IV. The Origin of Evil

But what is its task once the soul becomes free of the body? Here we touch on a fundamental and significant law: Whenever beings reach a higher stage of evolution, they become the leaders and guides of the beings belonging to the forms of existence they have themselves passed through. When a person has become spiritualized, and no longer needs a physical body, he will attain spiritual leadership and work on a new planet from outside. By then our present planet will have fulfilled its mission and passed over into another embodiment. A new planetary existence will arise, and humanity will be gods on that planet. The human bodily nature, forsaken by the spirit, will constitute a lower kingdom. Human nature is already twofold, consisting of that which will rule on the next planet, and that which will be a lower kingdom. The earth will pass over into a new embodiment, just as it has passed through earlier ones. Human beings will be gods on the next planet, just as the beings that now lead us were human beings on the previous planet. This illustrates how the earth is connected with the past and the future. The Elohim, the creators and leaders of human evolution, were once at the stage we have reached on the earth. On the future planet human beings will have advanced to be leaders and guides.