The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Question: What is Christianity's position on the doctrine of repeated lives on earth? Why is it not officially taught? How did Christianity come to avoid touching on this question?

Rudolf Steiner: This is connected with the development of the human race. In ancient times, four thousand years before our era, all people knew about it. The ancient Egyptian slaves who had to build the pyramids under cruel tormentors already took comfort in it. In the time of Christ, the consciousness of it was still vividly present. On Mount Tabor, Christ Jesus forbade his intimate disciples to speak of re-embodiment in the next two thousand years. “On the mountain” means “in the innermost sanctuary”. There, the disciples wanted to “build huts”, which means the second degree of chelaship, discipleship. By appearing transfigured with Elijah and Moses, Jesus showed them the context of continuous life.

Elias - El = the Way, Moses = the Truth, Jesus = the Life! And then they saw Jesus alone, who is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6), in one person. Then he said, “Tell no one until I come back.” Christ will come again when humanity is one step further in its development. All this was known to the mystics. Today's humanity, which has gone through external Christianity, has found its bliss in the person of Jesus Christ. It will be different in the sixth sub-race. Angelus Silesius already says:

And if Christ were born a thousand times in Bethlehem, and not in you, you would still be lost forever.

The wooden cross cannot save you from evil where it is not also erected in you.

Only when Christ has become an experience in us, can Christ appear in another form.

If the eye were not sun-like,

The sun could never see it.

If God's own power did not lie within us,

How can we be filled with divine rapture? (Goethe).

Thus man can see Christ in the world only where he is to be seen, when he himself has become Christ-like. Until then, the teaching should not be taught. Why should this be so? Christianity is universal; it is to permeate all of life. If life between earth lives was to be made holy, then it also had to make the earth life holy. In order to recognize the importance of the sacredness of the lower life on earth, everything had to be done to sanctify it; that is why the human race should go through life once, without knowing about the repetition of the same. This has now been achieved for many.

It is completely wrong to conclude from this that the punishments in hell are eternal. The one-time experience of a life without knowledge of re-incarnation should teach man to take life seriously. It is assumed that re-embodiment takes place after 1500 to 2000 years for each soul, and that during this period all human souls have probably gone through such an earth-life without knowledge of repeated earth-lives. And so the time has now come when this teaching is being proclaimed again.

Jesus fulfills his will. He said:

He has guided Christianity through the darkness up to this point, and now He is allowing the teaching to shine forth again, now that Christianity was in danger of freezing. The teaching, which is new to many, is intended to bring old Christianity back into flow; it will produce new blossoms and fruits when it now takes up the teaching again. This is an ideal that can only be realized gradually. If the teaching is first understood and accepted as a theory, it will not be long before we hear theosophical concepts and thoughts from the pulpits. Theosophy will imbue everything old with new, fresh life, and when it no longer stands and appears as something special, it will have made itself superfluous as a doctrine.