The Human Being's Journey Through the World of the Senses, Soul and Spirit
If we now concern ourselves with the length of time during which man productively works into the spiritual what he has gained in the last life, then we must ask ourselves above all: Does this law of repeated earthly lives, to which we have been pointed, have a certain meaning? Yes, it has a meaning, and this is shown by the fact that a person, after having gone through one incarnation, does not appear in a new life when he can undergo the same experiences again, but only when the earthly outer world has changed in the meantime so that he can undergo completely new experiences. Anyone who reflects a little on evolution will find that, even in physical terms, the earth's physiognomy changes considerably from millennium to millennium. Consider what it might have looked like here, where the city is now, at the time of Christ, how it was quite different, and how this patch of earth has changed since that time; and consider how what we call the moral, intellectual and other spiritual development of humanity has changed over the course of a few centuries. Consider what children absorbed during their first years of life a few centuries ago, and consider what they assimilate during their first years of life today. The earth changes its physiognomy, and after a certain time the human being can enter the earth again and everything is so changed that he can now experience something new. Only when the human being can experience something new, only then does he enter this world anew.