[Der wissenschaftliche Beweis der Unsterblichkeit und die occulte Philosophie]
Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[1]
The most important riddle, the solution of which has occupied thinking humankind from primeval times, is the question of immortality, or, to put it more correctly, the question of the persistence of individual self-consciousness after the death of the body; for even if it were proved that this self-consciousness continued long after the soul (the “I”) left the mortal body, this would still not prove that this “I” would never end.
There is no need to debate the importance of this question; it suffices to point out how very different and how much better would be the conditions in which we live if every human being were convinced that our earthly life is but a short prelude to a long, higher and spiritual existence, or a temporary episode in our eternal life. We would then cease to squander all our energies, using them only to make this transitory, material existence comfortable and pleasant to the detriment of others, and we would be more anxious to live and act according to those higher principles, which raise us to that higher level, which is absolutely necessary for a self-conscious existence on a higher level of existence.
Basically, the question of immortality is a riddle which no one can solve for another, but each must solve for himself; for even if science were to bring us objective facts, or philosophy logical conclusions, to prove such persistence, these proofs would relate only to possibilities and probabilities, and would not yet give us the consciousness of immortal existence; for the realization of the theories forms the beginning and keystone of perfect and true knowledge. We can only know anything certain of a higher state when we have experienced it, that is, when we have entered it and it has come before our consciousness. We can only attain a complete conviction of our own immortality on a religious basis. But this does not in any way mean the dogmatics of the church; for the word “religion” in its true sense includes not only theoretical knowledge or intellectual belief, but above all one’s own practical spiritual growth, in other words: the awakening of the soul to knowledge and the enjoyment of a higher existence.
That church dogmatics has not yet solved the question of immortality to everyone’s satisfaction needs no assurance; but even science with the inclusion of spiritism has not yet made it very far. Millions of people have puzzled this riddle for millennia, but no amount of intellectual musing will ever bring man to the self-awareness of his immortality; for the human intellect is not immortal and therefore cannot become conscious of its immortality. That which is immortal in man is higher than thinking; it is what creates thoughts. The Bible correctly says: “There is none immortal but God,” and consequently we can only attain this consciousness when the All-Consciousness of God awakens within us as our own, in our self-consciousness. The total passing of our immortality, therefore, can only be attained through proper religious belief (not to be confused with religious opinion); for this belief is itself the spiritual power from which springs the feeling and realization of a higher immortal existence. It is the bridge to man’s union with God, or, more correctly, the light which dispels the self-deception that he is a separate being from God, and dispels the darkness which hides from him the self-knowledge of truth.
But this belief is seldom found today, and yoga, or the practice of union with God, that is, finding and resurrecting that which is divine and immortal within ourselves is not for everyone. We must, therefore, be thankful for that science which can give us an intellectual conviction that there is continuity after death of the body. Official school science, which one could better describe as “non-science” in this respect, has achieved nothing at all, but rather has so far feared and hidden itself from all relevant facts, and the teachings of the few enlightened scholars have found little understanding and little heed in her. The situation is different with “occult science,” whose modern representative in Germany, Dr. Carl du Prel, is the one who gave a scientific basis to the theory of immortality in his work on “Death and the Hereafter.” His teaching is based on so-called “exact” science, that is, on those views which result from external observation and logical conclusions, and approaches in a most remarkable way the teachings of the still much more exact science of the adepts, who themselves have experienced what they teach. If du Prel had known these teachings more precisely, some things might have become clearer to him; but at least he has taken a significant step forward in the knowledge of the truth; for it brings irrefutable evidence of the soul’s persistence on the astral plane. Anything beyond that he leaves untouched, and perhaps it seemed premature to him to talk about it.
Like every other clear-thinking person who has seriously dealt with this matter, du Prel came to the realization that we are already spirits and do not need to become ghosts after death, and that we are already in this life are in possession of magically effective powers which belong to our astral body. This astral body has a consciousness different from that of the physical body and can exist and work without it. In the magical workings of the living this function occurs without use, in the departed without possession of the physical body. The powers of the astral man are identical to those of the spiritistic phantoms and are subject to the same legal conditions. If it has thus been proved that the astral body of a human being can step out of the physical body and work and act independently of the latter, it is clear that this astral body can work just as well, perhaps even more powerfully, when it is in contact with the physical body left forever. This view is confirmed by the phenomena of spiritism. Spiritism and animism complement each other.
Among the proofs that the astral body of living persons can act upon its own accord, and that the inner man has qualities different from the outer personality, are the phenomena of sleep, dream and somnambulism, ecstasy, trance, hypnotism and suggestion, the exteriorization of the astral body with the phenomena accompanying the exteriorization of sensation, the double, the long-distance action of thought and will, spiritual television, the appearances of phantoms of both the living and the dying, the magical transmission of life force (magnetism), sympathetic effects, the photography of phantoms, etc.
Contrasted with these accounts are the corresponding phenomena of spiritism, e.g., mediumship, possession, apparitions of the phantoms of the deceased, spook and ghost stories, ghost materializations and ghost photography, the influence of the spiritual world on the realm of matter, images in the astral light, levitation, apports, vampirism, etc.
It is not possible to go into a detailed discussion of these phenomena in the small scope of this article; there is also a large amount of literature which is accessible to everyone, and the natural scientist who is not familiar with it today can probably be counted among the remnants of an already ossified scholarship. The number of these fossil scholars is fewer than is commonly believed; but there are many among the enlightened who are not yet firm enough in their convictions to have the courage to speak up for it publicly, especially since this branch of natural science is still in its infancy.
The main point of all these investigations lies in the proof that the soul of man, that is, his essential self (du Prel’s “transcendental ego”) is a being distinct and much superior to the external, personal man; it is the so-called “unconscious” whose existence only dawns on the ordinary man in rare, luminous moments and only comes clear to the personal consciousness of the Adepts and saints during life. It is the immortal in us, which is not in itself unconscious, but whose consciousness and knowledge is much higher than that of mortal man. In the state of somnambulism, when the lower psychic powers are paralyzed, the activity of these higher psychic powers is clearly evident. How much more must this higher consciousness become clear when the soul is freed from all sensual illusions and material limitations through the death of the body.[2]
Du Prel refers to Kant and says: “The (for us) unconscious life in this world is the conscious life in the hereafter.” Under the “hereafter” is not a spatially different place from “this world,” but only a beyond of our present limitations (a beyond the “threshold of consciousness”), and that there is such a beyond, everyday experience bears witness to. “Kant’s assumption that we are already spirits in this world, even if we don’t know it cerebrally, and that the abilities of the spirits are identical to the magical abilities of the living has been experimentally proven, in that both the doubles of the living and the phantoms of the deceased can be communicated in an identical manner through written or spoken media.”
It is clear that if there are people who, while still connected with the material body, can temporarily separate themselves from it and move freely on the astral plane and associate with its inhabitants, they will have this ability just as well when they are completely separated from the material body by the death of it. But this has also been proven experimentally, and thus exact science has led us across the threshold which separates the astral world or “middle region” from our material sense world, and a persistence of our astral body after death is proven.
But not much has happened with that; for now comes the occult philosophy and teaches that this astral plane is only a transition and that there are even higher states beyond this state. Therefore we must not confuse the astral body with the actual soul.
Even the ancient Latins recognized this. They had correct views of the composition of human nature and of the fates of the individual parts of it, as the well-known verse says:
“Bis duo sunt hominis: manes, caro, spiritus, umbra.
Quattuor ista loci bis duo suscipiunt.
Terra tegit carnem, tumulum circumvolat umbra,
Orcus habet manes, spiritus astra petit.” (Lucretius.)
“There are two kinds of men: the ghost, the flesh, the spirit, the shadow.
These four take up two positions twice.
The earth covers the flesh, the shadow hovers around the tomb
Death has ghosts, the spirit seeks the stars.” (Lucretius.)
But this view is much older than that of the Latins. Already for thousands of years ago, the philosophers of the Indians and Egyptians had this classification and the sages did not accept it by hearsay but had the ability to recognize it. According to this classification, human nature consists of the following:
- The material, sensible body (caro = the flesh), which is formed from the elements of the earth and is resolved back into it after death. The emergence of the material world from the five major elements (Tattvas) is described in detail by Śaṅkarācārya in his “Tattva-Bodha” or “Doctrine of Knowledge of Existence.” Its chemical composition, as well as the use and action of its organs, is all that official science knows of man.
- The etheric body (umbra = the shadow) is intimately connected with the material body during life and does not leave it even after death, but remains with a magnetic connection to it until the same is completely decomposed (tumulum circumvolat umbra).[3] For this reason, too, cremation of the corpse is preferable to burial. Under certain circumstances, this etheric body can emerge from the material body and appear as the “double [of the physical body].” It is not, as is often the case, to be confused with the actual “astral body,” but forms the basis of the so-called “spirit materializations” of the spiritists, as well as some ghost appearances. It has no intelligence in itself, but can be misused for magical purposes.
- The astral man (manas = mind). This is the actual, inner man, which at death leaves the material body and soon afterwards also the etheric body. Even in ordinary sleep it leaves the physical body, but without separating itself entirely from it, and in the state of somnambulism it shows clear consciousness. According to Śaṅkarācārya, it is the seat of sensation, the seat of instincts, desires, and as long as it is connected with the actual soul, it is also the seat of thought and knowledge. In sensual and passionate people it is dark and/or dense and heavy, it is full of light and lightness in noble-minded, exalted people. Its abode is the middle region (orcus) or the astral world.
Spiritism and animism introduce us to this astral world, but something higher stands above this and the astral body, namely the “heavenly world” (Devachan or Svarga). Occult philosophy therefore teaches us the existence of a still higher being, namely:
- The soul, by which is meant the “thought body” with the higher mental powers (spiritus). The matter is as follows: Depending on whether the human being is more or less earthly minded after death and bound to the lower existence, sooner or later a separation of the thought body from the astral body (Ruach from Neschamah) occurs. The lower spiritual forces remain behind with the coarse part of the astral body and finally exhaust their activity, but the higher, nobler spiritual forces, which the soul can absorb, remain connected with it and go with it into the higher existence, into the heavenly world, whither spiritism cannot follow us. The soul remains there until its next reincarnation, if it has not already progressed far enough to enter divinity (Nirvāṇa).
Now, since after this separation of the higher soul forces from the lower ones only an unintelligent human larva remains on the astral plane, either in an unconscious or dream-like state, which, however, by vampirizing a “medium” and drawing life force from it, again turns into a kind of illusory life can be galvanized back, in which case old memories can reappear in it, it is easy to see why the communications from the “spirits” of the deceased at spiritistic sessions usually show so little intelligence; for as a rule one deals only with mindless larvae left behind, provided that the remains of the dead are involved and not merely animistic influences from the living. Our experimental physiology and psychology cannot enter into the regions of the gods and draw them down to itself, and the soul resting in the light of eternity does not descend to rap tables, frighten children, or mingle in family affairs; fortunately it no longer has anything to do with all earthly things.
But it is within the power of man to ennoble and spiritualize himself and to achieve that quietude, perfection of knowledge and happiness in this life, which the soul enjoys in its holiness in heaven. But this involves something more than observation and conclusion. This includes one’s own spiritual-divine awakening. The proper way to arrive at a proof of our immortality, therefore, is to seek our own immortal soul. Once we have found them, all of their own mysteries will also become clear to us.
Notes
[1] Scientific Proof for Immortality and Occult Philosophy [Der wissenschaftliche Beweis der Unsterblichkeit und die occulte Philosophie. Dr. Franz Hartmann. Theosophischer Wegweiser 4 no. 8 (May 1902), 241-252] {This was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}
[2] Heinrich Zschokke gave a picture of this difference between the inner and the outer human being many years ago in his story “The Transfigurations,” which reveals a deep knowledge of the soul life, and Katharine Crowe in her interesting work “The Night Side of Nature” introduces many in this book, written more than fifty years ago, facts are given and scientific explanations of them which surpass in clarity to those of most modern psychologists. {The Night Side of Nature; or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers. Catherine Crowe. Vol. I. London, T. C. Newby, 1848; The Night Side of Nature; or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers. Catherine Crowe. Vol. II. London, T. C. Newby, 1848}
[3] {R.H.—Latin = The shadow flies around the hill.}