Theosophy and Occultism

GA 90c — 18 September 1903, Berlin

V. Embryology, Sexual Reproduction

I was asked a very pertinent question: When and how does the union of the ego, the actual human self, with its various bodies take place?

In answering this question, I am obliged to go back a long way. This is because I want to give the answer in line with the latest ideas of today's science in order to show the harmony of science with the theosophical wisdom.

The moment in which the soul settles in the body, that is the moment after I was asked. Let us use a comparison when answering this question. The comparison between a house and its inhabitants, that is, between body and soul. It is quite clear that the inhabitant will adapt the house according to his occupation. But the house also depends on the foundation on which it is built. It can also be destroyed by laws that have nothing to do with the occupant. For example, by the weather. It is the same with our body in relation to its soul. Body and soul are each subject to their own laws. Body and soul are related to each other like house and occupant. They only go through each other for a time. Form and design are formed according to needs, for example, according to the occupation.

From a theosophical point of view, we cannot just consider external laws. We also have to ask ourselves: How is the house prepared? When does the body become capable of being a shell? How does the soul develop up to the point in time when it takes possession of the physical house?

If we look at the theosophical literature today, it does not give us any information about the state of the soul before birth. But the research of natural science about the way the house, how the bodies are built, is in an important stage. Physical science accommodates us more and more every day. But the results of science are uncertain in many ways, and they bring many new things.

My answer is given with regard to the present state of science. It is not dogma. For science must advance from day to day.

Now let us consider the stages of the soul between two incarnations. At first it is in the realm of Arupa in Devachan. At first, the soul's state can be compared to the state of the plant germ. The whole plant is contracted for a time in the point-shaped lily germ. In the germ, invisibly to our outer eye, the whole lily is already contained. In the small germ granule, the whole plant is already contained. This can be shaped in the germ in the most diverse ways. When we look at the germ in this way, it is quite different from what the soul was before and will be afterwards. But the soul is also in a state where it is completely freed from all shells. It is part of the plan of development, it must feel free and unhindered for a while. Then it can apply the strength it has gained in this freedom to the new embodiment.

Coming down from that highest level, the soul then surrounds itself with thought material, with the mental body. Then, in turn, it surrounds itself with astral material. In the time before birth, this is an extremely mobile process. The self becomes an extremely mobile organ. The self appears in the form of a funnel and also in a certain coloration. The middle part is like a star ray. The germ that comes from Devachan is in a radiant cylinder and is radiant with golden-yellow light; it then surrounds itself with astral matter, so that the self then takes on such a funnel-shaped form. This takes place with tremendous speed. What is in the golden-yellow radiant cylinder is the mental-astral shell of the self.

Aristotle has given us a term for this: “nous poeticos”, higher soul power, “nous pateticos”, soul perceptions, powers of perception, after the soul has incarnated in the flesh.

Such a funnel shape can never come into contact with a body that does not accommodate it with its shape. And yet one funnel can be very large and the other very small, corresponding to the human germ. Only recently have scientists been able to provide information about the development of the animal-human organism.

Such research was conducted in Corsica in 1875. The researchers had progressed to the point of being able to say: Here, at this point, the human personality begins. The materialistic scientist can say: We now know the processes that lead to existence in the material plane. But if we knew nothing of these preceding states, we would only be able to study our outer personality through today's natural science.

In the same year that this new starting point for research emerged, so did theosophical wisdom. The discovery that sheds light on the development of the animal-human organism coincides with the proclamation of wisdom about the human soul by the theosophical society. Today's natural science has reached a point of view not unlike that of Aristotle.

The question may be raised: Why did sexuality arise at all within the third round? Before that, reproduction took place in an asexual way. All religions lead back to the man who was neither male nor female, to Adam-Kadmon. Now one could ask: Why does reproduction now take place in a sexual way? Mystery researchers have always known an answer to this. I will give you the answer in the form of modern science. Until now, it was believed that the whole process of fertilization was different from what it has now been revealed to be. Now this question has become the subject of serious scientific investigation. But how do the scientific results relate to the question of sexual reproduction? The sexual way of reproduction would not be necessary at all. Nature could have helped itself in a different way. That is why science no longer says: both sexes are equally necessary for reproduction. And that is correct, because for mere reproduction, the female alone would suffice. Nevertheless, nature chose a different path, namely the path of mixing the sexes, after two sexes had been created. And why do this if it could also be done without mixing? Well, nature chose the creation of two sexes and then the mixing of the sexes because it foresaw that, when the third [root] race began, the human selves would want to incarnate, and for this incarnation sexual reproduction is necessary.

That is to say, nature has also prepared this point in time from which human intelligence should reincarnate again and again into shells, into bodies. From this point in time, since human selves wanted to incarnate, reproduction should take place through the mixing of the two sexes. And why should that happen? So that with each new incarnation a mixture of qualities, a mixture of characteristics, can occur at all that was not there before. Reproduction was therefore only possible because one personality with another personality was able to simply produce another. Before that, there was an enormous similarity to his ancestors. Without the two sexes, man would suffer a small change through contact with the outside world, but basically he would always have remained similar to his ancestors, like the similarity of the lily daughter and the lily mother.

As we can see, the child not only bears the characteristics of the mother, but also those of the father. A completely different kind of new being emerges in the mixed product, and thus the individual human being becomes the result of two completely different currents. The mother's body provides everything physical and material. And the male sex is only there to change the characteristics. The male sex therefore only provides the impetus for this. The male penetrates the female and now, contrary to what was believed, a unification does not occur, but a radiating body appears here - called centrosome. Without this centrosome, there can be no reproduction. In the case of lower animals, reproduction can even be brought about by combining them with an acid. Two nuclei then appear. Reappearance with two nuclei looks something like this: one nucleus attracts the male characteristics, the other the female ones.

However, this state is not yet capable of receiving a soul germ; only new cells can be built up by it. This structure takes place according to the following law: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 cells and so on, up to the state of the mulberry germ. As an occult researcher, you see, in addition to what I have just described, the power that is at work here. This has been passed down from our ancestors. What we call “physical prana” has a pinkish hue. It permeates the cells during their formation and multiplication. The physical prana can continue the process. The mulberry germ is then divided into two layers. With this process, a soul germ has united with the human germ. When we have these processes before us, we have arrived at the first days of the embryo's life. The cylinder of rays disappears into the funnel. It divides into two stars. These two stars form something that develops in the two layers here. Each of the stars takes hold of one of the two layers. They migrate into the embryo. These stars are what then form the basis for the two nervous systems: the sympathetic, unconscious nervous system, which takes care of vegetative activities, and the central nervous system. Then the 'astral prana' is added. The same thing happens with the germ of a higher animal. At the beginning, the germ of a higher animal cannot be distinguished from the human germ.

This thickening marks the actual appearance of the segmented spinal cord. On one side you can see five vesicles appear. One of these develops into the front one, the second into the middle one, the third into the back one, and then the hindbrain.

Now the cone of rays, which had disappeared, reappears (between the 20th and 30th day). The pranic current has already organized the brain and the spinal cord. From there it enters the prepared human brain as mental prana. So we have a “physical prana”, then a second prana under the direction of the astral, which is active in the sympathetic nervous system and builds up the brain so that the actual self can move into the prepared brain. It is not yet present, not yet externally perceptible. Every soul force forms the organs itself. From the brain, the slumbering self continues to form in order to adapt. Then the self moves into the organism as “mental prana”.

We are dealing with a threefold fertilization. Firstly on the physical plane, secondly with a double fertilization on the astral plane and thirdly with the impact of the self. There must be a single body for this. And this can only be achieved through the mixture of qualities of motherly-feminine and [fatherly-]masculine, through the dual sexuality.

Thus we have recognized the actual purpose of reproduction by the sexes. Sexual reproduction is not to be understood as a cause, but as an end.

The next question would now be about the conditions after death. Furthermore, the question: What about our ability to perceive after death, after shedding our covers.