XVII. What is seen on looking back into Man's previous Lives between Death and the new Birth (I)

> 1. The lives between Death and new Birth also shew three periods. In the first period Man lives entirely within the Hierarchy of the Archai. By them the preparations are laid for his future human Form in the physical world. > 2. The Archai thereby prepare the human being at the same time for the development, later on, of free Self-consciousness. For free Self-consciousness can only grow up in beings whose Form, thus created, gives them the means to bring this Self-consciousness from an inward impulse of the soul to outward expression. > 3. Thus it is seen how the first seeds of those properties and powers in Man which come to light in our present age were predisposed long ago, in past ages of the world, and how the Microcosm grows out of the Macrocosm.