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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Manifestations of Karma
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Manifestations of Karma
Schmidt Number: S-2231
On-line since: 11th October, 2000
KARMA IN RELATION TO DISEASE AND HEALTH
THE observations we shall have to make in this and succeeding lectures
may be exposed to a certain misunderstanding. We shall have to deal
with various questions about disease and health from the standpoint of
karma, but owing to the contrary nature of present currents of thought
on this subject a wrong idea of the spiritually scientific basis may
easily be formed when this subject is touched upon. We know that the
most varied circles discuss these questions of health and disease, and
that the discussion is often carried on with considerable vehemence
and passion. Sides are taken by the laity quite as much as by certain
physicians against what is called scientific medicine, and it can
easily be seen how the partisans of scientific medicine are perhaps
provoked by many an unjustified attack, so that they not only fall
into a kind of passion when they feel called upon, and rightly too, to
enter the lists on behalf of what science has to say on this matter,
but they also wage war against what is said contrary to their own
views on the subject in question. Anthroposophy or Spiritual Science
will be able to do justice to its high task only if it succeeds in
maintaining an unprejudiced and objective judgement in this field
which has been so much darkened by discussions. Those who have often
heard lectures from me will know how little I am disposed to join the
chorus of those who wish to discredit what is described as academic
medicine; in Spiritual Science there is no question of agreement with
one particular party or another.
As a preliminary observation we may say that the achievements of
recent years in regard to health and the actual investigations into
the phenomena of disease really arouse praise, recognition, and
admiration, just as do numerous other scientific discoveries.
Concerning what has been actually accomplished in this realm, it may
be said that if anyone may rejoice at all about what medicine has
accomplished in recent years it is Spiritual Science that should do
so. On the other hand, we must point out that the achievements and
actual knowledge and discoveries of Natural Science are by no means
always truly and satisfactorily interpreted and explained by
present-day scientific opinion. It is indeed most patent in many
fields of scientific investigation that the opinions and theories have
not grown in accordance with the positive ideas and facts which are
sometimes marvellous. The light which proceeds from Spiritual Science
will also successfully illuminate the scientific conquests of recent
years.
After this preliminary observation it will be seen that we are not
concerned with any sort of an agreement in a paltry skirmish regarding
what can be done at the present time in the field of scientific
medicine. It may be said, however, that the most admirable facts which
have so far been brought to light cannot bear fruit for the good of
humanity in our day because the materialistically coloured opinions
and theories prevalent to-day render them sterile. So it is much
better for Anthroposophy modestly to say what it has to say than to
take part in any sort of party war. In this way it will arouse much
less the passions already so excited at the present time.
If we wish to obtain a point of view from which to consider the
questions that are to occupy us, we must first realise that the cause
of any phenomena has to be sought for in a variety of ways; there are
nearer and more remote causes, and where Anthroposophy wishes to
discover the karmic cause of health, it will have to occupy itself a
little with the more remote causes not on the surface. We will give an
illustration of this, which upon reflection will soon be understood.
Let us take the standpoint of one who thinks that we are gloriously
advanced at the present day in this field, and who altogether despises
the opinions on health and disease which were advanced in previous
centuries. If we survey the questions of disease and health, we gain
the impression that the representatives of this view usually conclude
that what has come to light in this field within the last twenty or
thirty years is a kind of absolute truth which may, indeed, be
supplemented, but can never be gainsaid as can the knowledge which has
been acquired in past ages. For example it is often said: In
this field we find the grossest superstition in bygone times!
And then truly startling examples are given of the way in which in
past centuries they tried to heal one complaint or another. It is
considered to be exceptionally bad when one comes across terms which
for the modern consciousness have lost the meaning they possessed at
that time. Thus some say: There were times when every illness
was ascribed to God or the devil! This was not so bad as these
people make it out to be, because they can form no idea of what was
intended by the expression God or devil. We
can make this very clear by means of an illustration.
Let us suppose that two persons are speaking together. One says to the
other: I have just seen a room full of flies. Someone said it
was quite natural the room should be full of flies, and I thought so
too, for the room was very dirty and so the flies thrive. It is
quite natural that one should accept this as a reason for the
existence of the flies and it will be quite reasonable to say that if
the room were thoroughly cleaned the flies would disappear. But there
was another person who said that he knew a different reason for the
flies in the room, and that the real cause was that for a long time a
very lazy housewife had lived there. Now what boundless superstition
to think that laziness was a kind of personality which needed only to
beckon, and then in came the flies! Surely the explanation which
attributes the presence of flies to the dirt is a better one. There
happens almost the same thing when one says: Someone has fallen
ill through being infected by some sort of bacillus; if this is driven
out, the person will be well again. Others talk about a
spiritual cause which lies deeper down, but to effect a cure they
still think it necessary only to drive out the bacillus. To talk of a
spiritual cause of illness while admitting all the rest is no more
superstitious than to say as in the first case that the presence of
the flies was due to a lazy housewife. And there is no need to be
angry if someone says that the flies would not be there if the room
were clean. It is not a question of one view being in opposition to
the other; rather the holder of each view should learn to understand
the other and study his meaning. One must carefully take into
consideration whether only the immediate causes are spoken of, or
whether indirect causes are referred to. The objective Anthroposophist
will never take this standpoint that laziness needs only to beckon for
the flies to come into the room; he will know that other material
things also come into consideration. But everything which has a
material expression has its spiritual background, and for the welfare
of humanity this spiritual background has to be sought. Those,
however, who would like to take part in the combat should also be
reminded that spiritual causes will not always be understood in the
same way and also cannot be combated in the same way as ordinary
material causes; and one must not always think that by fighting the
spiritual causes there would be no need to combat the material causes;
for then one might allow the room to remain dirty, and seek to cure
the idleness of the housewife. What is necessary is that each of these
two parties should understand the other's point of view and not
quarrel with him about it.
Now when we are considering karma we must speak of connections of
events which came into human life in former times, and how they
manifest themselves later in their after-effects on the same human
being. If we speak of health and disease from the standpoint of karma
we must ask: Can we connect the healthy and diseased condition
with the former deeds and experiences of this person, and how will his
present condition of health or disease later react upon him?
The man of the present day would far rather believe that disease is
connected only with immediate causes. For the fundamental tendency in
the modern view of life is always to seek what is most convenient. And
it is certainly convenient to go no further than the immediate cause.
Therefore in considering human diseases, only the immediate causes are
taken into consideration, and most of all is this the case with the
invalid himself. For it cannot be denied that the patients themselves
are led to take this standpoint, and because of this there exists so
much dissatisfaction. When there is the belief that the disease must
have an immediate cause which must be found by the skilled physician,
and when he cannot help, he is accused of having bungled somewhere.
From this convenient method of judgement proceeds much of what is said
at the present day on this subject. One who knows how to observe the
wide-spreading effects of karma will always extend his gaze more and
more from what happens now to events which lie comparatively far back.
Above all, he will be convinced that a complete understanding of some
circumstance in a person's life is only possible when an extended view
over what lies further back can be obtained. Especially is this so in
the case of illness. When speaking of people who are ill, and also of
those who are well, the question arises, How can we form an idea
of the nature of disease?
When spiritual investigation is carried on directly with the aid of
the spiritual organs of perception, it will always when dealing
with the diseases of man notice irregularities, not only in the
physical body, but also in the higher principles, in the etheric and
astral bodies. The spiritual investigator must always in the case of
illness consider, on the one hand the share the physical body may have
in this particular case, and, on the other, the share of the etheric
body and the astral body; for all three principles may be involved in
the disease. The question now arises: What ideas can we form
about the processes of disease? The answer to this question may
be found most easily by first considering how far the idea of disease
may be extended. Let us leave it to those who enjoy using such
allegorical and symbolic language to talk about diseases of minerals
or metals. Let them talk about rust as disease of the iron. We must be
quite clear that if we use purely abstract ideas we can gain no
practical knowledge of life but can arrive at only a fantastic view,
and not one which really penetrates into the facts. If we wish to
arrive at a real idea of disease and also a real idea of health, we
shall have to guard against saying that minerals and metals can also
have diseases.
But matters are quite different when we come to the vegetable kingdom.
We may certainly speak of the diseases of plants, for a real
comprehension of the idea of disease these diseases of plants are
especially interesting and important. In the case of plants, if again
one does not go to work in a fantastic way, one cannot well speak of
inner causes of diseases, in the same way as with animals
and men. The diseases of plants can always be traced to outer causes,
such as some detrimental influence in the ground, insufficient light,
this or that effect of the wind and other elementary activities in
nature. Or they may be traced to the influence of parasites which live
upon the plants and injure them. In the vegetable kingdom the idea of
inner causes of disease cannot be justified. It is, of
course, impossible in the short space of time at our disposal to
furnish innumerable proofs of what I have just indicated, but the
deeper one goes into the pathology of plants the more it can be seen
that in their case inner causes of disease do not exist, but that we
have to deal with external injuries or other external influences.
Now a plant such as we see in the external world is a being which is
made up of a physical and etheric body. At the same time it is a being
which brings to our notice the fact that what we call the physical and
etheric body are in principle healthy, and that it has to wait until
it meets with an external injury before it can become diseased. The
researches of Spiritual Science confirm that this is the true state of
affairs. Whereas through spiritual scientific research into the
diseases of animal and human being we are able to see quite decided
changes in the inner or super-sensible part of the being, in the case
of a diseased plant we are never able to say that the original etheric
body itself is changed, but only that all kinds of disturbances and
harmful influences from outside have penetrated into the physical body
and especially into the etheric body. Spiritual Science entirely
confirms the following general conclusion: In the constituent parts of
the plant, namely, physical and etheric bodies, we have before us
something which is in essence healthy. But it is another thing to see
how when it has suffered external damage it can safeguard by all sorts
of means its growth and development, and heal the injury. Notice for
instance how, if you cut a plant, it tries to grow round the injured
part, and to get round what then interferes with and injures it. We
can see when an external injury occurs, the clear manifestation of the
healing power which the plant has in its inner organisation. In the
etheric and physical bodies of the plant exist healing forces which
are brought into play when some exterior injury is inflicted. This is
an extremely important fact if we wish to come to a clear
understanding in this realm. A being such as a plant, having physical
and etheric body thus shows that these principles are fundamentally
healthy. There is in them sufficient force not only for the
development and growth of the plant, but also there is a
super-abundance of these forces which manifest themselves as healing
powers when injuries come from outside. Whence, then, do these healing
forces come? If you wound a merely physical body the injury will
remain; it is unable of itself to repair the injury. For this reason,
we cannot talk of a disease in the case of a merely physical body, and
least of all can we talk of a relation between disease and healing.
This we can best see when a disease appears in a plant. Here we have
to look for the principle of the inner healing power in the etheric
body. Spiritual investigation shows us this very clearly, for the
activity of the etheric body of the plant is much intensified round
the part where the wound has been inflicted. It brings forth from
itself entirely different forms, and develops entirely different
currents. It is an extremely interesting fact that we call on the
etheric body of a plant to exercise increased activity when we injure
its physical body.
We have not indeed defined the concept of disease but we have done
something to arrive at its nature, and we have gained something which
gives us an inkling of the inward process of healing.
Following the clue given by inward spiritual observation let us go
further and try to understand the external phenomena to which
Spiritual Science leads us. Then we may pass from the consideration of
the injuries we give to plants to those we give to animals which, in
addition to the etheric body, have also an astral body. If we carry
our observations further we shall see that the etheric body of a
higher animal reacts correspondingly less to an external injury. The
higher the animal is in the scale of evolution so much the less will
be the action of the etheric body. If we cause a severe injury to the
physical body of a lower or even a higher mammal; if, for instance, we
tear a leg from a dog or some such animal, we find that the etheric
body cannot answer with its healing power in the same measure as the
etheric body of a plant replies to a similar injury to itself. But
even in the animal kingdom this action of the etheric body can still
be seen to a great extent. Let us descend to a very low order of
animals to the tritons. If we cut off certain organs from such
a being they do not experience anything particularly painful. The
organs quickly grow again, and the animal soon looks as it did before.
In this case something similar has taken place to that which occurred
in the case of the plant; we have called forth a certain healing power
in the etheric body. But we should not deny that such provocation to
develop healing powers in the etheric body of man or of higher animals
would mean a considerable risk to health. The lower animal on the
contrary will only be stimulated from its inner being to put forth
another member by means of its etheric body.
Now if one of the limbs of a crab is severed, the animal cannot at
once renew it. But when it casts its shell the next time and arrives
at the next transition stage of its life, a stump appears; the second
time the stump grows larger, and if the animal were to cast its shell
often enough, the limb would be replaced by a new one. These facts
show us that the etheric body must make greater efforts to call forth
the inner forces of healing; and in the higher animals the healing
power is still less. If you mutilate a higher animal it can do nothing
towards replacing the limb. Here we must allude to a fact which at the
present time is the subject of an important dispute in the field of
Natural Science: If you mutilate an animal, and the animal has
progeny, the deformities are not transmitted to the offspring; the
next generation has again the complete parts. When the etheric body
carries its qualities over to the offspring it is again stimulated to
form a complete organism. The etheric body of a triton still acts in
the same animal; in a crab it acts only when it casts its shell; in
the higher animals the same phenomenon appears only in the offspring,
and there the etheric body replaces what had been mutilated in the
previous generation. If we observe these phenomena rightly we shall
clearly perceive that we must still speak of the healing forces in the
etheric body even if these forces are manifested only in the
succeeding generation when the offspring is born without the
mutilation which the parent suffered. Here we have, as it were, a
research into the why and wherefore of the healing powers of the
etheric body.
We might now ask the question: How is it, then, that the higher we
rise in the animal kingdom and this applies externally to the
human kingdom also we find that the healing forces of the
etheric body have to make greater efforts to manifest themselves? This
depends upon the fact that the etheric body may be bound to the
physical body in very different ways. Between the physical body and
the etheric body there may be a more intimate union or a loose one.
For example, let us take the triton, in which the severed member is
replaced very quickly. Here we must assume a loose connection between
the physical body and the etheric body, and this applies in the
vegetable kingdom to a still higher degree. This union, let us say, is
such that the physical body is unable to react upon the etheric body,
and the latter remains untouched by what happens to the physical body
and is in a certain sense independent of it. Now the nature of the
etheric body is that of activity, of generation and growth. It
encourages growth up to a certain point. When we cut off a part, the
etheric body is immediately prepared to restore that part, and to that
end unfolds all its activities. But what is the reason if it cannot
develop all its activities? The reason is to be found in a closer
dependence on the physical body. This is the case with the higher
animals. There is here a much more intimate union between the etheric
body and the physical body, and when the physical body develops its
form and organises the forces of physical nature, these forces react
upon the etheric body.
To put it clearly: In the lower animals or the plants, that which is
outside does not react on the etheric body but leaves it untouched,
carrying on an independent existence. When we come to the higher
animals, reactions of the physical body are imposed upon the etheric
body which adapts itself completely to the physical body; so that if
we injure the physical body, we injure the etheric body at the same
time. Hence the etheric body has to exercise greater powers if it has
first to heal itself and then the corresponding member in the physical
body. Therefore in the case of the etheric body of a higher animal,
deeper healing forces must be called forth. But what is the
connection? Why is the etheric body of a higher animal so dependant
upon the forms of the physical body?
The higher we advance in the animal creation the more do we have to
consider, not only the activity of the etheric body and the physical
body, but also that of the astral body. In the case of the lower
animals the activity of the astral body comes but little into
consideration. For this reason the lower animals still have so many
qualities in common with the plants. The higher we ascend, the more
does the astral body come into action, and this action is such that it
makes the etheric body subservient to itself. A being such as a plant,
which has only physical body and etheric body, has little to do with
the external world; an action may be exercised upon the plant from
outside, but this is not reflected as an inward experience. Where an
astral body is active, external impressions are reflected into inner
experiences, but a being in which the astral body is inactive is more
shut off from the external world. The more the astral body is active
the more does a being open itself to the external world. Thus the
astral body unites the inner nature of a being with the outer world,
and the increasing activity of the astral body brings it about that
the etheric body has to use much stronger forces to make injuries
good.
If we now pass on from animals to man, a new element arises. Man does
not simply conform to certain prescribed functions inspired by the
astral body as is the case with the animals which have, as it were, a
course outlined for them in advance, and which live more according to
an established programme. We could scarcely say of an animal that it
departs to any great extent from its instincts, or that it follows its
instincts with more or less moderation. It follows its plan of life,
and all its actions are submitted to a sort of general programme. But
man, having risen higher on the ladder of evolution, is able to
discern between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, good and evil.
Through purely individual motives he comes into touch with the outer
world in various ways. These contacts react and make an impression
upon his astral body, and as a consequence of the interaction between
his astral body and etheric body, both now suffer these reactions.
Thus if a person leads a dissolute life in any respect it will make an
impression on his astral body which in its turn influences the etheric
body. How it will do this will depend upon what has been laid down in
the astral body. Therefore we shall now be able to understand that the
etheric body of man alters, according as he leads this or that life
within the limits of good or evil, right or wrong, truth or falsehood,
etc. All these exercise an influence on his etheric body.
Let us now remember what takes place when a human being passes through
the portal of death. We know that the physical body is laid aside and
that the etheric body, now united with the astral body and the Ego,
remains. When a certain length of time has passed after death, a time
which is measured only by days, the etheric body is thrown aside as a
second corpse; an extract, however, of the etheric body is left over
and this is taken along and kept permanently. In this extract of the
etheric body is contained as if in an essence, all that has penetrated
the etheric body, for example, from a dissolute life, or from true or
false thinking, feeling and action. This is contained in the etheric
body and he takes it with him in the period up to a new birth. As an
animal does not have such experiences, it cannot, of course, take
anything over in the same way beyond the portal of death. When the
person again comes into existence by birth, the essence of his
previous etheric body is something which now impregnates his new
etheric body, and permeates its structure. Therefore in his new
existence the person has in his etheric body the results of what he
had experienced in his previous life, and as the etheric body is the
builder of an entirely new organisation at a new birth, all this now
imprints itself on his physical body also. How does this come about?
Spiritual investigation shows us that in the form of a human body
which enters into existence by birth, we are able to see approximately
what deeds a person did in a previous life. In the case of an animal
we cannot say that at its birth it brings with it a reincarnated
individuality from a previous earth life. Only the common astral body
of this species of animal is active, and this will limit the healing
power of the etheric body of this animal. In man we find that not only
his astral body but also his etheric body is impregnated with the
results of the deeds of his previous life: and as the etheric body has
within itself the power to bring forth what it formerly had, we shall
also understand that this etheric body will also build into the new
organism that which it brings with it from previous incarnations. We
shall now understand how our deeds in one life can work over into our
conditions of health in the next life, and how in our state of health
we have often to seek a karmic effect of deeds of a previous life.
We may approach the matter in still another way. We may ask: Does
everything that we do in the life between birth and death react in the
same manner on our etheric body? Even in ordinary life we can perceive
a great difference on our inner organisation between the reaction of
what we experience as conscious beings, and many other experiences.
Here comes a very interesting fact which can be fully explained by
Spiritual Science and which can also be quite reasonably understood.
In the course of his life a person has a great number of experiences
which he receives consciously and unites them with his Ego. Within him
they develop into concepts which he works upon, etc. But a great many
experiences and impressions do not come as far as to concepts, and yet
they are really there in man and act upon him. If you walk along the
street it often happens that someone says to you: I saw you
today, and you even looked at me! And yet you know nothing about
it! This is often the case. Of course, this has made an impression;
your eyes indeed saw the other person but the direct impression did
not come as far as a concept. There are innumerable cases of this
sort, so that our life is really divided into two parts into a
realm of soul-life which consists of concepts, and another realm that
we have never brought really into clear consciousness. There are again
other differences. You will easily be able to distinguish between
impressions which you have in your life and can remember, and those
which you cannot remember.
Thus our soul-life is divided into entirely different categories, and
there is, indeed, a very considerable difference between these various
categories if we consider the effect upon the inner being of man. Let
us now consider for a few minutes the life of man between birth and
death. First of all we observe this great difference between the
concepts which come again and again into our consciousness, and those
which have been forgotten. This difference can be most easily
exemplified by the following. Think of an impression which called
forth a clear idea within you. Let it be an impression which aroused
joy or pain, an impression which was accompanied by a feeling.
Let us bear in mind that most impressions, really all the impressions
that are made upon us are accompanied by feelings and these feelings
express themselves not only on the conscious surface of life, but they
work down into the physical body. You need only remember how one
impression will cause us to become pale, and another causes us to
blush. These impressions affect the circulation of the blood. And now
let us pass over to what on the whole does not come to consciousness,
or only fleetingly so, and is not remembered. In this case Spiritual
Science shows how these impressions are none the less accompanied by
emotions in the same way as are the conscious impressions. If you
receive an impression from the outer world which, if received
consciously, would have frightened you so much that it would have made
your heart beat, that same impression is not, however, without effect,
even when unconsciously received. It not only makes an impression, but
it also goes down into the physical body. It is remarkable that an
impression which produces a conscious idea, finds a kind of resistance
when working into the deeper human organisation; but if the impression
simply acts upon us without our bringing it to a conscious idea, then
nothing hinders it, and for this reason it is even more effective.
Human life is much richer than the conscious human life.
There is a period in our life when we experience a great number of
impressions which act very strongly upon the human organisation and
which we are unable to remember. In the whole of the period from birth
up to the moment when a person can first remember, a great number of
impressions are made upon him which are all there, and which have been
transformed during this time. They work, just as do the conscious
impressions, but there is nothing opposed to them, especially when
they are forgotten. Nothing that is otherwise contained in the
soul-life in the way of conscious conception can thereby form a dam as
it were, and the sub-conscious impressions are those which act most
profoundly. Now in the external life one can often find proof that
there are moments in human life when the second kind of inner effect
is manifested. We are unable to explain many of the events in later
life and we cannot discover why we have to experience one thing or
another in this particular way. For example, we experience something
which has such a tremendous impression upon us that we cannot explain
how such a comparatively insignificant experience could make such a
great impression. Now if we investigate, we shall perhaps find that
exactly in that critical time between birth and the time back to which
we can remember, we had a remotely similar experience, but which we
have forgotten. No idea of it has remained behind, but at the time we
had an impression which affected us very much. This has lived on and
now unites with the present impression, strengthening it so that what
would otherwise have moved us much less or perhaps not at all now
makes a particularly strong impression. If we perceive this clearly we
shall be able to form an idea of the extreme importance of the
impression made upon a child in its earliest years and how something
may throw its very significant shadow or light on the later life. Here
again, something from the earlier life works into the later life.
It may happen that these impressions of childhood particularly
if they are repeated influence the whole disposition in such a
way that from a certain point of time on, an inexplicable depression
of spirit comes. This can only be accounted for when one goes back and
discovers the impressions received during childhood which throw their
lights or shadows into the later life, and which are now expressed in
a permanent depression of spirits. Now we shall find that those events
which then made particular impressions upon him work the more strongly
on the child. We may say that if emotions, particularly feelings and
sensations, were connected with the impressions which were later
forgotten, these emotions and overflowings of feeling are particularly
effective in producing later similar experiences.
Now remember what I have often said about the life during the kamaloca
period. After the etheric body has been laid aside as a second corpse,
man lives the whole of his last life backwards. He goes over all the
experiences which he has had, but not in such a way that he is
indifferent to them. During the period in kamaloca, as man still
possesses his astral body, what he has gone through brings about the
most profound experiences in feeling. For example, let us suppose that
a person died at the age of seventy. He lives his life back to his
fortieth year when he struck a man on the face; he then experiences
the pain which he gave to the other. A kind of self-reproach is
thereby called forth; this then remains, so as to compensate the
matter in a future life. You will understand that as in this period
between death and a new birth there are all kinds of astral
experiences, that which is experienced by us as an action imprints
itself all the more surely and deeply into our inner being, and
contributes to the construction of our new body. Thus, if even in
ordinary life we are so strongly affected by certain experiences,
especially if they were accompanied by feeling, that they are able to
bring about later a depression of spirits, we shall understand that
the much stronger impressions of kamaloca life are able to express
themselves so that they work deeply into the organisation of the
physical body.
Here, then, you see a stronger form of a phenomenon which on careful
observation you are able to find, even in the life between birth and
death. The ideas which meet with no hindrance from the consciousness
will lead to other irregularities in the soul to neurasthenia,
to various kinds of nervous diseases and perhaps also to mental
diseases. All these phenomena present themselves as causal connections
between earlier and later events, and furnish us with a clear picture
of them.
If we now wish to go further with this idea we may say that our
actions will, in the life after death, be transmuted into a powerful
emotion. This emotion which is not then weakened by any physical idea,
not limited by any ordinary consciousness for the brain is not
then necessary is experienced by the other form of
consciousness, which then works down more deeply. So it is brought
about that our actions and the whole nature of our previous life
appear in the constitution of our whole organisation in a new life.
Hence we shall quite easily understand that when a person who in one
incarnation has thought, felt and acted very egotistically, sees
before him after death the fruits of his egotistic thoughts, feelings
and action, he is filled with strong feelings against his former
deeds. This is in fact the case. He develops tendencies which are
directed against his own being, and these tendencies, in so far as
they have proceeded from an egotistic nature in the previous life,
express themselves in a weak organisation in the new life. (The
weak organisation here refers to the being, and not to the
external impression.) Therefore we must clearly understand that a weak
organisation can be traced back karmically to egotism in a previous
life. Let us go further.
Let us suppose that in one life a person manifests a particular
tendency towards telling lies. This is a tendency which proceeds from
a deeper organisation of the soul; for if a person only follows what
is in his most conscious life he will not really lie. It is only
emotions and feelings which work up out of his sub-consciousness which
lead him to this. Here again we have something deeper. If a person is
untruthful, the actions which proceed from untruthfulness will again
arouse the most forcible feelings against himself in the life after
death, and a profound tendency against lying will appear. He will then
bring with him into the next life not only a weak organisation but
so Spiritual Science shows us an organisation which is
incorrectly built, so to speak, and which manifests irregularly formed
inner organs in the finer organisation. Something is there which does
not agree and this is due to the previous tendency to lying. And
whence came this tendency to lying? for in that tendency the
person already has something which also is not in order.
Here we shall have to go back still further. Spiritual Science shows
that a fickle life which knows neither devotion nor love a
superficial life in one incarnation expresses itself in the
tendency to lying in the next incarnation; and in the third
incarnation this tendency to lying manifests itself in incorrectly
formed organs. Thus we can karmically trace the effects in three
consecutive incarnations: superficiality and fickleness in the first
incarnation, the tendency to lying in the second, and the physical
disposition to disease in the third incarnation.
Thus we see how karma is connected with health and disease. That which
has just now been said is based upon facts revealed as the result of
spiritual investigation. We are not advancing theories, but actual
cases which have been observed, and which can be investigated by the
methods of Spiritual Science. We commenced this lecture by referring
to the most ordinary facts the healing powers of the etheric
body of the plants. We then showed how through the addition of the
astral body in the animals the etheric body is less active. And we saw
further how through the reception of the Ego which develops an
individual life for good or evil, truth and falsehood, the astral body
which, in the case of the higher animals only hinders the healing
power, again adds something new to man, namely the karmic influences
of disease which flow into him out of the individual life. In the
plant there are no inner causes of disease, because disease is still
something outside, and the healing powers work without being weakened.
In the lower animals we find an etheric body but with such healing powers
that it can even replace certain parts; but the further we rise the
more does the astral body imprint itself into the etheric body and
thereby limit its healing powers. The animals do not survive in
reincarnations; therefore that which is in the etheric body is not
connected with any moral, intellectual or individual qualities, but
only with the common type. In man, however, that which he experiences
in his Ego works down into the etheric body. Why then do the
experiences of childhood in the realm of feeling we have mentioned
manifest themselves only in light diseases? Because we are able to
find in the same life the causes of much that manifests itself as
neurasthenia, neurosis, hysteria. But we shall have to look for the
causes of severer cases of disease in the moral causes set up in the
previous life because that which is experienced morally and
intellectually can only be fully implanted in the etheric body on
passing over to a new birth. On the whole, the etheric body of man
cannot embody the deeper moral activities in one life, although we
shall still hear of exceptional cases, and indeed of very important
ones.
Such is the connection which exists between our life of good or evil,
our moral and intellectual life in one incarnation, and our health or
disease in the next.
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Last Modified: 23-Nov-2024
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