Between planetary spheres

Since there are several Steiner books with similar titles, the following presentation seems to be in order. This book was originally published in 1968. Its translated by R. M. Querido from the German original “Okkulte Untersuchungen über das Leben swischen Tod und neuer Geburt”. It contains sixteen lectures given by Steiner in several European cities between October 1912 and May 1913. The first lecture was given in Milan, and the last one in Strasbourg. My edition of the book, published by Anthroposophic Press, has a different cover than the one on this product page, but it seems to be exactly the same work inbetween the covers.

Rudolf Steiner was the founder of Anthroposophy, sometimes referred to as “spiritual science”, a spiritual path that blends ideas similar to Theosophy with a Christianized version of classical Western esotericism. Steiner was originally the chair of the German section of Annie Besant's Theosophical Society, but left it when Besant and C W Leadbeater launched their crusade on behalf of “The World Teacher” Jiddu Krishnamurti. The split was probably inevitable anyway, since Steiner had always laid more emphasis on Christ, Goethe and the Western occult tradition, while Besant preferred Hinduism, Buddhism and the “Mahatmas” of Madame Blavatsky.

I recently reviewed an earlier work by Steiner, “Rosicrucian Wisdom”, which contains some information on the fate of the soul after death, between two incarnations. However, it says relatively little about the Mystery of Golgotha, perhaps because the book was published when Steiner was nominally still a Theosophist. “Life Between Death and Rebirth”, by contrast, consists of lectures given after Steiner had founded his own Anthroposophical Society. It contains additional information on the soul's journey after death, to some extent based on “new spiritual research” made by the author. Here, the Mystery of Golgotha and the so-called Christ impulse play a more central role. Unfortunately, many of the lectures are extremely repetitive and belabour pretty much the same points!

A few things stand out. In Steiner's scenario, Christ isn't a redeemer in the traditional Christian sense, but rather a kind of “evolver”. Christ is a Sun-spirit who sacrificed himself to rejuvenate Earth and give humans additional spiritual powers to evolve during the soul's journey between two incarnations. Only humans who enter into a right relationship with the Christ impulse while on Earth will be able to consciously journey through all the planetary spheres after death, thereby gaining new energies necessary to further evolve the etheric and astral bodies. Somewhat naively, Steiner calls on all religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism, to accept the objective fact of the Mystery of Golgotha, revealed by “spiritual science”. He considers Christianity to be the only truly universal religion, since the West adopted it despite its alien origins in the Middle East. (It's not clear how he sees Islam or Buddhism, who also spread far outside their respective lands of origin.) Followers of all religions will reach “the Venus sphere” after death, where they will form their distinct communities, but those who lack a proper Anthroposophical understanding of the Christ impulse will get in trouble when reaching the Sun, and presumably can't reach beyond it. The fate of materialists is to become “hermits” after death, not being able to communicate with any other souls, and hence missing out on all evolutionary possibilities. Somewhat sarcastically, Steiner says that there will be no Monistic League in Heaven, since the dead Monists won't be able to find each other! (The Monistic or Monist League, with Ernst Haeckel as its most well-known member, was a strong organization in pre-war Germany. Steiner regarded it as atheist and materialist.)

A more stunning revelation is the claim that Lucifer plays a central role in human spiritual evolution! In other Steiner texts, Lucifer is depicted as a negative being alongside Ahriman (the closest thing to a traditional devil figure in Anthroposophy), but in “Life between death and rebirth”, Lucifer is a more ambivalent character – something I always suspected was Steiner's real position. He calls Lucifer “Christ's brother”, says that both Christ and Lucifer have thrones on the Sun, and that Lucifer's existence is justified. Humans with the right relation to Christ will be served by Lucifer, whose powers are necessary for the human soul when it travels beyond the Sun, to the spheres of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. At the same time, Lucifer is nevertheless also a kind of deciever, who mimics Christ's words but with a different content (compare Jesus' words “Ye are gods” in John with the snake's words “Ye shall be like gods” in Genesis). People who completely lack spirituality will be “aided” by Lucifer in the afterlife, who will bestow manipulative intelligence and cunning on their souls, giving them negative karma and making it more difficult for them to evolve. It's almost as if Lucifer serves the spiritually advanced, but sinks the dull and dim-witted. (I suppose David Spangler's notorious “Luciferic initiation” could be inspired by Steiner.)

Steiner's lectures contain another very strange speculation: the claim that the Buddha went to Mars (or perhaps the “Mars sphere”, but Steiner does seem to mean the literal planet Mars) in order to carry out a Martian version of the Mystery of Golgotha (!). However, Buddha was never literally crucified (since the Martians seem to be ethereal beings, an actual crucifixion might have been impossible to arrange anyway), but rather sacrificed himself by sending out love and kindness to a planet the inhabitants of which were extremely aggressive. Apparently, this kind-hearted act has soothed the conflicts among the Martians, making it easier for human souls to pass through the planetary sphere of Mars during our cosmic sojourn between two earthly existences... I admit that this mutant Buddha legend is somewhat difficult to take seriously!

Those interested in Anthroposophy's view of the afterlife (or rather the “life between lives”, since Steiner believed in the reality of reincarnation) should perhaps read both “Rosicrucian Wisdom” and “Life between death and rebirth”. The first book also contain several chapters on planetary evolution and the future destiny of man, and hence gives the lectures in this book much needed context.

On its own, this is probably just two stars, but with additional background information, I might as well give it three.