Concerning Reincarnation
Dr. Franz Hartmann[1]
Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl
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The number of people who believe in a re-embodiment of the human spirit after the death of the body is estimated at about four hundred million, but on closer examination it would turn out to be much larger; for most people have an inner feeling that not everything is over with the death of the body, and the thinking person tells the intellect that the spirit needs a body for its further development. Man’s natural destiny is to attain perfection, and everyday experience shows that this does not happen in a single existence on this earth. But if no material body were necessary for our further development, it would not be easy to see why we came into the world at all. Also, the very phrase “coming into the world” expresses a belief in embodiment. One does not say: “When I came into being from nothing.” But if I came into the world, I had to come from somewhere, and consequently I must have existed somewhere before my body was born.
In Asia people generally believe in the doctrine of reincarnation, in Europe and America it is spreading more and more, but it is still widely misunderstood. When properly understood, it is a matter which goes without saying and is obvious to everyone. It is, therefore, well worth while to ponder over it.
All of nature preaches to us the doctrine of reincarnation. We see how, in spring, nature awakens from its winter sleep. The same plants that died in the autumn sprout again from their seeds in the spring. The forms disappear, the character remains the same and reappears in similar forms. An acorn falls from a tree, the earth absorbs it, the snow covers it with its shroud, spring comes, and with it warmth and sunshine. Then, too, the germinating life awakens in the acorn, bursts the shell, and draws from the surrounding soil the elements necessary for its nourishment. From the acorn grows another oak tree, which eventually becomes as large as its father. It is not the old oak tree that has been incarnated in it, but rather the same idea that the old one represented that has been reincarnated in the young one. Without the seed, however, no new oak tree would have come into being, and this is what some of our philosophers have overlooked in their speculations about the “origin of man.”
Schopenhauer believes: “What binds two individuals of different sexes together lies, without their knowing it, solely in the nature of the individual they are to produce. The more suited two individuals are to produce the individual that corresponds to the purposes of the will to life expressed in the species, the more intense and burning is their passion and longing to unite. In their mutually igniting glances, in their attempts at rapprochement, it is already the new, future individual that strives to emerge with the greatest greed and haste.”[2]
Eduard von Hartmann also says:
“Instinctively, man seeks out that individual of the opposite sex who, when fused with him, represents the idea of the species as perfectly as possible.”
According to this, it would only be the “species idea” that strives for reincarnation, and with each act of procreation, a completely new, previously unexisting individual would be created, a new soul produced. This would also put an end to all individual progress; for everything a person has achieved in their life would only benefit the “species,” and nothing of the individual itself would remain. That which strives “with the greatest greed” for incarnation would be nothing more than the species idea, and the highest purpose of love would be nothing higher than the creation of the most perfect specimens of the human species possible. Any union between two lovers that produces no such specimens would make the lovers themselves extremely unhappy![3]
Such a reincarnation of the species idea would at best be conceivable in oysters, fish, idiots, or beings in whom individual self-consciousness has not yet developed, where it is only a matter of a rebirth of a suitable form, not of the progress of spiritual individuality. But in a human being who has grown beyond the concept of his transient personality, has come to the consciousness of his higher ego, and has acquired a permanent character of his own, this ego is “the soul” and the spiritual seed that reincarnates. Not only the character of the species, but his own character reappears and strives for reincarnation. In his character lies the individuality of his spirit, which outlasts the death of his personality because it was already exalted above it during life and distinct from other spiritual individualities.
The one, indivisible World Spirit produces countless forms on the various levels of existence in which nature works and creates. Even at the lowest levels, in the mineral and plant kingdoms, a diversity of forms of consciousness becomes noticeable. Animals, too, are aware of their personality; a dog knows that it is a different thing from another dog, even without philosophizing about it. But only in a human being who has attained self-awareness does the knowledge of “I am that I am” occur. He needs no “Cogito, ergo sum,”[4] no arguments to prove that he exists. In his spiritual self-consciousness, which is to be distinguished from the animal personality-consciousness, lies the proof of his individual immortality. He is only a true human being when he has attained this higher, spiritual self-consciousness, and it is therefore necessary to distinguish between the temporary appearance or “personality” and the permanent “individuality” of man. The “personality” (persona, i.e., mask) passes away, the “individuality” is the spiritual “seed” whose character needs reincarnation for its further development.
In this regard, the Indian “Bhagavad Gita” teaches the following:
“Just as in this present body, childhood, youth, and old age are merely transient qualities of the immortal during its incarnation, so too will it be in the next life. Like a person who casts off his old clothes and puts on a new garment, so the spirit again manifests itself in other, newly forming forms.”
The Indian sage Shankaracharya says: “The possession of the ability to distinguish the permanent from the non-permanent is the first condition for attaining self-knowledge.”—As long as our intellectual philosophers do not feel and recognize this permanence in their hearts and consequently have not attained true self-consciousness, only the species lives in them, and reincarnation is merely a theory for them. “If you do not feel, you will not understand.” A person who has attained full consciousness of immortality needs no “proof” for the continuation of their individuality; God lives within them. It is not man’s figments of his imagination, but that which is capable of feeling and thinking eternal things within him that is eternal.
The individuality of man is the actor; the spirit that moves him is art; the role he plays is his personality. He appears in this role today and that tomorrow, but he remains the same man, and the art is also the same. The actor has the spirit of art within him, and even if he must constantly learn each new role, he does not need to acquire the talent for acting with each new appearance; it already lies within him. Likewise, man brings into the world not only those characteristics that belong to the entire species “Homo,” but also the talents and abilities he acquired in a previous existence, and develops them by playing his role here. If children had to acquire their talents from their parents, there would be no one who surpassed their parents in talent. On the other hand, one often sees musical or mathematical geniuses and “child prodigies” in families whose ancestors knew nothing of music or mathematics, and the children of great philosophers are known to be intellectually inferior.
It is often asked, “If I have been on earth before, why can’t I remember it?”—The answer is, “Because we are not Gnostics, that is, because we do not recognize our true selves.” True gnosis, or self-knowledge, consists in the fact that man becomes aware of the divine existence and finds himself in it. Only he who has found his true self truly knows himself. The personality is different from the spiritual man; it was not there before and consequently cannot remember any such existence. It is not the builder who built the house, but the house in which the builder lives. Once united with this builder, it will know him and share in his memories. It will then know which personalities he has previously created and overshadowed. In an intuitive person, as a result of his contact with the spirit, an intuitive intuition, a soul feeling of a previous existence, arises; but only in the one who has found himself does this feeling become clear knowledge.
Man is an incarnated god.— The Bible says: “When the sons of the gods saw the daughters of the earth that they were beautiful, they took them as wives.”—Behind this allegory lies a profound scientific and historical fact. The “daughters of the earth” are the thinking humans. When the human-like organisms, with their intellectual powers, were sufficiently developed to serve as dwellings for the heavenly humans, the humans united with them.
The spiritual individuality of man is thus something essentially different from his personality, even though during this life both form a whole. The soul is, as it were, the butterfly, the personality the flower from which it seeks to draw honey; the inner man is the master, the personal man the tool, useful only if it obeys the master’s will. Spiritualists who seek communion with the personality of a deceased person should also bear this in mind; for after death, the personality becomes a spiritless shadow, in which memories may indeed continue to exist for a time; but the true spirit is exalted above the relationships of this world of appearances. The heavenly soul soars upwards to its homeland; an attraction to the earthly could only be highly hindering and destructive. It leaves everything earthly behind and has nothing more to do with it. It enjoys peace and bliss until the treasures it brought with it are exhausted. Then the desire for a new existence resurfaces, and she creates a new body for herself, in order to gain new experiences on this Earth or another planet, which she needs to draw closer to divinity and attain perfection. Once she has achieved this, she need not return, unless she undergoes “incarnation” again for the good of humanity.
By “flesh,” however, is meant not only the visible flesh, muscles, bones, etc., but everything that belongs to the transient, earthly nature of man, hence his sensual inclinations and desires, instincts, opinions, talents, habits, etc., in general, the characteristics of his personality. Death is a process of separation. As the soul soars ever higher, it leaves behind on the lower planes of existence everything that bothers it in its flight. When it descends back to material existence, it reabsorbs similar elements, since the attractions to it are contained within itself. Reincarnation can thus be considered a “resurrection of the flesh,” as it is called in the Catholic Catechism. The Buddhist Catechism states: “I believe in a reunion of the skandhas.” “Skandhas” and “flesh” here mean one and the same thing: The character traits of humans. In Sanskrit, these “skandhas” are referred to as follows:
- Rūpa (Form),
- Vedanā (sensual sensations),
- Saṃjñā (Perceptions),
- Saṃskāras (Ideas),
- Vijñāna (Area of thoughts, lower consciousness).
This is the material that the soul lays down and from which it builds a new house upon its return.
In order to understand the process of death and reincarnation, it is necessary to know the composition of human nature in physical, psychological and intellectual terms.
Those capable of entering into their own inner self need no further explanation; but for those not yet ready for it, a consideration of the various bodies of which man is composed, as taught by Shankaracharya, will be of use. These bodies are, as it were, sheaths or spheres that clothe him; but we must not imagine them as separate from one another, like the leaves of an onion; rather, they are to be compared to different degrees of density, or to darkness, twilight, and light, or to the tones of successive octaves.
First, the material, visible body is formed from the four elements—solid, liquid, air, and fiery (energy). Underlying this body lies another body, formed from the fifth element, ether. The latter is the seat of the life force, which is transmitted to the visible body through the nerves. These two belong to the physical plane, and after death they decay there; each part returns to the element from which it was born.
Then comes the so-called astral body, and in this one distinguishes first the “body of desire,” which is the seat of instincts and passions, then the “body of thought,” the seat of the intellect and knowledge, then comes the body of knowledge and contemplation, and finally the transfigured body of eternal bliss.
These correspond to the five regions of existence of the macrocosm: the physical sensory world, the lower and higher astral regions, the world of thought, and the state called “paradise,” “heaven,” or the “world of the gods” (Devachan), as well as the realm of bliss or the divine world. In each sphere, the soul, as it passes through these states of existence, leaves behind what belongs to each. It brings with it no learning to heaven, but only what belongs to heaven, namely, all the ideals it has gathered during its life and which it fulfills. These ideals become reality for it there; they form the world that surrounds it there.
Devachan is described as a dream world of ideal representations, and indeed it is, but not like our world; for our earthly life is also, in a sense, a dream. We know nothing of the outside world, even of the person we love most, except what enters our consciousness through our sense impressions—through sight, hearing, touch, or spiritual perceptions. From these impressions arise our feeling and our conception of the object, which in reality is often very different from the image we imagine. We do not love the person directly, but rather the ideal image we have formed of them and which we project onto them. When we think of a distant friend, we do not think of their physical defects, which would be obvious to us if we were with them, but we form an ideal image of their virtues and character. Such is also the ideal conception of such things which we bring with us to heaven, and since we have left our thinking machines behind, we no longer argue about them, but rejoice in the presence of our ideal.
This state can last a very long time, even millennia, depending on the greatness of the ideals we have brought with us. But in the end, even these spiritual vibrations are exhausted, and the soul, deprived of its transient treasures in heaven, is again seized by the instinctive urge for earthly life. It begins its return journey to the material realm, thus reclothing itself with a thinking astral body, putting on “the flesh,” and is now the individual who is not “begotten” by the two lovers, but is already there and “striving with the greatest greed and haste to appear.” Many cases of infertility in good health may be caused by the fact that no such individual is present who feels attracted to incarnation in the family in question; the “seed” from which a new human plant arises is missing.
It seems almost superfluous to mention that a soul that has not yet attained true self-awareness is unable to choose the family in which it will be incarnated, but is instinctively drawn to the position that best suits its character. For example, a king who has stolen entire lands and thus become a thief may, in his next life, find his place among thieves, perhaps in a family of beggars. He then reaps what he has sown. This is the law of cause and effect on the moral plane, called “karma” in Sanskrit. It is the “nemesis” of the Greeks, avenging justice, which is why the Bible also says: “Vengeance is mine! Says the Lord.” Through this law, evil punishes and good rewards itself.
Thus, man moves within the eternally turning wheel of phenomena, within the kaleidoscope of nature. Through his lack of knowledge of his divine nature, he is bound to this cycle of life, death, and rebirth, from which there is no other redeemer than the light of knowledge. Only when man has attained true self-knowledge (gnosis) is he his own master. Then he is no longer driven while he believes he is driven. Through his knowledge of and obedience to the law, he is united with the law and consequently becomes the law himself. Then he no longer follows an alien will, but the will of the law, of which he himself is the representative. Then he is free.
Notes:
[1] Concerning Reincarnation [Über die Wiederverkörperung. Von Dr. Franz Hartmann. Theosophischer Wegweiser 5, no. 10 (July 1903), 288-300] {This article was reformatted from the original, but with the content unchanged other than fixing minor typos. Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025}
[2] “World as will and representation.”
[3] See Inna von Troll-Borostyáni. “Gender Equality.”
[4] [R.H.—Latin, Cogito, ergo sum = I think, therefore I am.