When the etheric body is detached from the individual after death, something of it nevertheless remains for man's whole subsequent development; this may be described as an extract, or the essence of it. This extract contains the result of the past life, and is the vehicle of all that which, during man's spiritual development between death and a new birth, unfolds like a germ for the following life.
The duration of time between death and a new birth is determined by the fact that the ego, as a rule, returns to the physical sense-world only when that world has been so transformed that the ego can experience something new. During its sojourn in spiritual regions, its dwelling place on earth undergoes a change. But this change is connected with the great changes in the universe, with changes in the constellation of the earth, sun and so forth. These are changes in which certain repetitions take place, in connection with new conditions. They find an external expression in the fact, for example, that the point in the vault of heaven at which the sun rises at the beginning of spring makes a complete circuit in the course of about twenty-six thousand years. Hence this vernal point, in the course of the period mentioned, moves from one region of the [pg 409] heavens to another. In the course of the twelfth part of that time, that is to say, in about twenty-one hundred years, conditions on the earth have changed sufficiently for the human soul to experience something new upon it since its previous incarnation. However, since the experiences of an individual vary according to whether he is incarnated as a woman or as a man, there are, as a rule, two incarnations within the time stated, one as a man and one as a woman. But these things are also dependent upon the nature of the forces which man carries with him from his earthly existence through death. Therefore all the statements given here are to be taken only in a general sense, but can be subject to the greatest variations in special cases.
The Course Of Human Life
Man's life, as it manifests itself in the sequence of events between birth and death, can be fully understood only by taking into account both the physical body with its senses and the changes undergone by man's supersensible principles. Occult science views those changes in the following manner. Physical birth is seen to be the detachment of the human being from its maternal covering. Forces which before birth the embryo shared in common with its mother's body, are present independently in the child after birth. But in later life supersensible events, similar to those of the sense-world at physical birth, become perceptible to supersensible observation. That is, the etheric body of the human being up to the change [pg 410] of teeth (the sixth or seventh year) is still enveloped in an etheric sheath. The etheric sheath falls away at that period, and then the “birth” of the etheric body occurs. But man is still surrounded by an astral sheath, which falls away between its twelfth and sixteenth year (at the time of puberty). This is the “birth” of the astral body; and at a still later period the real ego is born.[33]
Now after the birth of the ego, man lives in such a way that he adapts himself to the conditions of the world and of life, and occupies himself within them, in accordance with the principles active through his ego,—the sentient,- the intellectual- and the consciousness-soul. Then there comes a time in which the etheric body retraces the process of its development from the seventh year onward, in reverse order. At first the astral body has so developed itself that it unfolds that which was present within it at birth as a germ. After the birth of the ego, this astral body enriches itself by experiencing the outer world. Finally, at a definite time, it begins to nourish itself spiritually by consuming its own etheric body; it actually lives upon the etheric body. The decay of the physical body in old age is a consequence of this.
The course of human life therefore falls into three divisions: a time of unfoldment for the physical and [pg 411] etheric bodies, then one in which the astral body and the ego develop, and lastly that in which the etheric and physical bodies are changed back again. But the astral body plays a part in all the events that take place between birth and death. Since it is really born in a spiritual sense only between the twelfth and sixteenth years and must, during man's declining years, draw upon the forces of the etheric and physical bodies, that which it is able to perform by its own powers will develop more slowly than if it were not within a physical and an etheric body. After death, when the physical and etheric bodies have fallen away, evolution, during the time of purification, proceeds in such a manner that it occupies about one-third of the duration of life between birth and death.
The Higher Regions Of The Spiritual World
By imagination, inspiration, and intuition, supersensible cognition gradually ascends into those regions of the spiritual world within which it can reach the beings who have to do with human and cosmic evolution. And thus it also becomes possible to trace human evolution between death and a new birth in such a way that it becomes comprehensible. Now there are still higher regions of existence, which can only be briefly indicated here. When supersensible cognition has risen to intuition, it lives in a world of spiritual beings. These too, are evolving. That which concerns humanity of the present day extends upward, in a certain sense, as far as the [pg 412] world of intuition. True, man receives impulses from yet higher worlds in the course of his evolution between death and re-birth. But he does not experience these impulses directly; they are brought to him by beings belonging to the spiritual world. And if these are considered, everything that happens reveals itself to man. But the special conditions of these beings, that which they themselves require in order to guide human evolution, can only be observed by means of a cognition that transcends intuition. We thus have a glimpse of worlds which we must so picture that within them the most highly spiritual features of the earth are there among the lowest. Logical decisions, for example, count among the highest things within the earthly sphere; while the activities of the mineral kingdom are among the lowest. Now in those higher spheres, logical decisions correspond to about what the mineral activities are on earth. Above the domain of intuition, lies the region in which the cosmic plan is woven out of spiritual causes.
The Principles Of Man