24. On the Relationship Between the Physical and the Supersensible Essence of Man

Question: “Does it not contradict the doctrine of reincarnation that a person's mental abilities decrease during his life? It does happen that brilliant people become mentally deficient in old age. Which spirit then incarnates again: the highly developed one of their mature age, or the mentally deficient one of their old age?”

The answer to this question presupposes that one has a correct idea of the relationship between the physical (sensory) and the supersensible essence of man. The physical essence is subject to physical laws. During its embodiment, the human spirit can only accomplish that which these physical laws allow. If, due to the laws of the body, the spirit is no longer able to function in the same way as it was able to in an earlier period of life, this is because its body has become a less suitable medium for its spirit. Let us assume that we are dealing with a brilliant teacher. He teaches a very talented boy. He will probably achieve a result that will astonish the world. Later, an ungifted boy will be entrusted to him. The same ingenious art of education will only achieve an effect that is far below the first. And this decrease in effect can also occur if the first boy is later no longer able to absorb what his teacher has to offer in the same way as before due to an illness. Does this mean that the teacher's pedagogical art has become less? Will he not, as soon as he has the opportunity, be able to reach the full height of his work again? It is no different with the human spirit in relation to the body. It is the body that ages; and only the aged body is no longer able to express what the spirit has given it. As soon as this spirit has the opportunity to do so again in a subsequent incarnation, it will also be at the height of its powers. Now, our questioner will say: but the old man who has become feeble-minded would then at least have his former powers within him, even if he cannot express them. This too need not be the case. For the consciousness of our self is also dependent on the laws of our body. We are never fully conscious of our spirit, but only to the extent that the laws of our present embodiment allow. One must clearly distinguish between what one is and what one recognizes of oneself at any given time. What one is is one eternally; what one recognizes of oneself at any given time depends just as much on the (temporal) laws of embodiment as what one recognizes of the outside world. If, due to the deterioration of my body, I no longer have the ability to control the outside world as I used to, then I also no longer have the other ability to control myself in the same way. But because this ability is only taken from me by facts that are not in my mind but outside of it, I will have it again as soon as I no longer live in unsuitable but in suitable external laws in a new embodiment. The contradiction that is to be interpreted by the above question does not lie in the field of spiritual facts themselves, but only in the prejudices that materialism brings to bear against theosophy.