Theosophical Correspondence.

Translation from German by Robert Hutwohl^[1]

          Question: — What is meant by spiritual rebirth?

          Answer: — In the Bible it is said that no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. (John III, 3.) The words in the Greek original “γεννθῇ ἄνωθεν”^[2] can just as well be translated as “high-born” or “born from above.” Only the person who has come down from above and is born of “water” (abstract thinking) and the Holy Spirit can enter the kingdom of God (the knowledge of God); the “natural, born of the flesh” person, who with all his intellectual achievements is nevertheless only a product of nature and an animal-like creature, does not enter this kingdom of divine self-knowledge. He cannot recognize himself as divine because he is not divine. He is only, as it were, the house in which the person who has come from heaven lives; he is not immortal, but returns, like everything, to his origins. Through the re-formation of the inner, heavenly man in the outer man, spiritual rebirth and the awakening of consciousness to a higher existence take place. (Compare, John I, 12, 13.)

Notes

^[1] Theosophical Correspondence. Spiritual Rebirth. By Dr. Franz Hartmann [Theosophische Korrespondenz. Geistige Wiedergeburt. Von Dr. Franz Hartmann. Theosophischer Wegweiser 8, no, 4 (January 1907), 134] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than minor typos, translation from German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}

^[2] [R.H.—will be born from above]