5. The Physical World as an Expression of Spiritual Forces and Beings.

If we want to have an approximate picture of what exists in the spiritual world and is about to descend, we must say that it is the individual who is in the process of incarnating who brings together those who love one another. The archetype wishing to incarnate has drawn to itself the astral substance that now has an effect upon the passion, the feeling of love. The astral passion surging hither and thither on the earth below, mirrors the astral substances of the descending entity. So the astral substance coming from above is encountered by the astral feeling of those who love each other, which is itself influenced by the substance of the entity descending to incarnation. When we think through this thought to its conclusion, we must say that the reincarnating individual definitely participates in the choice of his parents. According to who and what he is, he is impelled to the parental pair concerned. It is often glibly stated that if the choosing of parents were accepted as a fact, the feeling of finding a new life in one's children would be lost and that the love based upon having transmitted one's own nature to them would thereby be lessened. This is a groundless fear, for maternal and paternal love assume a higher and more beautiful meaning when we realize that in a certain sense the child loves the parents even before conception and is thereby impelled to them. The parents' love is therefore the answer to the child's love, it is the responsive love. We have thus an explanation of parental love as the reproduction of the child's love that precedes the physical birth.