[Über den Unterschied zwischen Unsterblichkeit, und “Leben im jenseits.”]

Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl.^[1]

At all times philosophers have been concerned with the question of whether there is a continuation of human life after the death of his visible body, and this is also inconceivable otherwise, for if everything should end with this death, if there is no reincarnation and there is no survival, man’s existence has scarcely any purpose, and it is useless to employ it for anything but the gratification of bodily wants and sensual amusements; for with death everything which one has gained morally or spiritually would have disappeared again; there would be no progress and no further development; life on earth would be its own purpose.

          Such a conception is contrary to conscience, intuition, and common sense, as well as to the sense of justice; all religiosity also loses its value through them. Science, on the other hand, from the point of view it now holds, seems to support this assumption; for it shows us that man is subject to constant change, not only physically but also in respect of his consciousness and thought, and how could that which is constantly changing last forever? One usually forgets that behind these changeful phenomena there is an “I” which is not known and is the originator of those functions that emanate from consciousness.

          Regarding the immortality of our personality, religious doctrine gives us no hope either; for in the Bible it is said clearly and distinctly: “There is no one immortal but God,” and with this a great truth is expressed, namely, that nothing lasts forever but the sole, eternal root cause of all things, while all these things are only temporary phenomena, and man is no exception. If we regard God as something essentially different from man, then the Bible teaches that there is no prospect of immortality for us.

          But the Bible also teaches that the kingdom of God is to be found within us and that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born again. The “kingdom of God” can hardly be understood as anything other than the sphere of consciousness of divine being, and spiritual rebirth means an awakening of this consciousness. From this it follows that man can attain immortal existence only through his union with God; that is, he must transcend his limited consciousness of personality, consequently cease to be a man in the ordinary sense of that word, and come to the consciousness of his divine existence; only then does the consciousness of his immortality awaken in him. For those who recognize this goal, life attains a higher purpose, and it is easy to see that it takes man many successive existences to attain this level of development. But these successive re-incorporations are only possible if after the death of the body there is still an “I” which can be reincorporated.

          Man’s highest good consists in this Ego, his individuality, the outer product of which is his personality. If God were a being entirely different from this individuality, the prospect of merging and becoming one with him would have little appeal; for then the same thing would be conditioned by a surrender of our individuality, and it would then be this “other” and not our own ego, which would have the consciousness of its immortality. This is a misconception of the doctrine of nirvāna. Immortality lies in the true Self, which not everyone knows yet, and which is to be distinguished from the temporary personal self-consciousness caused by the delusion of the senses.

          The answer to the question of whether man is immortal depends on what is meant by the term “man.” If it relates to his mortal part, then it must be answered in the negative; if it relates to his immortal nature, the question answers in the affirmative to get to know a spiritual relationship, a knowledge which actually contains the key to the mysteries of nature, because the forces at work in man are identical to those at work on our planet and its surroundings.

          The essence of man, which distinguishes him from many other creatures, is the mind (Latin: Mens, Sanskrit: Manas), which is more highly developed in him than in animals and enables him to think humanly and is the seat of his self-consciousness. Animals also have minds; they are our younger brothers and successors on the path of evolution; but the organization of their forms is not yet sufficiently developed for self-consciousness to awaken in them. To be sure, one often finds greater prudence in them than in some people, and also more natural morality; but only man, by virtue of his higher organization, is capable of attaining true individual higher self-consciousness, or, as the Bible says, of being a temple of the Spirit of God.

          It is not the purpose of these lines to “prove” something to those who consider the mind, soul, intellect, thinking, etc. to be the independent products of the mechanical activity of the brain, instead of recognizing in these the effects of a higher force, which uses the human organism as a tool for its revelation. Such a conception is just as wrong as anyone wanting to believe that in a crystal illuminated by the light of the sun the light is the product of this inherently dark body. This misconception, which mistakes effects for causes, often results in the most deplorable errors, but it would lead us too far to deal with it now. Let us therefore turn our consideration to the composition of man.

          Even without the help of a work on “Theosophy,” everyone who is capable of self-reflection knows that different forces are active in him, the effects of which he feels, namely animal instincts, human powers of thought and feelings, and finally also higher spiritual powers or virtues, in which egoism plays no role and which therefore belong to that part of man which is raised above the self-interests of his personality. The occult philosophy therefore distinguishes in the organization of the human being a lower and a higher and highest region of the soul, or in other words:

1. 1. 1. A dark region or the animal soul, which is the seat of the lower instincts and passions

1. 1. 2. The actual human soul (Manas).

1. 1. 3. The enlightened region of the soul or “divine life” in man, which is the seat of true self-knowledge and the dormant God-consciousness in most people.

          All of these forces are substantial; for it is no longer a secret today that there is no force without substance, although that substance is not externally sensible, and consequently non-existent to sensible material science. Force is movement, and movement only occurs where there is something moving. Motion without a moving substance, even if conceivable, could not be felt or sensed. Externally acting forces are felt externally, inwardly acting inwardly; all are substantial, each in its own way.

          This consideration brings the thinking man to the conviction that in addition to his visible, physical body he still has a series of bodies in the organism. One of these is called the “astral body”^[2] by the occultists, and is described by Śaṅkarācārya and others as the “dream body,” and its existence is beyond doubt to those who have attained the ability to transfer their consciousness into it and act upon it to perform.

          It would take us too far afield to enter into a description of the properties of the astral body here. Suffice it to say that most people have not yet awakened to astral consciousness, i.e., their astral body has not yet been sufficiently developed or they have not yet acquired the ability to place their self-consciousness in it. It is therefore easy to see that when consciousness leaves the body during sleep or after death, man leads a dream life in his astral body and can lead no other until he has attained true self-consciousness in the spirit.

          Since man did not create himself, but is a product of nature, and all elements of his composition come from the great nature, the macrocosm, the three kingdoms from which he draws his elements or principles can also be distinguished in the macrocosm, and one therefore counts among these:

1. 1. 1. the material, visible world with its various realms;

1. 1. 2. the “middle region” or “astral plane” with its various departments and their inhabitants;

1. 1. 3. the realm of intelligence.

          The Spirit rules over and through everyone.

          All of these are not theories pulled out of thin air, but facts that anyone capable of doing so can convince themselves of by their own observation and reflection. The narrow scope of this article does not allow us to delve into this vast subject, and it suffices to note that these regions are not to be thought of as spatially distinct, but rather are states of consciousness or gradations of existence.

          After the death of the body, every part of the composition of man naturally returns to its origin. The body finds its rest in the grave, the higher part strives upwards and gravitates back to its divine origin; the astral body, with its instincts and desires, which represents the personality of man, belongs to and remains in the middle region. There is thus a separation of principles, i.e., of the higher and lower soul powers, as also confirmed by the church doctrine as the “second death,” and the question arises: “Where is that which represents the actual human being, his heart, his consciousness, his actual individuality?”

          The rational answer to this question is that man’s condition after he has left his physical body will depend upon what degree of development he has attained during life, and this is determined by the teachings of occult science as well as by what confirms the phenomena of Spiritism when properly understood. Anyone who is now attached to earthly things with all his soul will still be bound to these things in the “beyond” and will only be able to free himself from them gradually; but the soul, which already on earth turns to the sublime and ideal, after its liberation from the life of the body will be attracted to the higher regions, where it will find the realization of its ideals within itself.

          In order to get an approximately correct picture of this, we must consider that in this world, too, we are, as it were, in a dream, that is, live within the realm of our sensations and imaginations. We know nothing of the world around us except the impressions which we receive from it through our inner and outer senses, and from these arise our ideas. These are often colored by our own desires and do not always correspond to the truth. Anyone who judges only by appearances is easily deceived by appearances.

          In the realm of the senses, external perceptions evoke in us a world of subjective ideas; In the subjective state, the impressions that we have received in our soul become objective images, which is why every human being in the “beyond” enjoys what he brings with him and thereby creates his own heaven or hell. The soul (manas) trapped in this dream life finds itself surrounded by those dream images which arise from its characteristics and memories and can be beautiful or ugly, blissful or terrifying, depending on the dream. Occult science also teaches that this dream life is not entirely subjective, but has its objective perceptions; for it is said: “Every thought which has come to maturity and is enlivened by the will to carry out penetrates into another world and becomes an active being by uniting itself with one of the semi-intellectual creatures of that kingdom corresponding to its characteristics; it lives as a independent being, as a creation of thought and will for a longer period of time, according to the intensity of the cerebral activity which created it. Consequently man is always surrounded by influences, good or bad, which he himself has produced or attracted.” The form of such a being also corresponds to the thought on which it is based, that is, the thought expresses itself in an objective form that corresponds to its character. Therefore everyone can form his own self-observation of the forms that will surround him after the death of his body; they are his own creations and adhere to him. Though intellectual, they are irrational beings; because they are only inspired by the thought that created them and therefore incapable of any change of mind.

          As long as man is in possession of all his principles, he is also master of his thoughts and ideas; in dream life, or after the spirit has escaped from it, this dominion ceases. There, the mind is united with that thing for which it has striven most, that is, the soul becomes one with that thing with which it identifies itself. A chemical affinity and selection takes place there, so to speak. Like attracts like, each part goes where its nature belongs. If a man degenerates during his life and there is nothing higher and nobler in him, his astral body will take on that half-animal, half-human form after death which corresponds to his character, and his prospect of salvation lies in his speedy reincarnation, through which he regains spirit and can develop higher. Once man has overcome his animal nature, this is no obstacle to him; but if lower and higher soul forces are still at work in his soul, then a separation of this double nature will necessarily have to take place, that is, a cleansing or sloughing off of the impure from the higher, and this state is called “kāmaloka” in Sanskrit, and “purgatory” in the Christian doctrine. After this separation of the actual human soul from the animal soul, the latter remains as a mindless, although perhaps still semi-intelligent larva, and it is these larvae which are often attracted to spiritistic sessions and are temporarily stimulated to an apparent life again by the nervous power of living people so that old memories come alive in them and they appear and act according to their former habits.

          A clear self-awareness is only to be expected in those deceased who have gained a certain degree of spiritual self-knowledge during their lifetime; for the others there is no prospect of a self-conscious existence after death, but at most a dream life. In this dream life the last thought or wish which filled the soul of the dying plays a great part and is often manifested through mediumistic influences; because, as already mentioned, the thought inspired by the will is a force that can continue to have an effect long after death. Thousands of facts in Spiritism testify to the truth of these theories.^[3]

          Through death the soul does not get rid of the desires and ideas ingrained in it as long as it has not awakened to true self-awareness, but persists in its dreamlike state. The “spirits” of the dead among the ancient Romans gave descriptions of Hades, Cerberus, and Pluto; deceased Catholics ask for prayers for salvation from purgatory, deceased Protestants refuse to believe in the same; dead Indians want someone to make sacrifices to their deities for them. The suicide repeats his suicide, the executed criminal is sentenced and executed again and again, the miser protects his treasures, the murderer sees himself pursued by his victim, the seducer is opposed by the seduced with their accusations, and so on. Such dream states explain the contradiction and the lack of clarity among the mediumistic communications which have their origin in the dream world (astral plane).

          For a clairvoyant, the ideas of others have a visible form, and he can take what he sees for reality. The descriptions which Dante Alighieri makes of purgatory, of heaven and hell, contain much truth; for all sorts of states of the soul are described in it, both before and after death. These descriptions are based on the reports of a nine-year-old boy who had these visions during a state of death-like paralysis lasting several days. It was the later monk Albertus who died in the monastery of Monte Casino.^[4] It is true that these are all conceits, but the word “conceit” has a deeper meaning than is usually ascribed to it, and means something imprinted or imprinted on the soul, in other words a “suggestion,” which can produce the most varied sensations and even bodily inconveniences, as the experiments of “hypnotism” show. This area has by no means been exhausted by our scholars, and an extension of it should also bring some enlightenment to the area of ​​religion and show that some things that are regarded as superstition today contain a deep truth. If one touches a hypnotized person with a piece of wood and “suggests” to him that it is a red-hot iron, he will feel the pain just as if it were a red-hot iron, and a burn may occur in the affected part of the body; it can therefore be assumed that the sufferings and joys of the soul in the hereafter are also completely real for it, even though the conditions from which these arise were created by it itself. There is therefore no doubt that there is a “heaven” and a “hell,” although these conditions do not correspond to the vulgar church conception and are not created by an external, really acting God, but by ourselves.

          Just as in this world the stages of development, characters and ideas of the individual people are very different from one another, so there are also innumerable different states of the dream life of the soul after the death of the body, and here an incalculably wide field opens up for psychology, the limits of which we scarcely touch in these brief lines, and which we can understand even less. The soul (manas) is like a living mirror in which countless images are imprinted and take on forms that are subject to constant change. The practical side of these investigations is not the gratification of curiosity, but the realization that man’s fate after death depends on nothing other than his own will, knowledge and becoming, and that he can shape himself by his own thinking and action can create both heaven and hell. Both are dream states, although they appear as full reality to the one who is in them; but beyond that there is a higher state, namely, the awakening of the soul to the self-consciousness of its divine sense, whereby it becomes master of all dreams in heaven and hell.

Notes:

^[1] Concerning the difference between immortality, and “life at the other side.” [Über den Unterschied zwischen Unsterblichkeit, und “Leben im jenseits.” Franz Hartmann, M.D. Theosophischer Wegweiser 6, no. 5 (February 1904), 142-51; Theosophischer Wegweiser 6, no. 6 (March 1904), 172-76.] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hütwohl, ©2025}

^[2] {R.H.—Also called the etheric body and in Sanskrit, the liṅga-śarīra.}

^[3] A lady I know was suffering from consumption and was to be taken from Rome to Locarno, where she longed to see her relatives again. On this journey she died suddenly in Nervi and her body was buried there. This happened about twelve years ago, but she still uses every opportunity for mediumistic communication to ask that her remains be dug up again and taken to Locarno.

^[4] Cancellieri: Observations on the question over Dante’s originality. — Rome 1814.