Reincarnation

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Reincarnation, rebirth or palingenesis (composed of Greek: πάλιν pálin "again" and γένεσις génesis "generation, birth") means that man as an individual spiritual being descends several times in the course of its development to physical forms of existence, between which there is a purely spiritual existence. The destiny (Sanskrit: Karma) in later earthly incarnations is essentially determined by the deeds in earlier earthly lives. According to the anthroposophical view, it is the immortal individual spirit, the I of man, that reincarnates and, apart from exceptional cases[1], not the largely perishable soul, which after death scatters to an imperishable remnant in the general astral world and has to be rebuilt anew and with different qualities for the next earthly incarnation. The personal immortality - the consciousness of the personality that lasts beyond death - was only attained by man through the consciousness soul, insofar as it is already directed towards the spiritual and thus already forms a unity with the immortal spirit self (Manas). The doctrine of the reincarnation of the spirit must therefore be strictly distinguished from the transmigration of the soul or metempsychosis. The body is subject to heredity, the soul to self-created destiny and the spirit continues to develop through successive incarnations.

Foundations

According to Rudolf Steiner, a clear awareness of reincarnation only existed until about 1860 B.C. After that, it was only present as an increasingly dull, instinctive feeling that eventually disappeared completely into the darkness of the subconscious for large parts of humanity, namely Europe. To reawaken the consciousness of reincarnation was one, if not the central task of Rudolf Steiner's life. (Lit.: Meyer, Preface to the new edition, II)

„In pre-Christian times reincarnation existed as a feeling, for it was a realisation only before the year 1860 before Christianity; after the year 1860 it was only an instinctive feeling throughout Egypt, in Near Eastern, Roman times. Now, however, the time is coming when the conception of man as a spiritual being undergoing a development between death and a new birth will become a living feeling, a living sensation, when one must live in the conception of the supernatural significance of human souls. For without this conception the culture of the earth will be killed. One will not be able to develop a practical activity in the future without looking up to the spiritual significance of the fact that every human being is a spiritual being.“ (Lit.:GA 196, p. 161f)

In the essay «Reinkarnation und Karma, vom Standpunkte der modernen Naturwissenschaft notwendige Vorstellungen» ("Reincarnation and Karma, from the standpoint of modern natural science necessary conceptions") (Lit.:GA 34, p. 67ff), written in 1903, Rudolf Steiner makes it clear that the doctrine of reincarnation necessarily arises if the natural scientific doctrine of evolution is consistently continued and also applied to the soul sphere.

„One either drops the whole natural-scientific theory of evolution, or one admits that it must be extended to soul evolution. There are only two possibilities: either every soul is created by a miracle, as the animal species must have been created by miracles, if they have not developed apart; or the soul has developed and has existed in a different form before, as the animal species existed in a different form.“ (Lit.:GA 34, p. 85)

The individuality of man, his I, which manifests itself through his unique, unmistakable biography, can be explained neither by heredity nor by external influences, such as education.

„As a physical human being, I am descended from other physical human beings, for I have the same form as the whole human species. The characteristics of the species could therefore be acquired within the species through heredity. As a spiritual human being, I have my own form, just as I have my own biography. I can therefore have this form from no one else but myself. And since I did not enter the world with indeterminate but with determinate mental endowments, since my path through life, as expressed in my biography, is determined by these endowments, my work on myself cannot have begun at my birth. I must have existed as a spiritual human being before my birth. I certainly did not exist in my ancestors, for they are different from me as spiritual human beings. My biography cannot be explained from theirs. Rather, as a spiritual being, I must be the repetition of one from whose biography mine can be explained. The other conceivable case would be that I owe the development of what is the content of my biography only to a spiritual life before birth (or conception). But one would only be justified in this idea if one wanted to assume that what affects the human soul from the physical environment is the same as what the soul has from a purely spiritual world. Such an assumption contradicts really exact observation. For what is determinative for the human soul from this physical environment is such that it acts like something experienced later in physical life on something experienced in the same way earlier. In order to observe these conditions correctly, one must acquire a view of how there are effective impressions in human life which affect the soul's dispositions in the same way as standing before a deed to be performed in relation to what one has already practised in physical life; only that such impressions do not meet with what has already been practised in this immediate life, but with soul dispositions which allow themselves to be impressed in the same way as the abilities acquired through practice. He who sees through these things comes to the idea of earth-lives which must have preceded the present one. He cannot stop thinking with purely spiritual experiences before this earth-life. - The physical form that Schiller carried with him, he inherited from his ancestors. But as little as this physical form can have grown out of the Earth, so little can Schiller's spiritual being be. He must be the repetition of another spiritual entity, from whose biography his own can be explained, just as Schiller's physical human form can be explained through human reproduction. - Just as the physical human form is again and again a repetition, a re-embodiment of the human species, so the spiritual man must be a re-embodiment of the same spiritual man. For as a spiritual human being, each one is a species of his own.

One may object to what has been said here: these are mere statements of thought; and one may demand external proofs, as one is accustomed to in ordinary natural science. On the other hand, it must be said that the re-embodiment of the spiritual man is a process which does not belong to the field of external physical facts, but one which takes place entirely in the spiritual field. And no other of our ordinary spiritual powers has access to this field than thinking alone. He who does not trust the power of thought cannot enlighten himself about higher spiritual facts. - To him whose spiritual eye is opened, the above trains of thought act with exactly the same force as a process which takes place before his physical eye. He who grants more persuasive power to a so-called "proof" constructed according to the method of ordinary scientific knowledge than to the above remarks on the significance of biography, may be a great scientist in the ordinary sense of the word: but he is very far away from the paths of genuine spiritual research.“ (Lit.:GA 9, p. 72ff)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

References

  1. ↑ Cf. also the Principle of Spiritual Economy
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