Unbornness: Human Pre-existence and the Journey toward Birth

by Peter Selg, Margot Saar (Translator)

“Not only do we pass through the gate of death as immortal beings, we also enter through the gate of birth as unborn beings. We need the term unbornness, as well as the term immortality, to encompass the whole human being” (Rudolf Steiner). As anyone who has had a child knows, newborns enter the earthly world as beings different from their parents. They arrive with their own individuality, being, and history. From the beginning, they manifest an essential dignity and a unique “I,” which they clearly brought with them from the spiritual world. This unborn life of a person’s higher individuality guides the whole process of incarnation. It frames our lives, but we fail to recognize this because of a single-minded focus on immortality, or life-after-death, which makes us forget the reality of our “unbornness.” This unbornness extends not only from conception to birth, but also includes the whole existence and history of one’s “I” in its long journey from the spiritual world to Earth. Unbornness―the other side of eternity―allows us to experience the fact that birth is just as great a mystery as is death. In a new and striking way, unbornness poses the mystery of our human task on Earth. It was one of Rudolf Steiner’s great gifts that he returned the concept of unbornness to human consciousness and language. In this brief, stunning, and moving, almost poetic work, Peter Selg gathers the key elements and images needed to begin an understanding of―and wonder at―the vast scope of our unbornness. Drawing on and expanding on Steiner’s work, as well as Raphael’s Sistine Madonna and the poems of Nelly Sachs and Rainer Maria Rilke, Selg unveils this deepest mystery of human existence. After reading it, one will never look at a child or another human being in the same way again. Life after death
life before birth;
only by knowing both
do we know eternity.
(Rudolf Steiner) Unbornness is a translation of Die Präexistenz des Menschen und der Weg zur Geburt (Verlag Ita Wegman Institut, 2009).

88 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2010

Reviews

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know what part of me became capable of reading a book like this and not automatically scoffing at its central premise. It's probably because I have read Study of Man/Foundations of Human Experience lecture one so many times with Lakshmi Prasanna that the idea of unbornness just took root in me and is now growing in whatever way it chooses.

On one level, the idea of unbornness is a completely logical extension of the more commonly held view of immortality; after death, something essential and immaterial remains of what was experienced during physical existence. I get that immortality, namely views of the afterlife, has been used to "bribe" people into whatever socially sanctioned behaviors are being promoted in a given group, and that's why there is so much emphasis on it. Steiner calls it out as a "clinging to egoism." Unbornness can't really be used to manipulate people, though. If one starts to think about it - or contemplate or whatever other verb seems suitable - then the idea of trying to control other people's behavior to align with one's own ideas of who/how they should be starts to become more and more absurd. A perspective on human existence that include unbornness necessarily entails discovery, which requires freedom from all the constraints we place on ways of being in this world. Every single person "chooses" (still struggling with that word and its material connotations) the circumstances they are born into and has a purpose for their incarnation. We interfere so, so, so, so, so much with becoming conscious of and fulfilling that purpose because we are so into things like money and power and status. We kinda suck sometimes.

Although it's not directly the subject of this particular book, I kept thinking about the successive births of various "bodies" that anthroposophy details in its developmental perspective on the human being. Even when we are looking at a very old person, there is still something in them that might not be born yet, like their Spirit-Self. Do we have the "eyes" to start "seeing" what is trying to come to form and be facilitators of that birth? Are we tending to the successive births in ourselves and in those around us, or do we reject them? When I was working with For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf last year, there was one line that kept hitting me: "let her be born, let her be born and handled warmly."





PS- I am grateful for the way abortion was discussed in this book, albeit briefly.

[Valerie Brett · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting ideas (very out there, based in speculation/intuition, not science) but this is really just a long essay with tons of long quotes & then another essay at the end that has already been quoted from extensively in the first part.

[Kristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

These 3 short essays will place the idea of pre-birth, or unbornness, firmly in our minds. As Selg says, we are so concerned with immortality and post death that we cannot even look at the other end of the spectrum. Of course, if reincarnation was understood, we most certainly would.
The highlight of this book for me was the poem written in 1946 by Nelly Sachs, a Jewish refugee.

We the unborn:
Already longing starts to work on us,
The shores of blood widen in welcome,
And we sink into love like dew.
Yet time's shadow still lie like questions
Over our secret.

What is most astounding about the idea of unbornness is that we choose our parents according to our own destiny. If we contemplate the possibility of this in our own lives we will come to understand many things about ourselves and our upbringing which can lead to great freedom.

[Ned · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it has some powerfully poetic moments, all in all, the book's focus on afterlife/beforelife theories left me unmoved & unengaged. This may not be a fault of the author, as much as a fault of my poor literary choice, but nonetheless, the writing is not enough to get me past this issue.