Karma and Reincarnation, Page 6

After its Midnight hour, the soul is compelled to return to Earth to redress remaining karma, and the long descent to reincarnation begins; the soul journeys back through all the regions visited in its ascent, gathering in each the fruits of its sojourn there. From the highest levels to the lowest the Hierarchies work in fashioning the necessary bodies to accomplish the tasks settled upon. We have said that the fruits of the last life were preserved in an extract of both the etheric and astral bodies. These remain at the etheric and astral levels and rejoin the descending soul upon its return, supplemented with what else may be necessary. It is sobering to reflect how the Bible hints of these extracts and their higher spiritual components (Manna and the like). We may infer such from the parables of the “Talents” (Mt 25,14-30; Lk 19,12-27) as well as the Sermon on the Mount admonition to lay up “treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Mt 6,19-21).

In OS, Chap. 3, Steiner tells us of the soul’s return journey to another earthly life, starting near the completion of its sojourn in higher devachan:

After death, the ego is immersed in this world, together with the harvest that it brings with it from its life in the sense world. This harvest is still united with that part of the astral body that has not been thrown off at the end of the period of purification. . . . The immersion of the ego in the spiritual world, together with what it has acquired in the sense world, may be compared with the insertion of a seed into the ripening earth. Just as this seed draws substances and forces from its environment in order to develop into a new plant, so, too, unfolding and growth is the very essence of the ego being embedded in the world of the spirit.—Within what an organ perceives lies hidden the force by means of which the organ itself is created.

Thus is the eye created by light, the physical body by the forces of the physical world, the ether body by those of the life world, and the astral body by those of the astral world. After death the human soul enters these regions where it perceives those forces in their own previously concealed form.

The human being is now ready to be recreated for its next incarnation. Spiritual beings of these regions work with this “Seed” so as to build it up anew as a spiritual being. “All that streams toward the ego from the spirit world now becomes not only a perfecter, but a recreator. After a certain length of time ... an astral body has formed itself around the ego.... Up to the time of reforming a new astral body, man is a witness of his own recreation. Since the powers of the spirit land do not reveal themselves to him by means of outer organs, but from within, like his own ego in self-consciousness, he is able to perceive this revelation as long as his mind is not yet directed to an outwardly perceptible world.” But the moment the astral body is formed the Ego’s attention is turned outward in search of an external ether and physical body, and thereby “turns away from the revelations of the inner world. For this reason an intermediate state now begins, during which man [the Ego] sinks into unconsciousness. Consciousness can only reappear in the physical world when the necessary organs for physical perception have been formed. . . . Only an ego that has of itself produced life spirit and spirit man, the hidden, creative forces in the ether and physical bodies, would be able to take part consciously in the attachment of these two members.” Until then, more advanced spiritual beings direct their attachment, leading the astral body to certain parents. But “before the attachment of the ether body is complete, something extraordinarily significant occurs.” Those hindrancesto the Ego that it experienced in reverse order after death reappear to “confront the ego anew.” But instead of a past life, the Ego now sees a prevision tableau of its coming life showing “all the hindrances [it] must remove if [its] evolution is to make further progress. What [it] thus sees becomes the starting point of forces that [it] must carry with [it] into a new life.” Thus we see the working of the law of destiny (i.e., karma).