”. There our Earth went through conditions similar to those still present on the Sun today. And if we wanted to make the same assumption here, then it would become even more complicated. If you wanted to visualize the state, then you would have to mix the Earth, Moon and Sun, and then you would get a single world body as the former state of the Sun, but again with the same limitation as above for the Moon. So, in the further course of its development, this former sun has set all the parts of being, forces and substances of today's earth and moon out of itself, repelled them, and has thus become a fixed star out of a planet. Our earth will also become a sun one day when it has transformed all its beings into beings of light.

[ 33 ] Our Earth was therefore previously a moon, and that was previously a sun. And then man can look back on yet another state of development, which in occultism is referred to as Saturn. So we have to distinguish from the previous developmental states of our Earth: Saturn, Sun, Moon, as well as Earth, and in the future will follow: Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan states.

[ 34 ] Now someone might say: You are telling us that the Earth used to be Saturn, but Saturn is still in the sky today? — But Saturn, which used to be our Earth, has nothing to do with the planetary body that is now in the sky as Saturn. It is not to be said that the beings that are here on Earth today were once on Saturn, which is up in the sky. Today's Saturn has only something to do with the former state of Saturn, as has been indicated by the moon's state in the case of the moon. What appears as present-day Saturn has also undergone further development after this very distant time, and the earlier Saturn is to the present-day Saturn as a baby is to an old man. Present-day Saturn was also once in a state like the earlier Saturn, just as the old man was once a baby. It is the same with the sun and the other celestial bodies. And if today the spiritual researcher looks at Jupiter, he finds conditions and entities on Jupiter that the Earth will once have when it too has become Jupiter.

[ 35 ] This teaching comes from the most ancient initiates, and again and again the initiates have impressed this development on their disciples.

[ 36 ] Now our language, in those parts where it can be traced back to the most ancient times, was created by initiates. I cannot explain this in detail in such an introductory cycle, because it would lead us too far from the subject. But in ancient times, when the initiates still determined the formation of language, language was something different. Today, for example, people are likely to choose a name that may not yet have been taken but has no deeper meaning. In the past, on the other hand, names were given with a deep meaning based on the inner circumstances. Thus, a kind of monument was to be built as a reminder of the development of the earth through all these periods and planetary conditions. One has created, so to speak, a timeline so that humanity should always remember the phases of time. But if we are to understand this table, then we need to know something else.

[ 37 ] From the above sketch you can see that this Earth went through a Saturn, Sun and Moon existence before its Earth existence. But before the Earth became the present Earth, that is to say, during the transition from its existence as a moon to its present existence as an Earth, it was under the strong influence of another world body, namely, under the influence of Mars. This very important and extremely significant influence from Mars on the further development of the Earth occurred right at the beginning of our evolution. Incidentally, on this occasion the Earth received iron from Mars, which was not previously contained in the substance of the Earth. Thus, in its first development, the Earth received an influence from Mars, and in the second half, that is, now, it came under the stronger influence of Mercury. This is why occultism drops the term “Earth” and why the conditions on Earth are divided into two halves in occultism: the first, the Martian half, and the second, the Mercury half. This changes the previous scheme as follows: Saturn state, Sun state, Moon state, Mars-Mercury state, Jupiter state, Venus state and Vulcan state.

[ 38 ] Thus, the Vulcan state would be the eighth, and it plays the same role in development as the octave in music. Just as the octave is, so to speak, a repetition of the first note, only in a higher position, so the volcanic state is a repetition of the Saturn state, only in a higher development. The whole cosmos has developed out of the spiritual, and with the volcanic state, everything has again developed towards the spirit, only in a higher and more diverse development. From the one spirituality, an infinite number of spiritual beings have emerged, just as the same grains develop into a multitude of seeds when the farmer plants a seed in the earth and in autumn the ripe ear of corn appears. All that is mortal is but a parable.

[ 39 ] All these seven names have been incorporated by the ancient initiates into the monumental symbol of which I have just spoken, in memory of the earth's evolutionary process, and which is given to us in the names of the seven days of the week:

Saturday: Saturday, Samstag
Sunday
Moon Day
Mars Day: Mardi, Mars, Ziu, Dius, Tuesday
Mercury Day: Mercredi, Merkur, Wodan, Wednesday
Jupiter Day: Giovedi, Donar, Thursday
Venus Day: Vendredi, Venus, Freia, Friday

[ 40 ] In the names of the days of the week, we actually find a monument to the seven stages of our evolution on Earth. Thus, in the apparent ordinariness of everyday life, we find clues to deep spiritual connections.

[ 4142 ] And now you must also consider that the entire evolution of man is intimately connected with this planetary one. Indeed, the entire evolution of the human being can only be understood on the basis of the planetary evolution. Each link of the human being is intimately connected with one of these planetary phases of the earth's development, insofar as one of the links of the human being has been formed during each of these phases. The physical body was formed during the Saturnian period, the etheric body during the solar period, the astral body during the lunar period, and the I has only been incorporated into the human being during the terrestrial period. That is why the physical body is the most fully developed link to this day, while the ether body is only in the third stage of development, having been laid down on the old sun; the astral body is only in the second stage, since it was only laid down during the moon state, and the I is the baby among the human beings, because it is only at the beginning of its development during today's earthly state.

[ 42 ] A pointer for what has just been said is readily available if we look at the four limbs of the human being: their development.

[ 43 ] In the early years of the Theosophical Society, much work was done with the terms “higher” and “lower” members, whereby the physical body was designated as the lowest link; and very often the concept of value was associated with this. And all too often people were inclined to regard the physical body as the most inferior, even to despise it. But that is completely wrong.

[ 44 ] Take a close look at this miracle of the physical body; then it will be readily apparent to you that it stands at an enormously high level of perfection, whereas, for example, this is not at all the case with the etheric body. When you look at the physical body with the eyes of wisdom, you see a miracle in every organ of this physical body, in the heart, in the bones and so on. Just look at the wise construction of the heart and consider what this relatively small organ does every day and every hour. In contrast to this, consider the still relatively inadequate training of the astral body: how unrefined passions still stir daily in this astral body, how, among other things, a person still feels a daily longing for pleasures whose satisfaction almost maltreats this miracle of the heart, and yet the heart is able to paralyze all this astral damage without breaking, and often without even being damaged. Today, therefore, the astral body is not yet as highly developed as the physical body; today the physical body is the most perfect link. In the future, however, the astral body will be so far advanced that it will surpass the physical body. The etheric body is less developed than the physical body today, and the astral body is in third place. And the youngest among the members of the human being is the ego; therefore it will be the last to reach perfection.

[ 45 ] So everything that you have in the physical body as the actual physical is the oldest of all. Our physical body has already undergone a development before an ether body was incorporated. And this development, which the physical body has only undergone as a physical body, that is the Saturn phase. At that time, the first predisposition of this physical body was only a physical apparatus. This then developed further, and it was only on the sun that the ether body was incorporated into this physical body. This ether body, so to speak, filled this physical body and transformed it to a certain extent. During the lunar phase, the astral body is added, and the ego was only added at the beginning of our present earthly state. Today, the human being exists as a four-part entity. During the lunar phase, he consisted of a physical, etheric and astral body; during the solar phase, of a physical and etheric body; and during the Saturn phase, of a physical body alone. Thus the physical body has four, the etheric body three, the astral body two, and the ego the first phase of development. But that is why the physical body is the most perfect link, because it is the one on which work has been longest in duration.

[ 46 ] So you see how the individual members of the human being are connected with the development of the entire planetary system. And that is why you will also find in old occult books the term

for the physical body: Saturn body
for the etheric body: sun body
for the astral body: moon body
for the I: earth body, as the actual
earth link of the human being.

[ 47 ] Tomorrow we will follow the formation and the whole life of Saturn, and will then move on to the sun and the moon. We will then see how human beings become more and more perfect, up to their present state.