The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. Complex Questions of Reincarnation

How can what the initiates have achieved be preserved for the future?

[ 1 ] We will discuss some intimate questions of reincarnation that can only be discussed in a branch of prepared anthroposophists. This does not merely mean that such anthroposophists should be theoretically prepared, but that they have developed their sensitivity through their collaboration in a branch. For we all remember that through this collaboration changes have taken place in our feelings and emotions for the truth. What we now not only believe, but regard as standing above all belief [as true], was also unbelievable to us in the past and is still fantastic, nonsense, and a dream for those who are far away. The fact that we have become accustomed to really living in these views is the sign of the more advanced, and the more advanced can then approach the consideration of special questions. Some of what is said here seems far-fetched; and yet all these things are enlightening for life and its manifestations, even though we must first go back far into distant periods of human evolution. We must start from the premise of placing ourselves before our soul as the process of reincarnation generally presents itself.

[ 2 ] When a person passes through the gate of death, they first have certain experiences. The first experience is that they feel as if they are growing larger, as if they are growing out of their skin. They then gain a different view of things than they had before in physical life. In the physical world, every thing has its specific place, here or there, outside the observer. In this new world, however, it is different. It is as if the person is inside [the things], as if they are extended with or within the things, whereas before they were only a member in their place. The second experience consists in the fact that the person has a tableau of memories of their past life, that all the events of their life appear in comprehensive memory. This lasts for a very specific period of time. For reasons that cannot be explained today, this period is longer or shorter depending on the individual. In general, the duration of this state can be determined by how long a person was able to remain awake in their past life without being overcome by sleep. Assuming that the maximum time a person can remain awake is forty-eight hours, then the tableau of memories also lasts forty-eight hours after death. This stage is like an overview of the last life.

[ 3 ] Then the etheric body emerges from the astral body in which the ego lives. Until now, all three were connected after the physical corpse had been left behind; now the etheric body also emerges and becomes the etheric corpse. However, in no human being today is the etheric body completely discarded, but rather the human being takes an extract or essence from their etheric body with them for the entire time that follows. So the etheric corpse is discarded, but the fruit of the last life is taken along by the astral body and the I. To be completely accurate, one must say that something is also taken from the physical body: a kind of spiritual extract of this body — the tincture of the medieval mystics. But this extract of the physical is the same in all lives; it only represents the fact that the I was embodied. The essence of the etheric body, on the other hand, is different in all lives, depending on the experiences gathered in it, depending on how much or how little progress has been made.

[ 4 ] This is followed by the Kamaloka state, the time of weaning from physical, sensual life, which lasts about one third of the physical lifetime. When the etheric body is discarded, the astral body still has all the passions, desires, and so on that it had at the end of life; these must now be weaned away, purified, and this is Kamaloka. Then the astral body is also discarded. Here, too, the fruit, the astral essence, is taken along, while the rest, the astral corpse, dissolves into the astral world. And now the human being enters Devachan, where he prepares himself in the spiritual world for a new, future life. Here he lives with spiritual events and beings until he is called back into the physical world, either because his karma requires it or because he is needed on the physical earth.

[ 5 ] This is a general description of the process. But life in the spiritual world progresses constantly, in that the future is linked to the past, and what is to come is built up with the help of what has gone before. If we go into how this happens in detail, wonderful things are revealed, many things that are not contained in the simple description of the process of reincarnation. It is clear that there are great differences in the course of human development, that the extracts or essences of their bodies will also be of very different value, depending on whether they have drawn this or that fruit from life. And when we remember that there are great leaders of humanity, initiates who introduce other people into the spiritual worlds, we must ask ourselves: How is what the initiates have achieved preserved for the future? External history cannot, of course, provide any information about this. We must take a closer look at the reincarnation of the initiates, beginning with the oldest initiates, in order to then apply the results.

[ 6 ] Before humanity inhabited the present continents, the physiognomy of the Earth was completely different. Where the Atlantic Ocean is today, there once existed the continent of Atlantis. This was then destroyed by great catastrophes, which are recorded in the flood legends of various peoples. The Atlanteans – that is, we ourselves – had their great leaders and initiates, and even at that time there were places of learning or schools where the initiates taught. These can be researched today through clairvoyance. We then see that there were a number of such places where the leaders taught and lived. A good name for these is “oracles.” One of the largest and most important oracles was the Sun Oracle. The most important leader lived there. His main task was to give revelations about the secrets of the sun; not the physical sun, for that is only the outer aspect, but the real sun. This real sun consists of spiritual beings who use the physical sun as humans use the earth. To see and reveal the inner secrets of this solar existence was the task of the great sun oracle. For him, sunlight was not simply something physical, but every ray of sunlight is the deed of spiritual beings who have their theater on the sun. At the time of ancient Atlantis, these great beings were still exclusively on the sun. Later, this changed when the great being who was later called Christ united with the earth. The sun oracle can therefore also be called the Christ oracle. The union of the Christ being with the Earth took place when the blood of Christ Jesus flowed on Golgotha. There, his being united with the atmosphere of the Earth, as can still be perceived today in clairvoyant retrospect. Thus the Christ being came from the sun to the earth. When the light of spiritual enlightenment fell on Saul-Paul at Damascus, Paul saw Christ united with the earth and knew at the same time that it was he who had shed his blood on Golgotha.

[ 7 ] The sun oracle of ancient Atlantis already pointed to the coming Christ. It prophesied the coming of the sun god, who was not called Christ until much later, but we can nevertheless refer to the sun oracle as the Christ oracle. These oracles had many followers in later times; there were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, and Vulcan oracles, each with its own great mysteries and teachings. Towards the end of the Atlantean era, a group of advanced individuals developed near present-day Ireland, from among whom the greatest leader chose a number of people to continue the culture through them when the impending catastrophe would occur. Meanwhile, long ago, great migrations had taken place to the rising lands of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in these lands many successors to the ancient oracles arose, but they became increasingly less important. The great leader, however, chose the best of them to lead to a special land. They were simple, unassuming people and differed from most other Atlanteans in that they had almost completely lost their clairvoyance. The majority of Atlanteans were still clairvoyant. When they fell asleep at night, they did not lose consciousness, but the sensory world disappeared and in its place arose the spiritual world, in which they were then companions of the divine-spiritual beings. The more advanced ones, however, had begun to develop their intellect. But they were simple, deeply warm-hearted, and deeply devoted to their leader. With them he moved eastward, to the interior of Asia, and there he founded the center for post-Atlantean culture. The group was kept away from the other living people, who were unsuitable for this task. The education of the descendants was cultivated with particular care. It was only in these descendants that the qualities developed which enabled them to become great teachers. This was achieved in a mysterious way. What was necessary was prepared in order to carry over all that was good in the Atlantean culture into the new race, so that a new, progressive culture could be initiated. This was the task of the Manu, the great leader, for the wise men who lived at the lesser oracles could not do this. It was preserved by the Manu from the great oracle sages, what we call the etheric body. While this etheric body otherwise dissolves as a second corpse, as we have seen, in certain cases it was preserved. The greatest of these oracle sages had worked so much into their etheric bodies that they were too valuable to be absorbed into the general etheric world. Therefore, the seven best etheric bodies of the seven greatest sages were preserved until the Manu had trained the seven best of his followers to such an extent that they were suitable for these etheric bodies. Only the etheric body of the great initiate of the Christ Oracle was treated differently from the others in a certain respect. These seven sages, the seven great Rishis, who had received the seven etheric bodies of the greatest initiates, went to India and became the great founders of Indian culture, the seven great teachers.

[ 8 ] This ancient, sacred culture of the pre-Vedic period originated with the seven rishis who carried the preserved etheric bodies of the initiates of the Venus, Mars, Jupiter oracles, and so on. In them, so to speak, there was an imprint of those initiates, a repetition of their abilities. Outwardly, they were very simple and unassuming. Their great significance was not outwardly apparent. Nor was their intellect on the same lofty level as their prophecies. They were not scholars, they were not as highly regarded for their judgment as some others, even deeper than many people today. Their astral body and ego were their own, only the etheric body was given to them by those great sages. But in inspired moments they were seized, as it were, by these oracle beings; the etheric body was then active, and they were merely instruments through which that ancient wisdom—the Vedas—was proclaimed, which is far too difficult, indeed incomprehensible, for people today. This is how the ancient wisdom of the ancient oracles was revealed. Only the Sun or Christ Oracle could not be fully revealed in this way. Only a reflection of the wisdom of the Sun could be handed down, for it was so high that even the holy Rishis could not attain it.

[ 9 ] Here we see that reincarnation does not always and generally proceed as smoothly as is often assumed, but when an etheric body is particularly valuable, something like a model, to express it figuratively, is preserved and then given to a later human being. And this case is not so rare. Some simple people can have a very valuable etheric body, and this is saved. Not all etheric bodies simply dissolve again, but those that are particularly useful are transferred to other people. And it is by no means the same “I” that receives this preserved etheric body or astral body, but a different ego that has nothing to do with the “I” that previously had the etheric body. This easily gives rise to great deception when a person's past is investigated with imperfect clairvoyant means. Therefore, occult theories about people's past lives are often completely wrong, just as it would be completely wrong to say that the seven Rishis are the same egos as the initiates whose etheric bodies they have.

[ 10 ] However, much in human development only becomes clear when one knows such things; only then does it become understandable how what has once been achieved is preserved and remains part of the household of nature. Thus, the highest achievements of Atlantean culture were saved for us through the transmission of these seven etheric bodies.

[ 11 ] Another example should be given here, which could not be discussed earlier. Let us go back to ancient Persian times, the period of the Zarathustra culture. We see an important period in it because it is the first post-Atlantean period in which the physical world was more conquered. In the Indian period, the longing for the spiritual still prevailed. The spiritual world was the real world for those people; they felt like strangers in the physical world, which they saw as temporary, illusory, Maya. In prehistoric Persian culture, this changed through the teachings of Zarathustra, that is, the actual or first Zarathustra, for there were many of them. His task as a leader was to point people to the physical plane, to make inventions, to manufacture instruments and tools to conquer this physical world. This was necessary. Man had to learn to recognize the physical as something important for him. But the tempter tells them that the physical is the only thing that exists, that only the earthly exists. And Zarathustra teaches that this is wrong, that behind everything physical there is the spiritual, just as the physical sun is the outer sign of the great sun being, the spiritual-divine, the great aura, Ahura Mazdao, Ormuzd. This being is now physically invisible and far away from Earth on the sun. But, says Zarathustra, one day it will become apparent; later on, it will also appear on Earth, just as it is now on the sun.

[ 12 ] He initiated his most intimate disciples into these mysteries, and to two of them in particular he gave the deepest teachings. He trained one of them excellently in everything concerning the power of judgment, in the sciences, astronomy, and astrology, in agriculture, and other things. He transferred all this to this one disciple, and this was made possible by a process or procedure between them, which is a secret. This prepared the disciple so that in his next incarnation he could carry the astral body of his teacher. This reincarnated disciple with the astral body of his teacher is Hermes. Hermes was the great teacher and sage of the Egyptian mysteries. Hermes is born with Zarathustra's astral body, thereby becoming the bearer of great wisdom.

[ 13 ] The second intimate disciple was taught the things that are particularly expressed in the etheric body, i.e., deeper qualities. In his next incarnation, this disciple received the etheric body of Zarathustra. The religious documents tell us things that can only be understood through these explanations. The disciple had to revive in a very special way at his rebirth; the etheric body had to be strong before the astral body could revive. This was achieved through what was connected with the birth of Moses, for he is the reborn disciple. The fact that he was placed in a box and laid in the water, and so on, had the purpose of completely awakening the etheric body as a child. This enabled Moses to look back in memory to times long past, to write down the Genesis of the earth in pictures, to read in the Akashic Records. Thus one sees, as it were, behind the scenes, the workings of those forces through which everything of value is preserved and used.

[ 14 ] There are other examples from later times. In the 15th century, there lived a remarkable personality: Nicholas of Cusa. Here we see the remarkable case that this man, in his research, prepared the entire teaching of Copernicus in the 16th century, so to speak. Although it is not yet as mature in his books as it is in Copernicus, it is nevertheless contained in all its essentials, a fact which is completely inexplicable to ordinary research. In fact, the astral body of Cusanus was transferred to Copernicus, although Copernicus' ego was completely different from that of Cusanus. This gave Copernicus the foundations, all the preparations for his teachings.

[ 15 ] Similar cases occur frequently. What is particularly valuable is always preserved; nothing is lost. But of course, this often leads to confusion, especially when the previous lives of a person are to be investigated through spiritualistic mediums. The transfer from the etheric or astral body to later human beings now usually happens in such a way that when an astral body is transferred, it remains within the same people—linguistically speaking; but an etheric body can go to another people.

[ 16 ] Another characteristic case is the following. When a pioneering personality dies, the etheric body is always preserved. There are artificial methods for this, which have always been known in the secret schools. For certain purposes in modern times, it was important that Galileo's etheric body be preserved. He was the great reformer of mechanical physics; he accomplished tremendous things. One can even say that without his discoveries, many purely practical achievements of modern times would not have been possible, because all advances in technology are based on Galileo's science. The Gotthard and Simplon tunnels were only made possible by Leibniz, Newton, and Galileo, who developed the sciences of integral and differential calculus, mechanics, and so on. It would therefore have been a waste in the economy of nature if Galileo's ether body, the “carrier of his memory and abilities,” had been lost. So this ether body was transferred to another human being. He came from a poor farming village and later became the creator of Russian grammar and classical literature: Mikhail Lomonosov. But he is not the reincarnated Galileo, as superficial research might suggest.

[ 17 ] We thus find that such cases are numerous and that the process of reincarnation is not as simple as is generally assumed. Therefore, much greater caution must be exercised when people use occult means to investigate their previous incarnations. In many cases, it is nothing but childishness when people claim or imagine that they are the reincarnation of so-and-so, perhaps Nero, Napoleon, Beethoven, or Goethe. This is, of course, silly and reprehensible. But the matter is much more dangerous when advanced occultists make mistakes in this regard, perhaps imagining that they are the rebirth of this or that person, when in reality they only have their etheric body. Then this is not only a mistake – which is regrettable in and of itself – but the person then lives under the influence of this false idea, and this has downright devastating effects. The entire soul development takes a wrong turn because of this illusion.

[ 18 ] We see, then, that not only do the egos reincarnate, but that the lower members also undergo a similar process in a certain sense. This gives the entire process of reincarnation a much more complicated form than is usually assumed. Thus we see that the ego of Zarathustra reincarnates as Zarathas-Nazarathos, who became the teacher of Pythagoras. His astral body reappears in Hermes and his etheric body in Moses. Nothing is lost in the world; everything is preserved and transferred, provided it is valuable enough.