Supplements to Member Lectures
GA 246 — 25 February 1913, Mannheim
55. On Life Between Death and New Birth
Theosophy should not become theory, but the elixir of life, and it will become that if one recognizes its effects.
A man dies; a seer gets in touch with him and learns that this man is unhappy because he can no longer connect with his still living wife, whom he loved very much on earth. The connection cannot be established because the woman has not awakened in herself the higher life to which Theosophy is supposed to lead.
Two people live together; one is a Theosophist, the other fights Theosophy, but precisely because he fights it, a longing for Theosophical knowledge lives within him. The latter dies. The former can read to the deceased from Theosophical writings and thereby help him.
People who were unscrupulous here must serve the spirits in Kamaloka who bring illness and death to people. People who were mendacious here must serve the evil spirits.
Christian Rosenkreutz made an agreement with Buddha that he would give up his work on earth and ascend to Mars to work there as the Prince of Peace, where he underwent a kind of crucifixion. From there he also helps human souls when they have to pass through the sphere of Mars.
In the sphere of the Moon, Mercury, Venus and so on, man, when he passes by, buries his deeds, his virtues and mistakes between death and new birth; they are written there until they can be erased again after atonement.
People who are suddenly torn from life by misfortune form the succor for the good spirits who counteract the evil spirits just mentioned. If someone wanted to take their own life in order to help the good spirits, it would be pointless. The sacrifice would not be accepted. - Only external misfortune can bring this about. Even people who die young, suddenly, not through old age, help the good spirits.
After death, the soul grows up to the planets; for re-embodiment, it then becomes smaller and smaller until it becomes a small sphere, which then incarnates at conception.
The fairy tale of the stork was quite good; and the enlightenment endeavor is quite inclined to explain the becoming of man materially only. The fairy tales said that a child cannot come into being solely from what the father and mother could give. At one time, all people knew about repeated earthly lives. This knowledge must have been lost to them. Now Theosophy is bringing this knowledge back and giving many people the redemptive feeling that comes from remembering something valuable that you could not remember with all your efforts.
The moment is shattering for the seer to see when a person has discarded everything that still connected him to his previous life on earth and looks forward to the future and a new birth. But a soul trained by theosophy will not have to go through this great pain, because it approaches a new life with knowledge.
A saying of Luther's: When I am angry, I can preach best - means: Suppressed, defeated anger descends into the subconscious and comes up as love.