The following study examines popular-philosophical depictions of the afterlife which appeared in the German lands between roughly 1770 and 1820. The central argument is that these texts, many of which were written by relatively unknown authors, can be read as attempts to understand the self and the essentiality of individual difference, key areas of inquiry born of the Enlightenment. The first half of the project is concerned with describing two competing theories of rebirth—termed "palingenesis" and Seelenwanderung—which German thinkers popularized from the 1770s onward in opposition to the teachings of Lutheran orthodoxy and rationalist philosophy. The claim is made that whereas the theory of palingenesis was the product of a "vitalist'' view of nature that emerged in the late Enlightenment, the theory of Seelenwanderung was based on a dualist understanding of the relationship between spirit and matter which drew strength from the philosophies of Kant and the German Idealists. The second half of the project shows that the contest between the theories of palingenesis and Seelenwanderung was in fact a contest between two radically different understandings of the self. By means of close readings of dozens of texts, it is demonstrated that theorists of palingenesis and Seelenwanderung disagreed about whether man's body, memories, and emotions were essential to himself. The argument is developed that by debating the composition of the heavenly self, German writers were also disputing whether human beings differed essentially from one another.