VII. Details from the Realm of Spiritual Science

The length of time between death and a new birth is determined by the fact that, as a rule, the ego returns to the physical-sensory world only after the latter has been changed sufficiently to make it possible for the ego to experience something new. While the ego remains in the spiritual realms, the earthly dwelling place undergoes a change. This change is connected in a certain respect with the great changes in the cosmos, with the changed position of earth and sun, and so forth. These are changes, however, in which certain repetitions take place in connection with new conditions. They express themselves outwardly, for instance, through the fact that the point of the celestial sphere at which the sun rises in the beginning of spring makes a complete circle in the course of 26,000 years. This vernal equinox thus resolves, in the course of that period, from one celestial region to another. In the course of one twelfth of this period, in about 2,100 years, the conditions on the earth have altered so much that the human soul can experience something new after a preceding incarnation. Since the experiences of a human being are different according to his incarnation as a woman or as a man, there occur as a rule two incarnations within the characterized period of 2,100 years, one as a man and one as a woman. These things, however, depend also upon the nature of the forces man takes with him from earth existence through the door of death. It should, therefore, be understood that all indications given here are valid in the essentials; in individual cases, however, they show themselves varied in the most manifold way. How long the human being remains in the spiritual world between death and a new birth depends in one way only upon the described conditions in the cosmos. In another regard this depends on the states of development through which man passes during that time. These states lead the ego, after a certain lapse of time, to a spiritual condition that finds no further satisfaction in its inner spiritual experiences, and which develops the longing toward the change of consciousness that finds satisfaction in the reflection through physical experience. Through the co-operation of this inner thirst for incarnation and the possibility offered by the cosmos of finding the corresponding bodily organism the entrance of the human being into earth-life occurs. Since there must be a twofold cooperation, incarnation occurs, in one instance,—although the “thirst for incarnation” has not yet attained its full intensity—because an approximately fitting embodiment can be realized; it occurs, in another instance,—although the thirst for incarnation has overstepped its normal intensity—because at the corresponding time there was no possibility yet of embodiment. The general mood of life in which a human being finds himself because of the constitution of his bodily nature is connected with these conditions.