The Foundations of Esotericism

GA 93a

Table of Contents

  1. Lecture 1

    Significance of the symbol of the snake. Invertebrate and vertebrate animals — System of the solar plexus and the spinal chord. Inner study of man with the help of the Kundalini fire. Twelve stages of consciousness: seven appertaining to man, five to the creative gods. The Twelve apostles as the twelve Christ-permeated stages of consciousness.

  2. Lecture 2

    Activity, wisdom, will: three leading concepts in esotericism. Life after death. The appearance of the Guardian of the Threshold as the Double. The significance of Christ's death of atonement. The influence of Ulfilas on the German language. The chaos of the activity of the West and the tranquillity of the wisdom of the East.

  3. Lecture 3

    Stages of Consciousness in the three kingdoms of Nature and of Man. The plant world as sense organ of the Earth. The organ of orientation in the root of the plant and the corresponding organ of orientation in the human ear. The cross as the symbol of the evolution of direction in man, animal and plant. Plant consciousness on the Mental Plane; that of sensitive plants, idiots and animals on the Astral Plane, of minerals on the Higher Mental Plane. Human consciousness on the Physical Plane and its development to higher stages. The riddle of the Sphinx as indication of the future form of man.

  4. Lecture 4

    Consciousness of the bees and ants. Alchemy and the Philosophers' Stone. Relationship of the kingdoms of Nature to each other. The being of man in the future.

  5. Lecture 5

    The conditions of bodies: solid, liquid, gaseous; the four kinds of ether: warmth, light, chemical and life ether and their life on the seven planes. Relationship between the passive and active organs: ear and speech i.e. larynx; heart and pituitary gland (hypophysis); eye and pineal gland (epiphysis). The development of the hypophysis into an active warmth-organ, the epiphysis to an active organ of vision. Tolstoi. Ulfilas.

  6. Lecture 6

    The difference between receptive and creative beings in connection with the Blavatskian sequence of seven stages of being, to which man belongs: 1. receptive elemental beings; 2. man as a receptive and creative intermediate being; 3. the 'pure man' of the pre-Lemurian Age: Adam Cadmon and the development of the warm and cold-blooded animals; 4. Bodhisattvas: human beings who have become creative for the purpose of regulating the continuity of evolution; 5. Nirmanakayas: creative beings reaching out beyond the Earth who are able to bring new impulses into Earth evolution; 6. Pitris (Fathers): beings able to sacrifice themselves; 7. The actual gods. Heart and gall.

  7. Lecture 7

    Development of the beings on the Old Moon. Moon — Cosmos of Wisdom. Jehovah a rank of the hierarchies. Transition from the Old Moon to the Earth. Beginning of human incarnations: union of two different kinds of beings (spiritual & physical parts) resulting in birth and death; the degree of balance in the gradual reciprocal adaptation of the spiritual and physical parts. Past and future development of speech in connection with consciousness, life and form.

  8. Lecture 8

    Reincarnation, development of civilisation and the zodiac. Christianity and the teaching of reincarnation. Water or the drinking of wine in relation to knowledge of reincarnation. The Trappist Orders. The Augustinian teaching of predestination.

  9. Lecture 9

    The physical body as the oldest and most perfected part of the fourfold human organism. Self-awareness and sense-observation. The seven senses in relation to the seven planes and conditions of substance. The nature of the future Jupiter as the result of the thoughts, feelings and will impulses of present-day man. Materialism, a karmic result of earlier idealistic periods. The founding of towns and the Lohengrin saga. Causes of illnesses.

  10. Lecture 10

    The formation of the etheric body as the opposite of the physical body: the feminine etheric body of the man, and the male etheric body of the woman. The forms and colours of the astral body and its sheath: the auric egg. The development of the human auric egg through seven conditions of form of the earth. The membering of the human auric egg. The individualised astral light. Reading in the Akasha.

  11. Lecture 11

    Man's participation in the physical, astral and mental world. The development of self-consciousness during the descent to the physical plane. The re-ascent to the higher planes through schooling towards selflessness in wishes and thoughts. The possibility of development towards freedom on the physical plane. Action and reaction as the technique of karma.

  12. Lecture 12

    The origin of the physical body. The Kundalini fire as means of investigation into occult anatomy. The work of the Deva-forces on the bodily sheaths and the gradual loosening of the Deva-forces through the ego. The working of the Devas in the life after death. Sojourn in Devachan and re-embodiment. Life after death in the case of suicide and death by violence.

  13. Lecture 13

    Dionysius the Areopagite and his teaching about the Gods. The structure of the Church, an outer image of the inner hierarchical ordering of the world. Alteration in the forms of the flora, fauna and mineral kingdom through the work of man after death. The activity and nature of the Devas and the Planetary Spirits.

  14. Lecture 14

    Man's sojourn in Devachan between death and a new birth. The formation of devachanic organs on Earth through spiritual activity and soul relationships (Life in the Groups). The physical world as world of causes, Devachan as world of effects. Three stages of pupil-ship. The eighth sphere. The twelve Nidanas or forces of Karma.

  15. Lecture 15

    The impulse given through the Rosicrucians to European history from the 14th century to the time of the French Revolution. In the Rosicrucian schools basic Theosophy was taught. The three basic concepts, Wisdom, Beauty, Power, in connection with the transformation of the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms. The twelve forces of Karma (Nidanas).

  16. Lecture 16

    How Karma works in relation to deeds, words and thoughts. The opposite of Karma: creation out of nothing. The experience of Nirvana.

  17. Lecture 17

    The three stages of thought-life: Abstract Thoughts, Imagination, and Intuition. Father, Son (Word) and Holy Spirit or First, Second, Third Logos — Karma and the five Skandhas.

  18. Lecture 18

    The human beings of the Atlantean and Lemurian Ages. The two-fold origin of human nature and their union in the Lemurian Age. The Eighth Sphere. The two-fold structure of the physical, etheric and astral body of present-day man.

  19. Lecture 19

    Certain species of Elemental Beings in the Astral World — Asuric Beings — Jehovah as the God of the descending Kama-principle; Christ, the ascending Buddhi-Principle — Black and White Magic. Natural and induced Elemental Beings.

  20. Lecture 20

    Beings and experiences in the Astral World. Black and White Magic. Necessity of a strict schooling for forming judgements about the Astral World. Technique of reincarnation. The memory tableau immediately after death and the vision of the future preceding new birth.

  21. Lecture 21

    The technique of reincarnation: the law of effect and counter-effect in relation to actions, feelings and thoughts. The necessity for artistic activity in theosophical life. The passage through the Astral and Devachanic World in the life after death and the preparation for the next Earth life.

  22. Lecture 22

    The problem of death as a question of consciousness. The duality: inner kernel of being (Monad) and physical-astral man; their various forms of development until their unification in the Lemurian Age. The beginning of Karma. Wisdom, Beauty, Strength as reflection of Manas, Buddhi and Atma.

  23. Lecture 23

    Fructification with the Spirit (Monad) in the Lemurian Age. The previous stages of Earth evolution: Old Saturn, Sun and Moon. The Sun and Moon ancestors of Man. Opposition between the intentions of Jehovah and the Luciferic Principle. The coming into being of the two sexes as also of birth and death. The changing direction of the Earth axis. Arising of original (Ur) Karma. Conflict between Jehovah and Lucifer. Christianity and the teaching of Reincarnation and Karma.

  24. Lecture 24

    Survey of Earth evolution I: Races, Globes, Rounds.

  25. Lecture 25

    Survey of Earth evolution II: Planets or states of consciousness, Rounds or elemental kingdoms, Globes or conditions of form; in Christian terminology: Power, Kingdom and Glory.

  26. Lecture 26

    Survey of Earth evolution III: The Fourth Earth Round. Separation of Sun and Moon. The Union of the human astral body with the Monad. Intervention of the impulse of Luciferic Beings and the battle between Jehovah and Lucifer. Elemental beings in the Atlantean Age. The origin of metals. Names of the days of the week and their connection with the planetary evolution of the Earth.

  27. Lecture 27

    The Three Logoi, or Form, Life and Consciousness (Creation out of Nothing) as three stages of evolution. Elemental Beings and the arising of Astral Beings through the physical deeds of man.

  28. Lecture 28

    The senses in connection with the different ethers. Connection between microcosm and macrocosm. The development of different stages of consciousness during the epochs of the Post-Atlantean Age.

  29. Lecture 29

    Karmic connections in the relationships of peoples. Illnesses connected with particular times and nations. Class opposition and national morality. Michael's battle against the God Mammon in the seventies of the nineteenth century. The War of All against All and its remedy in the basic principle of brotherhood. The origin of oxygen, breathing. Connection of freedom with birth, death and illness. Origin of fever. The Riddle of the Sphinx, a secret of the future.

  30. Lecture 30

    Development of the different forms of nourishment; origin and significance of drinking wine. The social aspect of West and East in regard to production and consumption.

  31. Lecture 31

    Concerning Old Atlantis and the formation of the Fifth Root-Race or the Post-Atlantean Age. Development of the Post-Atlantean Age through the Indian, Persian, Chaldean and European civilisations. Present-day materialism. Preparation for a new civilisation the task of Central Europe.

In these lectures, Steiner speaks to a small group of active members of the Theosophical Society of Berlin. He presents a sweep of occult knowledge including the phases of planetary evolution, planetary influences, the kingdoms of nature, various myths and symbols, human physical and spiritual organs, illness, reincarnation, and much more. Included are unexpected insights into specific phenomena such as dinosaurs, bacteria, radiation, the Sphinx, and Freemasonry.

Notes of an esoteric Course in the form of thirty-one lectures by Rudolf Steiner: given between the 26th of September and the 5th of November 1905, at Berlin. This edition is Translated by Vera and Judith Compton-Burnett, from notes unrevised by the lecturer. In the complete edition of the works of Rudolf Steiner the volume containing the original German is entitled: Grundelemente der Esoterik, no 93a in the Biographical Survey.

About Transcripts of Lectures

The results of my anthroposophical work are, first, the books available to the general public; secondly, a great number of lecture courses, originally regarded as private publications and sold only to members of the Theosophical (later Anthroposophical) Society. The courses consist of more or less accurate notes taken at my lectures, which for lack of time I have not been able to correct. I would have preferred the spoken word to remain the spoken word. But the members wished to have the courses printed for private circulation. Thus they came into existence. Had I been able to correct them the restriction: for members only would have been unnecessary from the beginning. As it is, the restriction was dropped more than a year ago.

In my autobiography it is especially necessary to say a word about how my books for the general public on the one hand, and the privately printed courses on the other, belong within what I elaborated as Anthroposophy.

Someone who wishes to trace my inner struggle and effort to present Anthroposophy in a way that is suitable for present-day consciousness must do so through the writings published for general distribution. In these I define my position in relation to the philosophical striving of the present. They contain what to my spiritual sight became ever more clearly defined, the edifice of Anthroposophy — certainly incomplete in many ways.

But another requirement arose, different from that of elaborating Anthroposophy and devoting myself solely to problems connected with imparting facts directly from the spiritual world to the general cultural life of today: the requirement of meeting fully the inner need and spiritual longing of the members.

Especially strong were the requests to have light thrown by Anthroposophy upon the Gospels and the Bible in general. The members wished to have courses of lectures on these revelations bestowed upon mankind.

In meeting this through private lecture courses, another factor arose: at these lectures only members were present. They were familiar with the basic content of Anthroposophy. I could address them as people advanced in anthroposophical knowledge. The approach I adopted in these lectures was not at all suitable for the written works intended primarily for the general public.

In these private circles I could formulate what I had to say in a way I should have been obliged to modify had it been planned initially for the general public.

Thus the public and the private publications are in fact two quite different things, built upon different foundations. The public writings are the direct result of my inner struggles and labours, whereas the privately printed material includes the inner struggle and labour of the members. I listened to the inner needs of the members, and my living experience of this determined the form of the lectures.

However, nothing was ever said that was not solely the result of my direct experience of the growing content of Anthroposophy. There was never any question of concessions to the prejudices or the preferences of the members. Whoever reads these privately-printed lectures can take them to represent Anthroposophy in the fullest sense. Thus it was possible without hesitation — when the complaints in this direction became too persistent — to depart from the custom of circulating this material only among members. But it must be borne in mind that faulty passages occur in these lecture-reports not revised by myself.

The right to judge such private material can of course, be conceded only to someone who has the pre-requisite basis for such judgement. And in respect of most of this material it would mean at least knowledge of man and of the cosmos insofar as these have been presented in the light of Anthroposophy, and also knowledge of what exists as 'anthroposophical history' in what has been imparted from the spiritual world.

~ Rudolf Steiner

Extract from Rudolf Steiner, An Autobiography, Chapter 35 pp. 386-388, 2nd. Edition 1980, Steinerbooks, New York.

Editor's Introduction

In his autobiography 'The Course of My Life,' Rudolf Steiner describes how at the turn of the century he was requested to hold theosophical lectures for what at that time was a very small theosophical circle in Berlin. He said he was willing to do so, but emphasised that he would only be able to speak about what lived within him as Spiritual Science. His first course of lectures given during the winter of 1900/01 was published at the request of the circle, compressed into book form, under the title 'Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age'. Because the results of his own spiritual knowledge contained within it were accepted in the General Theosophical Society, there was 'no longer any reason to refrain from bringing this spiritual knowledge in my own way before the theosophical public, which was at that time the only one which entered eagerly into these spiritual matters. I was not bound by any sectarian dogmatism; I remained someone who spoke out freely what he believed himself able to speak out entirely in accordance with what he himself experienced as the world of spirit.'

During the next winter — 1901/02 — there followed a second series of lectures which was published in the summer of 1902 in book-form as 'Christianity as Mystical Fact'. Immediately afterwards the German Section of the Theosophical Society was founded with Rudolf Steiner as General Secretary. Here 'I was able to unfold my anthroposophical activity before an ever-increasing public. Nobody remained in any doubt about the fact that in the Theosophical Society I would only bring forward the results of what I beheld in my own spiritual research.'

This was the beginning of an ever-increasingly intensive activity in the sphere of spiritual-scientific lectures. In June 1903 appeared the first number of 'Lucifer' (later 'Lucifer-Gnosis'), 'Magazine for Soul-life and Spiritual-culture Theosophy'. In the Spring of 1904 appeared the fundamental work 'Theosophy — An introduction to Supersensible World-Knowledge and Human Destiny'. There immediately followed in 'Lucifer' the description of the path of schooling in the articles, 'How to attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds' and the presentation of a spiritual-scientific cosmology in the articles, 'From the Akasha Chronicle'. (In English — Cosmic Memory.)

Thus the German Section of the Theosophical Society was gradually built up by Rudolf Steiner and his closest coworker Marie von Sivers, later Marie Steiner, into a far-reaching, Central European, spiritual-scientific movement. From the beginning it was this anthroposophical teaching represented by Rudolf Steiner which later, owing to internal difficulties, took on independent existence as the Anthroposophical Society.

At the time when Rudolf Steiner gave the lecture-course entitled 'Foundations of Esotericism' now for the first time appearing in book-form, the work was still in the initial stage of its development. Rudolf Steiner therefore always still made use of the expressions 'theosophy' and 'theosophical' and for the description of planetary evolution, of the members of man's being and so on, the Indian terminology usual in theosophical literature, to which at that time his audiences were accustomed. He makes special mention of the value of this terminology in the 15th lecture of this course. In his articles at that time and in his book, 'Theosophy' he nevertheless makes use of expressions about which in 1903 he said in the magazine 'Lucifer', that 'for certain reasons he borrowed these expressions from an occult language which, in its terminology, deviates slightly from that in the published theosophical writings, but with which in essence it is naturally in complete agreement.' Later he replaced these theosophical expressions ever more and note by those adapted to our European culture. The explanations necessary for this course are to be found at the end of the volume.

In the lectures the frequently recurring use of names taken from the writings of H.P. Blavatsky is to be explained by the fact that the audiences at this time were intensively occupied with the teachings of the founder of the Theosophical Society and, because of the difficulty of understanding their meaning, they often brought their questions to Rudolf Steiner. So again and again he explained Blavatsky's indications from her principal work 'The Secret Doctrine', in particular those in the third volume dealing with esotericism.

The entire course was in fact private verbal instruction, thus not intended for the general circle of members, but only for a few active members who were personally invited to take part. It was intended to provide a certain basis for their own group work. For this reason there is no complete shorthand report, but only notes which certain of his hearers made for their personal use. These notes have a strongly aphoristic character which should be borne in mind if, owing to their shortened and condensed content, or also as a result of gaps in the text, they are not always entirely comprehensible. If today these notes appear in the Complete Edition it is because on the whole they are certainly reliable, and also because they provide us with valuable aspects of human and cosmic considerations, which are not to be found in this form in Rudolf Steiner's later lectures. For the clarification and further understanding of many points, particularly those of a cosmological character, one should refer to the words written at about the same time, i.e. 'Cosmic Memory' and 'Theosophy'.

~ Hella Wiesberger

Translator's Preface

We shall best realise the significance of these 31 lectures given in 1905 if we transpose ourselves still further back in time to the year 1902, when, during her first personal conversation with Rudolf Steiner, Marie von Sivers, later Marie Steiner, put to him the all-important question: "Would it not be a very important thing to found an Occult Society suited to people of the West?" His response to this question was to begin laying the foundations of what was to become his greatest creation, the worldwide Anthroposophical Society.

A small number of Berlin theosophists gathered round him, and formed a group to which he began imparting the basic elements of Spiritual Science, "translating" — the expression was his — direct from the Akashic Script into the words of an earthly language. The mood of these first meetings was profoundly earnest. They were strictly private. If anyone wished to join the group he was only admitted after Marie von Sivers had taken through with him all the material already given. There was at that time no stenographer, and she, together with two members of the group, took copious notes, and as soon as possible after the meeting wrote the lecture out from memory. Later they compared their drafts and decided upon the final version. These manuscripts still exist and when these lectures were published in the complete edition of Rudolf Steiner's works they were again used to check their content.

When we remember that the Ancient Wisdom upon which Theosophy was based did not as yet include the immortality of the individual, or the eventual development, made possible by the Mystery of Golgotha, of individual human freedom, we can see that Rudolf Steiner had to give an entirely new direction to the thoughts of his hearers.

Thus we find that the manifold exact and detailed descriptions of the events of evolution form in a sense the background to the evolving figure of man. The mighty event of the Moon leaving the Earth, most vividly described, took place in order to provide an environment suited to his progress.

The wonderful moment when the higher being of man descended in a bell-like form and enveloped the lower human form, still on a level with the animals, depicts what eventually provided him with a body suited to the development of the ego. Spiritual Beings and the great Initiates led him along the path he had to tread.

Where do we look today for these ego-endowed human beings? They are within each one of us. We stand poised between guidance and responsibility. Let us turn our thoughts from the past to the future. One of the most impressive Basic Elements tells how the present conduct of life can affect the far distant future. It is a cosmic law that what has once taken place can never vanish, but must reappear later in a metamorphosed form. Every thought, feeling and action brought about by man does not only affect the world around him but will re-appear on the future Jupiter as the equivalent of the kingdoms of nature of our earthly world; for, to quote Rudolf Steiner's words, "Jupiter will be a man-made Planet".

Vera and Judith Compton-Burnett

Lecture 1

Berlin, 26th September 1905

In all esoteric teaching it is important to learn how we should look at the things around us. Naturally everyone experiences something or other when looking at a flower or anything else in the environment. It is however necessary to gain a higher standpoint, to penetrate more deeply, to connect specific observations with every object. This is the basis, for instance, of the profound medical insight of Paracelsus. He sensed, felt and perceived the force inherent in a particular plant and the relationship of this force to some corresponding function in man. For example he perceived which organ of the human body was affected by Digitalis purpurea (foxglove).

To make this manner of observation clear we will take a particular example. All religions have symbols. We hear much about these today, but such explanations are usually external and arbitrary. Profound religious symbols are however drawn out of the very nature of the things themselves. Let us consider for instance the symbol of the serpent, which was imparted to Moses in the Egyptian Mystery Schools. We will consider what inspired him, what gave him Intuition.

A fundamental difference exists between all those animal creatures having a vertebral column and those, such as beetles, molluscs, worms and so on which have none. The entire animal kingdom falls into the main sections of the vertebrate and the invertebrate animals. In the case of the invertebrates one can put the question: Where are their nerves situated? For the principal nerve-cord passes through the spinal column. The invertebrates however do also have a nervous system, as is the case with human beings and vertebrate animals. With the latter it is distributed outside along the spine until it spreads into the cavity of the body. This is called the sympathetic nervous system together with the solar plexus. It is the same system which the invertebrate animals also possess: only for the vertebrates and man, it has less significance. With the invertebrates this system is much more closely connected with the rest of the world than the nervous system in man's head and spine. The activity of this latter can be obliterated in a condition of trance; then the sympathetic nervous system comes into action. This occurs for instance in the case of somnambulists. The consciousness of the sleepwalker is spread out over the whole life of the environment and goes over into the other beings surrounding us. The somnambulist experiences external things within him. Now the Life-ether is the element which everywhere streams around us. The solar plexus is its mediator. If we were only able to perceive with the solar plexus we should live in intimate communion with the whole world. This is so with the invertebrate animals. For instance, such a creature feels a flower as being within itself. In the earth system the invertebrate animal is somewhat similar to the eye and ear in man. It is part of the organism. There is actually a common spiritual organism which perceives, sees, hears and so on through the invertebrate animals. The Earth-Spirit is such a common spiritual organism. Everything which we have around us is a body for this common spirit. Just as our soul creates eyes and ears in order to perceive the world, so does this common Earth-Soul create the invertebrate animals as eyes and ears in order to see and hear the world.

In the evolution of the Earth there came a time when a process of separation set in. A part separated itself off, as though in a tube. Only when this point of time was reached did it become in any way possible for beings to develop which could become separate entities. The others are members of the one Earth-Soul. Now for the first time a special grade of separation began. For the first time the possibility arose that one day something would be able to say 'I' to itself. This fact — that there are two epochs on the Earth, firstly, the epoch in which there were no animals having a nervous system enclosed within a bony tube; secondly, the epoch in which such animals came into being — this fact is distinctly expressed in all religions. The snake is the first to enclose within a tube the selfless undifferentiated gaze of the Earth Spirit, thus forming the basis of ego hood. This fact was impressed on their pupils by the esoteric teachers in such a way that they were able to say to themselves: 'Look at the snake and you will see the sign of your ego'. This had to be accompanied by the vivid experience that the independent ego and the snake belong together. Thus an awareness of the significance of the things around us was developed, so that the pupils endowed each being in the realm of Nature with the appropriate feeling-content. Moses also was forearmed by such an experience when he went out from the Egyptian Mystery Schools, and so he lifted up the snake as a symbol. In those schools one did not learn in such an abstract way as one does nowadays; one learned to comprehend the world out of one's own inner perception.

We have a description of the human being based on the external investigation of the different parts of his organism, but we can also find man described in old mystical and occult works. These descriptions, however, have arisen in quite another way than by anatomical examination. They are indeed of far greater exactitude and much more correct than what is described today by the anatomist, for he only describes the corpse. The old descriptions were gained in such a way that the pupils, through meditation, through inner illumination, became visible to themselves. By means of the so-called Kundalini Fire [1] man is able to observe himself from within outwards. There are different stages of this observation. The exact, correct observation appears at first in symbols. If man concentrates for instance on his spinal cord, it is a fact that he always sees a snake. He may perhaps also dream of a snake, because this is the creature which was placed out in the world when the spinal cord was formed, and has remained at this stage. The snake is the spinal column outwardly projected into the world. This pictorial way of seeing things is astral vision (Imagination). But it is only through mental vision (Inspiration) that the full significance is revealed.

This path of knowledge leads man to the recognition of the connection between microcosm and macrocosm, so that he is able to divide himself up within the kingdoms of Nature, so that he is able to say to which part of the world each single one of his organs belongs. The old Germanic myth distributes the giant Imir in this way. The dome of the heavens is made from his skull; the mountains from his bones and so on. [2] That is the mythological presentation of this inner vision. Each part of the world reveals to the esotericist its connection with something in himself. The inner relationship then becomes apparent. All religions point to this kind of intensive development. The Gospels also indicate it. The esotericist says to himself: Everything in the surrounding world — stones, plants and animals are signposts along the path of my own evolution. Without these kingdoms I could not exist. This consciousness fills us not only with the feeling that we have risen above these kingdoms, but also with the knowledge that our existence depends upon them.

There are seven grades of human consciousness: trance consciousness, deep sleep, dream consciousness, waking consciousness, psychic, super-psychic and spiritual consciousness. Actually these are in all twelve stages of consciousness; [3] the five others are creative stages. They are those of the Creators, of the creative Gods. These twelve stages are related to the twelve signs of the zodiac. The human being must pass through the experiences of these twelve stages. He ascended through the trance, deep sleep and dream consciousness up to the present clear day consciousness. In the succeeding stages of planetary evolution he will reach still higher stages. All those which he has already passed through he will also retain within him. The physical body has the dull trance consciousness as this was gained by man on Old Saturn. The human etheric body has the consciousness of dreamless sleep, as this developed on Old Sun. The astral body dreams in the same way as one dreams during sleep. Dream consciousness derives from the Old Moon period. On our present Earth, man achieves waking consciousness. The ego has clear day-consciousness.

Higher development consists in this, that one casts out what is in one's own being in the same way as man has cast out the snake, thereby retaining the snake on a higher level in his spinal cord. With still further development human beings will not only cast out stones, plants and animals into the world, but also stages of consciousness. In a stock of bees, for example, there are three kinds of beings which have a soul in common. [4] Seemingly quite separated beings carry out a common work. In the future this will also be the case with man; he will separate off his organs. He will have to control consciously from outside all the single molecules of his brain. Then he will have become a higher being. This will also be so with his stages of consciousness. One can imagine a lofty being who has put forth from himself all twelve stages of consciousness. He himself is then present as the thirteenth and will say: I could not be what I am, if I had not separated off from myself these twelve stages of consciousness. The twelve apostles represent the stages of consciousness through which the Christ passed. This can be recognised in the thirteenth chapter of St. John in the description of the Washing of the Feet, [5] which indicates that Christ is indebted to the apostles for his attainment of the higher stages of consciousness: 'Verily, Verily, I say unto you, the servant is not greater than his lord'. The more highly developed being has left the others behind on the way and has himself now become their servant. Not many people understand the meaning of these words; nevertheless, when they hear this narrative, through feeling they are prepared for understanding. In the first centuries after Christ, for example, through these narratives, our feeling life has been prepared. Otherwise, our causal body would not have been sufficiently prepared to receive the truth. It is through pictorial forms that the soul is prepared. This is why in earlier times the great initiates, with their outlook into the far future, taught people by means of stories. Even today such teachers have a concept of what will be brought about in the future by the teachings of Theosophy. Now man has in himself both good and evil. In the future this will become externally apparent as a kingdom of good and a kingdom of evil [6] And how at some future time those who are good will have to deal with those who are evil — this is what is being implanted in the soul today through the concepts of Theosophy. At first people were given pictures, now they receive concepts and, in the future, they will have to act in accordance with these in their practical life.

Lecture 2

Berlin, 27th September 1905

Today we will concern ourselves with three important ideas connected with parts of human nature. These may be said to form guiding threads through the entire world. They are as follows: Activity or Movement; Wisdom, which is also called Word, and thirdly Will. When we speak of activity we usually mean something very general. The esotericist however sees in activity the foundation of the whole universe as it surrounds us. The original form of the universe is for the esotericist a product of activity. What is seemingly completed is really a stage of continuous activity, a point in continuity. The whole world is in ceaseless activity. In reality this activity is Karma.

When speaking about man, we speak of his astral body as being Karma, as being activity. Actually the astral body is that part of the human being which is closest to him. What man experiences, so that he differentiates between well being and misfortune, happiness and sorrow, emanates from his astral body. Love, passion, joy, pain, ideals, duty, are bound up with the astral body. When one speaks of joy and sorrow, desires, wishes, etc., one is speaking of the astral body. Man continually experiences the astral body, but the seer perceives its form. This astral body is in continuous transformation. At first it is undifferentiated, so long as man has not yet worked upon it. In our time however man works upon it constantly. When he distinguishes between what is allowed and what is forbidden, he works into it out of his ego. Since the middle of the Lemurian Age until the middle of the Sixth Root-Race man works upon his astral body.

Why does man work upon it? He works upon his astral body because, in the sphere of activity, every single activity calls forth a counter effect. If we rub our hand on a tabletop it becomes hot. The warmth is the counter effect of our activity. Thus each activity calls forth another. Through the fact that certain animals migrated to the dark caves of Kentucky they no longer needed their eyesight but only sensitive organs of touch, in order to find their way about. The result was that the blood withdrew from their eyes and they became blind. This was the result of their activity, of their migration into the caves of Kentucky. [7]

The human astral body is in continual activity. Its life consists in this. In a narrower sense this activity is called human karma. What I do today has its expression in the astral body. If I give somebody a blow, that is activity and calls forth a counter blow. This is balance restoring justice — karma. Every action calls forth its counter action. With this must be considered the concept of cause and effect. In karma there is always something needing to be brought into balance; something further is always demanded.

The second guiding thread in human nature and in the universe is wisdom. Just as karma has something needing to be balanced, wisdom has something of rest, of equilibrium. It is therefore also called rhythm. All wisdom, according to its form, is rhythm. In the astral body there may perhaps be much sympathy, then there is much green in the aura. This green was once called forth as complementary colour.

Originally, instead of the green, there was red, a selfish instinct. That has been changed into green through activity, karma. In wisdom, in rhythm, everything is completed, balanced. In man everything rhythmical, filled with wisdom, is in the etheric body. The etheric body is therefore that in man which represents wisdom. In the etheric body repose, rhythm holds sway.

The physical body actually represents the will. Will, in contrast to absolute rest, is the creative element, that which is productive. Thus we have the following ascent: firstly karma, activity, what needs to be balanced; secondly wisdom, what has been brought to rest; thirdly will, such an overabundance of life that it can sacrifice itself. Thus activity, wisdom, will, are the three stages in which all being flows.

Let us study from this point of view the human being as he stands before us. In the first place man has his physical body. As he is at the present time, he has no influence at all upon his physical body. What man physically is and does is brought about from outside by creative forces. He cannot himself regulate the movement of the molecules of his brain; neither of himself can he control the circulation of the blood. In other words, the physical body is produced independently of man and is also sustained for him by other forces. It is as it were only lent to him. Man is incarnated into a physical body produced for him by other forces. The etheric body too is in a certain respect produced for him by other powers. On the other hand, the astral body is formed partly by other powers, partly by man himself. That part of the astral body which is formed by man himself becomes his karma. What he himself has worked into it must have a karmic effect. This is the undying, the non-transient in him. The physical body has come about through the karma of other beings; but that part of man's astral body in which he has worked since the Lemurian Age, that is his karma. Only when man through his work has transformed the whole of his astral body, has he reached the stage of freedom. Then the whole of his astral body is transmuted from within. He is then entirely the result of his own activity, of his karma.

If we select some particular stage of development we always find a part of man's astral body which is his own work. That, however, which is the result of his own work lives also in the etheric body and the physical body. In the physical body lives what man has made out of himself, through the physical body it lives in the physical world. He would be unable to form concepts about the physical world if he did not work in it through his organs. What man experiences in his astral body he builds into himself. In what he observes in the physical world his three sheaths are active. When for instance he sees a rose, all three sheaths are engaged. To begin with he perceives red. In this the physical body is engaged. In a camera obscura the rose makes the same impression. Secondly, the rose is conceived in the etheric body as a living idea. Thirdly, the rose gives pleasure to the person and in this the astral body is engaged. These are the three stages of human observation. Here the innermost part of man works through the three bodies into the external world. What man takes in from the outer world, he takes in through these three bodies.

Desire underlies all those things involving human activity or karma. Man would have no reason to be active if he had no desires. He has however the desire to take part in the world surrounding him. This is why we also call his astral body his body of desires.

An inner connection exists between man's activity and his organs. He needs his organs both for the lowest and the highest impulses. He also needs them in art. When someone has once and for all absorbed everything from the world, he has no further use for his organs. Between birth and death man accustoms himself to perceive the world through his organs. After death what he is thus accustomed to must slowly be put aside. If he still wishes to make use of his organs to perceive the world, then he finds himself in the condition which is called Kamaloka. It is a condition in which there is still desire to perceive through the organs, which however are no longer there. If after death a person could say that he had no further desire to use his organs, Kamaloka would no longer exist for him. In Devachan everything which man formerly perceived around him with his organs, is there perceived from within — without organs.

Karma, man's activity through the astral body, is something which has not reached a state of balance. When however the activity gradually comes into a state of balance, equilibrium is brought about. If one strikes a pendulum it gradually reaches a state of balance. Every activity which has not reached a state of balance finally comes to rest. Irregularities which are few in number can be observed, but when they are extremely numerous they balance each other. By means of an instrument, for instance, one can observe the irregularities caused in a town by electric trams. In a small town, where the trams are fewer the instrument continually shows strong oscillations, but in a big town, where the movement is greater and more frequent, the instrument is much quieter, because the many irregularities equalise themselves. So it is also in Devachan with each single irregularity.

In Devachan man looks into himself. He observes what he has taken in. He must observe this for as long as is needed for it to reach a rhythmical condition.

A stroke calls forth a counterstroke; but only through many intermediate happenings does the counterstroke return. The effect however persists during the intervening period. The inter-relationship between stroke and counterstroke is worked over in Devachan and transformed into wisdom. What has been worked over and transformed into wisdom is metamorphosed in man into rhythm in contradistinction to activity. What has been changed into rhythm passes over into the etheric body. After Devachan one has become wiser and better because in Devachan all experiences have been worked over. That part of the astral body, which as vibrations has been worked into the etheric body, is immortal. When a man dies that part of the astral body is preserved which he has worked over and transformed, also the very small part of the etheric body which has been worked through; the remaining part of the etheric body is dissolved in the cosmic ether. In so far as this very small part has been worked through, to that degree is his etheric body immortal. Hence when he returns he again finds this small part of the etheric body. What needs to be added to bring about completion determines the duration of his sojourn in Devachan.

When a human being has progressed so far that he has transformed his entire etheric body, Devachan is no longer necessary. This is the case with the occult pupil who has perfected his development and who has transformed his etheric body so that it remains intact after death and has no need to pass through Devachan. This is called the renunciation of Devachan. It is permissible to allow someone to work on one's etheric body when one is certain that he no longer brings anything of evil into the rest of the world; otherwise he would work his harmful instincts into it. Under hypnosis it can happen that the one hypnotised works into the world the harmful instincts of the hypnotist. In the case of normal people the physical body prevents the etheric body from being dragged and drawn hither and thither. When however the physical body is in a state of lethargy it is possible for the etheric body to be worked into. If one person hypnotises another and works harmful instincts into him, these also remain with him after death. Many of the practices of black magicians consisted in their creating willing servants by this means. It is the rule of white magicians to allow nobody to have his etheric body worked into unless by someone whose instincts have passed through catharsis. In the etheric body rest and wisdom prevail. When something bad enters into it, this element of evil comes to rest and therefore endures.

Before the human being as pupil is led to that point at which of his own choice he can work on his etheric body, he must at least, to a certain extent be able to evaluate karma in order to achieve self-knowledge. Meditation therefore should not be undertaken without continual self-knowledge, self-observation. By this means, at the right moment man will behold the Guardian of the Threshold: [8] the karma which he has still to pay back. When one reaches this stage under normal conditions it merely signifies the recognition of his still existing karma. If I begin to work into my etheric body, I must make it my aim to balance my still remaining karma. It can happen that the Guardian of the Threshold appears in an abnormal way. This happens when a person is so strongly attracted to one particular life between birth and death, that because of the very slight degree of inner activity he cannot remain long enough in Devachan. If someone has accustomed himself to be too outward looking, he has nothing to see within. He then soon comes back into physical life. His desires remain present, the short Devachan is soon over, and when he returns, the collective form of his earlier desires still exists in Kamaloka; he comes up against this also. He incarnates. The old is then mingled with his new astral body. This is his previous karma, the Guardian of the Threshold. He then has his earlier karma continually before him. This is a specific form of the Double.

Many of the popes of the notorious papal age, as for example Alexander VI, have had such a Double in their next incarnation. There are people, and at present this is not infrequent, who have their previous lower nature continually beside them. That is a special kind of insanity. It will become ever stronger and more threatening, because materialistic life becomes ever more widespread. Many people who now yield themselves up completely to materialistic life will in their next incarnation have the abnormal form of the Guardian of the Threshold at their side. If now the influence of spirituality were not to be very strongly exercised, a kind of epidemic seeing of the Guardian of the Threshold would arise as the result of the materialistic civilisation. Of this the neurotic tendency of our century is the precursor. It is a kind of losing oneself in the periphery. All the neurotics of today will be harassed by the Guardian of the Threshold in their next incarnation. They will be pursued by the difficulties of a too early incarnation, a sort of cosmic premature birth. What we have to strive for in Theosophy is a sufficiently long time in Devachan, in order to avoid too early incarnations.

From this aspect we must consider the entrance of Christ into world history. Previously, anyone who wished to achieve a life in Christ had to enter into a Mystery school. There a state of lethargy was induced in the physical body and only through the purified priesthood could there be added to the astral body what was still needed for its purification. This constituted initiation.

But through the coming of Christ into the world, it came about that a man who felt himself drawn to Christ could receive from him something which could take the place of this old form of initiation. It is always possible that someone through union with Christ can preserve his astral body in so purified a condition that he is able to work into his etheric body without doing harm to the world. When one bears this in mind the expression 'vicarious atonement through death' receives a quite other significance. This is what is meant by the atoning death of Christ. Before this, death in the Mysteries had to be suffered by everyone who wished to obtain purification. Now the One suffered for all, so that through the world-historic initiation a substitute has been created for the old form of initiation. Through Christianity much that is of a communal nature has been brought about, which previously was not communal. The active power of this substitution is expressed in the fact that through inner vision, through true mysticism, community with Christ is possible. This has also been embodied in language. The first Christian initiate in Europe, Ulfilas, himself embodied it in the German language, in that man found the 'Ich' within it. Other languages expressed this relationship through a special form of the verb, in Latin for instance the word 'amo', but the German language adds to it the Ich. 'Ich' is J. Ch. = Jesus Christ. It was with intention that this was introduced into the German language. It is the initiates who have created language. Just as in Sanskrit the AUM expresses the Trinity, so we have the sign ICH to express the inmost being of man. By this means a central point was created whereby the tumultuous emotions of the world can be transformed into rhythm. Rhythm must be instilled into them through the Ich. This centre point is literally the Christ.

All western nations have developed activity, passionate desires. An impulse must come from the East in order to bring into, them a more tranquil condition. There is already a precursor of this in Tolstoi's book, 'On Doing Nothing'. [9] In the activity of the West we find chaos in many spheres. This is continually on the increase. The spirituality of the East should bring a central point into the chaos of the West. What throughout long periods of time had its function as karma, passes over into wisdom. Wisdom is the daughter of karma. All karma finds its compensation in wisdom. An initiate who has reached a certain stage of development is called a Sun Hero, because his inner being has become rhythmical. His life is an image of the sun which in its rhythmical course traverses the heavens.

The word 'Aum' is the breath. The breath is related to the word as the Holy Spirit is to Christ, as the Atma is to the I.

Lecture 3

Berlin, 28th September 1905

There are three elements in evolution which must be differentiated: form, life and consciousness. Today we will speak about the different kinds of consciousness.

We can regard plants and lower animals as the means whereby higher beings extend their senses into the world in order to behold this world through them. Let us take our start from the sense organs of the plants. When we speak of these we must be clear that we are not only dealing with the sense organs of the single plants, but with beings in higher worlds. The plants are, as it were, only the feelers which are extended by the higher beings; they gain information through the plants.

All plants have cells, more especially at the root-tip but also in other places, in which granules of starch are to be found. Even in otherwise non-starch-containing plants, these starch granules appear at the root-tips. Members of the lily family, for instance, which otherwise contain no starch, possess these starch granules in the cells attached to the roots. These starch granules are loose and movable, and the important point is whether they are situated in one place or another.

Whenever a plant turns even slightly, one starch granule falls towards the other side. This the plant cannot stand. It then turns again in such a way that the granules come back to their right position. And these starch granules actually lie in a symmetrical relationship to the direction of the gravity of the earth. The plant grows upwards because it senses the direction of gravity. By observing the starch granules at the root-tips, we learn to recognise a kind of sense organ. This is for a plant the sense of gravity. This sense belongs not only to the plant, but to the soul of the whole earth, which orders the growth of the plant in accordance with this sense.

This is of primary importance. The plant takes its direction in accordance with gravity. Now if one takes a wheel, for instance a water-wheel, into which plants can be inserted, and turns the wheel together with the plants, another force is added to the force of gravity: a revolving force. This is now in every part of the plant, and its roots and stalks grow in the direction of the tangent of the wheel, in the direction of the tangential force, not the force of gravity. In accordance with this, the starch granules adjust their position.

Let us now consider the human ear. At first we have the outer auditory passage, then the tympanum, and in the inner ear the little auditory bones: hammer, anvil and stirrup — quite minute bones. Hearing depends upon these little bones bringing the other organs into vibration. Further in we find three semicircular membranous canals arranged according to the three dimensions. These are filled with fluid. Then we find, further within the ear, the labyrinth, a structure in the form of a snail shell, filled with very fine little hairs. Each of these is tuned, like the strings of a piano, to a particular pitch. The labyrinth is connected with the auditory nerve that goes to the brain.

The three semicircular canals are especially interesting. They stand in relation to one another in the three directions of space. They are filled with little otoliths, similar to the starch granules of the plant. When these are disturbed a person cannot hold himself erect or walk in an upright position. In the case of fainting the rush of blood to the head can cause a disturbance in the three canals. The sense of direction in man depends on these three semicircular canals. This is the same sense which in the plant, as sense of balance, is localised in the root-tips. What occurs in the root-tips is, in the human being, developed up above in the head.

In surveying the whole evolution: plant, animal, man, one discovers definite relationships between them. The plant is reversed in man. The direction of the animal lies midway between them. The plant has sunk its roots into the earth and directs its sexual organs upward towards the sun. If we turn the plant halfway round we have the animal. If we turn it right round we have man. That is the original significance of the cross; [11] plant kingdom, animal kingdom, human kingdom. The plant sinks its roots into the earth. The animal is the half-reversed plant. Man is the completely reversed plant. This is why Plato says: 'The World Soul is stretched on the Cross of the World Body.' [12]

In the plant the organ of direction lies in the root-tips. In man it is in the head. What in man is the head, is the root in the case of the plant. The reason, why in man the sense of direction is connected with the sense of hearing, is that hearing is the sense which raises man into a higher kingdom. The last faculty to be attained by man is the faculty of speech. Again, speech is connected with the upright carriage, which without the sense of direction or balance would not be possible. The sound which man produces through speech is the active complement to the passive sense of hearing. What in the plant is simply a sense of orientation has become in man the sense of hearing, which bears within itself the old sense of orientation in the three semicircular canals, which are arranged in accordance with the three dimensions of space.

Every being possesses consciousness. This is also true of the plant, but its consciousness lies on the devachanic plane, on the mental plane. A diagram of the consciousness of the plant would have to be done in the following way:

The plants can also speak and answer us, only we must learn to observe them on the mental plane. There they tell us their own names.

Man's consciousness reaches down to the physical plane. Here his consciousness depends upon the same organ with which the plant is made fast to the earth. We first learn to know man in a true sense when we see how he produces speech and in speech the word 'Ich' (I). This 'I' has its roots in the mental plane. Without the faculty of uttering the little word 'I' we might regard the human form also as that of an animal.

The plant has its roots in the mental plane and man by means of his organ of hearing is an inhabitant of the mental plane. This is why we connect the 'Es denkt' ('it thinks') with speech. The ear is a higher development of the sense of direction. Because man in relation to the plant has reversed his position and turned again to the spirit, he has in the organ of hearing the old residue of the sense of direction. He gives himself his direction. These are therefore two opposite kinds of consciousness: the plant's consciousness on the mental plane and here the consciousness of man, who carries his being down from the mental world into the physical world. This earthly consciousness of man is called Kama-manas.

Each of the sense organs has a consciousness of its own. These different forms of consciousness, the consciousness of the visible, the audible, the sense of smell and so on, are brought together in the soul. The consciousness only becomes 'manasic' when its separate forms are gathered together in the centre of the soul. Without this integration man would fall apart into the consciousness of his organs. These were originally fashioned through the solar plexus, through the sympathetic nervous system. When man himself was a sort of plant, he too was not yet conscious on the physical plane. At that time the higher consciousness first developed the organs.

In a condition of deep trance the central consciousness is silenced. Then the separate organs are conscious and the person begins to see with the pit of the stomach and the solar plexus. Such a consciousness was possessed by the Seeress of Prevost. [13] She describes correctly light forms which are however only to be observed by the consciousness of the organs. The lowest consciousness is that of the minerals. A somewhat more centralised consciousness, one more like the consciousness of present day man, is the astral consciousness. The development of consciousness in the whole astral body finds its expression in the spinal cord. Then a person perceives the world in pictures. Only those people whose physical brain does not operate have such a consciousness. Idiots, for instance, see the world in pictures; their soul life is analogous to dream life. They can only say that they know nothing of what is going on around them. Other beings in the world have a similar consciousness.

When someone develops astral consciousness, so that he experiences dreams consciously, he can undertake the following: Let us assume that we are in a position to develop this consciousness and imagine ourselves standing before the flower called Venus Fly Trap. If we gaze at it long enough and let it work upon us quite exclusively there comes the moment when we have the feeling that the centre of consciousness sinks down from the head and creeps into the plant. [14] One is then conscious in the plant and sees the world through it. One must transfer one's consciousness, into the plant. Then one becomes aware of how things appear to the astral perception of this being. One then experiences this soul. A sensitive plant's consciousness is quite similar to that of an idiot; not a purely mental consciousness. Such a plant has brought consciousness down to the astral plane. Thus there are two kinds of plants; those which only have their consciousness on the mental plane, and those which have it also on the astral plane.

Certain kinds of animals also have a consciousness on the astral plane, which is likewise the plane of idiot consciousness. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky mentions especially certain Indian night insects, nocturnal moths. Spiders also have an astral consciousness; [15] the delicate spider webs are actually spun out of the astral plane. The spiders are merely the instruments of astral activity. The ants too, like the spiders have a consciousness on the astral plane. There the ant heaps have their soul. This is why the behaviour of the ants is so precisely regulated. [16]

The minerals also have consciousness. This lies on the higher mental plane, in higher regions than that of the plant. Blavatsky calls it Kama-prana consciousness. Man too can later achieve this consciousness while retaining his present state of consciousness undisturbed. He then no longer needs to enter into a physical body, no longer needs to be incarnated. The stones are below on the physical plane and their consciousness is in the higher regions of the mental plane. The crystals are ordered from above. When a man is able to raise his consciousness to this level he then forms his physical body for himself out of the minerals of the world.

The three parts of the brain (thinking, feeling, willing) must later become completely separated. Then man's consciousness must be master of his brain, as in an ant heap a higher consciousness rules. But as in the ant heap, one can separate the workers, the males and females from one another, so, later, a complete separation into three parts can also take place in the brain. Then man becomes a planetary spirit, a creator who brings things into being. As the Earth Spirit builds the crust of the earth, so at that stage man also will build a planet. For this he must have a Kama-pranasic consciousness. Today he has only a Kama-manasic consciousness. This consists in the consciousness of the organs being saturated, impregnated with understanding (Manas). The consciousness becomes, as Blavatsky says, rationalised. The process of rationalisation is brought about during the ascent from animal to man. Organ-consciousness by itself can recognise the objective, but does not know the means whereby it can be achieved. Rationalised consciousness can direct the means. Blavatsky says quite rightly: 'A dog, for instance, which is shut into a room has the instinct to get out, but he cannot do this because his instinct is not as yet sufficiently imbued with understanding to enable him to take the necessary steps; whereas man immediately grasps the situation and frees himself.' We therefore differentiate with Blavatsky:

  1. The organic consciousness possessed by the organs.
  2. The astral consciousness possessed by animals, certain plants and idiots.
  3. The kama-pranasic consciousness of the stones, also to be achieved later by man.
  4. The kama-manasic consciousness, dependent on understanding.

In this way one must differentiate the members of the cross of world-existence.

The real meaning of the cross is infinitely deep. The old sagas also are pictures, drawn out of such depths. A great service was bestowed on the human soul by the sagas, as long as man in earlier times could understand their truths in his feeling life. An example of this is the old saga of the sphinx. [17] The sphinx propounded the riddle: In the morning it goes on four, at mid-day on two and in the evening on three. What is that? It is man. To begin with, in the morning of the earth, man in his animal state went on fours. The front limbs were at that time organs of movement. He then raised himself to the upright position. The limb system separated off into two categories and the organs divided into the physical-sensible and the spiritual organs. He then went on two. In the distant future the lower organs will fall away and also the right hand. Only the left hand and the two petalled lotus flower will remain. Then he goes on three. That is why the Vulcan human being limps. [18] His legs are in retrogression; they cease to have significance. At the end of evolution, in the Vulcan metamorphosis of the Earth, man will be the three-membered being that the saga indicates as the ideal.

Lecture 4

Berlin, 29th September 1905

We have spoken about the consciousness of the different kingdoms of nature. Man's organs have an organ-consciousness; this consciousness develops an abnormal condition in idiots. It is the consciousness possessed by nocturnal insects, ants, spiders and so on. We find a totally different consciousness in the case of bees. We will use the example of bees in order to show how one arrives at such truths and then can make use of them to find one's bearings in the world.

An occult schooling is something completely different from our usual schooling. It does not start by cramming into the pupils a great deal of educational matter. In a strict occult schooling the pupil receives no educational matter whatever, but is given a pregnant sentence filled with inner power. So it was also in earlier times. The pupil had to meditate on the sentence in a state of complete inner calm, through which eventually he became inwardly suffused with light, completely illuminated. When a person has advanced to the stage of seeing into his inner self, he can sink his consciousness into other beings. For this he must have gained control of the point midway between the eyes and from there direct his consciousness downward into the heart. Then he can transfer his consciousness into other things; for example, he can then investigate what lives in an ant heap. Then he can also perceive the life in a beehive. Here however a phenomenon presents itself which is otherwise not to be experienced on earth. In the way a beehive functions one experiences something which is outside our earthly existence, something which is not found anywhere else on earth. What takes place on the other planets cannot be discovered merely by thinking. One cannot for example experience what is taking place on the Sun or Venus if one is unable to transfer one's consciousness into the life and functioning of a colony of bees. The bee has not gone through the whole course of evolution as we have. From the outset it has not been connected with the same evolutionary sequence as the other animals and man. The consciousness of the beehive, not of the single bee, is immensely lofty. The wisdom of this consciousness will only be attained by man in the Venus existence. Then he will have the consciousness which is necessary in order to build with a substance which he creates out of his own being. The ants build the ant heap out of all sorts of things, but as yet build no cells. The building of cells is on higher planes something absolutely different. Through transferring one's consciousness into the beehive, through taking on the Venus consciousness, one learns something entirely different from anything else on earth, the complete recession of the element of sex. With the bees what is sexual is vested only in the one queen. The kama-sexuality is almost entirely eliminated; the drones are killed. Here we have the prototype of something which will actually be accomplished in a future humanity, when work is the highest principle. It is only through the impulse of the spirit that one gains the faculty of transferring oneself into the community of the bees.

In order to progress further, let us now come to a true concept of alchemy. As late as the 18th century one could read in the German paper 'Reichsanzeiger' articles on alchemy. Kortum, the poet who wrote 'Jobsiade' [19] was one of the most significant alchemists of the 18th century. At that time a number of articles dealt with the so-called 'Urmaterie' (primal matter), bringing this into connection with the Philosopher's stone. Kortum, who was deeply immersed in these things, said at that time: To search for the Philosopher's stone is very difficult, but it is everywhere, you meet it every day, are well acquainted with it, you make use of it constantly, but do not know that it is the Philosopher's Stone. This is an apt description.

In Nature everything is ordered with infinite wisdom, with an infinitely wise economy. All living beings possessing Kama (astrality) — animals and men, and all etheric living beings — plants — are inter-related. We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbonic acid. The animals do this also. Now if this were simply to continue, the air would soon be quite full of carbonic acid. But the plants assimilate carbonic acid and breathe out oxygen. Animals and men cannot live without plants. Now carbonic acid consists of carbon and oxygen. The plants retain the carbon and breathe out the oxygen. Man on the other hand takes in the oxygen and through his life processes transforms it into carbonic acid by uniting it with carbon. The plants build up their bodily form out of the carbon which they have retained.

In earlier times the appearance of the Earth was quite different from what it is now. Then, even in our districts there grew forests of gigantic ferns and horsetails, (equisetums). These disappeared. At first the Earth became covered with a layer of peat, the remains of the dead plants; then the former forests of fern and equisetums were transformed into the immense coal fields of the Earth. The rock formations developed gradually, either from the plant kingdom or the animal kingdom. When one looks at a lump of coal one can say to oneself: This was once plant. If one were to go still further back one would also be able to find the plants out of which rock-crystals, malachite and so on developed. The central zone of the Alps arose out of the primeval plants before coal. A diamond is exactly the same as a piece of coal. Nature has created the diamond from a coal still older than that which we have today. This rock crystal also has arisen out of plants.

Limestone is derived from animals. The Juras, for example, consist of such an accumulation of calcium. They were previously covered by the sea and are formed from the cast-off shells of sea-creatures. Thus the younger limestone mountains have arisen out of animals and the primeval rocks out of plants. The plant kingdom gradually passes over into the mineral kingdom. Everything solid on the earth has arisen out of a "plant-earth". This mineralising process can be studied through the development of coal out of plants.

The mineral kingdom in its present state of separation only came into existence during the Fourth Round. After this, the entire mineral kingdom will be spiritualised by man. He transforms it with the 'plough of his spirit'. Everything that man does today, the entire world of industry, is the transformation of the mineral kingdom. When someone quarries a rock in order to use the stones for the building of a house, when he builds a cathedral, all this changes the nature of the mineral kingdom by artificial means. In the Fourth Round man can work upon the mineral kingdom in this way. With the plant, on the contrary, he can as yet do nothing of this kind. The whole mineral kingdom will be transformed by man. To a great extent this will be brought about by oscillating electricity no longer requiring wires. Here man will be working right into the molecules and atoms. At the end of the Fourth Round he will have transformed the entire mineral kingdom.

From the Fifth Round onwards man will do the same with the plant kingdom. He will be able consciously to carry out the process which is now carried out by the plant. As the plant takes in carbonic acid and builds up its body from the carbon, so the human being of the Fifth Round will himself create his body out of the materials of his environment. Sex will cease to exist. Man will then himself have to work on his body, will have to produce it for himself. The same process of transforming carbon, which the plant now carries out unconsciously, will then be carried out consciously by man. [20] He will then transform matter just as today the plant transforms the air into carbon. That is the true alchemy. Carbon is the Philosopher's Stone. The man of the 18th century who pointed this out was indicating the transformation which is now carried out by the plants and which later will be carried out by man.

When from the higher planes one studies consciousness as it functions in the beehive, one learns how later on man will produce matter out of himself. In the future the human body will also be built up out of carbon; it will then be like a soft diamond. Then one will no longer inhabit the body from within, but will have it before one as an external body. Today the planets are built up in this way by the planetary spirits. From a being requiring a body produced by others, man will transform himself into a being who manifests himself through emanation. At that time he will consist of three members: 'Man in the evening who goes on three', as the Sphinx says. The original four organs have undergone metamorphosis. At first the hands were also organs of movement. Then they became organs for the spiritual. In the future only three organs will remain; the heart as Buddhi-organ, the two-petalled lotus-flower between the eyes, and the left hand as the organ of movement. This future state is also related to Blavatsky's indication (of a second spinal column). The pineal gland and the pituitary gland organise a second spinal column which later unites itself with the first. The second spinal column will descend in front from the head.

To arrive at such guiding threads as these, one must bring one's consciousness into a state of being which is at a higher level than we normally have at the present stage of earthly evolution.

All this was taught in the Mystery Schools and in a certain way, put to practical use. One must accustom oneself to developing one's way of thinking, and then one will develop in oneself a feeling that nothing is valueless, but that everything has its own inherent value. There is nothing in all Nature that we can obliterate through thinking without thereby disturbing Nature as a whole.

The ant heap also has a much higher consciousness than present-day man. The consciousness of the ant heap is to be found in the higher regions of the Mental Plane. On the other hand the consciousness of the bees is to be found in the higher regions of the Buddhi plane. How then did the ant-consciousness enter into our Earth? This took place through beings who stand higher than we do who had already gone through the process of creating their body for themselves. Males, females and workers, the three members of the ant heap, comprise the body of a higher spiritual being. The human spirit also comes gradually to the point of dividing itself into three parts. Willing, feeling and thinking become separated in the case of the esoteric pupil. The molecules of the brain divide into three groups. The esoteric pupil must then out of himself connect a definite feeling with a mental picture. When he sees suffering, in order to experience pity, he must consciously add this feeling to it. To the front of the head lies the thinking part, above, the part of feeling, to the back of the head that of willing. The esoteric pupil learns to bring these consciously into connection with one another. Later these three parts become completely separated. [21] He must then control the three parts in the same way as an ant heap controls the males, females and workers.

Now we can ask why higher beings manifest themselves in an ant heap. But if formic acid had not been introduced, the whole earth would have been different. The foreseeing wisdom of Higher Intelligences was aware of the moment when formic acid had to be brought into the earth.

Thus we can gain a comprehensive understanding of the whole earth, so that we know and recognise what lives and has its being within it. This was the case with Paracelsus, who built up his concepts in such a way that he perceived how things could be used as remedies because he knew in what relationship they stood to man and his organs. For instance, Digitalis purpurea (foxglove) is connected with the heart and can therefore still be rightly used as a heart remedy. Nowadays new remedies are sought by means of experiment, in which one tests their effects on a number of people. In those days remedies were sought through intuition, because their inner connections were observed. Remedies discovered in this way always retain their effect, whereas with the others, in the course of time after-effects usually show themselves, which eluded observation when the experiments were first carried out.

Lecture 5

Berlin, 30th September 1905

It is always stressed that in order to progress in occult matters one should be as positive as possible and as little as possible negative; that one should speak less about what is not, than about what is. When this is practised in ordinary life it is a preparation for work in the sphere of the occult. The occultist must not ask: Has the stone life? but: Where is the life of the stone? Where is the consciousness of the mineral kingdom to be found? That is the highest form of non-criticism. Particularly in regard to the highest questions this is the attitude of mind that must be cultivated.

In ordinary life we differentiate three bodily conditions: the solid, the fluid and the gaseous or airy. The solid must be distinguished from the mineral. Air and water are also mineral. Theosophical writings add to these, four other finer conditions of matter. The first element which is finer than the air is the one which causes it to expand, which always increases its spatial content. What expands the air in this way is warmth; it is really a fine etheric substance, the first grade of ether, the Warmth Ether. Now follows the second kind of ether, the Light Ether. Bodies which shine send out a form of matter which is described in Theosophy as Light Ether. The third kind of ether is the bearer of everything which gives form to the finest matter, the formative ether, which is also called the Chemical Ether. It is this ether which brings about the union of oxygen and hydrogen. And the finest of all the ethers is that which constitutes life: Prana, or Life Ether.

Science throws together all four kinds of ether. Nevertheless it will gradually distinguish them in this way. Our description tallies with that of the Rosicrucians, while Indian literature speaks of four different grades of ether.

To begin with, let us take everything that is solid. What is solid has apparently no life. When one transposes oneself into the life of the solid, which becomes possible through living in waking consciousness in the condition described as the dream world, and when one then seeks to discover the solid, for instance by entering into a rocky mountain landscape, then one feels in oneself that one's own life is altered, one feels life rippling through one. One is not there with consciousness, but with one's own life, the etheric body; one is then at a place, in a condition which is called the Maha-para-nirvana plane. On this Maha-para-nirvana plane the life of the solid is to be found. This plane is the other pole of the solid. Through life on the Maha-para-nirvana plane one acquired another means of perception. When one returns one has experienced the activity of beings in the Maha-para-nirvana plane. It is there that the solid stone has its life.

Secondly there follows what is fluid, water. When in the dream condition one transposes oneself into the sea, then one becomes imbued with the life of the fluid, on the Para-nirvana plane. Through this procedure one learns to know something of the different planes.

Thirdly, when one transposes oneself in dream into the air-forming element, one finds oneself on the Nirvana plane. Nirvana means literally, 'to be extinguished', as one extinguishes a fire. When one seeks for life in it, one is with one's own life on the Nirvana plane. Man breathes in the air. When he experiences in himself the life of the air, then that is the way to reach the Nirvana plane. This is the reason for the breathing exercises of the Yogis. No one can attain to the Nirvana plane if he does not actually practise breathing exercises. They are only Hatha-Yoga exercises when they are carried out on the wrong level. Otherwise they are Raja-Yoga exercises. One actually inhales life: the Nirvana plane.

Fourthly, below the Nirvana plane is the Buddhi or Shushupti plane. There warmth has its life. When Buddhi is developed in man, all Kama is transformed into selflessness, into love. Those animals which develop no warmth are also without passion. At higher levels man must again achieve this passionless condition, because he has his life on the Shushupti plane.

Fifthly comes the Devachan or Mental plane; hence the inner connection between wisdom and light. When in dream consciousness one experiences the light, one experiences wisdom within it. This was always the case when God revealed himself in the light. In the burning thorn bush, that is to say, in the light, Jehovah appeared to Moses in order to reveal wisdom.

The sixth is the astral plane. On this plane the chemical ether has its life. A somnambulist perceives on the astral plane the qualities of the chemicals, the chemical characteristics, because here the chemical ether actually has its life.

The seventh is the physical plane. There the life ether lives in its own element. With the life ether one perceives life. This ether is also called the atomic ether, because on this plane it has its own life, its own central point. What lives on a particular plane has on this same plane its central point.

As an actual fact everything we have around us contains the seven planes. We must only ask: Where has each element, the solid, the gaseous, etc., its life?

We have now heard that warmth has its own life on the Buddhi or the Shushupti plane. Thus between all things definite relationships exist. Very striking is the relationship between the ear and speech. In evolution the ear was present much earlier than speech. The ear is the receptive organ; speech is the organ which produces sound. These two, ear and speech, essentially belong together. Sound as it manifests is the result of vibrations in the air, and each single sound arises from a particular vibration. When you study what exists outside, outside yourself, as sound, then you are studying the arithmetic of the air.

Undifferentiated space would be soundless. Space which is arithmetically organised produces sound. Here we have an example of how one can look into the Akashic Record. If one can rise to the perception of the inner arithmetic which is preserved from sound in space, then at any time one can hear again a sound which someone has spoken. For instance one can hear what was spoken by Caesar at the crossing of the Rubicon. The inner arithmetic of sound is still present in the Akashic Record. Sound corresponds to something we call Manas. What the ear experiences as sound is the wisdom of the world. In the perception of sound one hears the wisdom of the world. In the act of speaking one brings forth the wisdom of the world. What is arithmetical in our speech remains in the Akashic Record. When he hears or speaks man expresses himself directly in wisdom. At the present time thinking is the form in which man can bring his will to expression in speech. Today it is only in thinking that we can unfold the will. Only later will it be possible for man, rising above the level of thought, to unfold the will in speech.

The next step is connected with warmth. Man's activity is to be sought in what streams out from him as inner warmth. Out of what proceeds from warmth: passions, impulses, instincts, desires, wishes and so on, Karma arises. Just as the parallel organ to the ear is the organ of speech, so the parallel organ to the warmth of the heart is the pituitary gland, the Hypophysis. The heart takes up the warmth from outside, as the ear does sound. Thereby it perceives world warmth. The corresponding organ which we must have, in order to be able to produce warmth consciously, is the pituitary gland in the head, which at the present time is only at the beginning of its development. Just as one perceives with the ear and produces with the larynx, so one takes up the warmth of the world in the heart and lets it stream forth again through the pituitary gland in the brain. Once this capacity has been achieved, the heart will have become the organ it was intended to be. There is a reference to this in words from 'Light on the Path': [22] 'Before the soul can stand in the presence of the Masters, its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart.' Then our heart's blood streams out as today our words stream out into the world. In the future, warmth of soul will flood over mankind.

Somewhat deeper in evolution than the warmth organ stands the organ of sight. In the course of evolution the organs of hearing, warmth and sight, follow in sequence; the organ of sight is only at the stage of receiving, but the ear already perceives, for instance in the sound of a bell, its innermost being. Warmth must flow from the being itself. The eye has only an image, the ear has the perception of innermost reality. The perception of warmth is the receiving of something that rays outwards. There is an organ which will also become the active organ of vision. This is today germinally present in the pineal gland, the Epiphysis, the organ which will give reality to the images which today are produced by the eye. These two organs, the pineal gland and the pituitary gland as active organs, must develop into the organ of vision (eye) and the organ of warmth (heart). Today fantasy is the preliminary stage leading to a later power of creation. Now man has at most imagination. Later he will have magical power. This is the Kriya-shakti power. It develops in proportion to the physical development of the pineal gland.

In the reciprocal relationship between ear and larynx we have a prophetic model (Vorbild). Thinking will later be interpenetrated with warmth, and still later man himself will learn to create. First he learns to create a picture; then to create and send forth radiations; then to create beings. Freemasonry calls these three forces wisdom, semblance (beauty) and power. (See Goethe's Fairy Tale.) [23]

Warmth has its life on the Shushupti plane. To make conscious use of this is possible for one who understands and controls the life of warmth, as in a certain sense man today controls the life of the air. In his development man must now approach the forces of the Shushupti plane (Buddhi-Manas). The Fifth Sub-Race has mainly the task of developing Kama-Manas. One finds Manas in everything which is placed in the service of the human spirit. Our age has placed its highest powers at the service of these needs, whereas the animal is satisfied without such achievements.

Now however Buddhi-Manas must also begin its development. Man must learn something beyond speech. Another force must be united with speech, such as we find in the writings of Tolstoi. It is not so much a matter of what he says, but that behind what he says stands an elemental force that has in it something of Buddhi-Manas, which must now enter into our civilisation. Tolstoi's writings work so powerfully because they are consciously opposed to West[ern] European culture and contain something new and elemental. A certain barbarism which is still contained in them will later be brought into balance. Tolstoi is just a small instrument of a higher spiritual power which also stood behind the Gothic initiate Ulfilas. This spiritual power uses Tolstoi as its instrument.

Lecture 6

Berlin, 1st October 1905

Today we will take as our subject the different ranks of beings to which man belongs. Man, as he is at present is a developing being who was not always as he is now. There are not only stages of development lying before and behind him, but also beings co-existent with him, just as the child today has the old man beside him who is at another stage of development. Today we will deal with seven ranks of beings, and in this connection we must clearly differentiate between receptive and creative beings.

Let us take as an example a colour which we perceive with our eyes, for instance red or green. In this respect we are receptive beings. The colour must however first be produced in order that we may perceive it; we must therefore be confronted with another being who produces the colour, for instance red. Through this we recognise the different stages of beings. If we put together everything which approaches our senses, there must also be a soul to receive it; but conversely something must also be present in order that the sense impressions may be brought to us. There are beings who can manifest. These have a more god-like or deva-character. Beings whose nature is more adapted to receiving have a more element[al] character. God-like beings are of a manifesting nature. Elemental beings are of a receptive nature.

Here, in this domain, we have the creative wisdom which manifests outwardly, and the wisdom which is received by the human soul. Wisdom is in the light and discloses itself in all sense impressions. Behind what is revealed we must assume the revealers, beings of will nature; wisdom is that which is revealed.

Man is both receptive and creative. On the one hand, for instance with regard to all sense impressions, he is receptive, with regard to thinking however he is creative. Nothing gives rise to thoughts unless he first produces perceptions. Thus he is on the one hand a receptive being and on the other hand a creative being. This is an important difference. Let us imagine that man were to be in a position to create everything he perceives, sounds, colours and so on, just as today he creates thoughts. Today he is only creative in one sphere, in thinking, and in order to have perceptions he needs creative beings around him. In bringing forth his own being he was at first creative. In the beginning he himself created his own organism. For this he now needs other beings. Now man must incarnate in a bodily form determined from outside. Here he is closer to the elemental beings than to the sphere of perception and thinking.

Let us imagine for once that man were able to bring forth sounds, colours and other sense perceptions and also his own being. Then we should have the human being as he was before the Lemurian race, who is called the "pure" man. Man becomes impure through the fact that he does not produce his own being, but incorporates something other into his nature. This pure man was called Adam Cadmon. When at the beginning of Genesis the Bible speaks of man, it speaks of this pure human being. This human being had as yet nothing kamic (astral) within him. Desire first appeared after he had incorporated other elements into himself. Thus there arose the second stage of humanity, the kama-rupic man (man with an astral body). The higher animal is to be seen as at a lower stage of this development. Without warm blood no beings can possess an independent Kama-rupa (astral body). All warm-blooded animals are derived from man.

Thus to begin with we have the pure man who up to the Lemurian Age actually led a super-sensible existence and brought forth out of himself everything that lived and was part of him.

Present day cold-blooded animals and the plants have developed in a different way from the warm-blooded animals. Those which exist today are remnants of strange, gigantic beings. Some of these can be verified by science. They are decadent animals which are descended from those which the pure man made use of in order to incarnate in them, so that he might have a body for what is kamic (astral). At first the pure man had found no means of incarnating on the earth. He still hovered above what was manifested. From among these huge, powerful beings (animals) man made use of the most developed in order to incarnate in them. He attached himself to these beings and thereby he was in a position to bring into them his own Kama (astral body). Some of these beings developed further and then became the animals of Atlantis and present day humanity. However it was not possible for all of them to adapt themselves. Those who failed became the lower vertebrate animals; kangaroos for instance are such attempts as proved unsuccessful on the way to becoming man — like pottery vessels which are rejected and left behind.

Now man tried to introduce Kama into the animal forms. Kama is first to be found in the human form, in actual fact in the heart, in the warm blood and in the circulation of the blood. Attempts were made again and again and in this way there was an ascent from stage to stage. We see unsuccessful attempts for instance in the sloths, the kangaroos, the beasts of prey, the monkeys and apes. All these remained behind on the way. The warm-blooded animals are unsuccessful attempts to become human forms endowed with Kama. Everything in them which is of the nature of Kama, man also could have within himself; but he unloaded it into them, for he was unable to use this kind of Kama. There is an important occult axiom: Every quality has two opposite poles. So we find, just as positive and negative electricity complement one another, so we have warmth and cold, day and night, light and darkness and so on. In the same way every Kamic quality also has two opposite aspects. For instance man has cast rage out of himself into the lion, and this, on the other hand, when ennobled by him, can lead him upward to his higher self. Passion should not be annihilated, but purified. The negative pole must be led upwards to a higher stage. This purifying of passion, this leading upwards of its negative aspect was called by the Pythagoreans catharsis. At first man had within him the rage of the lion and the cunning of the fox. Thus the kingdom of the warm-blooded animals is a comprehensive picture of Kama qualities. Today the opinion is commonly held that the 'Tat twam asi' ('That art thou'), is to be understood as something general and undefined, but one must conceive something quite definite underlying it. Thus in the case of the lion man must say to himself: That art thou. We have therefore in the kingdom of the warm-blooded animals spread out before us the kama-rupic human being. Previously there only existed the pure man: Adam Cadmon.

The philosopher of natural science, Oken, who in the first half of the 19th century was a professor in Jena, was acquainted with all these ideas and expressed them in a grotesque way in order to nudge people to attention. Here we find an example which points to a still earlier stage of human development, before man separated off from himself the kingdom of the cold-blooded animals. Oken connected the cuttlefish with the human tongue. In this analogy of the tongue with the cuttlefish one can find an occult significance. Now we also have beings who for the first time are, as it were, being conjured up as by-products. Man has ejected from himself the cunning of the fox and retained its opposite pole. In the fox's cunning however the germ of something else is beginning to develop, for example something similar to the way in which the black shadow of an object has a secondary shadow when light enters it from outside. We incorporated cunning into the fox out of our inner being. Now spirit is directed towards him from the periphery. The beings which in this way work from the periphery into what is kamic are elemental beings. What the fox has received from us, is in him animal; what coming from outside attaches itself to him from the spirit, is elemental being. On the one hand he originated through the spirit of humanity and on the other hand through an Elemental being.

Thus we differentiate: firstly, elemental beings, secondly, the kama-rupic man, thirdly, the pure man, fourthly, the man who in a certain respect has overcome the pure man, who has taken into himself what is outside and around him and is creatively active. He has contacted and taken into himself everything which is around him in earthly existence. This gives him the plans, the directions, the laws which create life. Once man was perfect and he will become so again. But there is a great difference between what he was and what he will become. What is around him in the outer world will later become his spiritual possession. What he has won for himself on the Earth will later become the faculty of being creatively active. This will then have become his innermost being. One who has absorbed all earthly experiences, so that he knows how to make use of every single thing and has thus become a creator, is called a Bodhisattva, which means a man who has taken into himself to a sufficient degree the Bodhi, the Buddhi of the earth. Then he is advanced enough to work creatively out of his innermost impulses. The wise men of the earth are not yet Bodhisattvas. [24] Even for such a one there always remain things to which he is still unable to orient himself. Only when one has absorbed into oneself the entire knowledge of the Earth, in order to be able to create, only then is one a Bodhisattva; Buddha, Zarathustra, for example, were Bodhisattvas.

When man ascends still further in evolution, so that he is not only a creator on the Earth, but possesses forces which reach out above the Earth, only then is he free to choose either to use these higher forces or to work further with them on the Earth. In this case he can bring into the Earth something coming from higher worlds. Such an epoch occurred before man began to incarnate, in the last third of the Lemurian Age. The human being had developed his physical, etheric and astral bodies. He had brought these members of his being with him from an earlier Earth evolution. The two next impulses, Kama and Manas, he could not have found on the Earth; they do not lie in its evolutionary sequence. The first new impulse (Kama) was only to be found as a force on Mars. It was added shortly before man incarnated. The second impulse (Manas) came from Mercury in the fifth sub-race of the Atlanteans, with the original Semites. The stimulus of these new principles had to be brought to the Earth from other planets through still higher beings, through the Nirmana-kayas. From Mars they added Kama, from Mercury Manas. The Nirmana-kayas are yet another stage higher than the Bodhisattvas. The latter are able to order evolution which has continuity; but they cannot bring into it what comes from other regions, this can only be done by the Nirmana-kayas. [In] yet another stage higher than the Nirmana-kayas, stand those beings who are called Pitris. Pitris = Fathers. For the Nirmana-kayas can indeed bring something coming from other regions into evolution, but they cannot sacrifice themselves, sacrifice themselves as substance, so that on the following planet they can bring forth a new cycle. This can be done by the Pitris, beings who had evolved on the Moon and had now come over; they became the activating impulse towards Earth evolution. When man has gone through every possible experience, then he is in a position to become a Pitri. The next and even higher stage, the last that it is possible to mention, is that of the Gods themselves.

Thus we have seven ranks of beings: Firstly the Gods, secondly Pitris, thirdly Nirmana-kayas, fourthly Bodhisattvas, fifthly pure human beings, sixthly human beings, seventhly elemental beings. This is the sequence of which Helena Petrovna Blavatsky speaks.

Now we can add the question: What kind of organ is it which has made man kama-rupic? It is the heart with the veins and the blood that pulsates through the body. The heart has a physical part and an etheric part. Aristotle [25] speaks about this, for in earlier times it was only the etheric man which was held to be important. The heart has also an astral part. The etheric heart is connected with the twelve-petalled lotus flower. Not all the physical organs have an astral part; for example the gall bladder is only physical and etheric, the astral is lacking.

Lecture 7

Berlin, 2nd October 1905

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, in the Secret Doctrine, called Jehovah a Moon God. [26] There is a deep reason underlying this. In order to understand it we must be clear about the further development of man. In man as he is today, his higher forces are intermingled. His further development depends on the emergence of his higher self from the sheath of the lower forces and organs.

The brain is divided into three actual parts: into thinking, feeling and willing sections. Later these three parts, like the three divisions of an ant-heap, will be directed by man from outside. The parts, however, from which the higher has been withdrawn do not remain as they are today, but they then descend a further stage lower. This is the reason why many people practicing a one-sided spiritual development suffer a moral decline. In the case of western cultural life there is less danger of this, for western science does not yet compel the higher things of the mind to rise up out of the lower body. Through Theosophy, on the other hand, man actually absorbs a wisdom through which the ego is partially torn out of the usual environment of the organs. It can happen that when a person who, through his conventional milieu had observed ordinary moral standards, takes up theosophical teachings, his worser qualities, which up to that time had remained hidden, actually make their appearance. Frequently the lower comes to the surface because one occupies oneself with spiritual things without at the same time strengthening one's morality. This fact brings with it a certain tragedy. Certain men of academic standing, who in the sphere of western knowledge had been quite admirable people, suffered through having come into the Theosophical Society; in their case the lower nature made its appearance without being mastered by the higher.

The same law is also to be found on a larger scale. The beings whom we meet with on the Old Moon had not as yet incorporated their power of thinking in a physical brain. The power of thinking in the case of the Moon-Nirmana-kayas, Bodhisattvas, Pitris and pure human beings did not yet work in a physical brain but in the ether masses surrounding them. On the Old Moon the environment consisted not only of air, but also of ether filled with wisdom. On the Old Moon thoughts were not in the individual beings but they flew hither and thither in the ether. In occultism therefore the Old Moon is also called the Cosmos of Wisdom. [27] The Old Moon was surrounded by Warmth Ether and other forms of ether. In these ethers lived intelligence and reason, as they now live in the human brain. Underlying this however there was development. At the beginning of the Moon evolution wisdom still impressed itself into beautiful forms. The beings who only possessed the lower human members, physical body, etheric body and astral body, were directed by these streams of wisdom. In the course of further development the three lower bodies descended more deeply. When the Old Moon evolution came to an end the beings who were wise, but did not possess wisdom in a brain, had progressed so far that they could completely relinquish these lower bodies. These beings who had now become Pitris and who no longer needed to enter into such physical, etheric and astral bodies, were the hosts of the Elohim in different stages. The lowest rank of these Elohim is the Jehovah stage. Jehovah therefore is an actual Moon divinity, who on the Old Moon passed through physical development. Nevertheless on the Moon he was never able to work on the physical surroundings, using a brain as the vehicle of thought. Only his physical, etheric and astral bodies had worked on the physical environment. This however he did through pictures. Thinking hovered above. The name Jehovah does not designate a single being, but a rank in the order of the hierarchies. Many beings can take on the Jehovah rank, or assume it for a purpose. Eliphas Levi repeatedly emphasised that with the designations Jehovah, Archangeloi, Angeloi, we have to do with ordered ranks of beings.

The first human beings to receive teaching on the Earth received it from Jehovah in pictures. That is why Genesis is a sum of great pictures, pictures which Jehovah had experienced on the Old Moon.

While on the Old Moon, on the one hand, [28]! only the lower being of man was developed in physical, etheric and astral bodies — on the other hand the higher trinity was being cherished and fostered. These principles had reached a certain degree of maturity, after having been implanted; Atma on Old Saturn, Buddhi on Old Sun, Manas on Old Moon. They could then develop further on the Earth. What came over on to the Earth from the Old Moon as physical, etheric and astral bodies, are the grotesque animals in which Atma, Buddhi and Manas gradually incorporated themselves. The Moon Pitris had left aside the lower parts, but to make up for this they had cherished and fostered Atma, Buddhi and Manas in an objective way. Through their fostering care they brought it about that a thinker could develop on the Earth. If one looks at the external creatures on the Old Moon, these are the sheaths which surrounded man, not man himself. The sheaths could be made use of because what had to leave them had departed. [Gap in the text ...] Now the remaining material could be condensed to form the brain. In a germinal condition the matter for the brain was there, but could only condense after the Pitris had left.

What took place in the pre-Lemurian Age is a preparation. The human body is so worked upon that Atma, Buddhi and Manas can sink into it. These principles enveloped themselves with Kama-substance. Let us now imagine a jelly-like being which had freed itself from what had come over from the Old Moon. This provides a physical foundation. In addition to this there are Atma, Buddhi and Manas, and an astral body which these principles organise around themselves. They work on the jelly-like masses from outside until they are able to take possession of them from within. Finally the spiritual penetrates the physical. Now two kinds of beings have amalgamated. The moment the brain is formed they interpenetrate one another. Through this, birth and death entered into Earth-evolution. Previously human beings had themselves built up the physical body; in the future this will be so again. But because two beings are united who are only partially suited to one another we have birth and death, and every period of time between birth and death is a continual attempt to make these two beings fit together better — a swinging to and fro of the pendulum until eventually a rhythmical condition is brought about.

Up to the middle of the Sixth Root-Race (epoch) this will continue, until this rhythmical condition is attained and the one being has become completely adapted to the other. And Karma is nothing else than the measure of balance which the human being has already brought about. In each single incarnation one attains a certain degree of adaptation. After each incarnation man must ascend again to Devachan in order to survey what has still to be done. Only when the balance is achieved is Karma overcome and the human being can take up something new, the true Wisdom, Buddhi, which until that time must be fostered and cherished.

Future evolution must be prepared for. What man already produces from himself, as preparation for the future human being, is the word, speech. What man speaks remains in the Akashic Record. It is the germinal beginning for the future human being. Speech is one half of the former means of reproduction. Through speech man propagates himself spiritually. The breaking of the male voice is connected with this. One half of what is sexual has been carried over into speech. The voice is the future organ of reproduction. In ancient Hebrew the same word was used for sex and speech. Today man thinks and the thought passes outwards through the larynx. The next stage will be that feeling, warmth, passes outwards. Then the word will be the expression of the inner warmth of the body. This can happen when the pituitary gland (hypophysis) develops in the brain. The stage following this appears when the pineal gland (epiphysis) is developed. Then not only the warmth-imbued word will go forth, but the word will remain, will be given form through the will, which then lives within it. Then when one utters the word it becomes an actual being.

Related to this is: 'I think, I feel, I am' (will). The word in this sense is 'the word' which undergoes a transformation from thinking, into feeling and then into willing. This is a threefold process. First the word is 'consciousness' (in thinking) then 'life' (the warmth-permeated word), and lastly 'form', the word shaped through the will. This latter is the word become objective. So here too, following one another, we have: consciousness, life, form. Everything, which today is form stems from earlier times and has arisen through such a process. The physical body, the form, is the most perfected body; less developed are the etheric body, life, and the astral body, consciousness.

Lecture 8

Berlin, 3rd October 1905

The different incarnations of the human individuality are a kind of swinging of the pendulum to and fro until the rhythm is brought to rest and the higher part of man has found in the physical a fitting expression, a suitable instrument. Approximately ever since human beings have reincarnated, the position of sun, moon and earth has existed as it is now. We must understand that man belongs to the great cosmic organism. In the times in which great changes take place in the life of humanity, mighty changes also occur in the cosmos. Earlier than this, before there was reincarnation, sun, moon and earth were not yet separated as now. Kant and Laplace made their observation from the physical plane only, and to this extent their theory is quite correct, but they did not know the connection with spiritual forces. When out of the primal fire-vapour sun, moon and earth came into existence as separate bodies, man also began to incarnate. When human incarnations will have come to an end, the sun also will be re-united with the earth. On the large scale as in the single details, one must bear in mind these relationships of man to the universe.

You will often have heard that man usually incarnates after a period of about two thousand years. One can investigate when people who are alive today had their earlier incarnation. The souls who are now incarnated, one finds as a rule about 300 to 400 years after the birth of Christ. In addition, however, one finds others who are incarnated at various times, some earlier, some later. But there is another way to determine incarnations, a way which leads more certainly to the goal. One can say: Were the human beings who die today to return in a short time they would meet almost the same conditions as now. But man ought to learn as much as possible on the Earth. This can only happen when in the next incarnation he finds something new which is essentially different from the earlier conditions.

Let us for instance imagine ourselves back into the time about 600 to 800 years before Christ; that is about the time of the Iliad and the Odyssey. With the advanced peoples of that time the conditions of life were quite different from what they are now. One would for instance be astonished to see with what curious implements people ate. At that time also people had not yet learnt to write. The great poems were transmitted by word of mouth. When a person of those times is reincarnated today he must as a child learn quite other things. As a child he must learn to write. The stream of culture has meanwhile progressed. One must distinguish between the stream of culture and the development of the individual soul. As a child one must catch up with the civilisation and for this reason one must be born again as a child.

Now we must ask: What causes such utterly different conditions on earth? This is connected with the progression of the spring equinox. About 800 years before Christ the sun in spring entered the constellation of Aries, of the Ram. Every year at the vernal point it shifts a little. Because of this the conditions on the earth are always slightly changing. Eight hundred years before Christ the sun stood in the constellation of Aries. Earlier it stood in the constellation of Taurus, still earlier in Gemini and still earlier in Cancer. Now already for some hundred of years it rises in the constellation of Pisces. After this comes Aquarius. The advance of civilisations is also connected with the progression of the sun from one constellation to the other.

At the time when the sun rose in the constellation of Cancer the ancient Vedic culture of the Indians, the culture of the Rishis reached its highest point. The Rishis, those still half-divine beings, were the teachers of men. The Atlantean civilisation had met its destruction; a new impulse broke in. In occultism this is called a 'vortex' (wirbel). This is also why, in the age in which the sun stood in the constellation of Cancer, the sign was made in this way:

Cancer signifies a breaking in of something new, a 'vortex' (a double spiral).

The second cultural epoch is named the constellation of the Twins. At that time the dual nature of the world was understood, the opposing forces of the world, Ormuzd and Ahriman, Good and Evil. Thus the Persians also speak of the Twins.

The third cultural epoch is that of the Sumerians in Asia Minor and of the Egyptians. The constellation of the Bull corresponds to this epoch. This is why in Asia the Bull was venerated and in Egypt, Apis. At that time in Babylon and Assyria the Sumerian language was the language of wisdom. Then the Bull fell into decadence and the Ram came into the ascendant. The first indication of this is the Saga of the Golden Fleece.

The fourth culture is that of the Ram, or Lamb; Christ stands in the sign of the Ram, or Lamb; hence he calls himself the Lamb of God.

As fifth culture the external materialistic civilisation follows, in the constellation of the Fishes. This developed principally from the 12th century onwards and reached its climax about the year 1800. This is the culture of the Fifth sub-race, the present time.

In the constellation of the Water-Man in the future, the new Christianity will be proclaimed. 'Water-Man' is also the one who will bring it, he who has already been here: John the Baptist. Later he will again be the forerunner of Christ, when the Sixth, the spiritual sub-race will be founded. The Theosophical Movement should be the preparation for that time.

In the New Testament the expression 'on the mountain' is used on various occasions. 'On the mountain' means: in the mystery, in the innermost, in the intimate. Even the Sermon on the Mount is not to be understood as a sermon for the people, but as an intimate teaching for the disciples. The Transfiguration on the Mountain has also to be understood in this sense. Jesus went up into the mountain with the three disciples, Peter, James and John. There, we are told, the disciples were caught up out of themselves; then Moses and Elias appeared on either side of Jesus. For a moment space and time were extinguished and the disciples found themselves with their consciousness on the mental plane. Those who were no longer physically present, Moses and Elias, appeared. In direct revelation they had before them: 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.' The way = Elias, Moses = the truth, Christ = the life. This appeared here to the disciples in actual form. Jesus once said to them: 'Elias has come again; [29] John was Elias, he has only not been recognised.' But he said further: 'Tell it to no man until I come again.' Christianity was not to teach reincarnation for two thousand years, not for any arbitrary reason, but on educational grounds. People were to know nothing of it for two thousand years. In the gospel of St. John there is an indication of this in the miracle of the wedding at Cana where water is turned into wine. In the old Mysteries only water was distributed, but in the Christian Mysteries wine. For in the priesthood, through the partaking of wine, knowledge of reincarnation was blotted out. Whoever partakes of wine cannot attain to any true knowledge of Manas, Buddhi and Atma. He can never comprehend reincarnation. By his coming again Christ means his reappearance in the Sixth sub-race when he will be proclaimed by the 'Water-Man'. Theosophy actually carries out the testament of Christianity and works towards this epoch of time.

Every time the sun progresses from one sign of the Zodiac to another incisive changes take place in civilisation. In between there elapses a period of about two thousand six hundred years. [30] If we take the moment of time when the sun entered the sign of the Ram or Lamb, about 800 years before Christ and 1800 years after Christ, then we have two thousand six hundred years. About the year 1800 we entered the sign of the Fishes. This is the time when materialistic culture reached its highest point. It was prepared for in the Middle Ages and has now begun to decline. About the year 4,400 mankind enters the sign of spiritual culture, that of the Water-Man. Preparation has also to be made for this.

Thus conditions change also with the constellation. With the progression from one sign to another new conditions also arise, so that rebirth has meaning. The human being is reborn approximately every two thousand six hundred years, but the experiences he makes as man and as woman are so radically different that two such incarnations, as man and as woman, are reckoned as one. About one thousand three hundred years elapse between two incarnations as man or as woman, and about two thousand six hundred years between such double incarnations if one reckons both as one. The human being is only man or woman in regard to the physical body. When the physical body is masculine the etheric body is feminine; and vice versa, when the physical body is feminine the etheric body is masculine. Only the astral body is at the same time masculine and feminine. The human being bears within him the opposite sex as etheric body. Thus in the etheric the man is feminine and in the etheric the woman masculine. The physical woman has therefore many concealed masculine qualities; the physical incarnation is present only exoterically. The human being therefore goes through a constellation every time as man and as woman. This is why the Master said to Sinnett that the human being is incarnated about twice in a sub-race. Occultly both incarnations are reckoned together as one. There must come a time in which the woman actually approaches the culture dominated by the man. The present woman's movement is to be recognized as the preparation for another later and quite different woman's movement. In the future, sex differentiation will be totally overcome.

There was a special reason why, for about two thousand years, the teaching of reincarnation was completely suppressed. The human being was to learn to know and value the importance of the one life. Every slave in Ancient Egypt was still convinced of the fact that he would return, that one day he would be master instead of slave, but that he had to pay his karmic debts. The single life was therefore not so important to him. But the lesson people now had to learn was to gain firm ground under their feet; thus during one life, reincarnation was to remain unknown. Christ therefore expressly forbade any teaching about reincarnation. But from 800 years before Christ until about 1800 years after Christ, the time had elapsed during which nearly everyone had gone through the one life without experiencing anything of reincarnation. The great Masters [31] have the task not always to impart the whole truth at any one time, but only that part needed by man. This withholding of the consciousness of reincarnation came to poetic expression in this epoch in Dante's Divine Comedy. In monastic esotericism on the other hand, reincarnation was definitely taught when the occasion arose. The Trappists [32] had to remain silent throughout one incarnation, so that in the next they might become eloquent speakers. They were intentionally trained in this way to become eloquent speakers, for of these the Church can make good use. When St. Augustine put forward the doctrine of predestination he was entirely consistent. [33] Because in the age of materialism reincarnation was not to be taught, the Augustinian doctrine of predestination had to make its appearance. Only in this way could the differences in people's circumstances be explained.

Connected with this is the deeply materialistic character of traditional Christianity, which lies in the fact that the Beyond is made dependent on one physical existence. This materialistic teaching of Christianity has, so to say, borne its fruit. Today there is no longer any consciousness of the Beyond. Social democracy is the ultimate consequence of traditional Christianity. But now a new impulse must come into the world. When one epoch comes to an end something new breaks in. Christianity worked towards the gradual dawning of the materialistic age. In order to bring about the materialistic civilisation, human beings for a period of one thousand three hundred years had to have such a teaching as was brought by Christianity; namely, that man should make the whole of eternity dependent upon one earthly life. Urban bourgeoisie then became the actual founder of the age of materialism. Already at the time of Christ the spiritual had to be betrayed by the purely material. Judas Iscariot had to betray Christ. One can however say: had there been no Judas there would also have been no Christianity. Judas is the first to attach prime importance to money, that is to say, to materialism. In Judas was incarnated the entire materialistic age. This materialistic age has obscured and darkened the spiritual. Through his death Christ becomes the Redeemer of materialism.

Lecture 9

Berlin, 4th October 1905

We will try to understand the physical body somewhat more exactly. At the present time we distinguish within the constitution of man four members: physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego. In studying the physical body we must now enter into greater detail. Man was already something when he came into the Old Saturn existence from a far-distant past. The physical body is the oldest and most developed member at present possessed by man. It is fourfold, which is not the case with the other bodies. On Old Saturn the groundwork was already laid as a germ. The etheric body was first added on the Old Sun. There the physical body evolved a stage further. The astral body was added on the Old Moon and the physical body underwent a still further stage of development. On the Earth the ego was now added, and the physical body went through a fourth stage. So we may say that the physical body is, as it were, in the fourth grade, while the etheric body is in the third, the astral body in the second and the ego in the first.

This is why it is only the physical body as such that has self-awareness, not the other three bodies. In the moment when man closes his physical sense organs in sleep, awareness of self ceases: when he opens them to what is outside, self-awareness returns. Man gains consciousness of self because his organs enable him to observe his surroundings. Only the physical body is so far advanced that it is able to open its organs to what is outside. If the etheric and astral bodies were able with their organs to observe their surroundings, man would attain self-awareness in them also. But for this, organs are necessary. The physical body has self-awareness only through its organs. These organs of the physical body are the senses.

Let us consider the senses in their successive stages. There are in fact twelve senses. [34] Of these, five are already physical and two others will become physical during the further development of the Earth.

The five senses which we already have are smell, taste, sight, touch and hearing. In time man will develop two other senses into proper physical senses. These two are located in the pituitary gland (hypophysis) and the pineal gland (epiphysis). These will develop the two future senses in the physical body which will then have seven senses. To understand the successive stages of the senses we must make it clear that in so far as man is a being conscious of self, he is on a descending curve. So though the body is on an ascending curve, the senses are on a descending curve. [35]

Of the higher principles in man, Atma developed on Old Saturn, Buddhi on Old Sun and Manas on Old Moon. There was a time when the Monad assembled itself bit by bit, and then in the Lemurian Age entered into its self-constructed house. Now the Monad has descended to the fourth stage, Atma, Buddhi, Manas, Kama-Manas. This descending curve is expressed in the development of the senses. Actually, in the beginning, on Old Saturn, only one sense was present, the sense of smell. The senses that developed later had to descend from higher to ever lower regions.

In Nature we differentiate the solid, the fluid, the gaseous, the warmth ether, light ether, chemical ether and the life ether. These are the seven stages of matter. In his descent man experienced these stages from above downwards. At the beginning of evolution the first human life-germ could only manifest itself in the Life Ether. What corresponds to this stage as sense, is the sense of smell. Then man possessed the first sense, that of smell, of which only an after effect is present today. The solid has its life, as we saw a few days ago on the Maha-para-nirvana plane, the fluid on the Para-nirvana plane, the gaseous on the Nirvana plane, the Warmth Ether on the Buddhi plane, the Light Ether on the Mental plane, the Chemical Ether on the astral plane, the Life Ether on the physical plane. We can therefore also speak of the atomistic ether.

Correspondences of the Planes

Conditions of Matter

The Senses

1. Physical plane

Life ether

Smell

2. Astral plane

Chemical ether

Taste

3. Mental plane

Light ether

Sight

4. Buddhi or Shushupti plane

Warmth ether

Touch

5. Nirvana plane

Gaseous, Air

Hearing

6. Para-nirvana plane

Fluid

Pituitary gland

7. Maha-para-nirvana plane

Solid

Pineal gland

An object can only be smelt when it impinges on the organ of smell, comes into contact with it. The organ of smell must unite itself with the material. To smell means to perceive with a sense that enters into a relationship with the material itself.

As second stage we have the Chemical Ether. Here the sense of taste develops. This depends on dissolving what is to be tasted. We have to do, not with matter itself, but with what is made out of it. This is a chemical, physical process through which matter is changed into something different. The tongue can do this: it can first dissolve and then taste.

The third stage is to be found in the Light Ether. There sight develops. Now we do not perceive what is broken down by chemical, physical processes, but we perceive a picture of the object which is brought about by the external light.

The fourth is the Warmth Ether. In this, the sense of touch is developed. Here one no longer perceives a picture. Warmth is a passing condition of the body, a condition experienced only in the moment. We are speaking here of the sense of touch as the perception of warmth and cold; it is in fact a 'Warmth sense'.

Fifthly we have what is of the nature of air. This corresponds to the sense of hearing. Here we no longer perceive a condition of the body in question, but what the body says to us. Now we enter into the inner nature of the body. At the sound of a bell it is not the bell itself that interests us, not the outer form, the matter, but what it has to disclose of its inner nature. Hearing is a uniting with what reveals itself as the spiritual in matter. At this stage the life of the senses goes over from the passive to the active. The passively received sound becomes in man active in speech. Through speech man gives utterance to his soul being.

As the sixth stage we have the fluid element. The sense organ corresponding to the fluid is the pituitary gland. This is situated in the brain in an elongated cylindrical form.

As seventh stage we have the solid. The appropriate sense organ is the pineal gland.

As now, when man speaks he influences the air, so later he will gain an influence over what is fluid. [36] The 'I think', and thought in general, will express itself in the air and indeed in forms, for example as crystals. At the next stage feeling will also be involved with thinking. Development will work backwards. The warmth of the heart will then express itself in oscillations, and flow outwards together with thought. And the last stage will be achieved by man when he will create actual beings which remain; when through the word he will externalise what he wills. The expression of feeling is merely a transition. When man becomes creative through the will, then the beings which he brings forth will have actual existence.

In times to come man will bring forth into his surroundings what he feels. This will be imparted to the fluid element. The entire fluid element of the planet which will follow next (the future Jupiter) will be an expression of what people feel. Today man sends out words; they are inscribed into the Akasha. There they remain, even though the airwaves vanish. Out of these words the Future Jupiter will later be formed. When therefore today man uses evil, blasphemous language, then on Jupiter terrible formations will be brought about. This is why one should be so very careful of what one says, and why it is so immensely important that man should be master of his speech. In the future man will also send out his feelings; the conditions of the fluids on Jupiter will be a result of feelings on the Earth. What man speaks today will give Jupiter its form; what he feels will engender its inner warmth; what he wills determines the separate beings inhabiting Jupiter. The Future Jupiter will be constructed out of the basic powers of the human soul.

Just as today we can trace the rock formation of the Earth back to earlier conditions, so will the rock formation of the Future Jupiter be the result of our words. The ocean of Jupiter, the warmth of Jupiter, will arise out of the feelings of present-day humanity. The beings of Jupiter will arise out of human will. Thus the inhabitants of a previous planet create the basic conditions for its successor. And beings who today still [Gap in text ...] hover over the earth, as was once the case with the Monads, will enter into incarnation on the Future Jupiter. There will then exist a kind of Jupiter-Lemurian race. Beings will be there which we have created as the Pitris did. Just as we inhabited the grotesque forms of the Old Moon, so these beings will inhabit the forms which we develop by means of our pineal gland.

We are building the house for future Monads. A similar procedure took place when the development of the human being led over from the Old Moon to the Earth. This makes absolutely clear how everything external is actually created from within outwards.

It is difficult to distinguish the pure physical body from what has been formed through human error. A hunchback owes his deformity to the astral, to Karma. The external form, the physiognomy and so on, are dependent on Karma. Modifications of the physical body are therefore dependent on the higher bodies. When one eliminates everything that depends on Karma we find that the physical body is in fact wisely ordered. All forms of illness are errors which find their expression in the physical body. All illnesses have been wrong-doing in the past, all wrong-doing will be illness in the future. When human beings become truly worthy, the bodies of the beings they create will be equally imbued with wisdom.

All wisdom, feeling and will, in the next evolution, will actually be present as form and being. The physical body is called a temple in all ancient religions because its structure is so filled with wisdom. It is not correct to speak of the physical body as the lower nature, for what is lower in man does in fact lie in the higher bodies which today are still in infancy.

Here we can consider an important karmic connection. We live in a materialistic age and this is the result of a preceding age. This materialistic age has accomplished much, not only outwardly but also inwardly. We may think for instance of the decrease in mortality through hygienic measures. This is actually a step forward, brought about by hygienic means. Such external progress is always a karmic result of progress which earlier has been made inwardly. These steps forward in the physical are the result of inner steps forward in the Middle Ages. Today therefore it would be quite wrong to look back on the 'dark' Middle Ages. Our most significant materialists have been educated idealistically; for instance, Haeckel, Büchner, Moleschott. This is why their systems are thought out so admirably; but this they owe to their idealistic education. Present day materialism is actually the outer expression of the preceding idealistic period.

Now too we must work in preparation for the future. Just as the karmic result of the earlier idealistic period made its appearance in materialism, so again a new beginning must be made in regard to Idealism and spiritual impulses. It was in accordance with this law that the leading personalities acted when they called the Theosophical Movement into life.

The 14th century was the time of the creation of towns. Within a few hundred years independent towns had developed in all civilised European countries. The burgher is the founder of materialism in practical life. This comes to expression in the Lohengrin myth. [37] Lohengrin, the emissary of the Grail Lodge, was the wise leader who took hold in the Middle Ages and prepared the way for the establishment of towns. The swan was his symbol; the initiate of the Third Grade is the Swan. Consciousness is always represented as something feminine. Elsa of Brabant represents the consciousness of the materialistic civic sense. The spiritual life had, however, to be saved; this happened through the fact that Christian Rosenkreuz [38] founded the Rosicrucian Order. Spiritual life remained in the Mystery Schools. Today materialism has been driven to uttermost extremes. This is why in our time something new must break in. At that time the same movement took hold which today through Theosophy makes popular the elementary teachings of spiritual life in order to create once again a new inner impulse that will later be able to reveal itself outwardly. The inner always comes later to outer expression. An illness is the karmic result of earlier wrongdoing, for instance, lying. When something of this kind becomes outer reality, it manifests as illness. Epidemics can be traced far back to the misdeeds of a people. They are something imperfect which from being inward has been exteriorised. The sixth sense is the Kundalini light radiating warmth; [39] the seventh is the synthesizing sense.

Lecture 10

Berlin, 5th October 1905

If we consider man's being in its entirety we have to begin with the physical body, then the etheric, then the astral body. The physical body of man can be seen by everyone. The etheric body becomes visible when the physical body is suggested away by a strong act of will. Then the space of the physical body remains filled with the etheric body. The occultist considers the etheric as actually being the lowest body. It is the body according to which the physical body is formed. Taking the descending line, the form of the etheric body is the reverse of the physical. It is only in the ascending line that they are identical. A woman has a masculine etheric body and a man a feminine etheric body.

Around the etheric body appears the astral body. It is the outer form for the entire content of the soul; for passions, emotions, impulses, desires, joy, unhappiness, enthusiasm and so on. It manifests itself in forms of every description. The surrounding part shows cloud formations; it radiates the most varied colours. Frequently somewhat tattered formations are attached to it. The forms and colours are different and changing. Green shows sympathy and compassion for one's fellow men. The lower levels of the population show much red in the astral body, brownish red, brick red, blood red. Especially with droshky-drivers one can see such a red, indicative of the lower passions.

With every human being all the fluctuations of the astral body are enclosed in an egg-shaped sheath. This has an underlying blue colour and shows, as an important factor, a dark violet spot in the middle of the brain. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky calls this egg-shaped sheath the auric egg. In the case of little children the auric egg is predominant; in their case many bright, luminous clouds of colour appear within it. In the lower parts however little children also have dark clouds, indicating lower impulses. This is the inherited Karma that they have in common with their ancestors — 'the sins of the fathers'. These sins of the fathers are inherited down to the seventh generation. People's characteristics can be traced back as far as the seventh generation of forefathers. After the seventh generation heredity dies out. One reckons three generations to a century. The man of today therefore still shows certain good or bad qualities coming from what was good or bad in his ancestors of the 17th century. Thus one can look backwards on one's forefathers as far as two hundred years or rather more.

To see how the auric egg has been formed we must consider the development of a cosmic body. The condition of the Earth lying nearest to our present studies is characterised as the physical condition. In Theosophical literature a condition of form is called a Globe and one therefore speaks of the physical Globe. As physical Globe the Earth is the fourth Globe in a development of seven states of being. Three other conditions preceded the physical Globe and a further three are still to follow. Before the Earth became physical it was astral. Everything living upon Earth was at that time present only in the astral. When man has gone through the Sixth and Seventh Root-Races (epochs) he will have become so spiritualised that he will again have an astral form. This future astral condition of form however will contain all the fruits of evolution.

Seven conditions of form together make up a Round. At the present time the Earth is going through its fourth Round and this is the mineral. During this time it is the task of mankind to work upon the mineral kingdom. A man is already working on the mineral kingdom when he takes a flint and hammers it into a wedge-shaped tool with which he makes other objects, when he transports rocks and builds pyramids out of the stones, when he makes tools out of metals, when he conducts electric current in a network over the earth; in all this man is working upon the mineral kingdom. Thus man puts into service the whole mineral kingdom. He makes the Earth into something entirely of his own devising. When the painter turns his mind to a combination of colours he is also working upon the mineral kingdom. We are now in the midst of this activity, and in the course of the next races (epochs) the Earth will have become completely transformed, so that eventually there will be no single atom on the earth that has not been worked upon by man. In earlier times these atoms became more and more solidified; now however they are becoming increasingly separated. Radioactivity did not exist in earlier times and could not therefore be discovered. It has only existed for a few thousand years, because now the atoms split up more and more.

When the Fourth Round comes to an end the entire mineral kingdom will have been worked upon by the hand of man. When it has been completely worked through by man, then, in order that the fruits of this work can be manifested, the Earth must pass over into an astral condition in which forms can develop. The Earth then passes over into a Mental Globe and then into the Higher Mental condition, the Arupic. It then disappears altogether out of these conditions into a shorter Pralaya. It then enters once more into a new Arupic condition, that of the next, the Fifth Round; then into a Rupic condition and then into an astral condition. After this it appears physically once more. Everything which man worked into the mineral kingdom during the Fourth Round reappears and grows up as the plant kingdom; for instance [the] Cologne cathedral will appear as a plant in the next Round.

Between the last Arupic condition of the Fourth Round and the first Arupic condition of the Fifth Round the earth goes through a Pralaya. Then in the Fifth Round the previous mineral kingdom appears in all its forms as the plant kingdom. In the Arupic condition of the Fifth Round everything is contained that man has worked over in the mineral Round. At first this reappears in the Arupic condition in the pure Akasha. This condition is in fact called 'Akasha'. In the beginning of each new Round everything is to be found in the Akasha; later there are only imprints. Thus in these imprints we have the whole Earth with all its beings. In the transition from the Third to the Fourth Round, all the beings which came into existence in the Third Round also reappear.

With further development out of the Akasha everything has to assume a denser form. This takes place in the Rupa condition of the earth. This more material form is called in occultism, for example in certain passages from H.P. Blavatsky, the ether. In this Ether-Earth everything is contained. All beings were contained in thought, but nevertheless in the background the Akasha exists as a foundation. The ether densifies further to the Astral Light. In this Astral Light radiates the third Globe (condition of form), the Astral-Earth; it radiates in the purest Astral Light, and this Astral Light is in fact entirely composed of the same substance in which later man's auric egg shines out. This is especially the case with quite young children who are only a few months old. After this the Earth passes over into its present physical condition. Then, as the actual Earth, it becomes ever more and more physical. In the same degree however in which it becomes ever more physical, it separates off from itself the individual auric eggs for mankind. These differentiate themselves as though, in a vessel filled with water, one part of the water freezes to ice while the other part rises up in pearl-like water drops. Thus on the one side the physical earth separates off and on the other side the auric eggs become, as it were, pearl-like drops for human evolution.

At first the auric egg seems to be undifferentiated. Actually however it is not undifferentiated. It may be compared with the following: If we have a solution of cooking salt it appears as a uniform grayish mass; if we let it stand the beautiful cubic crystals of salt are precipitated. In the auric egg those forces were inherent which produced the etheric body, the Linga Sharira. Out of what became solid earth there also emerged later what had already gone through a development on the Old Moon. This contained as predisposition what eventually became the lower kingdoms as far as the first vertebrates, up to the snake. The vertebrate animals which followed were not there on the Old Moon; they were first added on the Earth. Thus the invertebrate animals emerged from the Earth when it densified to a physical condition, as did also the plants and mineral kingdom.

At the time when all these separated forms had emerged, mankind had entered into the Lemurian Age. The ever densifying human being developed from the first, the Polarian race, to the race of the Hyperboreans. This was followed by the Lemurian Age; it was then that the development of the vertebrate animals entered its first stage, and it is from that time that they have continued to evolve.

So we have to distinguish: firstly Akasha, secondly Ether, thirdly Astral Light, fourthly Earth, fifthly the Auric Egg.

This is called a spiral (Wirbel). Until the Earth stage, the fourth condition of form, the Earth became ever denser. At the price of this increasing densification, the Astral Light became individualised after the solid had thrust itself out. The Auric Eggs of human beings are the individualised Astral Light. One can therefore read in the Astral Light, not the deeds, but the emotions bound up with them; these one can read in the Astral Light. For example, Caesar conceived the idea of crossing the Rubicon and this roused in him certain feelings and desires. What took place at that time corresponds to a combination of astral impulses. The physical deeds on the physical plane have vanished for all eternity. Caesar's advance can no longer be seen in the Astral Light, but the impulse which drove him to it has remained there. The karmic (astral) correlations with what takes place on the physical plane remain in the Astral Light. One must accustom oneself to look away from all physical perceptions and only to see the karmic impulses. One must hold fast to these and consciously transpose them back into the physical. There is no purpose in looking for something which might be seen, as though one were looking at a photograph.

The greatest impulses of world history can however no longer be read in the Astral Light, for the impulses of the great initiates were passionless. Whoever therefore reads only in the Astral Light, for him the whole work of the initiates is absent: for example the content of the book 'The Great Initiates' by Edouard Schuré could not have been found in the Astral Light. Such impressions are only inscribed in the Ether. What one can read in the Astral Light in connection with what the initiates have done is based on an illusion, because one can only read the results of the lives of the great initiates in the impulses of their pupils. Pupils and even entire peoples have experienced strong and passionate emotions in regard to the actions of the great initiates and these have remained in the Astral Light. But it is so difficult to study the deepest motives of the great initiates because they are only present in the ether.

Cosmic events — metamorphoses such as those of Atlantis — remain at a still higher level, no longer in the Ether, but in the actual Akasha. That is the Akashic Chronicle. This latter is nevertheless connected in a certain way with the most earthly concerns of mankind. For the human being is connected with the great happenings of the Cosmos. Every single person is to be found sketched, as it were, in the Akashic Chronicle. What is present there continues further and works its way into the Ether and the Astral Light. The individual human being becomes ever more clearly discernible the more one seeks for him in the lower spheres. And one must study all these spheres in order to understand the real mechanism of Karma.

Lecture 11

Berlin, 6th October 1905

Today we are going to explain how Karma works and make clear to ourselves how it is connected with the so-called three worlds. All other worlds, with the exception of these three, hardly come into consideration when it is a question of human development; the relevant three are the physical, astral and mental worlds. During the day condition of consciousness, we are in the physical world; there, in a certain sense, we have purely and simply the physical world before us. We must only direct our senses outwards in order to have the physical world as such before us. But the moment we look on the physical world with interest, approach it with feeling, we are already partly in the astral world and only partly in the physical world. Only the beginnings of living purely in the physical world are present today in human life; for example, when one simply contemplates a work of art without experiencing any wish to possess it. Such a contemplation of a work of art is an important act of the soul, when, forgetful of self, one works as though on a spiritual task. This living purely in the physical world, forgetting oneself, is very rare. It is only seldom that nature is looked at in pure contemplation, for usually many other feelings are involved. Nevertheless, this selfless living in physical nature is of the very greatest importance; for only so can man have a true consciousness of self. In all other worlds the ordinary man is still immersed in a world of unconsciousness.

In the physical world man is not only aware of his self, he can also become selfless. His day-consciousness is however not yet selfless if he is unable to forget himself. Here the physical world is not the hindrance, but the playing in of the astral and mental worlds. If, however, he forgets himself, the separateness vanishes and he finds his 'self' spread out into what is outside. But it is only in physical life that present day man can develop this consciousness of self without separateness. Consciousness of self we call the ego. Man can only become conscious of self within an environment. Only when he gains senses adapted to a particular world can he become self-conscious in that world. Now he only has senses for the physical world but the other worlds continually play into the consciousness of self and cloud it. When feelings play into it, it is the astral world; when one thinks, the mental world plays into the consciousness.

Most people's thoughts are nothing more than reflections of the environment. It is very rare to have thoughts which are not so connected. Man only has such higher thoughts when senses awaken for the mental world, so that he not only thinks the thoughts, but perceives them around him as beings. He then has the same consciousness of self in the mental world as that possessed by the Chela, the Initiate. When someone tries to eliminate first the physical world around him, then all impulses, passions, changes of mood and so on, usually no thoughts are left. Let us only try to picture everything that influences man inasmuch as he lives in space and time. Let us try to call up before the soul everything connected with the place where we live and the time in which we live. Everything that the soul continually has within it as thoughts is dependent on space and time. All this has a transient value. One must therefore pass on from the reflected impressions of the senses and allow an enduring thought content to live in one in order gradually to develop devachanic senses. A sentence such as that from 'Light on the Path,' "Before the eyes can see they must give up tears", (The original English of Mabel Collins is "Before the eyes can see they must be incapable of tears.") holds good for all times and all places. When we allow such a sentence to live within us, then something lives in us which is beyond space and time. This is a means, a force, which gradually allows devachanic senses to awaken in the soul for the eternal in the world.

Thus man has his share in the three worlds. It is only gradually however that he has come into this situation. He was not always in the physical world; only by degrees did he become physical and acquire physical senses. Previously he was on the higher planes. He descended from the Astral Plane to the Physical and before this from the Mental Plane. The latter we divide into two parts, the Lower Mental or Rupa Plane, where everything is already differentiated, and the Upper Mental or Arupa Plane, where everything's undifferentiated in a germinal condition. Man has descended from the Arupa Plane through the Rupa Plane and the Astral Plane to the Physical Plane. Only on the Physical Plane did he become conscious of self. On the Astral Plane he is not conscious of self and on the Rupa and Arupa Planes still less so. On the Physical Plane man for the first time came into contact with external objects in his immediate surroundings. Whenever a being encounters external objects, this marks the beginning of self-awareness. On the higher planes life was still completely enclosed within itself. When man lived on the Astral Plane the only reality he had arose out of his own inner life. This was in its very nature a picture consciousness. Even though this was a vivid experience it was nevertheless only a picture that arose within him. Of this, present daydreams are only a weak reminder. When for instance an astral human being approached salt, this affected him unconsciously and a picture of it would have arisen within him. If he approached someone who was sympathetic to him he would not have seen him externally, but a feeling of sympathy would have arisen within him. This life in the astral was one of absolute selfhood and separateness. Only on the physical plane can man relinquish his separateness, in that through the medium of his senses he perceives objects, merges himself with his surroundings, with the Not-I. Therein lies the importance of the physical plane. If man had not set foot on the physical plane, he would never have been able to relinquish his separateness and turn his senses outwards. This is actually where work on the development of selflessness begins. Everything except pure contemplation of physical things belongs more to the Ego. One must accustom oneself to live on higher planes just as selflessly as man has begun to do on the physical plane, albeit up to now but rarely. The objects of the physical plane compel man to become selfless and to give something to the object, which is Not-I. In regard to wishes, to that which lives in the soul, man still orders his life in accordance with his desires. On the physical plane he must learn to renounce, to free his wishes from self. That is the first step.

The next step is to order himself not according to his own wishes but according to those coming to him from outside. Further, when man consciously and out of his own will does not act in accordance with the thoughts that arise within him, but surrenders himself to thoughts which are not his own, then he soars upwards to the Devachanic Plane.

We must therefore seek in the higher worlds for something lying outside us in order to relate ourselves to it as we do to objects in the physical world. Hence, we must consider the wishes of the Initiates. The occult student learns to know the wishes which are right for humanity and he orders himself in accordance with them, just as through external compulsion one orders oneself according to sense objects. Culture and the education of wishes lead us to the Astral Plane.

When one becomes selfless in thoughts, allowing the eternal thoughts of the Masters of Wisdom to pass through our souls — through concentration and meditation on the thoughts of the Masters — then one also perceives the thoughts of the surrounding world. The occult student can already become a Master on the Astral Plane, but on the Mental Plane this is only possible for the higher Masters.

In the first place man stands before us in his physical nature. He lives at the same time in the Astral and Mental Worlds, but has self-awareness only in the physical world. He must traverse the entire physical world until his awareness of self has absorbed everything that the physical world can teach him. Here man says to himself: 'I'. He connects his 'I' with the things around him, learns to expand his 'I' through contemplation; it flows outwards and becomes one with the objects which he has completely comprehended. If we had already comprehended the entire physical world we should no longer need it, for then we should have it within us. At present however man has within him only a part of the physical world. The human being who is born as a Lemurian in his first incarnation, who is just at the point of directing his ego towards the physical world, knows as yet but little of it. When however he comes to his last incarnation, he must have united the entire physical world with his 'I'.

In the physical world man is left to himself, here nobody leads him, he is in very truth god-forsaken. When he came forth from the astral world the Gods forsook him. In the physical world he had to learn to become his own master. Here therefore he can only live, as he actually does live, swinging pendulum-wise between truth and error. He must grope about and seek his way for himself. Now for the most part he is groping in the dark. His gaze is turned outwards; he has freedom of choice, but he is also exposed to error. On the Astral Plane man had no such freedom; there he was subject to compulsion from the powers standing behind him. Like a kind of marionette he still dangled on the strings of the Gods; they still had to guide him. In so far as man today is still a soul being, the Gods still live in him. Here freedom and unfreedom are strongly mixed. His wishes are continually changing. This ebb and flow of wishes proceeds from within. Here it is the Gods who are working in man.

Man is still less free on the Rupa Plane of the Mental World, and even less free on the Arupa Plane of the Higher Mental World. Man gradually becomes free on the Physical Plane the more, through knowledge, he has become incapable of error.

To the same degree that he works on the Physical Plane and learns to know it, he gains the faculty of carrying up into the Arupa Plane what he has learned to know in the physical world. The Arupa Plane is in itself formless, but gains form through human life. Man gathers the results of the lessons he has learned on the Physical Plane and carries these, as firmly established forms in the soul, up into the Arupa Plane. This is why in the Greek Mysteries the soul was called a bee, the Arupa Plane a beehive and the physical earth a field of flowers. This was taught in the Greek Mysteries.

Now what was it that drove the soul down on to the Physical Plane? It was desire, craving: in no other way does one descend to a lower plane except through desire. Previously the soul was in the Astral World; this is the world of wishes. Everything which the Gods in the Astral World have implanted into human beings was purely a world of wishes. The most outstanding attribute of these Pre-Lemurian beings was the wish for the physical. Man at that time had a real craving for the physical: he had within him an unconscious, blind craving for the physical. This craving is only to be appeased through its satisfaction. Through the ideas, through the aspects of knowledge which he gains, this craving for the physical disappears.

After death the soul goes to the Astral Plane and thence to the Rupa and Arupa Planes. What the soul has gained it deposits there. What it has not yet brought with it, what is still unknown, drives it down again; this engenders the longing for new incarnations. How long the soul remains on the Arupa Plane depends upon how much the human being has gained on the Physical Plane. In the case of the savage this is very little and so in his case there is only a weak flashing up on to the Arupa Plane. Then he descends again to the physical world. One who has learned everything in the physical world no longer needs to leave the Arupa Plane, no longer needs to return to the Physical Plane, for he has fulfilled his duty in the physical world.

In regard to his astral being, man today still half belongs to the astral world. The astral sheath has been half broken through and he perceives the world of the physical through his senses. When he succeeds in living on the Astral Plane as he now lives on the Physical Plane, when he learns to make observations there in a similar way, then he also carries the perceptions of the Astral Plane up to the Arupa Plane. What he then bears upwards from the Astral Plane streams however still higher from the Arupa Plane up to the next higher, the Buddhi Plane. That too which he achieves on the Rupa Plane through meditation and concentration he takes with him up to the Arupa Plane and there gives it over to still higher Planes.

That part of man which is astral is opened half towards the physical world and half towards higher worlds. When it is opened to the physical world he allows himself to be directed by the perceptions of the sense world. From the other side he is subject to direction from above. The same is the case with his mental body. The latter is also partly directed from outside and partly directed from the inner world by the Gods, the Devas. Because this is so man must dream and sleep.

Now we can also understand the nature of sleeping and dreaming. To dream means to turn towards the inner Deva-forces. Man dreams almost the whole night only he does not remember it. During sleep the mental body is continually guided by the Devas. Man has as yet no consciousness of self on the higher planes, hence in dream he is not self-conscious. He begins to be so on the Astral Plane. In deep sleep he is on the Mental Plane. There he has absolutely no self-consciousness. It is only on the Physical Plane that man is awake. Here his ego is present and finds its full expression. The astral ego cannot yet fully express itself on the Physical Plane and must therefore at times leave the body. Man must sleep in order that this can take place. The conditions of dreaming and sleeping are only a repetition of earlier development. On the Astral Plane he was in a state of dream, on the Mental Plane he slept. He repeats these conditions every night. Only when he has acquired senses for the other planes does he no longer dream and no longer sleep, but he then perceives realities. The occult pupil learns to perceive such realities on the Astral Plane. He then has a reality around him. Whoever carries his development to a still higher stage is surrounded by a reality even in deep sleep. Then begins continuity of consciousness.

One must understand this sequence of delicate concepts; then one comprehends why man, when he has been on the higher planes again descends. What he does not yet know, what he has not yet recognised, what the Buddhists call Avidja, not-knowing, drives him back into physical existence. Avidja is the first of the forces of karma. According to Buddhistic teaching there are twelve Karmic forces which drive man down. These together are called Nidanas. As man gradually descends, the way in which Karma takes hold becomes apparent. Avidja is the first effect. It is the opposite pole to what meets man on the physical plane. Because he treads the physical plane and there unites himself with something, a reaction is called forth. Action always calls forth reaction. Everything that man does in the physical world also produces a reaction and works back as Karma. Action and reaction is the technique, the mechanism of Karma.

Lecture 12

Berlin, 7th October 1905

When the physical body is discussed most people have a very unclear, confused idea of what it actually is. In point of fact what we have before us is not just the physical body but a combination of the physical body with higher forces. A piece of rock crystal is also physical but in its very nature this is something quite different from the human eye or heart, which are also physical. The eye and heart are parts of the physical body, but they are intermixed with man's higher members and through this, something is brought about which is completely different from other aspects of the physical. In water we find oxygen and hydrogen but they look quite different from when we see them separated. Then we are aware of their difference. In water we have before us a mixture of both. What meets us in the physical body of man is also a mixture comprised of the physical, etheric and astral bodies.

The physical human eye is similar to a camera, for, as with the camera, there appears within it a picture of the surrounding world. Only when one abstracts from the physical eye everything that is not to be found in the camera, does one discover what is the specific nature of the physical eye. So too one must abstract from the entire physical body everything that is not purely physical: only then does one have what in occultism is called the physical body. In itself it can neither live, think nor feel. There then remains a very wisely ordered, extremely complicated automaton, a purely physical apparatus. This, alone, was all there was of human existence at the Old Saturn stage. At that time the eyes were present only as little cameras. What was produced as [a] picture of the surrounding world came to the consciousness of a Deva being. In the middle of the Saturn evolution the so-called Asuras (the Archai) were sufficiently advanced to make use of the apparatus. At that time they were at the human stage. They made use of the automata and the pictures they produced. The Asuras themselves were not within the apparatus but outside and only made use of the pictures as we make use of photographic apparatus in order to take pictures of a landscape. Thus the physical body of man was at that time an architectural structure of a physical apparatus operated from outside. This is the first stage of human existence.

The second stage of development was the permeation of this physical apparatus with the etheric body. It then became a living organism. That also found expression in the configuration of the body. The automaton was built up out of a fairly firm undifferentiated mass, similar to what today is a jelly-like substance, like a soft crystal. [40] In the second Round of evolution in the Old Sun existence, the physical automaton was imbued with the etheric body. In this Round the solar plexus developed. It is so called because still today only rudiments of the organ are present. It fashions a nervous system into the physical apparatus. In the case of the plant something similar is present. That is the second stage.

But these stages are not final; evolution gradually progresses. Even today the solar plexus is an active agent in certain animals which have not developed a spinal cord. All invertebrate animals are single forms from left behind stages of what was laid down earlier. It was only on the Earth that man cast out from himself the vertebrate animals. In earlier times his organism was still somewhat similar to that of the crab at the present day. Man has progressed beyond that earlier stage whereas the crab has remained stationary. It is an astonishing fact that the whole inner formation of the crab has a certain similarity to the human brain. There is actually a similarity between the internal formation of the crab and the human brain. Like the human brain the crab too is enclosed in a hard shell. After man had developed a spine and had metamorphosed the upper vertebrae, he cast off the hard shell. The crab has not developed further. It has adapted itself to its environment by means of a hard shell that it had to have and which serves the same purpose as does the protective covering of the whole body in man.

The third stage is that in which the whole is transformed by the astral body working within it. This organic transformation is connected with the development of the heart and the circulation of the blood. The heart of the fish has remained stationary at a halfway stage. [41] The development of the heart is proportionate to the degree in which there is an increase in the inner warmth of the body; this signifies nothing other than a drawing of the astral into the body.

The spinal cord with the brain is the organ of the ego. This is surrounded by the threefold protective sheath of the astral, etheric and physical bodies. After the organ of the ego (spinal cord and brain) had been prepared, the ego laid itself in the bed made ready for it, and spinal cord and brain appear as organs in the service of the ego.

The four-fold man is put together in this way. It is the Pythagorean square.

  1. The spinal cord and brain are the organ of the ego.
  2. The warm blood and the heart are the organ of Kama (astral body).
  3. The Solar plexus is the organ of the etheric body.
  4. The actual physical body is the complicated physical apparatus.

Thus has the four-fold being of man been constructed.

In occultism what we have now described is again called a spiral (Wirbel), something that builds from outside inwards and unites with what builds up from within. Physical body, etheric and astral bodies have built up the human being. Then the ego makes itself felt and this builds from within outwards. These are the four constituents of man. Here we find in the outer an imprint of the four-fold man. All further development is of such a nature that the human being, starting from this point of the ego, consciously experiences what previously he went through unconsciously.

Today, in order to realise that this is so, one must in the first place investigate what took place when our ego was being developed. In order to do this we must, as it were, take up our position under a certain organ. This is most aptly expressed in the Buddha legend. It says in the legend that Buddha remained seated under the Bodhi tree until he attained illumination in order to rise to higher stages, to Nirvana. For this Buddha had to place himself under the brain, under the organ of consciousness. That means the paths he had previously traversed unconsciously he had to traverse again consciously. Under the large brain there lies, more towards the back of the head, the small, tree shaped brain (the cerebellum). Under this brain Buddha placed himself. The cerebellum is the Bodhi tree. This shows how what is said in such profound legends is actually taken from human evolution.

Everything that is now known only by means of anatomy was at that time known in quite another way. The occult investigator made his researches with the help of the Kundalini light. The pupil was prepared for this in the following way. He came to a Master. If the latter found him trustworthy he received as instruction, not actually a teaching — today it has become different, today man must find his way by means of intellect and concepts — but the Master spoke somewhat as follows: 'Every day for about six weeks you must spend several hours in meditation and give yourself up to some sentence of eternal value, completely sinking yourself into it.' At present man cannot do this because life in modern civilisation makes too many demands on him. At that time the pupil meditated six to ten hours daily. He cannot do this nowadays without withdrawing from the whole life around him. At that time however the pupil required hardly any time for external needs. He found his nourishment in outer nature. He therefore made use of his time for meditation, perhaps uninterruptedly for ten hours. By this means he very soon progressed so far that he brought his body, which at that time was less dense, into such a condition that the Kundalini light was awakened within him. This is for the inner being what sunlight is for the outer world. Actually we do not see external objects, but reflected sunlight. The moment when, with the help of the Kundalini light, we can illuminate the soul, it becomes as visible as an object shone upon by the sun. So for the yoga pupil the whole inner body gradually became illuminated. All ancient anatomies were seen from within, through inner illumination. Thus the (Indian) monks, who clothed their experiences in legends, spoke of what they had perceived through the Kundalini light.

Now we must ask ourselves how the different parts of the human body are worked upon. In regard to what belongs to the brain and spinal cord, man first works consciously on the physical plane through the human ego [Gap in the text ...] He has at present no influence on anything else. He has for instance no influence on the circulation of the blood. Such things are developed by degrees. Here other beings co-operate, Deva beings, so that all creatures having a blood circulation are dependent on Deva forces for its regulation. The astral body is permeated and worked upon by different Deva forces. The lowest work on the astral body. Higher forces work on the etheric body and still higher Devas on the physical body, the most perfected body possessed by man. The astral body is strikingly less perfect than the physical body. The physical heart is indeed very clever; the stupid one is the astral body, that directs into the heart all kinds of heart poisons. The most perfect part of man is the physical body, less perfect is the etheric body and still less perfect is the astral body. What is only in its beginnings, the 'baby' in man, is the ego Organisation. This is the four-fold man, which contains the ego as the temple contains the statue of a god.

The whole development of human culture is nothing other than the working of the ego into the astral body, the education of the astral body. Man enters into life filled with desires, impulses and passions. In so far as he masters these impulses, desires and passions, he is working his ego into the astral body. When the Sixth Root-race, the Sixth Epoch, has reached its conclusion, the ego will have completely worked into the astral body. Until then the astral body will continue to be dependent on the support of the Deva forces. As long as the ego has not permeated the entire astral body, so long must the Deva forces support the work.

The second stage of development, which follows that of the cultural, is the development of the esoteric pupil. He works the ego into the etheric body. Through this the Deva forces are gradually released by the work of his own ego. Then he also gradually begins to see into himself.

We can now ask: what is the significance of the astral body, for what purpose does man have an astral body? It is to give him the possibility, by way of his desires, to do what otherwise he would not have done, and to betake himself to the physical plane. For before man can acquire objective knowledge on the physical plane he must direct to it his wishes and desires. Without these he would have been unable to develop an objective observation of the world or a sense of duty and morality. Only after a gradual transformation of his desires can these be changed into duties and ideals. Man can only pursue this path by means of the driving, organising power of the astral body.

The etheric body is the bearer of thoughts. What is thought within man, is etheric outside, just as what is desire within him, is astral outside. But it is only when pure thinking begins that etheric substance is radiated into the astral impulses. As long as thinking is not yet pure thinking we have astral substance surrounding the etheric form. So thought-forms, as they are called, are made out of a kernel of etheric substance surrounded by astral substance. Along the paths of the nerves stream the so-called abstract thoughts, which however are in reality the most concrete, for they are etheric forces. As soon as man even begins to think, he is already working the ego into his etheric body. When a man dies it becomes clear that the physical body has nothing to do with the ego. Every connection between the physical body and the ego is broken off after death. Previously this connection took place indirectly through the other bodies. When these are no longer there the corpse has no further relation to the ego. Then the outer Deva forces receive it and it is again absorbed into the physical environment. The word 'verwesen' (decay) does not mean only a passing away, but a return to the 'Wesen' (being) out of which the body came forth. This is what may be said in respect of the physical body. The Dutch word 'Lichaam' does not mean 'Leichnam' (corpse) but the physical body which has to be carried about.

The etheric body is to a great extent in a similar situation to the physical body. It is taken up in the same way by the Devas and then again dissolved into general circulation. But there remains from the etheric body what the human being himself has worked into it and this does not dissolve. It is this which later, at the time of reincarnation, forms a central point, around which what is to be added is crystallised. This small part of the etheric body remains present in the case of everyone. In the same way there remains from the astral body as much as the human being has worked into it. Only during the last third of the Sixth Root-Race will the entire astral body be retained by all people of normal development.

Thus development begins by man's working consciously on his astral body. The task of the Chela, the occult pupil, consists further in the transformation of his etheric body. The stage of chelahood is completed when after death the entire etheric body remains intact. The sojourn in Devachan is necessary in order to make possible a renewal of the forces of the etheric body. The small portion of the etheric body which to begin with man carries into Devachan can grow into the complete etheric body, because the necessary conditions are created there.

This makes comprehensible the varying length of the sojourn in Devachan. When the human being stands at the beginning of his development and has transformed but very little of his etheric body he can only remain in Devachan for quite a short time. The part of the etheric body that is lacking must be replaced for him by the external Devas. When he develops further he sojourns for a progressively longer time in Devachan; thus the time that he spends there increases in proportion to his own development. People, however, who are more advanced sometimes reincarnate earlier for other reasons, for instance, because they are needed in the world.

When the Chela dies, the entire etheric body is present. Thus at this stage the Chela can renounce Devachan because the etheric body has been completely worked through. Then, after quite a short time, re-birth takes place. He waits at first in the astral world, as in a place of transition, until he receives a definite mission from his Master. Then he can again take possession of his etheric body in order to reincarnate once more.

Until this stage is reached a duality is necessary for evolution, i.e. that which man is unable to develop inwardly for himself is built into him from outside. Help must be brought to him from without. Thus in Devachan the etheric body is once more made complete by external Deva powers. The Physical Plane and Devachan are polar opposites. Between them lies Kamaloka, a place of transition, a transitional stage, an intermediary condition that causes the human being to be connected with what he has worked into his astral body. The astral body leads man on to the Physical Plane, where he directs his attention outwards. Here desires are cultivated by contact with external things. When a person dies his craving for outer objects does not immediately cease, although he no longer has organs bringing him into connection with them. The desire remains but the organs are lacking. In Kamaloka he must break himself from this longing for the outer-world. Kamaloka does not actually belong to normal development; it is only a stage where habits must be relinquished. It is because man can no longer satisfy his wishes, because he no longer has organs for the physical world, that Kamaloka comes about.

When someone commits suicide he has identified his ego with the physical body. For this reason the longing for the physical body is all the more intense. It seems to him that he is like a hollow tree, like someone who has lost his ego. He then has a continual thirst for himself.

When a man is put to death by violence he is in a similar situation. In the case of someone who meets a violent death he continues seeking for his physical body until the time when he would otherwise have died. This seeking can bring about harmful reactions. In such a case it can happen that a man who meets his end by violence is filled with a terrible rage against those who have caused his death. Then in the murdered man the blow is changed into a counter blow. Thus from the astral world, the souls of Russians executed for political reasons fought against their own countrymen on the side of the Japanese. This happened in the Russo-Japanese war; it is however not a general rule.

Lecture 13

Berlin, 8th October 1905

The present lecture is inserted into this course to shed light on many things spoken of in the other lectures. It will deal with the activity and the nature of the Devas.

At the present time it is very difficult to speak about the Gods or Devas because even those people who still have a positive attitude towards religion and still believe in the Gods, no longer have any living relationship to divine spiritual beings. This living relationship to the Gods, to beings, that is to say, who are exalted far above human beings, has disappeared in the course of the age of materialism. Especially during the materialistic age, which developed from the turning point of the 15th and 16th centuries on into our own time, this living connection with the Gods has been lost. It makes little difference whether a person takes his stand on Darwinian materialism or whether he speaks about the Gods in a more or less religious sense. It is much more to the point to become livingly aware that we ourselves have ascended from lower stages of existence and have yet to ascend to higher stages. We must realise that we have a relationship both with what is below and what is above.

Instruction about the Gods was first systematised by Dionysius the Areopagite, [42] the pupil of the apostle Paul. It was however not written down until the 6th century. This is why scholars deny the existence of Dionysius the Areopagite and speak about the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius, as though it was in the 6th century that old traditions were first put together. The truth of the matter can only be substantiated by reading in the Akashic Chronicle. The Akashic Chronicle does however teach that Dionysius actually lived in Athens, that he was initiated by Paul and was commissioned by him to lay the foundation of the teaching about the higher spiritual beings and to impart this knowledge to special initiates. At that time certain lofty teachings were never written down but only communicated as tradition by word of mouth. The teaching about the Gods was also given in this way by Dionysius to his pupils, who then passed it on further. These pupils in direct succession were intentionally called Dionysius, so that the last of these, who wrote down this teaching was one of those who was given this name.

This teaching about the Gods, as given by Dionysius, encompasses three times three ranks of divine beings. The three highest are: Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones. The next degree: Dominions, Mights, Powers. The third degree: Primal Beginnings, Archangels and Angels.

In the Bible the words 'In the Beginning' often occur. They refer to the Primal Beginnings or Archai. 'In the Beginning God created the heavens and the earth.' This means: The God of the Beginnings, who stands at this stage, created heaven and earth. It was one of the Archai belonging to the Third Rank of the Hierarchies.

Above the Seraphim stand divine Beings whose nature is so exalted that the human power of understanding is not able to comprehend them. After the Third Rank follows the Fourth Hierarchy: Man, as the tenth in the entire sequence.

The names of the Hierarchies do not refer to individuals but to certain stages of consciousness of the great universe, and the Beings move from one stage to another. Eliphas Levi perceived this clearly and laid stress on the fact that with these names one has to do with stages of development, with Hierarchies.

The basis of the Organisation of the Church goes back also to the same Dionysius who formulated the teaching about the Gods. The Church Hierarchy was to be an outer image of the inner Hierarchy of the World. This grandiose thought could only have been carried through if the time had been ripe for an understanding of all this in its true form. Dionysius had bequeathed to his pupils such a teaching in regard to the Church, so that, could it have been realised, a powerful and magnificent Organisation would have come into being. At that time the attempt was made to promulgate the teachings in such a way that the thread was never broken from one teacher to the next, who then also carried on the name. It is therefore not so astonishing that as late as the 6th century a Dionysius committed the teachings to writing. These teachings however could not find general understanding because for this humanity was not yet ripe. They therefore remain as a kind of testament. [43]

The further we go back the more living are the concepts man had about Beings standing above humanity.

Now let us develop certain concepts as to how man — the ordinary person in the average cultural environment of our time — meets the Gods. After death the human being first goes through Kamaloka, the condition in which he gradually gets rid of the habits of earthly life and frees himself from his desires. It is actually only in its first stages that the sojourn in Kamaloka is often frightening and terrible. Later man goes through that period of Kamaloka when he has to purify himself from the more delicate connections with the earthly world. This sojourn in Kamaloka is not only important for the person in question; as we shall see, the activity of human beings in the higher conditions of Kamaloka can also be made use of in the world outside them. After Kamaloka man enters into the Devachan condition, where, using the faculties he has won for himself, he works over everything which is necessary in order to build up a new etheric body. On the Arupa Plane of Devachan he has to lay aside everything that he gained by his experiences on the Physical Plane. This is why in esotericism the Greek priests called the soul a bee, the Arupa Plane a beehive and the Physical Plane the flowering meadow.

There is however no need for man to be inactive in the higher regions. During the time he is passing through Kamaloka and the lower Devachanic Planes it might appear that he has nothing else to do than to allow what he began earlier to come to fruition. But man is not inactive there; what he experiences in these conditions is significant for the whole world.

The new incarnation of the human being only has a purpose if he meets conditions which are totally different from the earlier ones. In normal circumstances he returns when the whole situation is so different that what he finds around him is entirely new, so that what he adds to his previous achievement is entirely new. This happens in that period of cosmic time when the sun has progressed from one constellation of the Zodiac to the next. For instance, about 800 BC the sun in spring entered the constellation of the Ram or Lamb and this continued until 1800 AD. Now, at the beginning of spring, it stands in the constellation of the Fishes. Two thousand, six hundred years elapse before the sun passes from one constellation of the zodiac to the next. During this time conditions undergo a fundamental change.

Reincarnation is connected with these epochs, during which the human being is usually incarnated once as a masculine and once as a feminine individuality. In any particular incarnation one is in fact only half a human being. A masculine and a feminine incarnation belong together. Owing to the entirely different physical conditions on the earth a new incarnation is not without purpose. If for example someone was incarnated at the time of Homer (in the sign of the Ram or Lamb, Jason, the Golden Fleece) he would have experienced something quite different from what he would experience now.

These incarnations taken by themselves might appear to be part of a completely mechanical process. There is however nothing outward that is not brought about from within. One must accustom oneself to speak everywhere of a real spirit, to seek for it, and to perceive what is actually happening.

When one looks at the flora and fauna of Europe in our epoch one has to differentiate three zones: a western, a central and an eastern zone. The eastern zone coincides with the Slavonic peoples, the central with the Germanic and the western with the Latin peoples. The materialist believes that human beings have adapted themselves to their circumstances, but this is not so. The different peoples have themselves created their physical conditions. The Folk Spirit works first on the earth, on the plants and the animals into which he enters. The Western European territory has been prepared by the Latin peoples, the Central European by the Germanic, the Eastern European by the Slavonic peoples. Thus human beings first build themselves the house in which they later reside. Now let us ask: When does man work upon the external configuration of the earth? As with everything else in the earthly world, destiny too is prepared by man for himself, and this is partially the case here.

In Kamaloka man is actually engaged in collaborating with work on the animal kingdom, in the transformation of species. The force which brings this about is called by natural scientists 'adaptability'. Everything however that is called adaptability conceals human activity on the other side of existence. Everything which appears as metamorphosis in the animal kingdom, influencing and altering animal instincts so that animals undergo transformation, takes place through human beings in Kamaloka who are preparing for their next incarnation. There man works on his own house in preparation for his next life. In Kamaloka man works on the fauna and in Devachan on the flora. The transformation of the plant world is the result of Devachanic forces. And the physical world which also changes, the outer conditions of Nature, are influenced from the Arupa Plane, (Higher Devachan). There, man is a co-worker on the rocks, on the mineral kingdom of the earth. It is certainly necessary to have some measure of occult powers in order to make such observations in the appropriate place. It is not by chance that miners [Steiner refers to miners of metals and minerals, not coal] in particular make such observations underground. Novalis's [44] famous occult faculties are connected with the fact that he was a mining engineer.

When one considers that in the super-sensible regions man is developing certain forces, although while there he has not as yet his full consciousness, one understands that these forces are guided by higher beings, by the Devas. We distinguish different stages of Devas: astral, Rupa-mental and Arupa-mental. Astral Devas have as their lowest member the astral body, just as we have the physical body. Like man, the astral Deva consists of seven members. He possesses therefore, as the seventh, yet another member which is higher than Atma. The Devas are all constituted according to the same principles as man. As development progresses to higher planes a being gains conscious mastery over the corresponding lower planes. On the physical plane today man is only master of the mineral kingdom. There he himself can construct something, but he cannot yet construct a plant or an animal. In the mineral kingdom he has the component parts clearly before him. On the next stage he consciously brings forth the plants (Fifth Round) and then the animals (Sixth Round) and finally he consciously brings forth himself (Seventh Round).

The beings whom we call Devas can do much more than human beings of the Seventh Round. They can make use of regions that lie below their own world. They can, for a particular purpose, form for a short time the body that they need. Thus an astral Deva, if he so wish, can incarnate physically at a definite time.

We can only form definite ideas about the Devas when we take our start from human activity. Up to a certain point, man is free, able to do as he pleases. People however do not work harmoniously together, and therefore the various forces which proceed from human beings must be brought into harmony. What people do must have a general effect, and this must be made to serve a useful purpose in the world. The beings who bring this about are the Devas. They also regulate collective karma. As soon as people unite in a common purpose they have a collective karma which binds them together and leads them on their way, weaving a common karmic thread.

Thus in Russia there existed the sect of the Dukhobors [45] (warriors of the spirit) who were deeply religious. In naive, but in very beautiful, form they possessed the teachings of Theosophy. These people were banished and apparently no longer had any visible influence. Materialists will say: 'What purpose could this have served?' The Dukhobors perished. But all those who were united in this sect will in their next incarnation be united by a common tie, in order later to pour into humanity what they have learned. In such a way groups which have come together work on humanity in subsequent incarnations. The idea that was embodied in their lives then flows out again into the world. One finds the same idea in a deeper form in another such group.

Thus there existed for instance in the Middle Ages the sect of the Manicheans. [46] The secret of the Manicheans was that they realised that in the future there would be two groups of human beings, the good and the bad. In the Fifth Round there will no longer be a mineral kingdom, but instead a kingdom of evil. The Manicheans knew this. They therefore made it their task already then so to educate people that later they might become educators of the evil men. Again and again a deeper profundity is seen in the sect of the Manicheans.

We have to distinguish the separate wills of individual human beings from the powers which stand behind them in order to unite these individual wills into a common will. In this way we have a collective Karma.

The Rosicrucians spoke about Beings who are connected with groups of people. The physical body belongs to the single human being; the astral body on the other hand already belongs to a group. In one part of his astral body man is connected with a Group Soul. What he cannot yet do for himself is today done for him by a Deva. They are still working on man's astral body. The Devas co-operate even more strongly in what man achieves today through work on his etheric body. We have seen that in a part of Kamaloka man's forces are used in the service of the animal kingdom, but they are guided by the Devas. Thence man is progressing ever further on his way to Devachan.

A special class of Devas are the Planetary Spirits — the Dhyan-Chohanic beings who earlier reached the stage which human beings will only attain much later. They stand at the stage that will only be reached by man in the Sixth and Seventh Rounds. A Planetary Spirit is engaged with others in creative work on certain aspects of planetary evolution.

At present man is active on the physical, astral and devachanic planes. Everything is activity. Now what significance have the Planetary Spirits for man in any particular situation? The activity which is at present being carried out by man, was carried out by the Planetary Spirits during previous stages of evolution, during previous planetary conditions. What they then absorbed they now have within them as wisdom. This enables them to become the teachers of the next planetary epoch. Those Devas who were actively engaged in the formation of the earth were not yet able to recognise the underlying laws; this was only possible for beings at the higher stage of Wisdom. Above the stage of Wisdom is the stage of Will, of manifested activity. The Spirits of Wisdom (Kyriotetes) and the Spirits of Will (Thrones) are the actual leaders of planetary evolution.

At the time when man was still an astral being, before the Lemurian Age, the Devas worked within him and built into him in advance what came forth from him later. Before the Lemurian Age there rose up in the inner being of man a picture of his environment. Feelings of sympathy and antipathy also arose in picture form within him. All this was brought about by the Devas. At that time he was governed by the regency of the Devas. Later he assumed in some measure the regency over himself, becoming a subordinate member in the service of the Devas. Now he is to some extent Godforsaken. Only in the part that is not Godforsaken do the Devas still work within him. The Chela consciously brings to life within him that world which man in the Pre-Lemurian Age had learned to know in pictures. Then desires and passions approached him in the form of auric pictures in which lived the thoughts of the Devas, but it was all in deep twilight consciousness. Now after all this had been lost, man had to struggle to attain conscious seeing of an external world. The further development of Chela-ship consists in gaining this also in complete awareness. He retains throughout full consciousness. The medium, that is to say, mediumship, is a relapse into an earlier age.

What the human being experiences on the physical plane is the skeleton of his creative activity; the foundation for the following periods of evolution. Through his contact with the outer world, faculties are formed within him according to which later planetary activity is ordered, after man himself will have become a planetary spirit.

In our speech we create the foundation for later planetary conditions. What we speak today will actually be present there as foundation, just as the rocks and stones form the foundation of the earth. In one sphere the experiences pass through an involutionary process so that in another sphere they may be able to evolve. An individuality is divine in so far as he is able to breathe out again what he has taken in. The Devas become Devas as soon as they are able to give back again what they have previously absorbed.

It is a primeval wisdom that was absorbed earlier and is now being given back. It is 'Theosophy' in as much as the Gods themselves were once the teachers of mankind.

Karma is the law. The Deva is the one who brings the law into application. The angel of the rotation of time brings about the application of the law governing groups of human beings. The single person in a group acts instinctively. The Deva guides the Folk Soul; he is in fact the Folk Soul. The Folk Soul is no abstraction, but a living spirit.

Lecture 14

Berlin, 9th October 1905

Again and again we must make clear to ourselves that this sojourn in Devachan is nowhere else than where we ourselves are in physical life. For Devachan, the astral and the physical world are nothing other than three interpenetrating worlds. We can form the most correct idea of Devachan if we think of the world of electric forces before electricity had been discovered. There was a time when all this was contained in the physical world, only it was then an occult world. Everything that is occult has at some time to be discovered. The difference between life in Devachan and that in the physical world is that man in his present epoch is endowed with organs enabling him to perceive the physical world but not with organs that enable him to behold the phenomena of Devachan.

Let us imagine ourselves in the soul of someone living between two incarnations. He has given over his physical body to the forces of the earth and relinquished his etheric body to the life-forces. Furthermore he has given back that part of his astral body into which he himself has not worked. He then finds himself in Devachan. He no longer has as personal possession what the gods had worked into his etheric and astral bodies; all this has been cast aside. He now possesses only what he himself has achieved in the course of many lives. In Devachan this remains his own. All that man has done in the physical world serves the purpose of making him more and more conscious in Devachan.

Let us take the relationship of one person to another. It can be said that this is simply a natural one, for instance the relationship between brothers and sisters who have been brought together through natural circumstances. It is however only partially natural, for moral and intellectual factors are continually playing in. Through his Karma man is born into a particular family; but not everything is conditioned by Karma. The natural relationship, into which nothing else is intermixed, we have in the case of the animals. In the case of human beings there is always a moral relationship also, through Karma. The relationship between two people can however also exist without this being conditioned by nature. For instance a bond of intimate friendship can arise between two people in spite of outer hindrances. As a rather extreme case let us assume that they were at first mutually somewhat unsympathetic to one another and that they found the way to each other on a purely intellectual and moral basis, soul to soul. Let us contrast this with the natural relationship between members of a family. With the relationship of soul to soul we have a powerful means of developing devachanic organs. In no way can devachanic organs be more easily developed at present than by such relationships. Such a relationship is unconsciously a devachanic one.

What a person develops in his present life in the way of soul faculty through friendship of a purely soul nature, in Devachan is wisdom, the possibility of experiencing the spiritual in action. To the extent to which someone enters livingly into such connections he is well prepared for Devachan. If he is unable to form such relationships he is unprepared; for just as colour escapes a blind man, so does soul experience escape him. To the degree to which man fosters purely soul relationships do organs of vision develop in him for Devachan. So that the statement holds good: Whoever lives and moves here in the life of the spirit, will over there perceive just as much of the spiritual as he has gained here through his activity. Hence the immeasurable importance of life on the physical plane. In human evolution no other means of awakening the organs for Devachan exists other than spiritual activity on the physical plane. All this is creative and comes back to us as devachanic sense organs for the devachanic world. As preparation there is nothing better than to have a purely soul relationship with other human beings, a relationship whose origin is in no way based upon natural connections.

This is why people should be brought together into groups, in order to unite on a purely spiritual basis. It is the will of the Masters to pour life in this way into the stream of humanity. What takes place with the right attitude of mind signifies for all the members of the group the opening of a spiritual eye in Devachan. One will then see there everything which is on the same level with what one had united oneself with here. If on the physical plane one has attached oneself to a spiritual endeavour, this actually is among those things which retain their existence after death. Such things belong just as much to the dead as to the one who has survived him. He who has passed over remains in the same connection with the one still on earth and is indeed even more intensely conscious of this spiritual relationship.

Thus one educates oneself for Devachan. The souls of the dead remain in connection with those who were dear to them. The earlier relationships become causes which have their effects in Devachan. This is why the devachanic world is called, the world of effects and the physical world the world of causes. In no other way can man build his higher organs than by implanting the seeds for these organs on the physical plane. For this purpose man is transferred to earthly existence. What the much quoted phrase, 'To overcome separate existence' means, will now become clear to us. Before we descended to physical existence we lived with the content of our astral body which was brought about by a Deva. In earlier times sympathy and antipathy in the human being were stimulated by the Devas; he himself was not responsible. Then at the next stage man said to himself: Now I have entered into the physical world as a being who must find his own way. Formerly I was not able to speak the word 'I', now I have become for the first time a separate entity. Previously I was indeed a separate entity, but also a member of a devachanic being. On the physical plane I am a separate entity for myself, an ego, because I am enclosed in a physical body.

The higher bodies flow into one another: for instance Atma is in truth a one-ness for the whole of humanity, like an atmosphere shared in common. Nevertheless the Atma of the single human being is to be understood as if each one were to cut a piece for himself out of the common Karma, so that, as it were, incisions are made in it. But the separateness must be overcome. This we do when we form human attachments of a purely soul nature. By so doing we do away with the separateness and recognise the unity of Atma in everything.

By establishing such human relationships I awaken sympathy within me. I then undertake the task of selflessly fitting myself into the world plan. Through this the Divine is awakened in man. That is why we look out into the world.

Today we are surrounded by physical reality, by sun, moon and stars. What man had around him in the Old Moon existence, he has today within himself. The forces of the Moon now live within him. Had man not existed on the Old Moon he would not have possessed these forces. This is why the Egyptian occult teaching in esoteric centres called the Moon Isis, the Goddess of Fertility. Isis is the soul of the Moon, the precursor of the Earth. Then all the forces lived in the environment which now live in plants and animals for the purpose of reproduction. As now fire, chemical ether, magnetism and so on are around us and surround the Earth, so the moon was surrounded by those forces which enabled man, animal and plant to propagate. The forces which at present surround the Earth will in the future play an individualised role in man. What now constitutes the relationship between man and woman was on the Old Moon external physical activity, such as volcanic eruptions are today. These forces surrounded man during the Moon existence and he drew them in through his Moon-senses, in order to evolve them now. What man developed on the Old Moon through involution emerged on Earth as evolution. What man developed after the Lemurian Age as the sexual forces, is due to Isis, the soul of the Moon, which now lives on further in man. Here we have the relationship between the human being and the present moon. The moon has left its soul with man and has therefore become a mere slagheap.

While we are gaining experiences on the Earth we are gathering the forces which during the next Planetary Evolution will become our own being. Our present experiences in Devachan are the preparatory stages for future epochs. Just as man today looks up to the moon and says: 'You have given us the forces of reproduction,' so in the future he will look up to a moon that has arisen out of our present physical earth and as a soul-less body of slag will circle round the future Jupiter. On Future Jupiter man will develop new forces which today on the Earth he takes into himself as light and warmth and all physical sense perceptions. Later he will ray out everything which he had previously perceived through the senses. Whatever he had taken in through his soul will then be reality. So the theosophical conception does not lead us to underrate the world on the physical plane, but to understand that we must draw out of the physical plane what we need to have, experiences which will later radiate outwards. The warmth of the earth, the rays of the sun, which now stream towards us, will later stream out from us. As at the present time the sexual forces emanated from us, so it will be with these new forces.

Now let us make clear to ourselves the significance of the Devachan conditions which follow one another. At first Devachan is only short. But ever more and more spiritual organs are being formed in the Mental Body, until at last when his comprehension has embraced the wisdom of the Earth, man will have completely fashioned the organs of the devachanic body.

This will come about for the whole of mankind when all the World-Rounds are completed. Then everything will have become human wisdom. Warmth and light will then have become wisdom. Between the Earth Manvantara and the following Planetary Evolution man lives in Pralaya. Outwardly there is nothing whatever, but all the forces which man has drawn forth from the Earth are within him. In such a Life-Period the outer turns inwards. Everything is then present as seed and its life is carried over to the next Manvantara. Broadly speaking this is a similar condition to that in which we, in the moment of retrospect, forget all that is around us and only remember our experiences in order to preserve them in memory and later make use of them. So in Pralaya mankind as a whole remembers all experiences in order to put them to use once more.

There are always such intermediate conditions which, as it were, consist of memories, and so the devachanic state is also an intermediate one. The initiate already now sees before him those facts which man only gradually has around him in Devachan. It is an intermediate condition. All similar conditions are of an intermediate nature. The initiate describes the world as it is on the other side, in Devachan, in the intermediate state. When he gets beyond Devachan and reaches a still higher condition he again describes an intermediate state.

The first stage of initiation consists in the pupil learning to penetrate through the veil of the external world and to look at the world from the other side. The initiate is homeless here on the earth. He must build himself a home on the other side. When the disciples were with Jesus 'on the mountain', they were led into the devachanic world, beyond space and time; they built themselves a 'tabernacle' — a home. This is the first stage of initiation.

At the second stage of initiation something similar occurs, but on a higher level. At this stage the initiate has a state of consciousness corresponding to the intermediate period between two conditions of form (Globes), a state of Pralaya that comes about when everything is achieved that can be achieved in the physical condition of form and the Earth is metamorphosed into a so-called astral condition of form (Globe).

The third stage of initiate-consciousness is that which corresponds to the intermediate state between two Rounds, from the old Arupa-Globe of the previous Round to the new Arupa-Globe of the following Round. The initiate is in the Pralaya between two Rounds when he raises himself into the third stage. He is then an initiate of the Third Degree. So we can now understand why Jesus had to reach the third stage before he could place his body at the service of Christ. Christ stands above all the spirits who live in the Rounds. The initiate who had raised himself above the Rounds could place his body at the service of Christ.

The human ego-consciousness was to be purified and healed through Christianity. Christ had to raise and purify the self-centred ego, so that when it has reached self-consciousness it may die selflessly. This he could only do in a body which had become one with ... [Gap in text ...]. Thus only an initiate of the third grade could sacrifice his body for the Christ.

In our time it is extraordinarily difficult to attain to a complete awareness of these lofty conditions. The profoundly wise Subba Row [47] had his own knowledge; he describes three such stages of discipleship.

We see the moon as the lifeless residue of ourselves and we ourselves have in us the forces which once gave the moon its life. That is also the reason for the special sentimental mood in all poets who sing the praises of the moon. All poetical feelings are faint echoes of living occult streams deeply hidden in man.

A being can however become entangled in what should actually remain behind as slag. Something must remain behind from the Earth that is destined to become later what the moon is today. This must be overcome by man. But someone can have a liking for such things and so unites himself with them. A person who is deeply bound up with what is purely of the senses, of the lower instincts, connects himself ever more strongly with what should become slag. This will come about when the number 666 [48] is fulfilled, the number of the Beast. Then comes the moment when the Earth must draw away from further planetary evolution. If however the human being has connected himself too strongly with the forces of the senses, which should now detach themselves, if he is related to them and has not found the way to attach himself to what is to pass over to the next Globe, he will depart with the slag and become an inhabitant of this body of slag, in the same way as other beings are now inhabitants of the present moon.

Here we have the concept of the Eighth Sphere. [49] Mankind must go through Seven Spheres. The Seven Planetary Evolutions correspond to the seven bodies.

Old Saturn corresponds to the physical body
Old Sun corresponds to the etheric body
Old Moon corresponds to the astral body
The Earth corresponds to the Ego
Future Jupiter corresponds to the Manas
Future Venus corresponds to the Buddhi
Future Vulcan corresponds to the Atma

Beside these there is an Eighth Sphere to which everything goes that cannot make any connection with this continuous evolution. This already forms itself as predisposition in the devachanic state. When a human being uses the life on earth only to amass what is of service to himself alone, only to experience an intensification of his own egotistical self, this leads in Devachan into the condition of Avitchi. A person who cannot escape from his own separateness goes into Avitchi. All these Avitchi men will eventually become inhabitants of the Eighth Sphere. The other human beings will be inhabitants of the continuing chain of evolution. It is from this concept that religions have formulated the doctrine of hell.

When man returns from Devachan, the astral, etheric and physical forces arrange themselves around him according to twelve forces of karma which in Indian esotericism are called Nidanas:

They are as follows:

1. avidja

non-knowledge

2. sanskara

the organising tendencies

3. vijnana*

consciousness

4. nama-rupa

names and form

5. shadayadana

what the intellect makes of things

6. sparsha

contact with existence

7. vedana

feeling

8. trishna

thirst for existence

9. upadana

a sense of comfort in existence

10. bhava

birth

11. jati*

the urge towards birth

12. jaramarana (In the Sanscrit letter j is pronounced as dj)

what frees from earthly existence

In the next lecture we shall study these important aspects of karma in more detail.

Lecture 15

Berlin, 10th October 1905

Everything that is taught today in Theosophy was also contained in the schools of the Rosicrucians in the 14th century. But the inner schooling of the Rosicrucian stream was a strictly occult one. With such an occult training very little consideration was given to the language, to the way in which things were expressed. In the world of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries there lived certain unassuming men who were not especially well-known as scholars and who also held no particular social position, but who carried on the occult stream of the Rosicrucians. They were never many. There were never more than seven real initiates at one time; the others were occult pupils of various grades. The Rosicrucians were the messengers of the White Lodge. From them went out in very truth events of world significance. Everything of importance that happened during this time could eventually be traced back to the lodges of the Rosicrucians. Outwardly quite other personalities made the history of Europe, but seen from within, the latter were the instruments of occult individualities. Even Rousseau and Voltaire were such instruments of occult individualities standing behind them. These occultists could not themselves appear under their own names. The impulse which, in the carrying out of their mission, they gave to other people could be outwardly a very simple, inconspicuous one. Sometimes the short meeting with such an unassuming man provided the opportunity for the right impulse to be given to these instruments of the occult individuals. Up to the time of the French Revolution occult forces stood behind significant statesmen. Then they gradually withdrew, for men were now to become masters of their destiny. For the first time, in the speeches of the French Revolution, men speak as men.

The inner life remained in the background, in the occult schools. In the schools of the Rosicrucians these things were taught which are now known as the main teachings of Theosophy. The occult brotherhoods gave the impulse to every important discovery; only then did the events play their part in the outside world. Voltaire was in the most eminent sense, an individual directed by forward-striving brotherhoods, for the actual purpose of his being there was to set men on their own feet. Others stood in the service of the retrograde brotherhoods, as for example Robespierre in his later years. Everything which appears in anticipation of the future calls forth its opposite on the physical plane ...

In Rosicrucian schools therefore the same things were taught as through Theosophy today. In the outside world however there was no word of Theosophy. In the occult schools themselves value is only laid on language in order to teach the outside world. The occult pupil himself must learn to use the symbols, the signs. Thus in order to make themselves understood in the world, the initiates only have at their disposal the language used by the world at large. At the time when knowledge was still kept secret, there existed a certain system of symbols and anyone wishing to be initiated had to learn the language of symbols. No value was laid on the spoken word as a means of expression. Even at that time the teachings were there, but the descriptive expressions were frequently lacking. Such expressions for occult teaching are however present in the Eastern method, which is derived from the very earliest Indians, who had received their teaching from the ancient Rishis. These Indian expressions are not yet influenced by the materialistic age. The words which the Indians created are still full of the magic of the sacred primaeval language. Nevertheless what is of Indian origin cannot be made use of by us in Europe.

What is right for the Indian people is not right for Europe. To begin with an Indian impulse was necessary because Europe itself had developed too few expressions able to introduce such teachings. Even today we must still describe many things with Indian words. But everything in occult teachings that today is brought into the open was also possessed by the Rosicrucians in the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times. There were already appropriate expressions for the most fundamental teachings, but at that time it was not yet possible to speak openly about reincarnation and karma. These truths could however be allowed to flow subconsciously into European culture. Paracelsus and other mystics did not speak about reincarnation. This was quite natural. They were not able to speak about it. But for all that is concerned with earthly life between birth and death they also had in the west extremely apt expressions, though not, on the other hand, for the intervening conditions between two incarnations. One thing strongly emphasised at that time, was the importance of physical life for the development of the organs of the higher bodies. When we pursue the study of the sciences, when we develop intimate spiritual friendships, all this is a process of the development of forces which will one day become active as spiritual organs.

Three separate concepts have always comprised what, coming from outside, education on the physical plane should bring about in the three different bodies of man. These three aspects were called: Wisdom, Beauty and Power or Strength.

When in the outer court of the more exoteric Rosicrucian schools the pupils received instruction, they were told: 'You are to be the workers of the future.' Nothing was said about reincarnation. But the human being would also continue to work when not incarnated again in the physical body. The teaching implanted in them what should in the future work formatively upon the organs. It was said to the pupils: 'Lead in your daily life in the outer world, a life of Wisdom, Beauty and Power, then in your higher bodies you will develop those organs which are for the future.' In Freemasonry today, the masons of St. John still speak of the great importance of Wisdom, Beauty and Power, but they no longer know that thereby formative forces work on the etheric body, the astral body and the ego.

When in the Middle Ages a Freemason master builder built a cathedral or a church, his name was of absolutely no importance. He himself remained in the background. In the case of the 'Theologia deutsch' [50] also, and for the same reason, the name of the author was not mentioned. He calls himself 'the Frankfurter'. No amount of learned research can discover the name. The aim of these men was to work outwardly on the physical plane, leaving no trace of their names behind them, but only the fruits of their activity.

Let us suppose that someone had given the design and the impulse for the building of a great cathedral. He knew that the forms of the building would create in him an organ for the future. All such works will, in their effects, remain connected with the inmost part of the soul. As a rule however all these works in the outer world remain until he who created them finds them again and recognises them when he returns. Under the pulpit there is usually to be found a small picture of the architect; from this he recognises himself again. This is the bridge which is thrown from one incarnation to another.

Through Wisdom the etheric body was to be developed, through Beauty, to which Piety belonged, the astral body, and through Power the individual ego. The human being had to become a self-effacing imprint of the outer world. In ancient India nothing of this was yet known. Brahmanism aimed at a perfecting of the self in the inner life ... [Gap in text ...] ... But just in the middle of our Post-Atlantean epoch there appeared those teachers of religion who drew attention to the renunciation of the self. This was already taught by Buddha. It was developed still more intensively in the West through Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism. They sought the perfecting of the ego in the form that is also in the outer world, not so much in the inner life as this was cultivated in India. It was in this sense that the western occultist said to himself: 'Thine ego is not only within thyself, but in the world around thee. The Gods have raised thee out of the mineral kingdom, out of the plant and animal kingdoms; but three kingdoms thou createst for thyself, the three kingdoms of Wisdom, Beauty and Power. These develop the organs of the higher man.'

The human being said to himself: 'I stand here as the end result of a time when the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms sacrificed themselves for me; out of this foundation arose self-awareness, the ego. And just as the ego has been formed through these other kingdoms, so must it now itself develop the kingdoms of Wisdom, Beauty and Strength, in order by their means to mount still higher to a complete transformation of our etheric, astral and ego bodies.' These three kingdoms are the kingdoms of Science, Art and inner Strength, by which is meant everything that lives itself out in the will. In these three domains the mediaeval esotericist saw the means for the further development of mankind. The transformation of the world was not given over to blind chance, but according to these three aspects of Wisdom, Beauty and Strength, the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms were to be transformed. When the Earth again becomes astral everything will have been transformed in accordance with these three aspects. Thus it was from this three-fold point of view that the freemasons of the Middle Ages and all esotericists built and worked.

In Indian esotericism twelve forces are differentiated which draw man down again into physical existence. The first of these forces is Avidja: ignorance. Avidja is what draws us down again into physical existence for the simple reason that we shall only have fulfilled our mission on the Earth when we have extracted from it all possible knowledge. On the other hand we have not fulfilled our mission as long as everything that we should learn from physical existence has not yet been extracted.

After Avidja what next draws us back is what the earth contains because we ourselves have made it, which therefore belongs to our Organisation. When a mason, for instance, has worked on the building of a cathedral, this has become a part of himself. There is a reciprocal attraction between them. What has an organ-creating tendency for the original instigator, whether it be the work of Leonardo da Vinci or the smallest piece of work, forms an organ in the human being and this is the cause of his return. All that the man has done, taken together, is called Sanskara or the organising tendency which builds up the human being. This is the second thing which draws him back.

Now comes the third. Before the human being entered into any incarnation he knew nothing of an outer-world. Self-awareness first began with the first incarnation; previously man had no consciousness of self. He had first to perceive the outer objects on the physical plane before he could develop consciousness of self. True as it is that what a man has done draws him back to the physical plane, so is it true that knowledge of things draws him back. Consciousness is a new force which binds him to what is here. This is the third element that draws him into a new earth-life. This third force is called Vijnana = consciousness.

Up to this point we have remained very intimately within the human soul. As the fourth stage appears what comes towards the consciousness from outside, what was indeed already there without man, but what he had first to learn to know with his consciousness — this was present outside in his previous existence, but only disclosed itself after his consciousness opened to it. It is the separation between subject and object, or, as the Sanscrit writer says, the separation between name and form (Nama-rupa). Through this man reached the outer object. This is the fourth force that draws him back, for instance the memory of a being to which he has attached himself.

Next comes what we form as mental image in connection with an external object: for example, picturing a dog is merely making a mental image, which is however the essential thing for the painter. It is what the intellect makes of a thing: Shadayadana.

Now there is a further descent into the earthly. The mental picture leads us to what we call contact with existence: Sparsha. Whoever depends on the object stands at the stage of Nama-rupa; whoever forms pictures stands at the stage of Shadayadana. The one however who differentiates between the pleasing and the unpleasing will reach the point where he prefers the beautiful to the unbeautiful. This is called contact with existence: Sparsha.

Somewhat different however from this contact with the outer-world is what at the same time stirs inwardly as feeling. Now I myself come into action: I connect my feeling with one thing or another. That is a new element. Man becomes more involved. It is called Vedana: Feeling.

Through Vedana something quite new again arises, that is, longing for existence. The forces which draw man back into existence awaken more and more strongly within himself. The higher forces compel all human beings to a greater or lesser degree; they are not individual. Eventually however, quite personal forces appear which draw him back again into the earthly world. That is the eighth force. Trishna = Thirst for existence.

Still more subjective than the thirst for existence is what is named Upadana: Comfort in existence. With Upadana man has something in common with the animal, but he experiences it more spiritually and it is the task of man to spiritualise what is gross in this soul element.

Then comes individual existence itself, the sum of all the earlier incarnations when he was already on the earth: Bhava = individual existence, the force of the totality of earlier incarnations. Previous incarnations draw him down into existence.

With this we have retraced the stages of the Nidanas up to individual birth. The esotericist differentiates two further stages which go beyond the period of individual existence. Here he differentiates a previous condition that gave the impetus towards birth, before man had ever been incarnated. This is called Jata: what before birth gave the impetus to birth.

The impetus towards birth is interconnected with a different impulse. It brings with it the germ of dissolution, the urge to extricate oneself from individual birth. What interests us is that this earthly existence of ours falls again into decay and we are freed, able to become old and die (jaramarana). These are the twelve Nidanas which work like strings, drawing us ever and again down into existence. (The meaning of Nidana is string, loop.) There are three groups which belong together:

First Group

Second Group

Third Group

Avidja

Shadayadana

Upadana

Sanskara

Sparsha

Bhava

Vijnana

Vedana

jati

Nama-rupa

Trishna

jaramarana

The soul has three members: the consciousness soul as the highest member, then the intellectual or mind soul and the sentient soul. The first group of the Nidanas from Avidja to Nama-rupa is connected with the consciousness soul: the second group with the intellectual soul and the third, from Upadana to Jaramarana, with the sentient soul.

Vijnana is characteristic of the consciousness soul; Shadayadana of the intellectual soul and the last four are bound up with the sentient soul. These last four are present in both animal and man.

Lecture 16

Berlin, 11th October 1905

If we wish to understand the whole way in which Karma works, a subject we are now going to approach, we must be able to form a conception of what is called Nirvana. Very much is involved in a complete understanding of the significance of Nirvana, but we will try to gain an introductory idea of it.

In any action carried out by man there is in fact very little present of anything that might be called freedom, for man is actually the result of his deeds in the past. This is the case in the widest sense of the word. So that he should become what he is, all the kingdoms of Nature had first to be created. The mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, which he once had within him, he gradually put out from himself. To this must be added what he acquired in the time following the first third of the Lemurian race. All that he carried out in the way of deeds, all that he experienced in his soul as thoughts and feelings, belong also to his past, become his Karma. We look into a past which at the same time shows its results in the forms around us. The whole of our surrounding world is nothing other than the result of past deeds. In this same way man is now making preparation for what will happen in the future.

We are nevertheless continually faced with things which are not altogether the results of past deeds, but which bring something new into the world. A certain man, let us say Mr. Kiem, is the result of past deeds. The Theosophical Society too is the result of past deeds and that he is brought into connection with it is also such a result. Something new arises however through Mr. Kiem's relationship to the Theosophical Society: this again is the cause of future deeds. When light shines against a stick, a shadow arises behind it. That is actually something new. When we observe this effect we say to ourselves, something has taken place that is new. The relationship of one thing to another is something new; the forming of the shadow.

Everything which a person usually thinks, he thinks about things, about what has come into being already. He can however turn his thoughts towards relationships of a kind that have not been brought about as the result of earlier causes, but that appear in the present. This happens very seldom, for people hang on to the old, to what has formed like strata around them. Relationships which make their appearance as something altogether new form very little of the content of human thoughts. Anyone wishing to work for the future must however have those thoughts which will produce new connections between one thing and another. Only thoughts dealing with such connections can yield something new. One sees this best in art. What the artist creates is not there in reality. The mere form worked upon by the sculptor is not in fact there; it is no product of Nature. In Nature there is only the form pulsed through with life. A mere form would contradict natural laws. The artist builds something new out of relationships. The painter paints what arises out of relationships: light and shade; he does not paint what is actually there. He does not paint the tree, but an impression which is called up by all he experiences with regard to the tree.

In practical actions also man usually produces nothing new. The majority of people only do what has already been done. Only a few people create out of moral intuition, in that they bring new duties, new deeds into the world. What is new comes into the world through relationships. This is why it is often said that the very nature of simple moral action lies in relationships. Such moral action consists for example in deeds brought about by a relationship based on goodwill. One finds with most actions that they are rooted in the old: even in the case of actions and events where something new makes its appearance, these too are generally rooted in the old.

With more exact investigation this usually become apparent. Only those actions are free which are in no way based on the foundation of the past, but where man only carries out actions in the world which are combined with the productive activity of his reason. Such actions are called in occultism: Creation out of Nothing. [51] All other actions are produced out of Karma. Here we have two opposites: Karma and its opposite, Nothingness, an activity that is not rooted in Karma.

And now let us imagine a person whose actions, thoughts and feelings are conditioned by Karma; through deeds, thoughts ... feelings rising out of the past. One may then think of him having advanced so far that all Karma is eliminated and he is therefore faced with Nothingness. When he then does something one says in occultism: He acts out of Nirvana. For example, it was out of Nirvana that the actions of a Buddha or a Christ arose, at least in part. In the ordinary way a person approaches this only when he is inspired by art, religion or world-history.

Action arising out of intuition comes out of Nothingness. Whoever would attain to this must become completely free from Karma. He can then no longer draw his impulses from the usual sources. The mood which then comes over him is that of divine bliss, a state which is also called Nirvana.

How does the human being ascend to Nirvana? We must look back into Lemurian times. There we find man, as he is on the earth, at first going on all fours. These beings, in which at that time man, 'pure man', (as Monad) incarnated, went on all fours. Through the fact that the Monads incarnated in them, these beings gradually raised their front limbs and attained an upright position. Now for the first time Karma begins. Karma, as human Karma, first became possible when human beings made use of their hands for work. Before this man made no individual Karma. It was a very important stage of human development when man, from a horizontal, became a vertical being, thereby freeing his hands. In this way his development led over into the Atlantean epoch.

At the next stage man learned to make use of speech. To begin with he learned the use of his hands, later on, the use of language. Through his hands he filled the surrounding world with deeds; through speech he filled it with words. When a man dies there lives on all that he accomplished through deeds and words in the surrounding world. Everything that he accomplished in the way of deeds remains present as human Karma. What however he produced in the way of words not only remains as his individual Karma, but as something else essentially different.

We can look back at the time when man did not as yet speak, but only performed actions. Then actions were something which only came from the single personality. They ceased however to be only personal when speech began. For now human beings established understanding with one another. This is an extraordinarily important moment in Atlantean development. The moment when the first sound was pronounced, the Karma of humanity began in the world. As soon as human beings speak with one another something common to all flows out from the whole of mankind. Then the purely personal, individual Karma passes over into the general Karma of humanity. With the words which emanate from us we actually spread around us more than just ourselves. In what we speak the whole of humanity is living. Only when the deeds of our hands become selfless will they too become something for the whole of humanity. In his speaking however a man cannot be entirely selfish, for then what he says would have to belong to himself alone. A language can never be entirely selfish, whereas the deeds performed by the hands are mostly so. The occultist says: What I do with my hands can be simply my own concern; what I speak, I speak as member of a nation or a tribe.

Thus our life creates around us remains — personal, rudimentary remains, brought about by the deeds of our hands and general human rudimentary remains brought about by words. These must be clearly differentiated. Everything that surrounds us in Nature — in the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms — is there as the result of earlier deeds. What is now being built up around us by our deeds is actually something new coming into the world. Each single human being brings something new into the world, something new strikes in, and new impulses also strike in coming from mankind as a whole.

If therefore we must say: Man appeared on the earth in the middle of the Lemurian Age and for the first time created his own Karma, before this he had created no individual Karma; we must ask ourselves: Where then can this Karma come from, since its action played in as something new? It can only come from Nirvana. At that time something had to become active in the world that came forth from Nirvana, from that which is 'created out of nothing'. The beings who at that time fructified the earth had to reach up into Nirvana. Those who fructified the four-footed creatures so that they became human, were beings who descended from the Nirvana plane. They are called Monads. This is why at that time beings of this nature had to come down from the Nirvana plane. The being from the Nirvana plane who is in us, in the human being, is the Monad. Here something new enters into the world and embodies itself in what is already there and which, for its part, is entirely the result of earlier deeds.

We thus differentiate three stages. The first consists in external deeds brought about through the hands; the second is what is brought about through the spoken word, and the third by what is brought about through thought. And thought is something far more comprehensive than the spoken word. Thought is no longer, as with language, different among the different peoples, but belongs to the whole of humanity.

So man ascends from actions, through words to thoughts, and in this way he becomes an ever more universal being. There is no general norm for action, no logic for deeds. Everyone must act for himself. But there is no purely personal speech. Speech belongs to a group. Thought on the other hand belongs to the whole of humanity. Here we have a progression from the particular to the universal in these three human stages: deeds, words, thoughts.

In so far as he expresses himself in the outer world, man leaves behind him traces of the spirit of the whole of humanity as thought; the traces of a human group soul as word; traces of his separate human being as actions. This is most clearly expressed by pointing out the effects of what is brought about through these three stages. An individuality is like a thread which goes through all forms of personal manifestation in the different incarnations. An individuality creates for further incarnations. A people as a speech-community creates for new peoples. Humanity creates for a new humanity, for a new planet. What a man does for himself personally has significance for his next incarnation; what a nation speaks has significance for the next sub-race, for the next incarnation of a people. And when a world will be there in which our entire thinking no longer lives purely as thinking, but makes its appearance in the results of this, thinking, then a new humanity, that is to say, a new planet, comes into being. Without these great perspectives we cannot understand Karma.

What we think, has significance for the next planetary cycles. Let us now enter into the following thoughts: Will the humanity, i.e., what remains of us, which will inhabit a future planet, will this humanity still think? Just as little as a new race will speak the same language as the previous one, just as little will the future humanity still think. It is laughable to ask in our thoughts what Divinity is. On the next planet man will not think, but will comprehend the surrounding world by means of another activity having a form quite different from thought on this planet. Thinking is something connected with us. When we explain the world by means of thought, this world-explanation is for ourselves alone. This is of immensely wide import because the individual sees how as a member of humanity he is also spun into the threads of karma and how he lives and weaves into the whole karmic web.

When the Eastern occultist expounds such things he says: Our whole life is of such a nature that we seem to be surrounded by the boundaries of speaking and thinking. If we do away with these, for the ordinary man hardly anything is left. That something is still left to him when he has gone beyond all this, is the result of esotericism. What then remains is the experience of Nirvana.

The Planetary Spirit who represents the Being of the World is now incarnated in thinking, but in the future will be incarnated in something else.

Lecture 17

Berlin, 12th October 1905

In occultism we differentiate in man firstly his actions, in so far as by actions we understand everything which proceeds from any kind of activity connected with his hands; secondly speech and thirdly thoughts. Everything which in this sense he accomplishes with his hands brings about its karmic results in his next earthly existence. What we speak concerns not only ourselves alone, but also a group of human beings having the same language, and this affects the karma of the group or race. In words lies a greater responsibility than in deeds alone: for with them we are preparing the configuration of a future race. What we think works on even into a new formation of our earth. We therefore distinguish three stages. Firstly: Human action is individual, with the exception of those actions in man that arise from nothingness. Secondly: Man cannot speak for himself alone; words concern a group of human beings. Thirdly: Thoughts are the concern of the whole of humanity.

With this, something else is connected. When we act we stand quite alone behind our actions. When we speak we are not quite alone in our words. Behind our words a spiritual being is working with us, standing behind us. Just as truly as the words we utter are imprinted quite exactly in the Akasha, so is it true that with every word we utter we impinge upon the body of a spiritual being who is incarnated in this Akashic substance into which our words penetrate. We must take this up into our feeling life; this is why we must pay such heed to our words. When we think, we are seemingly quite alone within ourselves; nevertheless beings of a spiritual nature are active with us in our thoughts, beings still higher and more significant than those active in our speech.

More lies in these things than in a whole world-history. Through them much can be explained. Let us consider a thought within us. Behind this thought a spiritual being is present. If we imagine ourselves enveloped on all sides by the body of a spiritual being, we can realise that a thought is only the expression of the body of the spiritual being working into us. Every time a thought flashes through our soul it is an impression, a kind of foot-print of a higher spiritual being, just as if we were walking over damp ground, leaving footprints, and were to say: 'Here a person walked'. This spiritual being is formed of the same substance as that of which thought consists. The thought in us can only become the imprint of a higher spiritual being because this higher being has a body formed of the same substance as our thoughts.

When our foot imprints itself in the damp earth, this imprint is a negative, a counter-image of our foot. So is it too with our thoughts. In the higher spiritual world there is a counter-image for every thought. Image and counter-image are as interconnected as seal and sealing wax. The substance is the higher spiritual being which corresponds in our analogy to the sealing wax. Now we call thought, in so far as it corresponds to the sealing wax, intuition, and the impression we call abstract thought. We can say when we think: 'I feel the traces of what is happening in higher worlds.' It is with regard to this fact that in religious writings, for instance in the Revelation of St. John, the expression 'seal' is used. This corresponds with reality. It is also because a higher being is working with us in our words that every word is the impression of a seal. With the mystics the counter-image is called Imagination. Thus we have three levels of the thought element: the intuitive, the imaginative and the ordinary abstract thinking.

When man develops further, when abstract thought itself develops to the stage on which the beings are incarnated who work with us when we speak, then he is a Chela, an occult pupil. To be a Master means: To work in the substance in which the beings are incarnated who work with us in our thoughts. Imagination gives the picture. This is why the great religious teachers of earlier times spoke pictorially, for imagination gives the picture, not abstract thoughts. In all religions, teachings were expressed in pictures. At first the picture is for man something of lesser importance, but when he understands how to form again for himself a picture out of every thought, then he has reached a higher stage. This is the pre-requisite for a quite new kind of perception. Everything depends on a man developing to the point at which he no longer thinks merely abstractly, but at all times has his thoughts in pictures.

As a rule man forms merely thoughts. The more highly developed man must think in pictures, in images; that means 'to imagine'. In this expression there already lies what is meant: 'By means of a certain power to make an imprint in something, (to imagine).' In creative fantasy, in the case of poet and artist, we find only a weak reflection of imagination. When a man who is seeking higher development speaks, he will try in certain cases, while speaking, to have before him the counter-image, the Imago. This is the source of the mighty pictures in religious writings. Whoever develops himself so far that he can create such pictures has attained the stage of the spiritual beings who are involved in the creation of races. One who develops in himself not only pictures, but intuitions, is not only involved in the creation of races, but in the creation of the next planetary existence. From the pictures there will resound what later will be manifested on the earth, but whoever works out of intuition creates something which is not yet existent, which is nowhere manifested, that is to say he creates out of Nirvana. This concept is inherent in every apocalypse: What will be manifested in the future can only be created out of intuition.

Through abstract thinking one makes a copy of something that exists. Through Imagination a man allows himself to be fructified by the formative spirit within him. Imagination corresponds to hidden realities which have arisen through the fructifying impulse of higher beings; thus one can see these higher spiritual beings on the Astral Plane. The prerequisite for this is to develop a speech that is not the expression of abstract thoughts, but of pictures. This is why mediums also speak in imaginations, in pictures and symbols, but unconsciously. Behind them the spirit is forming the symbols. The occult pupil does this in full consciousness, nevertheless in a way that is not arbitrary. In so doing he allows himself to be fructified by the spirit.

Just as man develops himself to the stage when he can create pictures and receive intuitions, so before he came into existence the external world was active; and indeed in such a way that in everything which is around us as mineral existence, as purely physical nature, Intuitions are working as creative forces. The crystal is external in so far as it reveals itself to the senses; it is however created by means of Intuitions. Behind the entire physical world lies a cosmos of Intuitions and finally a being, the Planetary Spirit, who produces the Intuitions. Behind all language Beings of Imagination are working and with them the Spirit of the Race. In all living things, Beings at the same spiritual level are at work. Behind all plants Imaginations are active. The completed form of the plant comes forth from Imagination and behind it stands a spiritual being: and everything imbued with consciousness and perception has arisen out of Thought itself

Now let us look at the whole universe, to begin with in its physical aspect: Earth, Sun, Moon and stars, the Milky Way and so on. Behind it stands a great intuitive Spirit. It is the same Spirit that manifests in our actions; he also stands behind the whole universe. Christianity calls him the Father. Because he is so little known he is also called the Unknown God, and in theosophical literature the first Logos. [52]

Behind everything living stands the Spirit of Imagination. It is the same Spirit who is also working in our speech; this is why the Christian religion calls Him the Word. Here something quite exact and actual is meant. This spirit who stands behind everything living is still working today in our speech, in each of our words, and is therefore rightly called 'the Word', another designation is: The Son or Christ. He is the Spirit who lives as imagination in everything that has life.

Then we ascend to what is conscious, what has a certain degree of perception, of consciousness, everything of an animal nature and what in man [Gap in text ...] This can already be grasped by thoughts. It is contained in every being. What takes place in the animal occurs in the first place within itself: abstract consciousness. All consciousness existent in the world also lives in man, in abstract thinking. Within himself man calls it 'Spirit'; in so far as it works outside in the creative forces of Nature he calls it 'Holy Spirit'. This is what underlies all perception and consciousness. Illness exists only in separateness. Spirit as such cannot be ill, but only when it is incarnated in lower bodies. The word 'Heilig' (healthy) means 'heil sein', to be well: it expresses the fact that the Spirit which flows through the world outside, is healthy. The Holy Spirit is nothing other than Spirit which is healthy through and through: this is why anyone who truly unites himself with the Holy Spirit (Heiliger Geist) receives the power of healing (heilen). This must be in harmony with the Holy Spirit flowing through the world. This is the Spirit which works from man to man as the true healer.

If we now turn our attention to the physical plane we find in the first place that we perceive through the senses. Behind is the great intuitive Spirit. Everything physically present has been made by this Spirit. Thus behind everything that lives in form as such, that can be perceived by the senses, stands the Father Spirit, the first Logos. Through merely observing we do not alter anything, but an alteration comes about when we act. Then we not only change what exists outside in the world, but also the forces working outside in the world. The moment we act we bring about an alteration on the physical plane. Behind these alterations however there lies also an alteration in the underlying force corresponding to the first Logos. This we influence by our actions; it remains, is there, cannot again be got rid of, unless it be eradicated by the same force which called it forth. And the alteration which is called forth through our deeds is what takes hold of us again as Karma. That which draws man into the physical world once more, if looked at from the point of view of Karma is called: Rupa. This is because it was accomplished in Rupa, through the body, through man's external nature. Thus we create in the body, in Rupa, when we work upon the outer Intuitions.

The second sphere in which today man is not entirely independent, but where another Spirit is working with him, is speech. Here we make impressions in a world behind which lies not only what is physical, but what has life. In the world of life the Imaginations about which we are speaking remain behind, formative forces which create new races. Our present race has been created out of what lay behind the words of earlier races. This is embodied in our race. In addition we have to consider everything which belongs in any way to Imagination. This shows us that with our words we produce impressions in the realm of the Son, in the realm of the second Logos. These return as the collective Karma of the whole race, for the word is not created by us alone; the Spirit of the Race is working with us. What is the foundation for this form of Karma? Where is the Spirit of the Race working? The Spirit of the Race is active in man's feeling, permeates the entire world of feeling. This resounds into what a human being has in common with his group.

What works in a much wider sense on Karma is feeling (Vedana). Thus firstly: Rupa, the corporality; secondly: Vedana, feeling. For those people who have not yet become Chelas, feeling has great importance where the perception of the second Logos and everything living is concerned. The aim of science is to study animals and plants apart from life. Even the greatest men of learning today have not yet advanced beyond the stage of comprehending life with feeling. It is the Imaginative understanding which first enables them to look into life itself.

In the outer world thought is connected with everything having sensation and consciousness. This has one thing in common with us: perception. The fact that we can in any way perceive the outer world in physical space as a world of colour and sound is only possible because we are able to transpose it into thoughts. We receive perceptions; we think about them. If there were no thoughts in the perceptions it would be the greatest folly on man's part to form thoughts about them. Thoughts would then be mere illusions if the perceptions had not arisen through thoughts. From the combination of perceptions it follows that in the first place perceptions are built up by thoughts which we can then extract from them: the laws of nature. These are nothing other than thoughts; it is the creative Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Perception is the boundary between the two, where our thoughts come in contact with the creative thoughts outside. Thus with a thought that we have we cannot work directly on life, but on the consciousness which in the outer world is itself thought.

Through thought we leave behind traces in all the spiritual beings who have brought about consciousness. What man builds up on the basis of perception in the way of thoughts, and what he produces as thoughts, has its repercussions on everything which makes perception necessary. Thirdly therefore we differentiate: Perception or Sanjna, the third element which has an effect on Karma.

Through all actions we call forth counter-actions as Karma, because we make an impact on the Intuitive World: Rupa.

Through all words we make an impact on the World of Creative Feelings around us: Vedana.

With our thoughts about perceptions we make an impact on the whole World of Thoughts outside us: Sanjna.

What we perceive around us will no longer be there when we appear again on Earth. Everything therefore which we think in connection with the world of perception will have no effect whatever on the future incarnation; only in this incarnation will it have a Karma-building force. Thought works upon our present character.

What comes forth from feeling, that is essentially connected with our surroundings; what enters into the world of Imagination, comes back to us in the following incarnation, in such a way that it appears within us as inborn tendencies and outside us as opportunities. Through our inborn tendencies we call towards us opportunities offered by the world, which form our destiny, through tendencies which have their source in Karma. Thoughts form the character: the tendencies or disposition lead karmically to the opportunities. Actions bring about the external destiny, all the bodily circumstances into which man is born. What we carry out through Rupa, our bodily nature, that is our actual destiny, that comes back to us karmically.

One can only create inborn tendencies for further incarnations consciously by reaching the stage of Imagination. Herein we find the secret of how the great founders of religions projected their influence beyond their own time. The pictures which they gave the people released dispositional tendencies for the following incarnations. Every picture that they instilled into the soul reappeared in the entire feeling-world of the human being. Either he wins such Imaginations for himself, or he receives them from his teacher. We win them for ourselves when we have gained control over our entire life of feeling: this is the case with the occult pupil. His feelings are subject to his own control; the rest of humanity is cared for in this respect by the founders of religions. A religion is the feeling-world of future races; outwardly therefore it can be submerged, for it lives on in human tendencies. Today tendencies are coming to the surface which were implanted in mankind in the 13th and 14th centuries. It is important that the materialistic images of the present day do not take root in human hearts, for in future times they would fill human beings with the most brutal instincts which are only directed to the world of the senses, if they were not opposed by spiritual ideas. Those desires and wishes live in man which are produced out of imagination. This is his desire-nature = Sanskara. Everything intuitive in man, the great impulses which he receives from the highest initiates, these actually overcome the Karma of Deeds. He who raises himself to Intuitions as such, penetrates through the physical world up to the Father Spirit. He who possesses intuitive knowledge can affect the Karma arising out of deeds. He begins to limit his Karma consciously.

For the ordinary person only those beings are comprehensible who also have consciousness. When he progresses to Imagination, life also becomes comprehensible; when he progresses to Intuition he can advance as far as the Intuitive forces.

A person can affect his Karma to the degree in which he himself possesses Intuition; or he must receive it from the high initiates in the form of great moral laws. Vijnana is the name used for the consciousness necessary for the overcoming of Karma. And now let us think of a man living in the world, carrying out his actions and dying. After his death something of him nevertheless remains here in this world which he has woven into it: Rupa, Vedana, Sanjna, Sanskara and Vijnana. These five are the balance of his account: his personal destiny as Rupa; the destiny of the nation into which he is born, as Vedana; the actual fact of his birth on this earth as Sanjna. In addition, working with Sanskara, the desire nature, and Vijnana, the consciousness. These are the five Skandhas.

What a man gives out into the world remains as the five Skandhas in the world. These are the foundation of his new existence. They have progressively less effect when he has consciously developed something of the last two. The more he has gained conscious power over Vijnana, the more does he gain the power of consciously incarnating in the physical body. In their essential nature the Skandhas are identical with Karma.

Lecture 18

Berlin, 16th October 1905

If we wish to obtain a more exact knowledge of how Karma comes about, we must go back a certain way in the development of humanity. If we transpose ourselves back some thousands of years we find Europe covered with ice. At that time, the glaciers of the Alps forced their way right down into the low-lying plain of Northern Germany. The districts in which we now live were then cold and raw. Here dwelt a race of human beings who made use of extremely simple and primitive tools. If we go back about a million years we find in the same territory a tropical climate such as today is only to be found in the hottest districts of Africa. In some parts there were huge primeval forests in which lived parrots, monkeys, especially the gibbon, and elephants. We should however hardly have met in our wanderings in these forests anything approximating to present day human beings and not even to those of periods some thousands of years later. Natural science can prove from certain strata of the earth which arose between these two epochs the existence of a type of human being in whom the front part of the brain was not yet as developed as it is today and whose brow receded far back. Only the back part of the brain was developed. We go back further to times in which people did not yet know the use of fire and made their weapons by grinding pieces of stone. The natural scientist likes to compare this stage of humanity with that of savages or of a clumsy child. Remains of such human beings have been found in the Neandertal and Croatia. They have a skull similar to that of the ape and the finds in Croatia reveal that before their death they were roasted, thus proving that cannibals lived there.

Now the materialistic thinker says: We trace man back into the times in which he was still undeveloped and clumsy and assume that the human being has developed from this childish stage of existence up to the present stage of human culture and that this primitive man has evolved from animals bearing a similarity to man. In this theory of evolution therefore he simply makes a leap from primitive human beings to animals similar to man. The natural scientist takes for granted that the more perfect has always evolved from the less perfect. This however is not always the case. If for example we trace the human being back to childhood we do not come to greater imperfection for the child is descended from father and mother. That is to say we come to a primitive condition deriving from a higher condition. This is important, for it is connected with the fact that already at birth the child has the predisposition to a later stage of perfection, whereas the animal remains at the lower stage.

When the natural scientist has gone back to the stage at which man had no frontal brain and no intellect he should say to himself: I must assume that the origin of man is to be sought elsewhere.

Just as a child is descended from his parents, so all those primitive human beings are descended from others who had already attained a high degree of development. We call these human beings Atlanteans. They lived on that part of the earth which is now covered with the waves of the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlanteans had even less frontal brain, an even farther-receding brow, nevertheless they still possessed something which differed from later human beings. They still had a much stronger, more vigorous etheric body. The etheric body of the Atlanteans had not yet developed certain connections with the brain; these arose later. Thus over the head there was still an immense etheric head. The physical head was comparatively small and embedded in an etheric head of immense size.

The functions which people now carry out with the help of the frontal brain were carried out in the case of the Atlanteans, with the help of organs in the etheric body. By this means they could enter into connection with beings to whom today access is barred to us, just because our frontal brain has been developed. With the Atlanteans a kind of fiery coloured formation was visible, which streamed out from the opening of the physical head towards the etheric head. He had access to all sorts of psychic influences. A head of this kind, which thinks as an etheric head, has power over the etheric, whereas a head which thinks in the physical brain only has power over the physical, over the putting together of purely mechanical things. He can make physical tools, while someone who still thinks in the etheric can cause a seed to grow and bloom.

The Atlantean civilisation was still in close connection with the growth forces of nature, of the vegetation, a power which present day man has lost. For instance, the Atlantean made no use of steam power to bring vehicles into motion, but used the seed power (samenkraft) of the plants. With this he propelled his vehicles. Only from the last third of the Atlantean epoch, from the time of the original Semites until the time when Atlantis was covered with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, did the frontal etheric head develop the frontal brain. Through this man lost the power of influencing the growth of plants and gained only the capacity of the physical brain, of intellect. With many things he now had to make a new beginning. He had to begin to learn mechanical work. In this he was like a child, clumsy and awkward, whereas before in developing the vegetable kingdom he had achieved great skill. It is necessary for man to pass through the stage of intelligence and then to regain what he could do earlier. At that time, higher spiritual beings had an influence on the unfree will; through the open etheric head they worked through the intellect.

Going still further back we reach the Lemurian Epoch. Here we come to a stage in human development at which the union of the maternal and paternal principles takes place for the first time. This etheric head naturally branches out into the astral body which surrounds the human beings with its rays ... [Gap in text ...]. If one had found the means of lifting the head with the astral body out of such a human being something quite peculiar would have occurred. He would thereby have lost the possibility of holding himself upright; he would have folded up. Just the opposite procedure was taken with man at that time and through this he gradually raised himself to the upright posture.

In the Lemurian Epoch, however, man was still at a stage at which he did not yet possess what we are assuming could be lifted out of him. In this earlier period he did not yet possess this etheric head with the astral body. At that time, they were not yet there. Man as he wandered over the earth was then really a being folded together. The two organs now used for work, the hands, were then turned backwards and formed additional organs of movement, so that he went on four legs. One must picture two people of the present day, man and woman, entwined in one another, think away the upper half of the body, leaving only the lower half there. The human being was actually male-female. He also had at that time an astral and etheric body, but not the one which he had later. This was a different astral body, that is, such a one as had reached its highest perfection on the Old Moon. There, on the Old Moon, the astral body together with the etheric body had acquired the capacity of developing a physical body which then had a crab-like form. The human being could stand on one pair of legs and make a kind of leaping movement.

This astral body with the etheric body was then of quite another nature. It had a form which was not entirely egg-shaped, but more like a bell which descended like a dome over the human being who went on all fours. The etheric body provided for all the life functions of this Lemurian human being. In his astral body he had a dull twilight consciousness similar to that of our dreams. His consciousness was however unlike the reminiscences inherent in our dreams, for he dreamt of realities. When he was approached by another human being unsympathetic to him, there arose in him a sensation of light which indicated what was unsympathetic.

Already on the Old Moon man had some slight power of using both his front limbs for the purpose of grasping, so that now the time came for assuming the upright posture. His other living companions were, in the Lemurian Age, of the nature of reptiles; animals of grotesque shapes who have left no traces behind them. The ichthyosaurs and so on are descendants of these animals. It is a fact that at that time the earth was inhabited by beings reptilian in character; human bodies too were reptile-like. When eventually this reptilian human being assumed the upright posture, the formation of the head, quite open in front, out of which gushed a fiery cloud, became visible. This gave rise to the tales about the winged serpent, about the dragon. Such was man's grotesque form at that time, reptile-like. The Guardian of the Threshold, the lower nature of man, frequently appears in a form of this kind. It represents the lower nature with the open formation of the head. At that time, the union took place between these forms on the earth and the other beings already described. The astral body with the head formation united with the winged-serpent body with its fiery opening. It was the fructification of the maternal earth with the paternal spirit.

In this way there proceeded the fructification with the Manas forces. The lower astral body merged with the higher astral body. A great part of the astral body, as it then was, fell away. One portion formed the lower parts of the human astral body, and the other newly acquired astral body, connected with the head, united with the upper parts of the human being. What was then peeled off abandoned this astral body which was bound up with the form of the winged-serpent; it could no longer have any further development on the Earth. It formed, as a conglomerate substance, the astral sphere of the moon, the so-called eighth sphere. The moon actually provides shelter for astral beings which have come into existence through the fact that man has thrown something off.

This union of the paternal spirit with the maternal substance was described in Egypt as the union of Osiris and Isis. From it came forth Horus. The merging of the serpent form with the etheric head, with the newly acquired astral body and head formation, led to the conception of the form of the sphinx. The sphinx is the expression of this thought in sculpture.

There were seven kinds or classes of such forms, all of which differed somewhat from each other, from the finest, approximating to the highly developed formation of the human form down to those which were utterly grotesque. These seven kinds of human forms had all to be fructified. One must conceive the descent of the 'Sons of Manas' in this pictorial way. Only then can one understand how the astral body of man came into existence. It is composed of two different members.

If we consider human development we shall find that the one part of the astral body is continually endeavouring to overcome the other half, the lower nature, and transform it. In so far as man today consists of astral body with etheric body and physical body, it is in fact only the physical body which in its present state is a product which has reached completion. In the case of the etheric body also there are two parts that seek to merge into one another.

Now when man dies he gives over to the forces of the earth his whole physical body, but the etheric body divides itself into two members. The one member is derived from the upper formation and this man takes with him. The remainder falls away, for over this he can exert no mastery; it came to him from outside. He can only exert mastery over it when he has become an occult pupil. This part of the etheric body therefore in the case of the ordinary person is given over to the etheric forces of cosmic space.

What clings to the person from that astral body which came with him from the Old Moon compels him to spend a period of time in Kamaloka until he has freed himself from this point as regards that particular life. Then he still has that part of the astral body which has found a state of balance; with this he makes his journey through Devachan and back to physical life. This is why one sees bell-like formations in astral space rushing about with terrific speed. These are the human souls again seeking incarnation. When here with us such a bell-like human being darts through astral space and an embryo in South America is karmically connected with it, this human bell must immediately be there. So these returning souls rush through astral space. This bell formation is reminiscent of those which appeared in the Lemurian Age, only it has already found its state of balance with the higher astral body. We know that the human being develops by working from the ego upon the three other bodies. The ego is nothing other than what worked at that time in a fructifying way; the upper auric part with the etheric head. The members which the human being has developed are the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body.

Upper Etheric or Mental body
Astral body as Buddhi
Astral body
Lower Etheric body
Physical body

The physical body has arisen through a transformation and ennobling of that serpent-like body which we meet with in the Lemurian Age. This was male-female. The present day human being is also male-female. In the case of a man the basis of the upper members is female, with a woman the basis of the upper etheric body is of male formation. So actually the physical nature of the human being is also male-female.

The etheric body consists of two members, that part of human nature which originally came over from the Old Moon and its opposite pole. They were at first not yet joined together; later they approached one another and became united. The one is the pole of animality, the other the pole of the spiritual. The pole of animality is called 'etheric body', the pole of the spiritual, 'mental-body'. The mental body is materialised ether.

Between them is the astral body and this too has arisen out of the union of a duality. Fundamentally it is also a two-fold formation. We have to differentiate in it a lower and a higher nature. The higher nature was originally connected with the mental body. This part of the astral body which has its seat in the mental body — what therefore has come into it from above — is the other pole of the lower astral body. One of the characteristics of the lower astral body is that it has desires. The upper part has instead of these, devotion, love, the giving virtue. This part of the astral body is called Buddhi. The description here given of the human being is as seen in this way in the Cosmic Light. When man himself works into his sheathes it is different. The one portrays his cosmic structure, the other how he himself works into it.

Thus Buddhi is the ennobled astral, the Mental the ennobled etheric and the Physical has its opposite pole in Atma.

Lecture 19

Berlin, 17th October 1905

Yesterday we saw how in a certain way man is connected with astral powers. When he dies he first enters the astral world. But even now he stands in a continual relationship with the astral plane. It is actually the case that on the astral plane beings are constantly becoming visible which would not be there if the human being did not exist. Through people, and even more so through animals, these beings make their appearance on the astral plane. They are not of the same nature as its other beings. On the astral plane there becomes visible what man in the first place experiences only as feeling. Pleasure, sorrow, passions are actually present, just as physical objects are on the physical plane, as for instance, a chair or a table. Things are so, that a being which appears to us as pleasing works upon our feeling when the astral substance of which it is composed is still quite thin.

What makes its appearance on the astral plane is usually present as a mirror picture when compared with the physical plane; for instance the number 563 is there 365. A feeling of hatred also appears as if it came from the person to whom it was directed. This fact holds good for everything on the astral plane. Feelings of the soul appearing on the physical plane from the astral plane can be experienced as their opposites. For instance if feelings of soul-warmth press in from the astral plane on to the physical plane they are experienced here as their reflection; that is as a peculiar feeling of cold. These are things about which we must be perfectly clear.

On the other hand it is important to keep in view that the beings of the astral plane have as their substance what we call feeling. They find their expression in this feeling. If these beings are not yet very strongly present we can only experience them through a sensation of cold. If however they become stronger, if their substance is intensified, they become visible as light-beings. This explains why, when materialisations occur during spiritualistic seances, a light-phenomenon appears (the mollusc-crab for example). This is a natural process under such conditions. Anyone who observes something of this kind without this knowledge, speaks of something miraculous. The miraculous is nothing other than the penetration of a higher world into our own. It is simply a natural process. Thus it is, when other beings from higher planes intervene in human life.

We understand that a merely cool, dry thought is less effective on the astral plane than a thought that springs from the soul in an impulsive way. When a person in the present stage of civilisation has come so far as not to be at the mercy of his passions — our civilisation has a certain sophisticated cunning — when cold thoughts about the affairs of the world rise from him into the astral plane, they show themselves there as hollow spaces, they drain the substance away. Ordinary space can be filled with substance. One can bring into ordinary, space substance that fills it. It is not so in the case of substance which, coming from thoughts, streams into astral space. It works in the opposite way from physical matter. It displaces what is there in much the same way as, for instance, one makes a hole in dough. So it is, when our thoughts stream out into astral space. The higher substance is the opposite of the lower; instead of filling out space, it displaces what is in space.

When a thought penetrates into astral space it forms a denser layer around the hollow brought about by the thoughts. Around this hollow, coloured phenomena make their appearance. A glimmer begins to light up. It is the thought-form which we then see. The astral substance surrounding it becomes denser and thereby brighter. The added brightness which arises around the thoughts soon disappears; but if the thought is connected with an intense impulse of passion, it has a relationship with the densified astral substance and gives it life. Thus people who are still very undeveloped but very passionate create living beings in astral space when they think. This ceases later; when people evolve and become calmer such beings no longer arise when they think. But now you understand that there are beings on the astral plane which originate from human beings and also from animals; for in the case of certain animals too, such beings are formed, and indeed with far greater intensity. The animal however presses its own impulses into its own astral form, so that it usually creates its own form, its own image in astral space.

Every animal leaves a sort of trace behind in astral space; this has, it is true, only a short life, but nevertheless it remains for a time. But through the strongly passionate thoughts of human beings there arise new elemental inhabitants in astral space. Gradually however man reaches the point where a kind of neutral elemental being arises. When this point of neutrality is finally past, he progresses to the stage when he ennobles his passions and desires to an ever-greater degree. This leads him to impart to his thoughts a noble enthusiasm which also has the power of creating life in the surrounding astral substance. Through the development of patriotism, for instance, beings of noble form also arise and the elemental beings created in this way play their part in the furtherance of what lives in astral space. The ignoble beings produced by man through thoughts which are filled with passions are hindrances and act in a retrograde way. Everything however which he achieves in freedom from what is sensual, through enthusiasm and so on, works progressively.

The substance in astral space which is pressed together by passionate thoughts is the same as that which surrounded the previous planet, the Old Moon, out of which the Moon has developed to a higher stage. Thus wherever such substance exists, a certain danger is present. We human beings are created in such a way that we are obliged to incarnate in the physical matter of today. On the earlier planet there was not as yet physical matter of this kind; it was more highly developed than that of present day animals and less so than that of present day man. This substance in which Jehovah seeks to incarnate provides, as such, no favourable habitation. But the beings which are so far advanced that they reached their proper stage on the Old Moon will cause no harm. They have no liking for this substance.

It is not the substance in which man is now incarnated. But certain retrograde beings who had fallen behind on the Old Moon had discovered in this astral substance — food for their gluttony. They want to feed on it; it has for them a great force of attraction. This shows that we are continually surrounded by beings whose higher nature is related to our lower. When someone produces egotistical thoughts, this is very welcome to these beings. In other respects they are actually more advanced than man, but they have the craving to embody themselves in the astral forms which we ourselves create. They are the so-called Asuras. Through our baser thoughts we provide nourishment for these asuric beings.

When people whose nature is not yet purified, not yet free from passions, meditate, creating strong thought forms, they conjure up around themselves a powerful aura of desires. In this incarnate asuric beings of this kind which are then able to draw such people downwards. If a person drowsy with sleep meditates and in so doing does not rise clearly enough into thoughts, he creates this substance, and because he has no counterbalance, such beings incarnate in his thought forms. These are higher beings because they had completely developed Manas on the Old Moon, before the coming of the Buddhi impulse; they therefore do not possess this impulse. Hence with them Manas is egotistical. Had not the human being on Earth, from that point of time at which Manas came to him from outside, also received the impulse of Buddhi, had he only developed further the forward urge of Manas, he would have become in the strongest sense of the word an egotistical being. Manasic evolution is one tending to egoism and independence. Its task was to make man independent, but then the Buddhi nature was necessary. The asuric beings already referred to, because they developed Manas too early, have missed this impulse of the Buddhi nature. On the one hand therefore they stand at a higher stage and on the other hand they cannot progress, but go on developing the Kama-Manas, which is egotistical.

Halfway through the Lemurian Race Kama-Manas appeared on the physical plane in the duality of the sexes. The God who brought about Kama-Manas was Jehovah. This is why Helena Petrovna Blavatsky called him the Moon God; he is rightly called the God of Fertility. He caused the external working of Kama-Manas to reach its ultimate limit. The sexuality which made its appearance in the Lemurian Age, when we trace it backwards, when we see it in its ever higher and higher nature, becomes the Second Logos. Through the descending Kama-Principle it was the manifestation of Jehovah; through the ascending Buddhi-Principal it was the manifestation of Christ.

Now if we submerge ourselves into the Kama of the pre-earthly period we are drawn down by the asuric beings. The higher forces of these our spiritual predecessors stand occultly bound up with the passions and forces of our own lower nature. [53] Wherever there are dissolute excesses, there the substance is given in which powerful asuric forces pour cunning intellectualism into the world. In the case of decadent tribes similar powerful asuric forces are to be found. The black magician draws his most powerful forces out of the morass of sensuality. The purpose of sexual rites is to introduce such magic into these circles. A battle is continually taking place on the earth, the one side striving to purify the passions, the other side striving to intensify sensuality. The beings who are guided by the Christ-Principle seek to win the Earth for themselves, but there are also the other antagonistic beings who seek to usurp the Earth.

These embodiments of asuric beings in the out streaming of passion-filled human thoughts are one kind of astral beings. They are called artificial elemental beings because they are brought forth artificially by man. There also exist in astral space natural elemental beings. They proceed from the Group Souls of animals. For each animal group a being exists on the astral plane which unites what is present in the single animals. We meet these also in astral space. Every animal draws its own nature after it astrally like a trail. What is thus formed can however not work so harmfully as what the human being creates in the way of elemental beings. This astral trail is rendered harmless because it is annulled by the Group Souls of the animals. This is not so however with the beings created through man, because in this case nothing is annulled and hence these elemental beings remain.

When an animal is tortured, the amount of pain inflicted on it recoils immediately on the astral body of the human being. Here certainly it is reflected as it's opposite; hence the sensual pleasure in cruelty. Such feelings bring about a lowering of the human astral body. When a person destroys life, this has for him a tremendous significance. [54] [Gap in text ...]. In no way can one so readily assimilate destructive astral forces as by killing. Every killing of a being possessing an astral body evokes an intensification of the most brutal egoism. It signifies a growing increase of power. In schools of Black Magic therefore, instruction is first given as to how one cuts into animals. Cutting into a definite place, accompanied by corresponding thoughts, induces a certain force, in another place it induces another force. (What corresponds to this in the case of the White Magician is meditation.) Something comes back to the physical plane when it is accompanied by physical thoughts; without thoughts it comes back to the Kamaloka plane.

The overpowering of a human being by means of hypnotism is a still stronger killing, for it destroys the will. The occultist therefore never intrudes into a person's freedom; he only relates facts.

Lying is, from the astral standpoint, murder and at the same time suicide. It deceives the other person and creates in him a feeling that is related to a non-existent fact, to a nothingness. On the astral plane appears the counter picture of the nothingness, the killing. You therefore kill something in a person when through a lie you direct his feeling to something that does not exist, and you commit suicide because [Gap in text ...].

Lecture 20

Berlin, 18th October 1905

Yesterday we considered the forms in the astral world brought about by the influence of man himself. Today we are coming to those beings in astral space who are more or less its permanent inhabitants.

To understand what part man takes in astral happenings, we must consider the nature of the sleeping human being. Man consists, as we know, of four members: physical body, etheric body, astral body and ego. When he sleeps, the astral body with the ego is outside the human sheath. Such a person wanders about in astral space. As a rule he does not move far away from the physical and etheric bodies which remain lying in the bed. The two other members, the astral body and the ego, are then in astral space.

Now when the physical and etheric bodies remain on the physical plane we must certainly not imagine that because of this only physical forces have an influence on them and only physical beings have access to them. Everything that exists as thoughts and mental images has an influence on the etheric body. When someone sleeps the etheric body remains on the physical plane. If, in the vicinity of a sleeping person, we think about something, we exercise an influence on his etheric body; only nothing of this will be experienced by the sleeper. When awake, the human being is so taken up with the outer world that he represses all the thoughts which penetrate into the etheric body. But in the night the etheric body is alone, without the ego, and is exposed to all the thoughts flying hither and thither around him, without the sleeper knowing anything about it. During waking life also he knows nothing of this, because the astral body, which dwells in the etheric body, is engaged with the outer world. When man is in a sleeping condition, any being having the power to send out thoughts, can gain an influence over him. He can therefore be influenced by higher individualities, such as those we call Masters. They can send thoughts into the etheric body of the sleeper. Someone can therefore receive into his etheric body pure and lofty thoughts when the Masters consciously wish to make this their concern. But in the night thoughts that flit into it from the outer world also enter into the etheric body. These man finds when in the morning he slips again into his etheric body. There are two kinds of dreams. The one kind arises directly from the experiences of the astral world: from echoes of day experiences and certain things from the astral world. As a rule the ego at night in astral space experiences little else than things connected with daily life. When the ego returns, it may or may not bring with it into waking life the experiences of the astral world. Certain things are however already present in the etheric body. What is found there is taken up by the astral body and then manifests itself to us as dreams. What however has taken place during the night in regard to the etheric body is another kind of experience. Thus in the morning there are to be found in the etheric body, firstly thoughts which have approached it from the environment and secondly thoughts also which the Masters or other individualities have implanted into it. The introduction of these latter is made possible by the person in question meditating. In that someone occupies himself during the daytime with pure, noble thoughts dealing with eternal things, he brings into his astral body the disposition for such thoughts. Should he not have this disposition, it would be useless were a Master to wish to work upon his etheric body. If one reads 'Light on the Path' [55] and meditates upon it, one prepares the astral body in such a way that when the Master imbues the etheric body with lofty thoughts the astral body can actually contact them. This is called the relationship of man to his higher self. Such is the true nature of this process. The higher self of man does not live within us, but around us. The more highly developed individualities are the higher self. Man must be clear that the higher self is outside him. Were he to seek for it within himself, he would never find it. He must seek it with those who have already trodden the path that we wish to tread. Within us is nothing except our karma, what we have already experienced in earlier incarnations. Everything else is outside us. The higher self is around us. If, in preparation for the future, we wish to approach it more closely, we must seek it above all in the company of those individualities who can work during the night on our etheric body. The higher self is in the universe; therefore the Vedantist says: 'Tat twam asi' — That art thou. If through appropriate writings, such as Light on the Path or the Gospel of St. John, we incline the astral body to take in lofty spiritual nourishment and thus to understand the Masters, we are thereby working in a good way towards what will lead to the higher self.

In the night therefore we find in astral space the sleeping bodies, or the pupils with their Masters, in so far as someone who has formed a tie which unites him with the Master, through an appropriate meditation, is led towards him. This is what can happen during the night. It is possible for everyone by immersing himself in inspired writings to reach the point of taking part in such intercourse and through this to attain to the development of his higher self. What in the course of some thousands of years will become our self is now the higher self. In order however really to get to know the higher self we must seek for it where it already is today, with the higher individualities. This is the communication of the pupils with the Masters.

Something else that we can meet with in astral space is the black magician with his pupils. In order to train himself to become a black magician, the pupil has to go through a special schooling. The training in black magic consists in a person becoming accustomed, under methodical instruction, to torture, to cut, to kill animals. This is the ABC. When the human being consciously tortures living creatures it has a definite result. The pain caused in this way, when it is brought about intentionally, produces a quite definite effect on the human astral body. When a person cuts consciously into a particular organ this induces in him an increase in power.

Now the basic principle of all white magic is that no power can be gained without selfless devotion. When through such devotion power is gained, it flows from the common life force of the universe. If however we take its life-energy from some particular being, we steal this life-energy. Because it belonged to a separate being it densifies and strengthens the element of separateness in the person who has appropriated it, and this intensification of separateness makes him suited to becoming the pupil of those who are engaged in conflict with the good powers.

For our earth is a battlefield; it is the scene of two opposing powers: right and left. The one, the white power on the right, after the earth has reached a certain degree of material, physical density, strives to spiritualise it once again. The other power, the left or black power, strives to make the earth ever denser and denser, like the moon. Thus, after a period of time, the earth could become the physical expression for the good powers, or the physical expression for the evil. It becomes the physical expression for the good powers through man uniting himself with the spirits working for unification, in that he seeks the ego in the community. It belongs to the function of the earth to differentiate itself physically to an ever greater degree. Now it is possible for the separate parts to go their own way, for each part to form an ego. This is the black path. The white path is the one which strives for what is common, which forms an ego in community. Were we to burrow more and more deeply into ourselves, to sink ourselves into our own ego organisation, to desire always more and more for ourselves, the final result would be that we should strive to separate ourselves from one another. If on the other hand we draw closer, so that a common spirit inspires us, so that a centre is formed between us, in our midst, then we are drawn together, then we are united. To be a black magician means to develop more and more the spirit of separateness. There are black adepts who are on the way to acquire certain forces of the earth for themselves. Were the circle of their pupils to become so strong that this should prove possible, then the earth would be on the path leading to destruction.

Man is called upon to enter into the atmosphere of the good Masters to an ever greater degree. Near the adept with his pupils, there is also on the astral plane the black magician with his pupils. One also finds there human beings who have died some time previously and they are there for the purpose of gradually getting rid of the connections they have had with the earth. The satisfaction of desires must be put aside. Such desires are a process in the astral body, but the astral body cannot satisfy them. As long as one lives on the physical plane one can satisfy the desires of the astral body through the instrument of the physical body. After death the desire for enjoyment is still there, but the means for its satisfaction are not to be found. Everything that can only be satisfied through the physical body must be relinquished. This takes place in Kamaloka. When man has put aside all such desires, Kamaloka is at an end and is followed by the time in Devachan.

When Kamaloka time comes to an end something can occur which is not quite normal in human development. In the normal way the following happens: the person has freed himself from desires, wishes, instincts, passions and so on. Now everything which is of a higher nature lifts itself out of the astral body. Then a sort of shell remains behind, the residue of what man made use of in order to enjoy the pleasures of the senses. And when someone has left the Kamaloka plane, these astral human shells float around there. They gradually dissolve, and when the person returns most of them have usually disappeared. It may well happen that strongly somnambulistic or mediumistic natures can be troubled by these astral shells. This shows itself in the case of weak mediumistic people in a way that makes a very unpleasant impression on them. It can come about that in his ego someone may have such a strong inclination for the astral body, in spite of the fact that on the other hand he is already so far developed as to be comparatively soon ready for devachan, that parts of his already developed Manas remain united with this shell. It is not so bad if someone develops lower desires when he is still a simple person, but it is a bad thing if someone uses his highly evolved intellect to gratify those desires. Then part of his manasic nature unites with these lower desires. In the materialistic age this is extremely frequent. With such people part of Manas remains united with the shell, and then this shell has automatic intellect. These shells are called shades. These shades endowed with automatic intellect are very frequently what manifest through mediums. Through this, one can be exposed to the illusion that what is merely the shell of a person is his real individuality. Very often what is made known after the death of a person proceeds from such a shell that has nothing whatever to do with the ego which is developing further. But with the dissolving of the shades, karma is not absolved.

We take with us the cause of every counter-image that we have brought about in astral space. Our works follow us. Just as a monogram is imprinted into a seal, so it is with what we imprint into astral space and it can bring about devastating effects. What corresponds to the seal we take with us. What remains behind however in astral space we should not disregard. Let us imagine that in this life someone were to evolve beyond a certain clearly defined stage of development. At the earlier stage he held opinions which those he held later contradicted. When he ascends into devachan the old opinions, with which he had not come to satisfactory terms, remain behind in the shell. Now if a medium comes into contact with this shell, it can be that opinions are found in it which are in contradiction with the later life of this person. This was actually the case when the attempt was made to get into touch with Helena Petrovna Blavatsky on the astral plane. At one time her attitude had been that there was no such thing as reincarnation. The medium in question [56] had obtained this opinion from the shell that Blavatsky had left behind, an opinion which however in her later teachings she declared was erroneous.

Innumerable errors can assail anyone who enters astral space. Besides everything else, there is on the astral plane an imprint of the Akasha-Chronicle. If someone has the faculty of reading, on the astral plane, the Akasha-Chronicle, which is there reflected in its single parts, he will be able to see his earlier incarnations. The Akasha-Chronicle does not consist of printed letters, but one reads there what has actually taken place. Even after one thousand five hundred years, an Akasha-picture gives the impression of the earlier personality. Thus on the astral plane there are also to be found all the Akasha-pictures from earlier times. So one can easily fall into the error of believing that one is speaking to Dante, whereas today Dante might actually be reincarnated as a living personality. It is also possible for the Akasha-picture to give sensible answers, even to go beyond itself. It can therefore come about that we get verses from Dante's Akasha picture which do not proceed from the progressed individuality but must be looked upon as a continuation of verses coming from the previous personality of Dante. The Akasha picture is something living, by no means a rigid automaton.

In order to be able to find one's way on the astral plane a severe and systematic schooling is necessary, because there is always the possibility of deception. And it is especially important to refrain from forming judgements as long as possible.

Let us now turn our minds to the process of dying, in order to understand the technique of reincarnation. The moment of death consists in the separation of the etheric and physical bodies. The difference between falling asleep and dying is that when one falls asleep, the etheric body remains connected with the physical body. All one's thoughts and experiences are imprinted into the etheric body. They are deeply embedded in it. Man would be able to remember much more of his experiences if it were not that they are continually obliterated by the outer world. He is not always aware of his thoughts and impressions because his attention is directed outwards. If he ceases to do this, he perceives what is stored up in his etheric body. In the main, he directs his attention outwards and absorbs the impressions into his etheric body. These however he partially forgets. When at the moment of death the physical body is laid aside, he perceives what is stored up in his etheric body. This is what happens after his ego has separated from the physical body together with the astral and etheric bodies. Immediately after death therefore opportunity is given for complete recollection of the past life.

Now we must try to understand another and similar moment, namely the moment of birth, when the human being enters into a new incarnation. Here something different occurs. He brings with him all that he has worked over on the Devachan plane. Like bells, the astral bodies, desirous of incarnation, whirl towards the life-ether and now form a new etheric body. When the human being has united himself with his future etheric body, a momentary vision arises just as previously, at death, he looked back on his past life. This however expresses itself in quite another way, as a gazing into the future, a fore-knowledge. In the case of children with somewhat psychic tendencies, one can sometimes hear them tell of such things, in their earliest years, so long as the materialistic culture has not yet affected them. This is prevision of the coming existence.

These are two vital moments, for they show us what the human being brings with him when he descends in order to incarnate. When he has died, the essential thing is memory. When he reincarnates what is essential is a vision of the future. These two are related to one another as cause and effect. Everything that man experiences in the last moment of dying is the gathering together of all previous lives. In Devachan this is transformed from what is connected with the past into what is connected with the future. These two moments can form an important signpost pointing to quite definite connections in two or more succeeding incarnations.

Lecture 21

Berlin, 19th October 1905

In order to form an exact concept in regard to the technique of reincarnation, we must, to begin with, make ourselves acquainted with an idea that has significance for the whole world-conception; that is, the law of effect and counter-effect. Each single effect calls forth its counter-effect.

This can be perceived in a crude way, as when, for instance I strike someone and he strikes back, so that a blow is followed by a counter-blow. We can observe this law in action in the whole of Nature. In Newton's writings this is stated in many places. It also holds good in the sphere of occultism. The counter-effect is not always perceptible, but it is for example clearly perceptible if you make a dent in a rubber ball. The stronger the pressure, so much the stronger is the re-action.

When in Nature an effect like heat arises this heat must be withdrawn from some other part of the surroundings; there cold arises as counter-effect.

This law of effect and counter-effect however also holds good for the entire spiritual world and it is of the utmost importance to know this if one wishes to understand reincarnation and karma. Action finds its expression on the physical plane. A feeling does not show itself directly on the physical plane. When I am connected with someone in friendship we can be separated physically, so that we cannot make our feeling known outwardly by means of an action and yet we can feel affection for one another. A feeling can have its direct effect on the astral plane. It is only when feeling passes over into action that it finds its expression on the physical plane. We must bear this difference in mind. We must be perfectly clear about the fact that every single action that takes place on the physical plane has its effect somewhere and also its counter-effect. Through the action an alteration is always brought about on the physical plane.

If we wish to comprehend the world in a deeper way, we should not limit ourselves solely to what we can see. Underlying all physical things there are forces which bring them into being. If, for example, we study the structure of a crystal we can observe its form, its colour; but connected with it are forces that build it up. These forces cannot be perceived on the physical plane, but they must also be there first. These forces which create the forms on the physical plane, that work there in a formative way, are not themselves on the physical plane.

When we try to think meditatively into a crystal, for example into an octagonal crystal, allowing it to enter deeply into our soul, adapting ourselves inwardly to its form, perhaps allowing its form to work upon us for an hour, and then succeed in suggesting it away, then one reaches the Arupa plane ... [Gap in text ...] Thus when we let some kind of crystal, for instance a rock crystal, work upon us, retaining its forms in the disposition of our soul and finally allowing them to disappear, then one is on the Arupa plane. In this way we actually experience that the forces which build up the crystal are on the Arupa plane.

All forces underlying the phenomena of the physical plane are to be found on the Arupa plane. It is true that through such observations no ideas can be gained which are directly related to human life. It is actually very difficult to transpose ourselves on to the Arupa plane by observing human actions, with the exception of the actions of an adept. But we gain very much when, taking our start from the purely physical, we undertake such a procedure as that of sinking oneself into a crystal; because in the crystal lies a great purity. In it there are no instincts and desires.

This ideal which man should attain in the distant future appears in its full purity when we sink ourselves into the silent mineral kingdom. A silent, unobtrusive, passionless stone possesses for occultists an extraordinary magical power. Even in the plant world one cannot make that silent, modest purity such an object of our contemplation's as one can in this oldest kingdom.

Now, as on the physical plane forces are at work that are actually present on the Arupa plane, so in the physical world we always have to take into consideration a revealed side, the phenomena, and a hidden side, the forces. When we are active on the physical plane, in the first place we bring about phenomena, but every action does in fact reach up also into the Arupa plane and has there its counter-action. Deeds on the physical plane impress themselves into the Arupa plane, like a monogram into a seal and there remain. The substance of the Arupa plane is delicate, soft and enduring; it is Akasha and human actions remain inscribed there.

We now come to all manifestations of the human being which contain feelings. All the feelings which man expresses have their counter-effect, just as deeds have, only the feelings do not reach up to the Arupa plane, but find their counter-effect in the lower parts of Devachan, on the Rupa plane.

Actually this is brought about by a certain contemplation of Nature. When we concentrate on a plant in the same way as on a crystal we must dwell much longer with our mental imagery on the plant, for we must not only let the form work upon us, but also its inner mobility, its life. In this way we can also bring about definite experiences, only this takes longer than in the case of the mineral. One must look at the plant every day in its process of growth. When we first allow the tiny plant to work upon us and observe its growth meditatively until it has sent forth blossoms and fruits, then allow this to continue working on us, extinguishing its sensible form — one can practise this for decades — then what the plant has released in us as soul forces transposes us into the lower regions of Devachan.

Now we must ask ourselves; what force is active in the plants, conditioning life. If we were able to creep into a plant, live within it, growing with its growth, if we were able to become selfless enough to creep into the plant world, then we should learn to know from outside what inwardly we know well, that is, human feeling; pleasure and pain, sorrow and joy, and so on. [ Notes differ and are not clear at this point [57]] If we were able to put our pleasure outside ourselves, we should be able, through the pleasure, to grow pure mineral substances. Through this force certain yogis find it possible to influence the growth of plants; they have however practised these observations and meditations for many years, indeed through many incarnations.

Feeling has its counter-image on the Lower Devachanic plane. Man has no influence on the plants if he has not developed the forces of Yoga, but on our fellow human beings we can work in a living way through warm feeling. An educator of children can observe this. If during a lesson we approach the child with warm interest, we know what a life-giving power feeling has. In other ways too we can observe the effect of feeling in the world. There, where a beginning may be made in influencing growth, demands are also made upon feeling. Through art a beginning is made with what affects the growth of human beings. The artist has within himself at any rate the beginning of what is an organising force; in any case an artist of distinction as, for instance, the creator of the Zeus head. It is artistic creation in connection with human feelings which, if more intensively developed, would make it possible to influence the growth of plants. Theosophy should provide once more an impulse leading to an understanding of all that is truly artistic, where this is conceived in its world-cultural aspect in the purest, noblest sense.

Every combination of matter on the physical plane lacks an etheric body, but all that grows has an etheric body. If someone works artistically either in a visual or plastic[*] way, this has an effect on the etheric body. An artistically formed piece of sculpture or a painting works directly on the etheric body. A virtue, on the other hand, works on the astral body. Many noble human beings who return from Devachan meet an etheric body which is in no way suited to their advanced astral body, because they have done nothing in the way of organised activity in the sphere of beauty. It therefore happens that many people who in their last incarnation lived very holy lives, but without concerning themselves with what is noble in the outer world of the senses, when approaching reincarnation experience a fear of re-birth, because they have not ennobled their etheric body through that beauty which is dependent on the senses.

This very frequently brings about an apprehension before incarnation and in an extreme case, rebirth as an idiot. When a person during his life as an idiot experiences all that is detrimental in his etheric body, this is balanced out in the following incarnation. Because the human being at the moment of incarnation, of birth, receives a shock if he has not ennobled his etheric body through allowing beauty which is dependent on the senses to work upon it, Freemasonry took beauty as its second principle. Wisdom, Beauty and Power or Strength are the three constructive forces; these have to be developed. Anyone possessing all three will in his next incarnation become a human being who fits harmoniously into his three bodies.

These things lay upon us the duty of re-introducing artistic activity into theosophical life. This is even now being taken up into the stream of the Theosophical Movement. The teachings as such had at first to work upon the astral body. Now feeling should also influence the etheric body. Great teachings are not only embodied in words, but in buildings, paintings and sculpture. If we were to have a world around us, built up in a style in keeping with the great Theosophical Movement, then we should have done much. Christianity is not only given as doctrine, but was painted by Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and also built into the Gothic cathedrals. Then the musical element emerged, which was absorbed by Christianity after it had become inwardly deepened.

After the world of feelings, we ascend into the world of thought. When someone grasps a pure thought he comes into a situation which is different from those brought about through his feelings and actions. For whoever grasps a pure thought conjures up also through this thought a counter-effect. Europeans have such pure thoughts very seldom, for the thoughts are generally clouded by instincts, desires and passions. There is usually only one area where they have pure thoughts, that is in mathematics. When people calculate, their passions are usually very little involved. Because the majority of people everywhere wish to exercise their feeling and critical faculty they have no love for mathematics. Here one cannot vote in parliamentary fashion. Mathematical truth is recognised by man through truth itself; a problem can only have one solution. Whether one or a million people hold their own view about it, the problem must find the same solution. Nowhere should we need majority decisions, if it were possible in all spheres to make decisions in a way as free from emotion, as objectively, as in mathematics. In Europe one can only point to this as to an ideal, in the hope that one day, in other spheres of life, judgements will be, reached equally objectively and free from emotion.

Thinkers would not disagree so violently if they would take all the factors into consideration completely objectively, for truth cannot approach man in different ways. People hold different opinions because with their instincts and passions they are involved in their ideas in different ways. Haeckel had different instincts from Wasman; this is why they reach different conclusions. No philosophy dealing with human matters was expressed so objectively, with such pure mathematical thinking, as the Vedanta philosophy which is truly philosophical in the highest sense of the word. Whoever imbues himself with this, knows what the following means: 'I need no other person in order to know whether something is true.' Whoever actually raises himself to this clear, passionless thinking, needs no other opinion.

Heraclitus and Hegel had freed themselves from their emotions to a greater degree than du Bois-Reymond, Herbert Spencer and Haeckel; they stand therefore at a higher level. There are different standpoints and conclusions, but not contradictory truths. Haeckel's truth crawls on the ground; the Vedanta wisdom ascends in passionless purity and surveys things from those heights. It does not contradict materialism, but has a higher standpoint. Goethe, in his 'Metamorphoses of Plants', [58] tries to create a form as unemotional as that created by the mathematician. Through this he wished to create emotionally free thoughts and introduce the spirit of mathematics into higher regions. Only some degree of Yoga, some degree of purification of emotion, can make comprehensible what Goethe intends with his botany.

Because in this sense thought is something holy, with his thoughts man is on the Devachanic plane. The European is practically never on the Devachanic plane except when he is thinking mathematically. Certain kinds of artistic creation also rise up to the Devachanic plane. When Goethe attains to the highest heights as an artist he is only understood with great difficulty. In 'Iphigenia' and 'Tasso' he tried to introduce these passion-free thoughts; still more so in the drama 'Die natürliche Tochter'. These dramas in particular have had a powerful effect on human beings who were strong and forceful. Such people shed tears over 'Die natürliche Tochter.'

The counter-effect of thought which is on the Devachanic Plane is to be found on the Astral Plane. These thoughts work downwards on to the astral plane; other things work upwards. In the case of Fichte for instance the thought content in 'Die natürliche Tochter' worked on the astral plane, on his feeling, and reduced him to tears. This was the counter-effect of thought. Certain people were moved to the depths of their being through the influence of such pure thoughts. The counter-effect of action and feeling goes upwards; here it descends.

Even though thoughts seldom show themselves as such pure thoughts they are nevertheless always present as driving forces. Although different opinions give rise to much wrangling, the thoughts are there. If one is to live in thought on the Devachanic Plane, one must grasp thought in such a way that one develops feeling for the thought. Most people are in agreement with the first theosophical principle, [59] in so far as it is a thought. If one asks if he is also a representative of this in feeling, one would come to a different conclusion. Only when an opinion for which one stands is brought down to the astral plane, when it has become completely imbued with feeling, only then does the opinion become really effective. It is the aim of the Theosophical Movement to develop human beings so that they also bring life and feeling into what is inherent in its principles.

So let us recapitulate. The effect of all our outer actions is to be found on the Arupa Plane. In a life between birth and death we leave behind a whole skeleton of effects. From all that we have felt in life we leave the imprint on the Rupa Plane. From all that we have thought, an imprint is present on the Astral Plane. After death we go at first through Kamaloka and then reach the Rupa Plane. We come there when we have not yet had many such Devachanic thoughts. If we were to have only such thoughts we should already have become Chelas, occult pupils; then we should have the Devachanic Plane completely within us.

The Chela can remain on the astral plane; he is able to renounce Devachan because through his pure thoughts he has so clarified and strengthened his astral body that he can continue to make use of it. With us everything is dissolved in Kamaloka which has not yet been worked upon and ennobled by the ego. With savages the greater part is dissolved, with highly developed people the smallest. The ennobled astral body is taken with us into Devachan. Everything we have developed as our feeling life prepares us for a new life, works upon us. When we have united ourselves with all our deeds we are impelled towards our next incarnation. The part of the ego that has been made eternal, the I and the ennobled astral body, now returns and in the astral world unites itself again with a body that corresponds to what has not yet been ennobled. The preparation for union with an unfamiliar astral body is undertaken in Devachan. Then the etheric is added as a member. As a result of this arises the pre-vision of everything that awaits the human being. Just as when forsaking the physical body, memory awakens in the etheric and astral bodies of the immediate past and back to the time of birth, so now we have a preview of what is to come. Here something quite specific can occur: one can receive a shock which brings about idiocy. With a further descent the physical body is added.

Because thoughts are active only on the astral plane they are karmically the most intimate. They are creative through their own nature. Hence the saying holds good: What you think today you are to-morrow: The purer and more super-sensible the thought, the more one works creatively upon one's character.

Destiny is formed through yet other factors: feelings fashion the opportunities, actions fashion the form.

Manifestation

Forces

Physical Plane

– Actions

Arupa Plane

Astral Plane

– Feelings

Rupa Plane

Devachan Plane

– Thoughts

Astral Plane

Lecture 22

Berlin, 24th October 1905

As a continuation of the lecture on Karma and Reincarnation, let us select for special consideration the problem of death in its connection with the whole subject.

The question: Why does man die? continually claims the attention of mankind. But it is not quite easy to answer, for what we today call dying is directly connected with the fact that we stand at a quite definite stage of our development. We know that we live in three worlds, in the physical, astral and mental worlds and that our existence changes between these three worlds. We have within us an inner kernel of being which we call the Monad. We retain this kernel throughout the three worlds. It lives within us in the physical world, but also in the astral and devachanic worlds. This inner kernel, however, is always clad in a different garment. In the physical, astral and devachanic worlds the garment of our kernel-of-being is different.

Now we will first look away from death and picture the human being in the physical world clothed with a particular kind of matter. He then enters the astral and devachanic worlds always with a different garment. Let us now assume that the human being were conscious in all three worlds, so that he could perceive the things around him. Without senses and perception he would be unable to live consciously even in the physical world. If man today were equally conscious in all three worlds there would be no death, then there would only be transformation. Then he would pass over consciously from one world into the other. This passing over would be no death for him, and for those left behind at most something like a journey. At present things are so that man only gradually gains continuity of consciousness in these three worlds. At first he experiences it to be a darkening of his consciousness when he enters the other worlds from the physical world. The beings who retain consciousness do not know death. Let us now come to an understanding of the way in which man has reached the stage of having his present day physical consciousness and of how he will attain another consciousness.

We must learn to know man as a duality: as the Monad and what clothes the Monad. We ask: How has the one and how has the other arisen? Where did the astral man live before he became what he is today and where did the Monad live? Both have gone through different stages of development, both have gradually reached the point of being able to unite.

In considering the physical-astral human being we are taken back into very distant times, when he was only present as an astral archetype, as an astral form. The astral man who was originally present was a formation unlike the present astral body, a much more comprehensive being. We can picture the astral body of those times by thinking of the earth as a great astral ball made up of astral human beings. All the Nature forces and beings which surround us today were at that time still within man, who lived dissolved in astral existence. All plants, animals and so on, the animal instincts and passions, were still within him. What the lion, and all the mammals, have within them today, was at that time completely intermingled with the human astral body, which then contained within it all the beings at present spread over the earth. The astral earth consisted of human astral bodies joined together like a great blackberry and enclosed by a spiritual atmosphere in which there lived devachanic beings.

This atmosphere — astral air one might call it — which at that time surrounded the astral earth was composed of a somewhat thinner substance than the astral bodies of human beings. In this astral air lived spiritual beings — both lower and higher — among others the human Monads also, completely separated from the human astral bodies. This was the condition of the earth at that time. The Monads, which were already present in the astral air, could not unite with the astral bodies, for these were still too wild. The instincts and passions had first to be ejected. Thus through the throwing off of certain substances and forces possessed by the astral body, the latter gradually developed in a purer form. What had been thrown off however remained as separated astral forms, beings with a much denser astral body, with wilder instincts, impulses and passions.

Thus there now existed two astral bodies: a less wild human astral body and an astral body that was very wild and opaque. Let us keep these strictly apart, the human astral body and what lived around it. The human astral body becomes ever finer and nobler, always throwing off those parts of itself it needed to expel, and these became ever denser and denser. In this way, when they eventually reached physical density, the other kingdoms arose: the animal, plant and mineral kingdoms. Certain instincts and forces expelled in this way appeared as the different animal species.

So a continual purification of the astral body took place and this brought about on earth a necessary result. For through the fact that in consequence of this purification, what man once had within him he now had outside him, he entered into relationship with these beings, and what formerly he had had within him, now worked into him from outside. That is an eternal process which holds good also for the separation of the sexes, which from that time on affect each other from outside. To begin with, the whole world was interwoven with us; only later did it work upon us from outside. The original symbol for this coming back into oneself from the other side is the snake biting its tail.

In the purified astral body pictures arise now of the world surrounding it. Let us assume that a human being had perhaps separated off ten different forms, which are now around him. Previously they were within him and later he is surrounded by them. Now mirrored pictures arise in the purified astral body of the forms existing in the outer world. These mirrored pictures become a new force within him, they are active within him, transforming the nobler, purified astral body. For instance, it has rejected from itself the wilder instincts; these are now outside it as pictures and work upon it as formative force. The astral body is built up by means of the pictures of the world it has thrown off and which were earlier within it. They build up in it a new body. Formerly man had had the macrocosm within him, he then separated it off and now this formed within him the microcosm, a portion torn off from himself.

Thus at a certain stage we find the human being in a form which is given him by his surroundings. The mirrored pictures work on his astral body in such a way that they bring about in it differentiation and division. Through the mirrored pictures his astral body divided itself and he re-assembled it again out of the parts, so that he is now a membered organism. The undifferentiated astral mass has become differentiated into the different organs, the heart and so on. To begin with everything was astral and this was then enclosed by the physical human body. Thereby the human forms became more and more adapted to densification and to becoming a more complicated and comprehensive organism, which is an image of the entire environment.

What has become densest of all is the physical body; the etheric body is less dense and the astral body is the finest. They are in reality mirrored images of the outer-world, microcosm in the macrocosm. Meanwhile the astral body has become ever finer and finer, so that at a certain point of earth evolution the human being has a developed astral body. Through the fact that the astral body has become increasingly finer, it has attracted to itself the finer astral substance around it.

Meanwhile in the upper region the opposite evolutionary processes have taken place. The Monad has descended from the highest regions of Devachan into the astral region and in the course of this descent has become denser. Now the two parts approach each other. From the one side man ascends as far as the astral body, from the other side it is met by the Monad on its descent into the astral world. This was in the Lemurian Age. Thus they could mutually fructify each other. The Monad had clothed itself with devachanic substance, then again with astral airy substance. From below upwards we have the physical substance, then the etheric substance, then again astral substance. So both astral substances fructify one another and, as it were, melt into one another. What comes from above has the Monad within it. As though into a bed, it sinks itself into the astral substance.

This is how the descent of the soul takes place. But in order that it can happen the Monad must develop a thirst to know the lower regions. This thirst must be taken for granted. As Monad one can only learn to know the lower regions by incarnating in the human body and by its means looking out into the surrounding world. Man now consists of four members. Firstly he has a physical body, secondly an etheric body, thirdly an astral body and within this as fourth member of the ego, the Monad. After the four-fold organism has come into being the Monad can look through it into the environment and a relationship is established between the Monad and everything that is in the surroundings. Through this the thirst of the Monad is partially assuaged.

We have seen that the entire human body is put together, has been put together, out of parts which arose through the fact that the originally undifferentiated mass divided itself into organs, after the original astral body had thrown off various portions of itself which were then reflected back, causing images to arise within it. [Text of this portion is very incomplete and cannot be considered as literal. [60]] These reflected images became forces within the astral body and these built up the etheric body, that is to say, through these manifold images the etheric body developed separate members. This etheric body now consisted of different parts and, as a further process, each of these parts densified within itself and so the differentiated physical body developed. Every such physical kernel, out of which the organs later develop, forms at the same time a kind of central point in the ether.

The intervening spaces between the centres are filled with the main etheric mass. We must think of the body as put together out of ten parts. These ten parts (shown in the diagram) hold the body together through their relationship; they are images of the whole of the rest of Nature and everything depends on how strongly they are connected. Different degrees of relationship exist between the separate parts. As long as these are retained the body is held together; when the various relationships cease, the parts fall away; the body disintegrates. Because during Earth evolution we have manifold forms, the parts in the etheric body only hold together to a certain degree. Human nature is an image of the beings which have been thrown off. In so far as these beings lead a separate existence, the parts of the physical body also lead a separate existence. When the relationship of forces has become so slight as to be non-existent, our life comes to an end. The length of our life is conditioned by the way in which the beings around us get on with each other.

The development of the higher man proceeds in such a way that, to begin with, man works upon his astral body. He works ideals into it, enthusiasm and so on. He fights against his instincts. As soon as he replaces passions with ideals, instincts with duties, and develops enthusiasm in the place of desires, he creates harmony between the parts of his astral body. This peace-making work begins with the entrance of the Monad, and the astral body gradually approaches immortality. From that time on, the astral body no longer dies but retains continuity to the degree in which it has induced peace in itself and established peace in the face of the destructive forces. From the time when the Monad enters, it brings about peace, to begin with in the astral body. Now the instincts begin to come into mutual relationship. Harmony comes about in the former chaos and an astral form arises which survives, remains living. In the physical and etheric bodies peace is as yet not established, and only partly so in the astral body. The latter retains its form for a short time only, but the more peace is established, so much the longer is the time in Devachan.

When someone has become a Chela he begins to establish peace in the etheric body. Then the etheric body too survives. The Masters also establish peace in the physical body; thus in their case the physical body also survives. The important thing is to bring into harmony the different bodies, which consist of separate warring parts, and transmute them into bodies having immortality.

Man has formed his physical body by putting out from himself the kingdoms of Nature, which then reflected themselves back into him. Through this, the single parts came into existence within him. Now he performs actions; through these he again has intercourse with his surroundings. What he now puts out are the effects of his deeds. He projects his actions into the surrounding world and gradually becomes a reflection of these actions. The Monad has been drawn into the human body; man begins to perform actions. These actions are incorporated into the surrounding world and are reflected back. To the same degree in which the Monad begins to establish peace, it also begins to take up the reflected images of its own actions.

Here we have come to a point where we continually create a new kingdom around us — the effects of our own actions. This again builds up something within us. As previously we fashioned the undifferentiated etheric body into separate members, we build into the monadic existence the effects of our actions. We call this the creation of our Karma. Thereby we can give permanence to everything in the Monad. Earlier the astral body had purified itself by casting off everything that was in it. Now man created for himself a new kingdom of deeds, as it were out of nothing, in regard to relationships, a 'creation out of nothing'. That which previously had no existence, the new relationship, reflects itself in the Monad as something new, something having a pictorial character, and a new inner kernel of being is formed in the Monad, arising out of the reflected image of deeds, the reflection of Karma. As the work of the Monad progresses, the kernel of being becomes more and more enlarged. Let us observe the Monad after a period of time. On the one hand it will have established harmony out of the warring forces, and on the other hand out of the effects of deeds. Both unite and a unified formation arises.

Let us suppose that someone's earthly garment has been laid aside and the Monad remains. It retains the results of its deeds. The question is, how the results of the deeds are brought about. If these results have been so brought about that in the worlds in which the Monad now finds itself they can continue to be fruitful, then the human being can sojourn there for a long time; if not, for a short time only. In this case they must fall back again into the thirst of the Monad (for the physical plane) and once again inhabit a physical body.

Human life is a continual process of being enveloped in what surrounds us: Involution — Evolution. We take up image forms and according to these, shape our own body. What the Monad has brought about is again taken up by man as his Karma. Man will always be the result of his Karma. The Vedanta teaches that the different parts of the human being are dissolved and cast to the winds; what still remains of him, that is his Karma. This is the eternal which man has created out of himself, something which he himself had first to take up as image out of his environment. Man is immortal; he only needs to exert his will, he only needs to form his actions in such a way that they have a lasting existence. That part of us is immortal which we gain for ourselves from the outside world. We have come into being through the world and are beginning, through fructification with the Monad, to build up in ourselves the mirror of a new world. The Monad has quickened the mirrored images in us. Now these images can work outwards, and the effects of these images reflect themselves anew. A new inner life arises. With our actions we are continually changing our environment. Through this, new reflected images come about; these now become karma. This is a new life which springs up from within. The result of this is that in order to develop further from a definite point of time we must go out of ourselves and work selflessly in our surroundings. We must make possible this going out from ourselves in order selflessly to bring about harmonious relationships in our surroundings. This necessitates a harmonising of the reflected images in ourselves. It is our task to make the world around us a harmonious one. If we are a destructive element in the world, what is reflected into us is devastation: if we bring about harmony in the world, harmonies are reflected into us.

The highest degree of perfection which we have put out from ourselves, which we have established around us, this we shall take with us. Therefore the Rosicrucians said: Form the world in such a way that it contains within itself Wisdom, Beauty and Strength; then Wisdom, Beauty and Strength will be reflected into us. Wisdom is the reflection of Manas; Beauty, Piety, Goodness are the reflection of Buddhi; Strength is the reflection of Atma.

To begin with we develop around us a domain of Wisdom through ourselves fostering Wisdom. Then we develop a domain of Beauty in all regions. Then Wisdom becomes visible and reflects itself in us: Buddhi. Finally we bestow on the whole physical existence, Wisdom within, Beauty without.

If our will enables us to carry this through, then we have strength: Atma, the power to transpose all this into reality. Thus we establish the three kingdoms within us: Manas, Buddhi, Atma.

Not through laborious research does man progress further on the earth, but by embodying into the earth Wisdom, Beauty and Strength. Through the work of our higher Ego we transform the transient body given us by the Gods and create for ourselves immortal bodies. The Chela, who ennobles his etheric body (so that it remains in existence), gradually renounces the Maharajas. The Master, whose physical body also remains in existence, can renounce the Lipikas. He stands above Karma. This we must describe as the progress of man in his inner life. What is higher, outside ourselves, we must seek to approach. Therefore our Higher Self is not to be sought within us, but in the individualities who have ascended into loftier regions.

Lecture 23

Berlin, 25th October 1905

Let us call to mind the point of time when, in the middle of the Lemurian Race, man raised himself up to spirituality. Now for the first time fructification with the Spirit, with the Monad became possible. Gradually, out of the chaotic Earth, through what had been separated off from man, the other beings had been formed which lived on the Earth as his companions. Man had developed a physical body, an etheric body and an astral body. The astral body had become purified and was just at that time adapted to receive Manas, Buddhi, Atma.

On the Earth everything developed quite gradually, so that mankind, still without intellect or possibility of speech, arose out of the uncoordinated Earth mass. Now we ask: How did this come about? A plant too does not grow out of nothing. A seed must be planted into the Earth. This was also the case with the people who were there at that time. The human being too had grown up out of the Earth and for this a seed had to be there on the Earth. Once a similar being had already existed. This seed-man had arisen on the Old Moon. From there he passed over in the seed condition, went through a Pralaya and then appeared once more on the Earth.

The development of the Earth had three preliminary stages: (Old Saturn, Sun and Moon). In the first three Earth Rounds these stages had a short recapitulation. In the First Earth Epoch the Saturn existence was repeated, in the Second Epoch the Sun existence and in the Third Epoch the Moon existence. It was only in the Fourth Round that the actual Earth existence emerged and then man had reached a somewhat higher stage than on the Old Moon. There he had not yet reached separate development, he had not yet become sufficiently purified to receive the Monad. On the Moon the astral body was still wild and passionate. On the Earth he had still to purify himself in order to be able to receive the higher principles. This purification was completed in the middle of the Lemurian Age.

The last human beings during the Old Moon existence are our physical forefathers. On the Earth they now developed somewhat further. The Earth-men of the pre-Lemurian Age are the actual descendants of the inhabitants of the Moon. This is why we call the inhabitants of the Moon the Fathers or Pitris of Earth-Men. These Earth-Men were as yet unable to use their front limbs for work. They were of animal-like form having a certain great beauty. Their substance was much softer than the physical matter of today: it was very much softer than what we now find with the lower animals. They were irradiated and an inner fire shone through them. When human beings were going through an earlier stage of evolution, they were still more beautiful and nobler in their form.

During the Age which preceded the Lemurian Age, we have the Hyperborean Age on the Earth, that of the Sun Men, of the Apollo-Men. They were formed out of a still nobler and even more delicate substance. Then we go still further back to the very first Race, to the Polarian men. At that time they lived in the tropical polar climate, a Race which was able to attain to special heights through the fact that a remarkable and great help had been granted them. The most beautiful of the Moon Pitris descended to the Earth. The Polarian human beings were very similar to four-footed animals, but they were formed out of a soft, pliant substance similar to a jellyfish, but much warmer. The human beings with the best forms, consisting of the noblest components, received at that time help of a special nature, for beings were still connected with the Earth who had earlier reached a higher stage.

All esotericism recognises that the Sun was first a planet; it only later became a fixed star. The sequence of stages that the Earth has passed through is: Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon, Earth. When the Sun was itself a planet, then everything which is now on the Moon and Earth was still in the Sun. Later Sun and Moon separated themselves from the Earth.

Let us think back to the time of the Old Sun. Then everything which now lives on the Earth, dwelt on the Sun. The beings were then quite differently formed, having only a physical body, much less dense than it is now, and an etheric body. Man's whole way of life was plant-like. The beings lived in the light of the Sun. Light came to them from the centre of their own planet. They were totally different from present-day man. In comparison with present-day man the Sun-man stood upside down and the Sun shone upon his head. Everything connected with reproduction developed freely on the other side. Man at that time stretched his legs, so to say, into the air. The plant has remained at this stage, its roots are in the earth and it stretches its organs of reproduction, stamens and pistil, into the air (plant). This Sun-man developed in seven different stages. His direction on the planet is the same as the growth of the plant on the Earth. Then, with the third incarnation of the Earth he became a Moon-man. He bent over, the vertical becoming the horizontal (animal). The tendency towards a spine developed. The symbol for this is the Tau = T. On the Earth he turns completely round. For this the symbol is the Cross. The symbolism of the Cross depicts the development from the Sun, through the Moon to the Earth. On the Earth the symbol of the Cross was attained by the addition of the upper vertical member above the T. This developed further in the bearing of the Cross on the shoulders.

The Sun-men too had attained a certain high development. There were also Sun Adepts, who had progressed further than the other Sun-men. They passed over to the Moon. There also they had the possibility of being on a higher level than the Moon-men, and they developed to quite special heights. They were the forefathers of the Earth-men, but had hastened much further ahead. When now in the second Epoch of the Fourth Round the Hyperboreans lived in their soft forms, these Sons of the Sun were in position to incarnate and they formed a particularly beautiful Race. They were the Solar Pitris. Already in the Hyperborean Epoch they created for themselves an upright form, completely transforming the Hyperborean bodies. This the other human beings were unable to do. In the Hyperborean Epoch the Solar Pitris became the beautiful Apollo-men, who in the Second Race had already attained the upright posture.

In the Old Sun everything was contained which was later extrapolated as Moon and Earth. All life and all warmth streamed up from the centre of the Sun. Then, in the next Manvantara (the Old Moon) the following took place: Out of the darkness of Pralaya the Sun emerged. A part of the Sun substance had the urge to detach itself. At first a kind of biscuit formation developed.

Then the one part severed itself completely and the two bodies continued side by side as Sun and Old Moon. The Sun retained the possibility of emitting light and warmth. The Old Moon retained the power of reproduction. It was able to bring forth again the beings who had been on the Sun, but they had to be dependent on the Sun for light and warmth. Because the Old Moon itself possessed no light, the beings had to orientate themselves towards the Sun. All plants therefore completely reversed their position on the Old Moon. The animals turned half round and human beings also only turned halfway; but to compensate for this they received on the Moon the astral body, Kama, and thereby, developed warmth from within outwards.

The Kama was at that time still an essentially warming force. This is why the human beings did not already then turn themselves completely towards the Sun. Life was in the darkness. The Old Moon also circled round the Sun, but not as our Earth does today. The Moon rotated around the Sun, in such a way that only one side was turned towards it. A Moon-day therefore lasted as long as a half year does today. Thus on the one side there was an intense heat and on the other side an intense cold.

On the Old Moon the predecessors of man again went through a certain normal development. But there were also Moon Adepts who hastened on in advance of the rest of mankind. At the end of the Old Moon evolution these Pitri beings were much more advanced than the rest of humanity, just as the Adepts are today.

Now for the first time we reach the actual Earth evolution. In the next Pralaya which followed the Moon evolution, the Moon fell back into the Sun. As one body they went through Pralaya. When the Earth eventually emerged out of the darkness the whole Sun-mass was united with it. In that epoch the first or Polarian Race began. Then the previous Sun-Men, in accordance with conditions at that time, were able to form this specially favoured species, the Sons of the Sun, because the Sun was still united with the Earth.

During the Hyperborean Period the whole again divided. One part severed itself and the Earth emerged out of the Sun. It is at this point that the Kant-Laplace theory is relevant. The earth was in a nebulous condition coinciding with the Kant-Laplace theory. The outer appearance seemed like the rings around Saturn. Now the second or Hyperborean Race evolved. Gradually the seeds of the Moon-Men appeared on the Earth, the Pitris in various degrees of perfection. They all still had the possibility of reproducing themselves through self-fertilisation.

A second severance followed. With the Moon everything connected with self-reproduction departed from the Earth, so that there were now three bodies: Sun, Earth, Moon. Then the possibility of self-fertilisation ceased; the Moon had drawn out what made this possible. Then the Moon was outside and there were beings who were no longer able to reproduce themselves; thus in the Lemurian Age the two sexes originated.

Such forms of evolution take their course only under the special guidance of higher beings, the Devas, in order to further evolution in a certain way. The leader of this whole progression is the God who in the Hebraic tradition is called Jahve; Jehovah. He was a Moon-God. He possessed in the highest sense of the word, the power that had developed on the Moon and accordingly he endeavoured to develop mankind further in this direction. In the earthly world Jahve represents that God who endows beings with the possibility of physical reproduction. Everything else (intellect) did not lie in the Jahve-Intention. If Jahve's intention alone had continued to develop, the human being would eventually have ceased to be able to reproduce himself, for the power of reproduction would have become exhausted. He would then only have been concerned with the creation of beautiful forms, for he was indifferent to what is inward, intellectual. Jehovah wished to produce beautifully formed human beings, like beautiful statues. His intention was that the power of reproduction should be continued until it had expended itself. He wanted to have a planet that only bore upon it beautiful but completely motionless forms. If the Earth had continued its evolution with the Moon within it, it would have developed into a completely rigid, frozen form. Jehovah would have immortalised his planet as a monument to his intention. This would doubtless have come about had not those Adepts, who had hastened beyond the Moon evolution now come forward. It was just at this time that they made their appearance. They had already developed on the Moon intelligence and the Spirit which we first developed on the Earth. They now took the rest of humanity into their charge and rescued them from the fate which otherwise would have befallen them. A new spark was kindled in the human astral body. Just at that time they gave to the human astral body the impetus to develop beyond this critical point. Jahve could now save the situation only by altering his manner of working. He created man and woman. What could no longer be contained in one sex was divided between the two sexes.

Two streams now existed, that of Jahve and that of the Moon Adepts. The interest of the Moon Adepts lay in spiritualising mankind. Jahve, however, wished to make of them beautiful statues. At that time these two powers contested with one another.

Thus on the Earth we have to do with a force having the power of self-reproduction; Kriya-shakti. This power is only present on the Earth today in the very highest Mysteries. At that time everyone possessed it. Through this power man could reproduce himself; he then became divided into two halves with the result that two sexes came into being on the Earth.

Jehovah withdrew the entire power of self-reproduction from the Earth and placed it in the Moon side by side with the Earth. Through this arose the connection between the power of reproduction and the Moon beings. Now we have human beings with a weakened power of reproduction, but not yet having the possibility of spiritualising themselves. These were the predecessors of present-day man. The Moon Adepts came to them and said: You must not follow Jehovah. He will not allow you to attain to knowledge but you should. That is the Snake. The Snake approached the woman, because she had the power to produce offspring out of herself. Now Jehovah said: Man has become like unto ourselves, and brings death into the world and everything connected with it.

'Lucifer' is the name given to the Moon Adepts; they are the bestowers of human intellectuality. This they gave to the astral and physical bodies; had it been otherwise the Monads would not have been able to enter into them and the Earth would have become a planetary monument to Jehovah's greatness. By the intervention of the Luciferic principle human independence and spirituality were saved. Then Jehovah, so that man should not be completely spiritualised, divided the self-reproduction process into two parts. What would have been lost however if Jehovah had continued his work alone will reappear in the Sixth Root-Race, when man will have become so spiritualised that he will regain Kriya-shakti, the creative power of reproduction. He will be in the position to bring forth his own kind. In this way mankind was rescued from downfall.

Through Jehovah's power man carries within himself the possibility of rigidifying. When one observes the three lower bodies we find that these bear within them the possibility of returning to the physical condition of the Earth. The upper parts: Atma, Buddhi, Manas, were only able to enter into human beings because the influence of the Snake was added. This gave man new life and the power to remain with the earthly planet. Reproduction however became bisexual and thereby birth and death entered into the world. Previously this had not happened.

When man, by working out of the spirit, transmutes the physical body, he conquers death. The separate forces exhaust themselves when they take on special forms. The force enters into the form with ever increasing density and hence life in the Lemurian Age had to receive a new impulse, which was brought about by the turning around of the Earth Globe. The axis of the Earth was gradually turned. Previously there was a tropical climate at the North Pole; later through the turning around of the Earth axis the tropical climate came into the middle region. This change proceeded with comparative rapidity but lasted nevertheless for perhaps four million years. [Rudolf Steiner later revised his time scale of earthly evolution to much shorter periods. Ed.] Four million years were needed by the Moon Pitris in order to turn the axis of the Earth. At that time the Moon Pitris development was already much further on than that of present day man.

Thus at that time the two sexes developed from the unisexual human being. In the beginning among the unisexual human beings there were very retarded individuals, but also those who were very far advanced. Only a small part of the Earth was a fitting dwelling place for the descending Monads. Then it was that human beings divided into two sexes. This had taken place earlier with the animals. Side by side with human beings there existed male and female animals. Very grotesque forms were able to live on the quite differently constituted Earth. They were also able to fly. They bore within them the future promise of what human beings possess today. Esoteric religions call human beings able to bring forth their own kind Bulls. (Certain animal symbols are related to this.) The Bull is a symbol of fertility; previously came the Lion, the symbol of courage, and before this the Eagle. In the vision of Ezekiel, [61] referring to those earlier times, the animals have wings because they could raise themselves above the earth. Man only appeared later.

Thus we have the human being as he evolved from the unisexual into the bisexual state, and together with him bisexual animals, male and female. It was only through the Lunar Pitris that man became mature enough to have a body capable of receiving the Monads. The latter however selected only the most highly developed examples and evolved a noble human form; only these had to be withdrawn completely from intercourse with anything around them, otherwise the beautiful bodies would have been lost. It was only then that the body formed itself in accordance with the Monad. The other forms which were less advanced failed to satisfy the descending Monad; hence they poured only a part of their spiritual force into the imperfect human bodies and the third stream utterly refused to incarnate. Because of this there existed very poorly endowed human bodies and also others quite devoid of spirit.

In the middle of the Lemurian Age we find the first Sons of the Fire Mist; these incarnate in the fiery element, which at that time surrounded the Earth. The Sons of the Fire Mist were the first Arhats. [62] Then there arose the other two kinds. In the first Lemurian human race those who had received only a small spark were little adapted to forming a civilisation and soon went under. On the other hand those who had received absolutely nothing found full expression for their lower nature. They mingled with the animals. From them proceeded the last Lemurian races. The wild, animal instincts lived in wild animal-like human forms. This brought about a degeneration of the entire human substance.

Had all human beings been fructified with Monads, the whole human race would have greatly improved. The first evil arose through the fact that certain Monads refused to incarnate. From this, through intermingling, deterioration set in. In this way the human being suffered an essentially physical degradation. Only in the Atlantean Age did the Monads regret their previous refusal; they came down and populated all mankind. In this way arose the various Atlantean races.

We have now reached a time when something happened to bring about the deterioration of the Earth. The wholesale deterioration of the races brought this about. It was then that the seed of Karma was planted. Everything that came later is the result of this original Karma; for had the Monads all entered into human forms at the right time, human beings would have possessed the certainty of animals, they could not have been subject to error, but they would not have been able to develop freedom. The original Arhats could not go astray; they are angels in human form. The Moon Adepts however had so brought things about that certain Monads waited before incarnating. Through this the principle of asceticism entered into the world — reluctance to inhabit the Earth. This discrepancy between higher and lower Nature arose at this time. Because of it man became uncertain; he must now try things out, oscillating from one experience to another, in an attempt to find his way in the world. Because he had original Karma, his own further Karma came about. Now he could fall into error.

The intention was that man should attain knowledge. This could only be brought about through the original Karma. The Luciferic Principle, the Moon Adepts, wanted to develop freedom and independence to an ever-greater degree. This is very beautifully expressed in the saga of Prometheus: [63] Zeus will not allow human beings to get fire. Prometheus however gives them fire, the faculty of developing ever higher and higher. By so doing he condemns man to suffering. Man must now wait for the coming of a Sun Hero, until the Principle of the Sun Hero in the Sixth Race will make him able to develop further without Luciferic knowledge. Those endowed with this higher degree of advancement are like Prometheus, they are Sun Heroes.

We have thus learned to know a two-fold order of human beings: those who succumbed to the Jehovah Principle, the bringing of perfection to the physical Earth, and also spiritual human beings who were becoming more highly developed. Jehovah and Lucifer are engaged in an unceasing battle. It is the intention of Lucifer to develop everything upwards, towards knowledge, towards the light. In Devachan the human being can bring a certain degree of advancement to the Luciferic Principle. The longer he remains in Devachan the more of this can he develop. He must pass through as many incarnations as are necessary in order to bring this Principle fully to perfection.

Thus there exists in the world a Jehovah Principle and a Lucifer Principle. If the Jehovah Principle alone were to be taught, man would succumb to the Earth. If the teaching of reincarnation and karma were allowed to disappear entirely from the Earth we should win back for Jehovah all the Monads and physical man would be given over to the Earth, to a petrified planet. If however one teaches reincarnation and karma, man is led upwards to spiritualisation. Christianity therefore made the absolutely right compromise, and for a period of time did not teach reincarnation and karma, but the importance of the single human existence, in order that man should learn to love the Earth, waiting until he is mature enough for a new Christianity, with the teaching of reincarnation and karma, which is the saving of the Earth and brings the whole of what has been sown into Devachan. As a result, in Christianity itself there is conflict between the two Principles: the one without reincarnation and karma, the other with this teaching. In the former case, everything which Lucifer could bring about would be taken from human beings. They would actually drop out of reincarnation and turn their backs on the Earth, becoming degenerate angels. In that case the Earth would be going towards its downfall. Were the hosts of Jehovah to be victorious on the Earth, the Earth would remain behind as a kind of Moon, as a rigidified body. The possibility of spiritualisation would then be a missed opportunity. The battle in the Bhagavad Gita [64] describes the conflict between Jehovah and Lucifer and their hosts.

It might still be possible today for the teaching of Christianity without reincarnation and karma to prevail. Then the Earth would be lost for the Principle of Lucifer. The whole earth is still a battlefield of these two principles. The principle that leads the earth towards spirituality is Lucifer. In order to live in accordance with this Principle one must first love the Earth, one must descend on to the Earth. Lucifer is the Prince who reigns in the kingdom of science and art, but he cannot descend altogether on to the Earth: for this, his power does not suffice. Quite alone, it would be impossible for Lucifer to lead upwards what is on the Earth. For this, not only is the power of a Moon Adept necessary, but of a Sun Adept, who embraces the universality of human life, not manifesting only in science and art. Lucifer is represented as the Winged Form of the Dragon; Ezekiel describes him as the Winged Bull.

Now there came a Sun Hero, similar to those who appeared in the Hyperborean Epoch, represented by Ezekiel as the Winged Lion. This Hero, Who gave the second impulse, is the Christ, the Lion out of the tribe of Judah. The representative of the Eagle will come only later; he represents the Father Principle. Christ is a Solar Hero, a Lion-Nature, a Sun Pitri.

The third impulse will be represented by an Adept who was already an Adept on Saturn. Such a one cannot as yet incarnate on the Earth. When man is not only able to develop his higher nature upwards, but working creatively is able to renounce completely his lower nature, then will this highest Adept, the Saturn Adept, the Father Principle, the Hidden God, be able to incarnate.

Lecture 24

Berlin, 26th October 1905

We are now living in the Fifth Sub-Race of the Fifth Root-Race. This Root-Race is usually called the Aryan Race and includes as the First Sub-Race the Ancient Indian, which developed in the region of Southern Asia. A primeval Southern Asiatic population dwelt there long, long before the coming into being of the Vedas. Everything we have in the Vedas is a faint echo of that infinitely profound religious wisdom which was taught by the Ancient Rishis. Later we find in the near East the Ancient Persian Race which received its religious teaching and its culture from Zarathustra. [65] The later Zarathustrian cultures in Asia are but echoes of this teaching. Then as the Third Sub-Race, we find the Egyptian, Chaldean, Babylonian, Assyrian peoples, out of which the Semitic-Jewish civilisation gradually developed. There then arose the Fourth Sub-Race, the Graeco-Roman civilisation in Southern Europe, which lasted until the ascent of the Germanic peoples in Northern, Central and Western Europe. Two further civilisations are yet to follow. Seven Sub-Races together form a Root-Race.

The preceding Root-Race inhabited Atlantis, that part of the Earth which later was flooded by the Atlantic Ocean. To this Root-Race belong the following Sub-Races: Firstly the Rmoahals, secondly the Tlavtlis, thirdly the Toltecs, fourthly the original Turanians, fifthly the original Semites, sixthly the Akkadians, seventhly the Mongols.

Still further back we come to the continent of Lemuria, between Africa, Asia and Australia. There we come into times with quite other conditions. Then we go still further back to the Second Root-Race, the Hyperborean, and to the First Root-Race, the Polarian. Now therefore two Sub-Races and two Root-Races are still to follow.

As we go back we come to a human being composed of an ever finer and finer substance. At the beginning of its evolution, the Earth consisted of fine etheric substance. At that time all beings were also made up of such substance. At the end of its evolution the Earth will again consist of this fine etheric substance. Such conditions through which the Earth passes, beginning with the finest etheric substance, then becoming densified and again returning to a condition of fine physical etheric substance, constitute a Globe. Thus the physical Globe develops out of a still finer condition than that of the finest physical ether. The etheric develops out of the astral and returns to the astral.

On the preceding Globe all beings were in an astral condition. Today the astral Globe no longer floats somewhere or other in heavenly space but the beings which were upon it densified and the astral Globe densified with them. This Globe is the Earth itself. The transition from the astral Globe to the physical is a transformation of condition. On the astral Globe also seven successive conditions developed. One has become accustomed in theosophical literature to call these conditions Races; thus there were seven astral Races. The astral Globe also densified only gradually to astral substance. Earlier the astral Globe was still finer and indeed consisted of substance out of which our thoughts are woven today. For this reason it is called mental substance and the Globe a Mental-Globe. There on this Mental-Globe existed seven successive Mental-Races of humanity with all that was connected with them. Preceding this there was a still finer condition of development, of even finer substance; the Arupa Mental-Globe; 'Arupa' because no actual forms existed, but everything was only indicated. These one calls four Globes; in reality however, they are four successive forms of the Earth. Thus we have seven Rounds.

Now let us follow the course of the physical Earth until it reaches the end of its evolution. It again passes over into an etheric Earth, then into an astral Earth. On the previous astral Earth the beings were still indeterminate, receiving their form from forces outside themselves. When man is again on an astral Earth he will be able to give himself his own form. On the previous astral Earth Jehovah and his hosts had given man his form. On the plastic-astral Earth however man will give himself his form out of his inner force; hence this is called the 'plastic' Globe and in this respect the following Globes, a Rupa and an Arupa Globe will have similar conditions. Man must refine himself so completely that finally he will only be like a seed, in a germinal condition containing everything which he has absorbed into himself. All experiences are then within him, as though concentrated in a point as force. The seeds that were present on the First Globe did not yet contain this. On the Last Globe however the seeds contain everything that they experienced on the different Globes.

Between the single material stages of these Globes there is no gradual differentiation, but a somewhat abrupt process. Just as one can take salt, dissolve it in water and let it crystallise again, so a Globe comes into a sleeping condition (Pralaya) and out of this emerges the following Globe. Between two waking conditions the Globes go through a short sleeping condition. When man arrives at the last, seventh stage he goes through a longer sleeping condition. He is enriched and can again proceed on his way at a higher stage. For this reason he must first go through a longer Pralaya. This longer Pralaya is however not an undifferentiated, uniform sleep condition but very differentiated.

When someone has so far developed occult faculties that he sleeps consciously in dreamless sleep he has developed a Devachanic consciousness. This enables him to follow what takes place between death and a new birth. This consciousness can be enhanced. Then he has the faculty of observing what takes place between the Globes. As a third stage of consciousness he becomes able to observe what goes on between the Rounds. This third condition therefore corresponds to a consciousness between two Rounds. To be able to observe what takes place between two Earth lives is the first degree of higher consciousness; between two Globes the second, and between two Rounds the third degree. Conscious sleep, which leads to this awareness is of a quite different nature.

Between the last Round of a Planetary condition and the first of the one which follows, five further conditions lie on the other side of consciousness. The seven Rounds and the five conditions of Pralaya are together called the twelve stages of the Cosmic Year. Then the whole thing is gone through again, but at a higher stage.

We are now in the Fourth Round of the Earth and three others preceded it. Before the germs of man as he is today were there, the human being was already three times present in a seed-like condition; once in every Round. In each Round we have seven stage of development which are called Globes, and again seven on every Globe, which are called Races. Seven such Rounds together make up a Planetary condition or evolution. The First Round began with an Arupa condition and densified to the Earth. Four times already has our Earth become physical. Three times will it become so again. Every such densification and dissolution belongs to a Round. Seven such Rounds are called a Planetary System or Evolution.

When the first Earth Round emerged, everything that had descended from what had developed on the Old Moon was there germinally. Between the last Moon-Round and the first Earth-Round there was a long Pralaya condition. At that time the Moon-men were the human forefathers, standing between present day man and present day animals, according to their lower nature. Present-day animals are Moon-men descended to a lower level and human beings are Moon-men who have ascended higher. But on the Moon the plants too are different from those of today. The plant kingdom stood between the present mineral and plant kingdoms, similar to a peat bog that is half mineral and half plant. The Old Moon was actually a great plant. Its ground consisted of intertwined plants. At that time rocks did not exist. The plant-like mineral kingdom first densified on the Earth to the present mineral kingdom. Our present quartz, malachite and so on have consolidated out of the Moon plants; the Dolomites have arisen out of primeval plants. Thus on the Moon there was a kingdom lying between the mineral and the plant. In this was rooted the Moon vegetation; it needed the Moon ground. The kinds of vegetation that on the Earth have not found a connection with the soil have become parasitic, they must still always grow on plants, for example the mistletoe. This grows on plants, just as on the Old Moon all vegetation grew on a half plant-like foundation. Loki, the Moon god, killed Baldur with the mistletoe, the Moon plant. So we find on the Moon:

A kingdom between the mineral and plant kingdoms
A kingdom between the plant and animal kingdoms
A kingdom between the animal and human kingdoms.

These were the seeds which came over to the Earth.

During the First Earth Round the human kingdom gradually separated itself off. Man became more human, the animal more animal. The external body of man became slowly more human. During the Second Round the animal kingdom separated itself off, during the Third the plant kingdom, during the Fourth the mineral kingdom. Then man made a further ascent. The first three Rounds were repetitions of earlier conditions and a preparation, in order in the Fourth Round, in the Lemurian Race, to take up something new. Now man works upon the mineral kingdom. A time will come when, as the product of his activity, he will have worked over and transformed the mineral kingdom, so that no particle will then remain whose nature has not been changed by the artifice of man. Then the whole can be transmuted into pure astral forms.

That is the redemption of a kingdom. In the Fourth Round man will have redeemed the mineral kingdom, when he will have transformed it by his work upon it. Then everything goes into Pralaya; no mineral kingdom will be there, but the whole Earth will have become a plant. Man will then have been raised half a stage higher and everything else with him; for example in the Fifth Round, Cologne Cathedral will grow as a plant.

One is not working in vain when one gives form to the mineral kingdom. The Cologne Cathedral will eventually grow as plant world out of what will then be the ground. In the atmosphere of the Fifth Round, we find in living cloud formations everything which today has been painted. There we have to do with a repetition at a higher stage where all our work in the mineral world around us grows.

In the Fifth Round we redeem the plant world, in the Sixth the animal and in the Seventh Round the human kingdom. Then man will be mature enough to tread a new Planet. In order that he might develop upwards, the other kingdoms had to some extent to be pushed downwards and he must later redeem them. After the Seventh Round and a Pralaya he will go over to another Planet.

Seven Rounds plus seven Globes, and added to each of the latter, seven Races, together make up three hundred and forty three conditions of the Earth. The entire Earth evolution has the purpose of creating in man waking day-consciousness, whereas the purpose of the entire Moon evolution had the purpose of developing in man picture consciousness. This was preceded by dreamless sleep consciousness on the Sun; at that time man was still a sleeping plant. A still earlier condition, that of deep trance, was present on Saturn, a condition which today still appears in certain pathological cases. Thus the purpose of single planetary evolutions is to develop successive conditions of consciousness.

  1. Old Saturn = Deep Trance-consciousness
  2. Old Sun = Dreamless Sleep-consciousness
  3. Old Moon = Dreaming Sleep or picture consciousness
  4. Earth = Waking consciousness or awareness of objects
  5. (Future) Jupiter = Psychic or conscious picture-consciousness
  6. (Future) Venus = Super-pyschic or conscious life-consciousness
  7. (Future) Vulcan = Spiritual or self-conscious universal consciousness

Just as now human circumstances conform to fundamental laws of Nature, so in the future will they conform to what is moral. They will be graded in accordance with the stages of Karma, seven degrees of morality (ethical human categories). The caste system is a precursor of this later moral gradation. Categories of Karma will be indicated in this way.

Lecture 25

Berlin, 27th October 1905

When we consider the successive Planetary evolutions we find that each one is a stage of a particular condition of evolution, which has 7 Rounds, 7 x 7 Globes and 7 x 7 x 7 Races. The purpose of every such Planetary evolution is to lead one condition of consciousness through all its stages. In the different esoteric religions these stages are named in various ways. In Christian esotericism

a condition of Consciousness is called Power
a Round is called Kingdom, Wisdom
a Globe is called Splendour, Glory

When in Christian esotericism we speak of Power we mean 'going through a condition of consciousness'. Going through a Round is going through a Kingdom. In the successive rounds man experiences seven Kingdoms:

  1. First Elemental Kingdom
  2. Second Elemental Kingdom
  3. Third Elemental Kingdom
  4. Mineral Kingdom
  5. Plant Kingdom
  6. Animal Kingdom
  7. Human Kingdom

Going through the seven conditions of Form or Globes is called Glory. Glory signifies what has external appearance, what takes on shape and form. The Lord's Prayer gives us in its final words: 'For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory,' a gazing upwards to Cosmic events. When once again this will be present in consciousness, a knowledge of God will be possible.

Today all religions, exoteric religions in particular, have fallen away from the true knowledge of God. They are the bearers of egoism for they are not conceived in connection with the whole world, with the Power, the Kingdom and the Glory. When these words regain their meaning through living consciousness, then once more religions will be what they ought to be.

The Saturn condition was there in order to develop in man a deep trance consciousness; this he hardly knows today. He only knows dreamless sleep like the plant and the dream filled sleep such as existed on the Moon — a picture consciousness. Man no longer knows deep trance consciousness for the following reason: When someone sleeps, only the astral body frees itself and the physical body and the etheric body remain lying in the bed. If in sleep he were able to take the etheric body with him as the Chela can, then the physical body alone would remain behind; a dull consciousness. In the case of mediums this comes about in an abnormal manner and quite remarkable things are brought to light in this way. Such people then can draw remarkable cosmic pictures. For example, a girl was put into a trance by a glassful of port wine and in this condition drew remarkable pictures, in which one could see caricatures of our cosmic system; she also found approximations of our names for them.

Mediums have their visions because they are able to take the etheric body also out of the sleeping physical body and in the sleeping physical body to perceive consciously. They are then still able to make use of the physical body; the physical body becomes clairvoyant in a remarkable way. The Chela achieves this consciously, whereas the medium does so unconsciously. It is through such a clairvoyant consciousness that the planetary systems have been discovered. All the conditions into which the Chelas and Adepts are able to transpose themselves are nothing other than consciousness through the physical body; they experience all this in full consciousness.

On the future Venus a complete consciousness in the etheric body will develop. Then, while man sleeps, he will gain a consciousness concerning the other side of the world. On Vulcan the spirit is completely detached; he has then taken the etheric body also with him. This condition endows man with an exact knowledge of the entire world.

We distinguish:

  1. On Saturn — Trance consciousness, universal consciousness
  2. On Sun — Dreamless sleep, consciousness limited to what is living
  3. On Moon — Picture consciousness
  4. On Earth — Waking consciousness
  5. On Jupiter — Astral consciousness, further extended
  6. On Venus — Etheric consciousness, still further extended
  7. On Vulcan — Universal consciousness

Each one of such conditions of consciousness must go through all the Kingdoms, through seven Rounds or Kingdoms, in each Round gaining in complexity as it passes through the seven Globes. The lesser forces become further developed in the so-called Races. Thus gradually creation exteriorises from within outwards what was present as inner potential.

Today it is the mineral kingdom that man knows best because he lives in it. Everything that takes place in the higher kingdoms is not understood by the intellect. This has been a necessary phase of evolution. Now however one can no longer be satisfied with mere science. Everything is understood to be in a continuous evolution.

If we consider in the mineral kingdom any kind of stone — what we see there is a space with definite boundaries, a definite form. Of the mineral kingdom as such we see absolutely nothing, but we see only the reflected light. The rays of the sun are reflected in a certain form. If we strike a bell we hear a sound: an effect of a bell goes into our ear. All that we perceive in the world as mineral kingdom is a whole compressed together to a spatial form. If one takes away the colour of an object, the sound, the taste, nothing remains. It is due to the mineral kingdom that light and sound appear through such forms. Let us think of a world in which only the qualities of perception stream through space and are not perceived in connection with definite forms. Let us think of coloured clouds floating through the world, sounds resounding through the world, all our sense impressions filling space without being bound to a form; then we have the Third Elemental Kingdom. These are the elements light and fire, permeating space. Man himself in the Astral Kingdom is a coloured cloud.

We will now take a further step forward. When we see a thought form, it is such a coloured cloud, a movement vibrating in itself. If one wishes to conjure up a thought, one must draw the figure in question into astral space. On this depends the conjurings of magicians. They draw the forms into space and then surround them with astral substance. They direct astral substance along these figures. The Third Elemental Kingdom is not arbitrary, but a flying hither and thither in interpenetrating lines: everything expressing beautiful forms having the power of light within themselves. They are like bodies of light flying hither and thither in space, shining from within.

The tones that resound through space are ordered according to numbers. What one must specially bear in mind is that from the outset things stand in a definite relationship to one another. One figure could work upon another in such a way that it did no harm, or so that it was utterly destroyed. This was called the measure of things. Everything was ordered according to measure, number, form. It is possible to think away the qualities induced by the senses and the world filled with such thought-figures. This would then be the Second Elementary Kingdom which underlies the Third. Here we only have forms woven by thoughts, the World-Ether-Thoughts.

The first Elementary Kingdom is difficult to describe. Let us assume for example that we conceive the thought of such a figure as a spiral, then the thought of a lemniscate. We now transfer ourselves into the intention before the form has actually arisen, thus first into the intention of a spiral and then into the intention of a lemniscate. One imagines a world filled with such thought-seeds. This formless world is the First Elementary Kingdom.

The Fourth Elementary Kingdom is the mineral kingdom which reflects what it receives from outside. The plant kingdom not only reflects sense-qualities, but these reflections are inwardly endowed with life. The Second Elementary Kingdom is the formative element of the Third Elementary Kingdom. The mineral kingdom is condensed out of qualities belonging to the Third Elementary Kingdom. The plant reflects the form of the Second Elementary Kingdom and thus develops the form out of itself. The animal kingdom also reflects the intentions which lie in the First Elementary Kingdom.

In the First Round man was in the First Elementary Kingdom. When at that time he became physical, he was in the first Round and in the First Elementary Kingdom at the stage of physical form. In the physical condition of the First Elementary Kingdom of the First Round, the thought-seeds became physical. At that time the Earth consisted only of physical globules, so small that one would not have been able to see them; they were simply points of force. These points of force gradually condensed; they were not yet differentiated. At that time the condensed Elementary Kingdom was already physical. When one imagines the human being as merely a being of thought, then one can easily go through such a being even though one does not see it, but even though one cannot see it, one cannot go through it when it has become physical. Later the physical points of force once more became astral and passed over to the following Round.

In the Second Round the Earth consisted only of forms. The Earth was a very beautifully formed sphere in which all the things that developed out of it were present as types. It was the prophetic shaping of everything that emerges in the other Kingdoms. On the Earth the colours and forms were prototypes of present-day man. On the next Planet the colours and forms will be prototypes of what man will then be.

In the Fifth Round, the plastic-astral man will no longer need to retain his hand. The hand will only be formed when it is needed. It will be something like a tendril, because then everything will have taken on the nature of a plant. Then too all that develops separate existence will be a plant-product. Likewise everything that proceeds from man will be plantlike. We shall then be living in the plant kingdom.

In the Sixth Round we shall live in the animal kingdom. Then everything that proceeds from man, which streams out from him, will be a living product that has within it life and sensation. A word will then be a living being — a bird that one sends out into the world.

In the Seventh Round man will create himself. He will then be able to duplicate, to reproduce himself. In the Seventh Round everyone will have reached the stage at which our Masters stand today. Then our ego will be the bearer of all earthly experiences. To begin with this will be concentrated in the Lodge of the Masters. [67] The higher ego then will draw itself together, become atomic and form the atoms of (future) Jupiter.

The White Lodge will be looked upon as a unity, an ego comprising everything. All human egos and all separateness will be given up and will flow together into the all-comprehensive universal consciousness; great circles, expanded from within, each having a special colour, all assembled together in one single circle. When one thinks of them as laid one upon the other the result is an all-inclusive colour. All the egos are within it, making a whole. This immense globe, contracted, constitutes the atom. This multiplies itself, creating itself out of itself. These then are the atoms which will form Jupiter. [68] The Moon Adepts formed the atoms of the present-day Earth. One can study the atom when one studies the plan of the Adepts Lodge on the Moon.

Summary:

Each kingdom must go through seven Forms:

  1. Arupa — Approach to Form
  2. Rupa — Form
  3. Astral — Shimmering and shining from within outwards.
  4. Physical — impenetrable in space
  5. Plastic-astral — forming itself out of itself
  6. Intellectual
  7. Archetypal

Lecture 26

Berlin, 28th October 1905

Today we shall speak about the Fourth Earth Round. In the course of our whole evolution we have seven Planetary conditions: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan; and in connection with each Planet we must consider seven Rounds. The passing through a Round may also be called a Kingdom, and the Fourth Round on the Earth we call the Mineral Kingdom. We are now on the Fourth Planet, in the Fourth Round and within this Round in the Fourth Condition of Form or Globe. The Fourth Round is always physical.

Thus we stand exactly in the middle of our Earthly evolution. This is frequently felt to be something extraordinarily important for man. We have behind us three Planets, three Rounds, three Globes and the same number still lie before us. But if we were standing on the Old Moon, we should see yet another Planetary condition before Saturn; if we were standing on future Jupiter we should no longer see Saturn, but in its place a Planet beyond Vulcan. The exact middle of our present evolution was with the Fourth Sub-Race of the Fourth Root-Race, with the original Turanians, the Fourth Atlantean Sub-Race.

A kind of spiritual darkness came about at a certain moment of evolution. Humanity entered into a dark age. This dark age is called Kali Yuga. What man knows today he still knows from the standpoint that was his in earlier epochs of his development. At the end of the Fifth Round mankind will once again be able to see spiritually, having the capacity of looking both backwards and forwards.

The Fourth Earth Round began with the emergence of the first Arupa Earth Globe from the darkness of Pralaya, in which everything had been dissolved. Then all that exists on the Earth today was present in a formless state as thoughts. We can gain a right concept of this when we limit ourselves as far as possible to what is physical and imagine this as thought seeds. The forms were not yet present, but only the thoughts preceding their manifestation. If we ask: Who then had these thoughts, we receive as answer: These were the thoughts of spiritual beings who are in connection with the Earth. Such spiritual beings as, for example, Jehovah and his hosts, who accomplished everything around us on the earth. At that time all thoughts were present as thoughts of the spiritual beings in the Arupa-Globe.

What was it then that caused the Gods to have as their aim just this thought of man? What was it that gave them the model? It was the Monads which were already present, but not yet connected with human beings. Slowly men developed as thoughts of the Gods.

Now the Arupa-Sphere densified; everything emerged as thought-forms. The whole Earth was filled with these; it was as though one were looking into a great model filled [with] small crystals. Present within it as models were all the forms of human beings, animals and plants. Spiritual beings worked on these as a master builder works on his models. They were put together from outside. The whole then passes over into astral substance. The astral Earth-Globe came into being. In between there were short Pralayas. Now again we have to do with the outwardly-working divine powers who poured forth the astral substance, filling the forms with light and colour. Here are to be found all the astral forms of human beings and animals, as well as the whole plant kingdom, in a great astral sea. This then densified ever more and more and the physical Earth arose as the Fourth Globe.

Until then, until the beginning of the Fourth Round, Sun and Moon were still united with the Earth; they formed one body with the Earth. During the great Pralaya preceding the First Earth Round, they had again merged with the Earth; and during the first three Earth Rounds the three remained together. There then arose a kind of biscuit form. In the Third Earth Round, out of the Earth-Sun-Ball, on one side the Earth protruded like a swelling, on the other side the Moon. At that time the main body actually trailed around with it two such sacks. Only in the Fourth Earth Round did the body regain its spherical form; then however there again arose the sack-like formations in the ether, protruding from both sides.

Thus here we have to do with an Earth that is still united with the Sun and also with the Moon. At that time most life was in the region between the Moon and the Earth. This has been correctly preserved in the Mohammedan Paradise saga.

Now the following occurred. When the Second Root-Race of the Fourth Earth Round approached, the Sun separated itself off, and in the Third Root-Race the Moon did so also. Everything evolved physically which previously had only been present on the astral Globe. Now too man appeared physically, but organised in such a way that he could take the Monad into his progressively purified astral body. Had man taken the Monad into himself earlier, he would have received with it Manas, Buddhi and Atma. He would have become very wise, but the wisdom would have been a kind of dream wisdom.

At first man had no power over the physical body and the etheric body. He could also do nothing about the lower passions coming over to him from the Moon; these appeared of necessity until the time when he entered upon the Earth epoch. If man had simply taken up the Monads into the ennobled animality he could not have fallen into error. He would have become what Jehovah had intended, endowed that is to say with all wisdom, but at the same time formed into a living statue. Then those beings intervened, who on the Moon had developed more quickly than in the ordinary course of Moon evolution. Lucifer is a power who has enthusiasm for wisdom which is as intense as the sense life of animals. He is equipped with all those things that come over from the Moon. If Lucifer alone had taken responsibility for evolution a battle would have arisen between him and the old Gods.

Jehovah's aim was the perfection of form. Lucifer would have been able to develop in astral substance his passion for premature spirituality. The result would have been a violent battle between the Jehovah-spirits and the hosts of Lucifer. There was the danger that through Jehovah some human beings would become living statues and that others would be too quickly spiritualised through Lucifer. Means of bringing about equilibrium would have to be obtained elsewhere. In order to annul the battle between Jehovah and Lucifer, the White Lodge, which was just in its beginning, had to obtain material from one of the other planets. This differed essentially from the astral substance that had come over from the Moon, from the astral-kamic animal substance. The possibility arose of leading over substance from other planets: new passions, less vehement but conceived on the basis of independence. The new material was brought over from Mars. [69] Thus in the first half of our Earth evolution astral substance from Mars was introduced. A great advance was brought about through the introduction of this astral substance from Mars.

External civilisation on the Earth arose through the fact that hardening on the one side and spiritualisation on the other side were prevented. Lucifer made use of what had been given by the Mars forces. The new state of the Earth was given the name of Mars. Things continued in this way until the middle of the Atlantean Race. Then a new question arose. Man had absorbed wisdom, but in the future it would not be possible for wisdom alone to manifest in a form-creating way. One would have been able to build up the mineral kingdom through Lucifer, but Lucifer could not have given it life. Man could never have imparted life under the influence of the other powers. This was why a Sun God had to come, a higher being than Lucifer. There still existed what are known as the Solar Pitris. The most exalted among these is Christ. As Lucifer represents the Manas element, so the Buddhi element is represented by Christ.

The human astral bodies had still to receive a third impact. This was brought down from Mercury. Christ united his sovereignty with that of Lucifer. If one has the will to ascend the heights in order to find the way to the Gods one needs Mercury, the Divine Messenger. He is the one who prepared the path of Christ from the middle of the Atlantean Root-Race onwards in order later to enter into the astral bodies, which had received the mercurial element.

All our present metals have only gradually become what they are now. Gold, silver, platinum and so on all pass through certain conditions. When they are heated they become first hot, then liquid, then gaseous. This latter was once the condition of all metals in the gaseous Earth. Gold too first densified with the Earth: at one time it was entirely etheric gold. When we go back to the time when the Earth was still united with the Sun, there was as yet within it no solid gold. The particles of the white Sun-Ether became first fluid and then solid. These are the veins of gold which are now in the Earth. Gold is solidified sunlight. Silver is solidified moonlight. All mineral substances have gradually solidified. When human beings become ever more spiritualised, quicksilver will also become solid. At one time gold and silver formed drops just as water does now. The fact that mercury is still fluid is connected with the whole process of Earth evolution. It will become solid when the God Mercury has fulfilled his mission. In the middle of the Atlantean Root-Race quicksilver was brought down from Mercury in etheric form. Had we not had quicksilver we should not have had the Christ-Principle. In the drops of quicksilver we have to see what was incorporated in the Earth in the middle of the Atlantean epoch.

When the Mars Principle (Kama-Manas) was incorporated into the Earth, iron was brought down to the Earth from Mars. Iron originates in Mars. It was at first in astral form and later densified. When we trace the Earth to that period of time we find ever fewer warm-blooded animals. It was only in the middle of the Lemurian Age that warm blood made its appearance together with the Mars impulse. Iron came into the blood at that time. It is iron that in all occult writings is brought into connection with Mars, quicksilver with Buddhi-Mercury. Certain people learned this from the Adepts. The Earth was therefore understood as Mars and Mercury. Everything that did not originate from Mars and Mercury has come over from the Moon.

The days of the week are an image of planetary evolution. The sequence of the planets is inscribed in a wonderful way in the days of the week.

Saturn

Samstag

Saturday

Sun

Sonntag

Sunday

Moon

Montag

Monday

Mars

(Tiu)

Dienstag

Tuesday, Mardi

Mercury

(Wotan)

Mittwoch

Wednesday, Mercredi

Jupiter

(Donar)

Donnerstag

Thursday, Jeudi

Venus

(Freya)

Freitag

Friday, Vendredi

Vulcan

(the octave to Saturn)

Samstag

Saturday

In the saying that Christ trod on and crushed the head of the serpent [70] we find a profound expression of esotericism. The serpent's head is mere wisdom; this must be overcome. True wisdom lies in the heart; this is why the serpent's head must be trodden underfoot. In the Hercules-Saga [71] the same truth has already been expressed. He kills the Lernaean Hydra, whose head always grows anew. Mere Manas will always come again. Hercules must keep the blood at a distance (Kama), then the Hydra will be conquered. Blood came into the Earth with the Mars-Wisdom (Kama-Manas).

Deep meaning lies in many other things. The separation of the Moon preceded the Mars-Age. The Moon contains silver. Still earlier took place the separation of the Sun. Gold is condensed sunlight, hence the Golden Age; Moonlight and silver: the Silver Age; Mars and iron: the Bronze Age. [72]

We are now in the middle, in the Fourth Globe. On the Fifth Globe there will arise the faculty of organising oneself from within outwards. Then the Earth will be transformed into a sphere on which man will create his form from within outwards. The Earth will then be a "Plastic" Globe. The Sixth Globe is the one on which the human being not only works plastically on his form, but will be able to place his own thoughts into the form. On the Fifth Globe man will be able, for instance, to form a hand; on the Sixth Globe he will be able to send his thoughts out into the surrounding world. On the Seventh Globe everything will again become formless. Everything will pass over once more into the seed condition.

We will now consider our present Ego. There are within it a multitude of mental images and concepts. When we observe the civilised world today we say: It is out of the Ego that the civilised world has arisen. All this was once within a human head; it was contained within the ego. From out of all this it was put together. All the things constructed by human skill have been born out of the Ego. In the middle of the Lemurian Age the Ego was still empty; man could as yet do nothing. Only gradually did he learn in the most primitive way to know the world from outside. His Ego was at that time like a hollow soap-bubble. When he saw a stone, it was reflected into him; perhaps he saw a sharp edge on it and with it he began to chip other stones. In this way he started to work formatively on the mineral world. What was in his surroundings reflected itself more and more into what was at first his empty Ego. At the end of the physical Globe everything will be present as reflected image in our Ego. When at last we have all this within us we will form it from within outwards. This will be the "plastic" condition on the next Globe. The master-builder of Cologne cathedral gathered his impressions into his ego. This content of his Ego will be vivified by Buddhi and later, on the Fifth Globe he will give all this form. On the Sixth Globe all this will be present as thought and on the Seventh Globe everything will be drawn together into the atom. In the next Round man will create the new plant kingdom out of the Ego.

In the middle of the Lemurian Age the Ego was like a hole bored into matter. All our Egos were at that time such holes in matter which since then we have filled up. In the next Round their content will issue in plant form, for in this Fifth Round there will take place with the plant kingdom what is now taking place with the mineral kingdom. The whole Earth will then be an immense, single living Being. Man will have achieved a conscious life of feeling and perception, and will then give it form outside himself. In the Sixth Round there will no longer be a plant kingdom; man will then allow living thoughts filled with feeling and perception to go out from himself as pure intellectual formations. In this Sixth Round on the Sixth Globe, in its Sixth Stage of development, corresponding to the Sixth Race, an important decision will be taken. Everything will have reached the Devachanic condition that has been able to develop out of all the kingdoms. If anyone has not progressed to the point that he can be raised to the stage of Devachan, he will remain in the animal state. This will take place according to the number 666, the number of the Beast.

In the Seventh Round humanity will be completely purified. The human kingdom will then attain its zenith. This Round is the quickest. The human being, when he emerges from it, will have become a God and will carry his development over to Jupiter.

In every Round the first Globe, or condition of form, is of such a nature that in fact we have not yet to do with a form, but the form is only present as incipient plan. This is why esotericism does not reckon the Arupa-Globe among the conditions of form, but with the conditions of life; this is the case also with the Seventh Globe, the Archetypal. Thus we have only five conditions of form. The first and the last Globes of each Round are conditions of life. All the conditions of the Rounds are also called conditions of life, because passing through a Kingdom represents a condition of life.

In the First Round life was in the First Elementary Kingdom, in the Second Round in the Second Elementary Kingdom, in the Third Round in the Third Elementary Kingdom, in the Fourth Round in the Mineral Kingdom. In the Fifth Round life will be in the Plant Kingdom, in the Sixth Round life will be in the Animal Kingdom and in the Seventh Round life will be in the Human Kingdom.

When one considers life in the Human Kingdom in the Seventh Round, this sheds its light into the next Round when man will have passed over into another condition of consciousness. The purpose of a Round consists in achieving a new stage of life. The purpose of the Seventh Round is to lead over into a new stage of consciousness. Thus the esotericist only reckons six conditions of life, counting the Seventh Round as a new condition of consciousness.

If we wish to write down in numbers the conditions of life, form and consciousness we get five Globes or conditions of form, six Rounds or conditions of life, ten Planets or conditions of consciousness. If we count the whole evolution from Saturn to Vulcan, we have expressed what we find with Helena Petrovna Blavatsky as the number of the Prajapatis 1065, that is to say, 10 – 6 – 5.

Lecture 27

Berlin, 30th October 1905

The course of evolution in the world appears to us on three levels: consciousness, life and form. [73] Consciousness in its different manifestations finds its expression in the seven Planetary evolutions: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan. On each Planet there are seven Kingdoms of Life and each Kingdom goes through seven Conditions of Form.

Our physical Earth is such a Condition of Form, the fourth Condition of Form or Globe, in the fourth Kingdom of Life, of the fourth Planet, or Condition of Consciousness. We think of the Earth as it now is and ask ourselves: What are we doing here? We take things from outside in space, mainly from the mineral kingdom, and out of them construct artifacts. This is a process of combination; out of separate things we construct a whole, a creation within a form. Now there are other ways in which something new can arise, for instance in a way similar to that in which stalk, leaves and blossoms arise out of the root of a plant. A blossom cannot be put together like a machine, through combination, but it must grow out of what is already there. This is a process within the realm of life. Out of what is there something new is created.

In the case of the third kind of production, out of consciousness, something arises in such a way that we can say: previously there was in fact nothing there — a nothingness.

Let us transfer ourselves to the primal beginning of such a planetary evolution, at the very beginning of Saturn. What is to be observed there? There was as yet no physical planet, not even in the finest Arupa-form was a planet present, we are there even before the moment when Old Saturn entered into its first beginning. Nothing of our series of planets existed; certainly however there was the entire outcome of the preceding planetary chain, in much the same way as when we wake up in the morning, having as yet done nothing, and only the memory of what we did on the previous day is contained in our mind. So when we thus transfer ourselves completely into the beginning of the Saturn evolution, we have in the spiritual beings then in manifestation, the memory of a previous planetary chain and its happenings.

Now let us transfer ourselves to the end of the planetary chain, to the time when the Vulcan evolution will have come to an end. Whereas the chain of planets has gradually come to manifestation as creation, the tendency to it was already there in the beginning as inherent consciousness. So we have to begin with an outpouring of consciousness; out of the content of the earlier, out of memory, consciousness creates the new. At the end therefore something is present which was not there at the beginning: that is, all experiences. What was there at the beginning has flowed out into astral things and beings. At the end a new consciousness has come about with a new content of consciousness. It is something which has come forth from nothingness, out of experiences. When we observe something new we must say to ourselves: to make this possible a seed had to be there. The new condition of consciousness however, at the end of a planetary evolution, has in fact come forth out of nothing, out of experiences; for this no foundations are necessary, something is created which arises out of nothing. When one personality looks at another, it cannot be said that he has taken something from the other one, when as a result he bears within him the memory of the other personality. This memory has come forth out of nothing. Thus the three ways of creating are as follows:

Combining of existing parts: Form

Formations with new Life content out of existing foundations: Life

Creating out of nothing: Consciousness

Here we have three definitions of Beings who bring about, who underlie a planetary chain. They are called the three Logoi. The Third Logos produces by means of combining. When out of one substance something else having new life comes into being, this is brought forth by the Second Logos. Everywhere, however, where we have to do with a coming forth out of nothing, we have the First Logos. This is why the First Logos is also often called the One who is immanent in things, the Second Logos the One who in the quiescent substance in things creates life out of the living, the Third Logos the One who combines everything existing, who puts the world together out of things.

These three Logoi always manifest in the world in and through one another. The First Logos also experiences both the inner wisdom and the will. In the creative activity of the First Logos there is experience, that is to say, the gathering of thoughts out of nothing and then creating once more in accordance with these thoughts out of nothing. Creation out of nothing is however not meant in such a way as if nothing at all had been there. On the contrary, in the course of evolution experiences are made and in the course of becoming the new is created, so that what is there melts away and out of experience there is the creation of the new.

This creation may be compared with the following: Somebody sees another person and observes his appearance. If he were creatively gifted like the First Logos he would be able to say: Yes, I have seen N and I also have a concept of the reversed N. I can also form a complementary picture of him, i.e. white where there is black and vice versa. In this way, out of the experience of the object and its negative, he has created a completely new form. This he could imbue with life. It would be a completely new creation that was not previously there. Let us assume that somebody did this with a number of people and that these people were to perish: then, from his experiences, the observer would be able to create a new world.

In contemplating the world one continually sees the interaction of the three Logoi. Let us form within the framework of our planetary system, a mental picture of the working of the three Logoi in regard to man. Let us think of the very beginnings of the Saturn evolution, when as yet nothing at all was there. What is it that then happens? Then everything that was present previously drips down as it were. All the things that were there earlier stream out. What arises in this way is to become the very first outpouring of substance from the sum of earlier experiences. Therein is contained the substance out of which man developed later,. This substance is to begin with simply there as substance. This out streaming must then be continually worked upon and combined together. The combining of the out streaming substance is a new creation. This is above all a creative activity of the Third Logos. It happens after the out streaming of substance and therefore is a creative activity of the third Logos.

What does this signify for man? For man it signifies that in the first place all the parts are combined which then form his physical body. At that time, on Saturn, the human being was a veritable automaton. If one had spoken a word into him, he would have spoken it out again. Forms of beings are fashioned. This is called the work of the Third Logos and it continues into the Sun epoch, when man also receives his etheric body and with it life. This is the work of the Second Logos. Now let us continue into the Earth Epoch. There man himself acquires a consciousness, that is to say, the possibility of gathering experiences out of nothingness. This is the work of the First Logos. On Saturn man received from the Third Logos what in him is form. On the Sun he received what in him is life from the Second Logos. On the Earth he received what in him is consciousness, from the First Logos.

The concept of consciousness must become a little clearer to us. We must work out fully the concept of consciousness on a particular plane. Man is conscious, but we have to know where his consciousness is. Now he is conscious on the physical plane when we are speaking about waking consciousness. But waking consciousness could also be on the astral plane. When in the case of a creature, life is on the physical plane and consciousness is on the astral plane, then this creature is an animal.

In human beings, thinking is localised in the head. With the animal, for instance the tiger, consciousness is on the astral plane. Outside the head what may be called a focal point is formed through which the tiger is affected. When the tiger feels pain this goes over on to the astral plane. With the tiger the organ for this is in front of the head, at the place where the brow is in the case of man. With man this place is already enclosed within the head and it is filled with the frontal brain; consciousness has been imprisoned through the brain and the front part of the skull and is therefore on the physical plane. In the case of the tiger, and indeed of all animals, the focal point of consciousness lies in front of the head, in the astral: from there it goes into the astral world. In the case of the plant things are again different. Could we follow its consciousness, going from above downwards, we would always come out at the tip of the root. If then we were to follow the line of growth, we would come to the centre of the earth. There is the collecting point of all the sensations, the suction point of the consciousness of the plant. It is in direct connection with the mental world. The entire plant world has its consciousness on the mental plane.

The consciousness of the entire mineral world is in the highest regions of the Mental World, on the Arupa plane. The consciousness of stones is such that if we wished to seek its focus we should find it as a kind of Sun-atmosphere. When on the Earth we work upon the mineral world, when we break stones, each single action is in a certain relationship to this Sun-atmosphere. There one perceives the work that man does here. Thus we have a range of beings on the physical plane whose consciousness however lies on different planes.

Human beings and animals differ from each other through the fact that they have their consciousness on different planes. Now there are also other beings besides minerals, plants, animals and human beings. There are beings who have their consciousness on the physical plane and their body in the astral. Such a being is, as it were, an animal in reverse. Such beings actually exist; they are the elemental beings. In order to make their nature comprehensible let us be clear about what belongs to the physical plane.

Physical is: Firstly the solid earth, secondly water, thirdly air, fourthly ether (warmth ether, light ether, chemical ether, life ether). Let us keep to the four lower forms of our physical plane and separate the etheric world from them.

States of consciousness can lie in all four forms of the physical plane while the body of such a being lies in the astral. We must think of the consciousness in the solid Earth, the body in the astral; or a being that has its consciousness in the water and its body in the astral; then such a being with its consciousness in the air and its body in the astral and one with its consciousness in fire and its body in the astral. Present-day man knows but little of such beings; in our time it is only through poetry that they are known. Miners (of minerals) however know such beings very well. A gnome is only visible to someone who can see on the astral plane, but miners frequently possess such an astral vision; they know that gnomes are realities. Thus, on our Earth there exist various forms of consciousness, and what the natural scientist today calls laws of nature are the thoughts of beings who think on the physical plane but have their bodies on the astral plane. When in physics we have to do with laws of nature we can say: these are the thoughts of a being who has its body on the astral plane. The forces of nature are creative beings and natural laws are their thoughts.

In the Middle Ages the alchemist tried to make use of these spirits. Goethe knew this very well; Faust wished to have fire air; this was to be produced by the salamanders which have their body on the astral plane. Thus we have around us beings who actually have their consciousness in fire, to whom we cause pain when fire is kindled, for by so doing we actually cause a certain alteration in the body of the being in question on the astral plane. When one kindles fire one alters this astral being. In the same way when one brings about alterations in other spheres of the elements and the forces of Nature one alters something in these astral beings. When we do this or that we are continuously peopling the astral plane. If we think these thoughts through clearly, we have the meaning of church ritual: that is, not to make use of any kind of substances on the physical plane, except such as have meaning, whereby meaningful beings arise on the astral plane. When for instance one kindles the smoke of incense one does something which has purpose; one burns a particular substance and creates beings of a particular kind. When one passes a sword through the air in four directions one creates a definite kind of being.

It is the same with the priest, when he makes definite movements with his hands, to accompany definite sounds o, i, u, intensified by repetition: Dominus vobiscum. The sound is regular, the air is brought into definite vibrations intensified by definite movements of the hand, and a sylph is called into existence. Sign, grip and word of the freemasons also bring about definite forms which manifest in accordance with definite laws in the physical world. Through a purposeful use of these words a link is formed from one person to another, one is enwrapped in an astral substance which is created through sign, grip and word.

Naturally man continually does all this in ordinary life, but he does it in an unsystematic way, creating contradictory beings. Art consists in working harmoniously upwards from the physical to higher planes. In rituals, through definite acts, the aim is to produce not contradictory but harmonious beings. At present man is not in a position to bring these things into harmony. But for everything man creates in this way on the astral plane there are certain directing beings. So we have a world of elemental beings around us with a king. Among the Indians the king of the gnomes is called Kshiti, the highest of the gnomes; the highest being among the undines: Varuna; the highest being among the sylphs: Vayu, and everything having its consciousness in fire is directed by the king of fire: Agni. In all activity connected with fire, water and so on we have to do with these particular Deva-beings. All the fire we have here on Earth is the substance that is woven out of the beings which belong to Agni. Ceremonial magic is the lowest kind of sorcery and consists in making use of certain specially devised tricks on the physical plane in order to create definite forms and beings on the astral plane. Schools exist today in which ceremonial magic is still exercised. Such usages cause great attraction towards the astral world and very frequently result in suicide, because then a person is almost exclusively active in the astral world and has become unaccustomed to using the physical world for its rightful purpose. He has developed a partiality for the other world and the physical body is often a hindrance.

Now you will also comprehend the connection with fire worship which has appeared in the history of religion. The followers of Zarathustra sought, through the sacrificial fire of the priests, actually to create definite forms on the astral plane. On the Earth today everything takes place physically. But from what has been said, one can see that astral beings are continually created under the influence of our deeds. All deeds are accompanied by astral beings. These are our Skandas which bring about our Karma. But also all physical deeds leave astral beings behind on the astral plane. For instance Cologne cathedral corresponds to a definite being on the astral plane. Through everything that happens on the Earth, when all physical matter is worked over and the Earth has dissolved, through this the next astral Globe will arise of itself. It will simply be there as astral beings, as the effects of all the earlier physical processes. This is why man must continually work with Karma. In his next life he must put right again the grotesque astral beings that he has bungled, otherwise they would produce meaningless creatures for the next Globe. This is Karma that he must rectify. What takes place on a large scale on the Earth, takes place in a small way in man. Let us think of a child. He is wrongly brought up, spoiled with sweets and so on. This not only brings about processes in the physical body but continually imparts them to the astral, so that in fact the astral body also is changed. What one gives physically to the infant goes over into his astral body, it is present in the shape of definite forms. What is thus worked in, is however gradually worked out again. In advanced age the sins against the child take their revenge. These sins remain throughout the whole life and have great importance particularly in the final years. After the middle period a sort of reversal takes place; the astral then works into the physical plane.

In childhood the foundation of what man will have in old age is implanted into the astral. When a person perceives how he has been sinned against and works upon himself with this in view, then he can eliminate the damage in the astral body, otherwise he will break down in old age under the weaknesses of his childhood. Only what man works into it consciously has a balancing effect on the astral body. If later in life the opposite qualities are not called up consciously, one cannot rid oneself of the failings.

Lecture 28

Berlin, 31st October 1905

We will give you yet another special example of how one can immerse oneself in the profundity of religious documents and gain an ever greater understanding of what they contain.

If we study our sense organs as they are usually studied, we see that we have the possibility through the sense of smell of perceiving matter itself. Unless this fine substance were given off, man would be unable to smell. What takes place here is a connection with matter itself. The organ of taste is not connected with matter itself, but acts through a process of dissolving and perceiving its effect. Thus we can call taste a chemical sense, because it penetrates into the constitution of matter. The third sense that of sight, has nothing more to do with matter, for it only perceives pictures that are produced by matter. The fourth, the sense of touch, has still less to do with matter as such, for it only perceives attributes of the surroundings in connection with objects, such as warmth and cold; this is a state of matter which is no longer dependent on matter itself, but on what conditions surround it. Hearing is in no way dependent on the air, for we perceive only the oscillations, the vibrations of the air, something which stands in a quite external relationship to what is material. Matter, the air, is only the vehicle for the sound waves.

The lowest perception of matter is smell, then comes taste, then sight, then touch and hearing. We can now ask: What is warmth and cold? It is what is contained in the warmth ether. So the sense of touch perceives the warmth ether, sight perceives the light ether, taste perceives the chemical ether, smell perceives the atomistic or life ether, hearing perceives the air. A sixth and a seventh sense [74] which will only develop in the future, would perceive water and earth.

We have therefore in our senses a sequence of stages in connection with what we call matter. We will first follow the development of our three lower senses.

The sense of sight perceives by means of the light ether the objects around us. There was however a time when everything was dark. Let us go back to the moment of time when sight came into existence and the outer world as such became perceptible to us. Previously the eye was not yet opened to the outer world. We must imagine the same force which the eye receives from outside in the light ether, pouring outwards from within, streaming out through the eye in the opposite direction. If this were the case the being would illuminate the others around him. This was so at a certain time when human beings possessed eyes like the Cyclops. Illumination was brought about through the out streaming light; this light streamed from within outwards. Then man illuminated, as many sea creatures still do today, the objects around him and his own body. At that time he had no consciousness of his own, but he was solely an instrument for the corresponding divine being, in order to illuminate the world for him. The divine being had no means of seeing the surrounding objects other than human eyes.

When as yet man had no intellect it was possible for the active light of the Godhead to pass through him and illuminate objects. The human being was the mediator for the Godhead. The latter wished by means of light to make the solid objects visible. Because the light passed through him, man himself was formed. Before the light had passed through the human being the Godhead had no need of light, because the objects were not yet solid, but fluid, so that no use could be made of light. That is the condition described in the Bible: 'And darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God brooded on the face of the waters.' At that time the world was simply water, even gold and silver and the other metals ran, were fluid. When within the water, like blocks of ice, solid objects arose, man separated his membered form and light became necessary. God said: 'Let there be light and there was light.' Then it was that man too first received his form. That is the moment when the Light Ether was introduced and the solid element separated off. God said: 'Let the dry land appear.' Before that everything was of a watery nature. In the same way as the Light Ether was incorporated into the solid element, so was the Chemical Ether incorporated into the water. Chemical relationships were worked into man when he was still fluid. The chemical relationships according to which today the different substances are combined, were imprinted into the individual. Then we come back into a condition when man and also the whole Earth was still aeriform; the life, or the atomistic ether flowed into him. The life ether was at that time introduced into the world through man.

Now let us once more turn our attention to the condition which existed when God said: 'Let there be Light.' The Earth began to densify. Light shone upon it. This was also the time when man began to densify. The earlier forces however had to be retained. Now we have reached the condition when man let the light pass through himself. Then a complete reversal took place. Man began to perceive the light as something outside.

Originally through him there had been introduced into this world:

  1. The atomistic or life ether.
  2. The chemical ether.
  3. The light ether.

Reversal:

  1. Perception of the life ether.
  2. Perception of the chemical ether.
  3. Perception of the light ether.

Now man receives back the light from the world. (Reversal of the spiral.) Formerly he was a source of light, now the light streamed into him. He had become self-enclosed; thereby he acquired consciousness. The light shone into him; man began to let the surrounding world reflect itself in him. The next stage is that he learns to recognise objects with regard to their chemical constitution. He developed sympathy or antipathy for substances, a relationship to the world outside him. Then finally he also gained an inner perception of the atomistic or life-ether.

Through the introduction of light into the world man acquired his solid form. Through the introduction of the chemical ether he acquired a relationship to the world. Through the introduction of the atomistic ether he acquired life. Thus through the eyes he acquired form; through the sense of taste, relationship to the world; through the sense of smell, the nose, life. Jehovah breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

When we approach religious writings with such ideas we find that the most profound truths have been placed into them. We shall see whether originally these truths were placed into the religious writings as we now have them.

Let us take for example the builder of the Gotthard Tunnel and then a man who describes it. The builder, who actually constructed the Gotthard Tunnel did not need perhaps to possess such a high degree of engineering science in his conscious self, but he actually brought a thought into reality. Such is the relationship between the wise men of ancient times and those of today. At that time they possessed a creative wisdom. Now we have a wisdom based on observation. The creative wisdom is that wisdom which once made man, building up one after another those parts which today the anatomist takes out and describes. The creative wisdom is exactly the same as the wisdom which can be discovered today; it has been placed into the world. In the primeval wisdom man was concerned with the plan of the world. Now you can understand why the mystic has to withdraw into himself. The true mystic must be an investigator of the inner. He attempts to seek out those stages of evolution through which he has been created.

If we were able completely to shut off all light from the eyes and then to create light within us, until the world appeared illumined from within outwards, then we should be able to immerse ourselves inwardly in the creative wisdom and penetrate into everything with inner vision. This has a practical value, for one can remember how in actual fact man has been built up by having passed through the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms: all this is also within him. What is outside in the world is the remains of what man himself once was.

The human heart as it came into being was akin to what had taken place outside. The moment one sinks oneself into the heart, one creates for oneself the surroundings as they were when in the Lemurian Age the heart came into existence. If one concentrates on the activity of the heart, one can conjure up the entire environment of the Lemurian Age when the heart was formed. The Lemurian landscape rises up within us. Whoever concentrates on the heart sees the genesis of the human species.

Through concentration on the interior of the brain, which developed gradually during the Atlantean Age, one sees the Atlantean landscape appear. If one concentrates on the solar plexus one is led to the Hyperboreans. So one travels back into the worlds as they once were. This is no brooding in oneself, but an actual perception of the various organs in their relationships with the world. This is the way in which Paracelsus found his remedies and achieved his cures. He knew that digitalis purpurea came into being at the same time as the human heart. Through concentration on a particular organ, corresponding remedies reveal themselves. Thus do the members of the macrocosm and the microcosmic nature of man stand in relationship to each other.

Now the following is easy to understand. The human being receives warm red blood as do also the higher animals. That is to say, from then on man can separate himself from his surroundings, becoming independent, a whole enclosed within itself. This the fish is not. The fish has the same temperature as what surrounds it. With the warm red blood it became possible for man to develop warmth within himself. Then he was able to separate himself from his environment. Previously he was of the same temperature as his surroundings. What is it that actually occurred?

Let us consider the undifferentiated human organism before the Lemurian Age. There was a uniform temperature over the whole Earth. The state of warmth within man was the same as the state of warmth outside.

Then the inner warmth condition was heightened. This warmth condition signified individual warmth, warmth which was made use of in individualisation; and in the world outside the opposite came about: warmth, fire was distributed. Previously there was as yet no outer fire. To kindle fire in Nature first became possible when fire appeared within man. Since that time there was the beneficent fire distributed outside, and within man the egoistic fire.

And now we have the point of time when fire was withdrawn from spiritual beings for the benefit of man. Human beings drew their warmth from a particular kind of spiritual being — the Agni. Because of this, what was previously there as Fire-Spirit in the world had to withdraw and from then on could only appear from time to time in the form of fire. The Promethean-Saga is based on this fact. The god had lost his previous body and created for himself a new one in the external fire. Here we have an outstanding example of how in a certain way man works destructively on the elemental forces of Nature. Man himself had called forth the element of fire in that he had become an individualised being. This underlies the occult saying that, fundamentally speaking, man works destructively where elemental beings are concerned. This is very far-reaching and makes clear to us how man still today continually creates new conditions, new forces of Nature in his world around him, while he himself progresses in his development. He shapes the structure of the Earth. Fire arose in the Lemurian Age; because of this Lemuria could meet its destruction through fire which man himself had created.

The Atlantean Continent perished through water. The downfall of the Fifth Continent will be brought about through evil. We can observe a kind of retrogression in the following way:

The next stage — during the Atlantean Age — was the creative work of the human being on his own etheric body. There he had drawn air from his environment into himself. In this way he had so changed his ether body that the conditions of Atlantis had become quite different. During Atlantis the surface of the Earth was at one time only mist, an atmosphere of such a kind that a rainbow would have been impossible. At that time man worked upon the water. In the Lemurian Age he worked upon solid earth, this brought forth fire; in the Atlantean Age he worked upon the water; this brought about light. (it corresponded to the light of our intellect.) Then he worked upon the air.

The Fifth Root-Race will bring man to his downfall through what must be called evil. Then comes the Sixth Root-Race. The Fifth Root-Race is that in which Manas develops on the physical plane.

In the Old Indian civilisation man lived in a condition corresponding to Manas in a kind of deep trance-like state. There the primeval wisdom was revealed to the ancient Indians by the Rishis. The second revelation took place with the Persians in a condition similar to our deep sleep. In this condition man heard the Word. It was the condition of the Ancient Persian Sleep-trance. 'Honover' was the word used by the Persians.

Third revelation: The peoples of the near East, Babylonians and Egyptians, perceived through Manas in picture-consciousness; they had visions or dream-sight.

Fourth revelation: Clear waking-day consciousness was developed by the Semites, the Greeks and Romans. At that time Manas was perceived in clear day-consciousness, as incarnated man, Christ Jesus.

So with the ancient Indians we find the trance of the physical body. With the ancient Persians we find the deep sleep of the etheric body. With the peoples of the Near East we find the picture consciousness of the astral body, with the Semites, Greek and Roman peoples the waking consciousness of the ego.

Now in the Fifth Sub-Race man does not perceive the changing stages of Manas, but this Race sees as the highest stage the psychic experience of concepts as such. Our Sub-Race has developed the psychic Manas, the usual scientific knowledge.

The Sixth Sub-Race will develop a Super-psychic Manas. What with human beings today is merely a kind of knowledge will become actual reality, a social force. The Sixth Sub-Race has the task of permeating society in a social way with everything which has been produced by the preceding stages of evolution. Then for the first time Christianity will come forth as shaper of the social order. The Sixth Sub-Race will be the one which is the germinal foundation for the Sixth Root-Race. The Fifth Root-Race is descended from the original Semites, from the Fifth Sub-Race of the Fourth Root-Race. This people developed the individual ego which produces egoism. Man owes his independence to the original Semites. Man must first find himself, but then again must also surrender himself He must surrender himself to what makes thought a reality. The Sixth Sub-Race is destined to replace blood relationship with Manas relationship, relationship in the spirit. Thinking which is altruistic will develop the predisposition to the overcoming of egoism.

The Seventh Sub-Race will be a premature birth. It will make outwardly real too soon and too strongly what has come forth from Manas.

In the Sixth Sub-Race the predisposition will be given for the overcoming of egoism, but in such a way that the balance is held between selfhood and selflessness. The man of the Sixth Sub-Race, will neither lose himself in what is outside, nor shut himself up in what is within. With the Seventh Sub-Race a kind of hypertrophy will come about. Man will then pour out what he now has within him: his egoism. On the other hand the members of the Sixth Sub-Race will hold the balance. The Seventh Sub-Race will harden egoism. Later the English-American people will be projected as something rigidified into the Sixth Root-Race, just as today the Chinese are a rigidified residue of the Atlantean Age, the Fourth Root-Race.

World-egoism proceeds from the Anglo-American Race. From that direction the whole Earth will be overlaid with egoism. It is from England and America that all the discoveries come that will cover the Earth like a network of egoism. So it is from there that the whole Earth will be covered by a network of egotistic evil. But from a small colony in the East [The Slavonic peoples.] there will be developed, as though from a seed, new life for the future.

The English-American civilisation consumes European culture. The sects in England and America represent nothing other than the most incredible conservation of what is old. But such Societies as the Salvation Army, the Theosophical Society and so on, come into existence just there, in order to rescue souls from decadence, for race evolution does not run parallel with soul evolution. But the race itself is going towards its destruction. Within it is the seed of the evil race.

In the Fourth Sub-Race work was performed as tribute (Slave Labour).
In the Fifth Sub-Race work is performed as a commodity (sold).
In the Sixth Sub-Race work will be performed as an offering (free work). [75]

The economic needs of existence will then be separated from work: there will be no more personal possession, everything will be owned in common. One will no longer work for one's personal existence, but will do everything as absolute offering for humanity.

Lecture 29

Berlin, 3rd November 1905

We will now throw yet more light on the hidden working of Karma and consider the Karmic relationships between peoples and individuals. Those who take earnestly the principle of not looking at the world materialistically, but who seek for explanations out of the spirit will understand this.

We have learned from history that illnesses which previously did not exist make their appearance in the course of evolution. So today, to begin with, we shall hear something about the origin of such illnesses as are connected with epochs and peoples.

We shall understand this from out of the spirit. The explanation the doctor gives is that this or that illness is caused by bacilli. We must however ask: where do the bacilli come from? They are just as much incarnated living beings as man. Of those beings too which act as disturbers of human life we must ask: Where do they come from? What has brought them into their present material existence? What were they before they incarnated?

Let us suppose, for example, that some nation or race is in its decline, is moving towards its downfall. It puts up a resistance. This resistance to its downfall is a spiritual expression of something that lives in the astral body of the nation in question. Were such a decline to concern only that which was to come to an end, then the feeling engendered would have no special effect upon others in the world. Let us assume however that it comes in conflict with another nation, plunging it into fear and anxiety and thus sets up a reaction in this other nation. Then we have a two-fold situation: the nation suffering decline, and what arises out of the confluence of the disturbance of the one people fighting against their own decline, and the fear and alarm of the other people. This is something lasting.

Let us take a particular case: the Mongolian onslaughts of the Middle Ages, when the Mongols came into conflict with the Europeans, spreading among them fear and alarm. Such fear and such alarm are then present in the peoples in question. When one looks at these attacking hordes, of which the Mongolians are the last, placing oneself in the mood of all these mediaeval peoples, one sees how the desperation of the last branches of the Fourth Root-Race and the fear and alarm engendered in the Europeans created spiritual forms. If such an onslaught were to be met with courage and love, then the putrefying substance would be dissolved. But fear, hate and alarm conserve such decaying forms and these provide a source of nourishment for beings such as bacilli. Later they incarnate in those material forms suitable for such an incarnation. Thus the decaying substances embedded themselves in the fear and alarm of the European peoples as seeds of decay. These are minute living beings. In this way arose the mediaeval disease, leprosy. It arose out of the decaying substance of the declining Mongolian peoples.

What then is the origin of those disturbers of human physical nature? They come from earlier spiritual causes, from sinfulness. This is Karma as it manifests in national communities. From this you can estimate how the moral life of a nation conditions the external life of the future. It lies in the power of a nation to care for its physical future through a corresponding moral life in the present.

All the European esoteric schools say that all the bacterial illnesses of modern times have a similar origin. The illnesses caused by bacilli are traced back to their spiritual origin. This is an esoteric tradition among the Rosicrucians and in other esoteric schools where these things are taught. A fundamental teaching exists in small circles of esoteric schools, the content of which is that in the seventies quite definite battles took place in the astral world which caused things to take a better turn, even though ... [Gap in text ...]. These events are called the battle between the hosts of the archangel known to Christian esotericism as Michael and the hosts of the god Mammon. [76] Mammon is, on the one hand, the god of hindrances, who places destructive, hindering things in the path of progress. On the other hand one sees in this god Mammon the creator of quite definite forms which work disturbingly in human life just in the sphere of infectious illnesses. Certain infectious illnesses, unknown in earlier times, are brought about by the god Mammon.

We can estimate to what degree the esoteric schools must rouse a progressive thinking in the inmost depths of the human being when one realises that the actual source of these modern illnesses is nothing other than a retrogression, the longstanding conservatism of the so-called upper classes as opposed to the poverty-striken lower classes who are striving towards a new ... [Gap in text ...]. They are hindered, held back by what the god Mammon brings about. We find two forces confronting one another: the sentimental world of the declining upper classes, who like to preserve antiquated conditions, and the feeling of hatred in the lower classes — an astral life projected against the others by the masses. In this opposition esotericism again sees decaying substance and therein the cause of modern infectious illnesses. Whoever sees into these things will of course not take them as a reason for opposing modern medicine with its external remedies. But a real improvement will never come about through these external methods.

What will come about later always reveals itself in advance through esoteric knowledge. This consists of rightly perceiving how the morality of the present day can lead to better health in the future. One can judge from this how profound was the perception of those who introduced the Theosophical Movement into the world. It arose out of the knowledge of such relationships. It was foreseen that the threat of the War of All against All would take on ever more menacing forms. The things that must come about fulfil themselves with an inner necessity, just as events in the East develop like a fire there where there is especially inflammable material. [77] It would be senseless to wish to arrest such things. The appropriate and serviceable means to avert the War of All against All was sought by the Theosophical Movement through the spreading of the axiom of brotherhood. For brotherhood dissolves what streams into the world as means of decay, as hate. For as regards races we find ourselves on a downward path. If one were to believe that this downfall could be delayed and contained by hatred, not resolved by love, then naturally the very worst would follow. The Theosophical Movement would overcome this decline by love. Its founders know that the Theosophical Society is not only a remedy, but the source of the development of humanity as it goes into the future.

So one sees how the physical is a result of what preceded it spiritually and how in particular circumstances people have it in their power, through knowledge of certain relationships, to connect the physical with its spiritual origin. For example, if one knows how a particular illness is connected with particular feelings and emotions, he knows that by calling up these feelings he can also call up the illness. The black magician can make use of this knowledge to destroy the people. The deep occult truths can therefore not be taught to everyone without due consideration, for it would immediately bring about a sharp demarcation between good and evil. This is the danger inherent in the spreading of occult teachings, for no-one can be taught how to make people well, without at the same time learning how to make people ill. Where occult teachings have penetrated more into certain peoples such things have happened. There are districts in the East where one can hear true reports that there are sects who make it their task to produce definite illnesses. Thus we penetrate to an ever greater degree into the understanding of the ways in which the material arises out of the spiritual.

Now we will try to survey somewhat longer periods of time. We know that today there is a beautiful complementary interaction between everything that exists as animal life and the plant world. The plant makes use of carbon for itself and breathes out oxygen, thereby creating the source of life for all creatures in its surroundings who need to breathe. This source arises from the plant world. All that breathes today is there through the action of this mysterious workshop of the plant world. From this we can form a concept of how Worlds go under, how the World which preceded our Earth passed away. On the Old Moon breathing did not exist as it does now in human beings and animals. A quite different process took the place of the breathing process on the Old Moon. We can form a picture of the earlier process when we look at something remaining over from this time: the varying warmth of animals which develop the same temperature as their surroundings. On the Moon there was warmth or fire breathing. The inhaling and exhaling of fire or warmth corresponded at that time to the present day inhaling and exhaling of the air. In the middle of the Lemurian Age the breathing process began to take on the form it has today.

The spiritual process of the embedding of the Monad in the lower man finds its material reflection in breathing. Breathing signifies the inhaling of the Monad. In Hatha Yoga therefore the pupil goes through a breathing process. He regulates rhythmically what man has today as a natural process in order to bring breathing under his control. Just as before man advanced to this process of breathing, he inhaled and exhaled warmth, transforming this into the circulation of the warm blood, so the pupil of Hatha Yoga seeks to form the breathing process into something inward, to bring it inwardly under his control. The Hatha Yoga rules signify the transformation of the breath into a process that does not go from within outwards, but is inwardly regulated, just as today the circulation of the blood is also inwardly regulated. In the case of animals with variable temperature the process of blood circulation has the same relationship to that of human beings as the breathing process of the Hatha Yoga pupil. Behind all these things lie deep thoughts concerning evolution which ought to be the foundation of real processes.

What today is usually not understood is that in the air there is something spiritual. When there was still a consciousness of this, spirit was called: Air, Wind = Pneuma. Pneuma means a current of air and also the soul-spiritual. This terminology stems from times in which one still had a consciousness of the true connections. Let us now take the fact that on the predecessor of our Earth (the Old Moon) certain beings had evolved beyond the stage of the human evolution of that time. These were the Luciferic beings. When one considers these beings one must say: They did not live in an environment such as the Earth has today. They could not breathe air, thus they could not take in the spirit, for the taking in of spirit corresponds to the breathing of air. They were obliged to carry out in the warmth-principle what today takes place in the air. We differentiate on the Earth seven conditions of the physical: Firstly Life-ether, Secondly Chemical-ether, Thirdly Light-ether, Fourthly Warmth-ether, Fifthly Air, Sixthly Water, Seventhly Solid. Thus the Luciferic Beings had to carry out in warmth what man today carries out in air. Now you can understand that owing to this, these Beings who gave man his separate consciousness, his independence, are in a certain sense connected with fire. For this reason, when they make their appearance, it is connected with a certain craving for everything that manifests in man as heat, as fire. The craving attaches itself to man's individual warmth. So the donors of knowledge and freedom are bound up with something which seeks to incarnate in the element of warmth in man in a similar way to how this happened on the Old Moon. This is the connection between knowledge and birth and death, illness and so on in the world. With knowledge, birth, death and illness came into the world. This was the price man paid for knowledge. We see therefore also the connection between certain heat phenomena and illness, namely fever. This is the origin of fever. Traditions of this lingered on into the 19th century.

In the earlier Planetary conditions, the forerunners of our Earth, we had not to do as yet with human beings, animals, plants and minerals as they are today. At that time beings existed who had not yet descended so deeply as present-day animals, nor yet ascended so high as present-day man. At that time plants did not exhale oxygen. Oxygen, this breath of life, did not as yet exist. Only with the coming into being of our plant kingdom did nitrogen become mingled with oxygen. The Moon was surrounded by an atmosphere of nitrogen. In the second half of this previous Planet the beings did certainly already strive towards such forms as could breathe, which were endowed with lungs and so on; but only in our present Earth-Cycle did the plant kingdom evolve as it is now. The animal beings then developed the organs of breathing. They pushed the plant kingdom a stage lower, in order that it should provide oxygen for breathing.

These processes on the predecessor of our Earth had to be followed by a condition where life in the same form was no longer possible. The form had developed into something else and needed a new Planet. The preceding Planet had to meet its end; everything living suffocated. Thus do the Planets with their life perish, and from what has been prepared a new life evolves in the body of the Mother Planet. This is how the decline and uprising of Planetary evolution is to be understood.

Just as man previously had the other kingdoms within himself, so today he still has the evil in his Karma within him. This he is now working out of himself. In the future good and evil will be there in external forms, a race of the good and a kingdom of the evil side by side. At that future time the human countenance will appear in transfigured form out of the separated, downward-thrust evil of animality. Let us think of the transfigured human countenance that today slumbers like a riddle in animal matter, separated from the animal evil and represented symbolically. You can represent it to yourselves in no better way than in the great intuition of the Egyptian Sphinx. This not only points back to the past, but it also points towards the future. Not for nothing did the old Egyptians place the Sphinx in front of the Temple of Initiation. Initiation is the implanting of the secret of the future into human souls. At the entrance to the Temple it was through the Sphinx that the milieu for initiation was already created.

What outwardly is the body of oxygen is inwardly the Monad. As soon as oxygen appeared on the Earth the Monad had the possibility of incarnating. It is an attempt to possess the Monad when the pupil breathes in much oxygen and endeavours to retain it. Oxygen is not only something externally material. One must examine oxygen in the light of its spirit. Thus outwardly we have oxygen and inwardly the Monad. Oxygen therefore in the Lemurian Age formed the body for the descending sons of Manas.

Lecture 30

Berlin, 4th November 1905

Today in connection with the previous lecture some aphoristic remarks will follow concerning the different races. First however attention will be drawn to certain things, the reasons for which only appear in a few books.

The so-called laws of nutrition in the various civilisations appear at first to be very arbitrary. This is not so however, they are born out of knowledge and wisdom, but we must strictly bear in mind that our present-day humanity is not at all in a position to be able to follow such matters as we now wish to deal with. They will nevertheless provide a basis for certain laws of social life. Of course no one should believe that one immediately becomes an adept simply by going over to vegetarianism and so on.

Among oriental peoples there is a certain way of practising the art of healing in which the doctors attach the greatest importance to the nourishing of their own physical body. [78] In places where the old spiritual life still exists, there are those who have become healers by following a diet consisting exclusively of milk. They are quite clear that because they exclude everything else they gain certain healing forces within themselves, especially in the treatment of so-called mental illnesses. They have their special methods. They know for certain that when they only take milk they then develop quite definite forces. [79]

Let us be clear about the intuition upon which this depends. This profound intuition can be understood in the following way. We know of a definite happening in human evolution. In the middle of the Lemurian Age the original human element divided into an ascending humanity and an animal kingdom. With this is bound up the fact that the forces which the Earth still had when it was united with the Moon also divided and a part of the same separated with the Moon from the Earth.

Let us think of the time when the Earth was still united with the Moon. Man then stood at quite a different stage of development. He already had warm blood, but was not yet divided into two sexes. It was with the separation of the Moon that this division is to be observed, so that when today you look up at the Moon you can say: It is your separation from the Earth that has brought it about that the power of human reproduction has divided into two parts. There was also a time on the Earth in which humanity was directly connected, was merged together with what was animal, and was also nourished by the animal. This kind of nourishment cannot be easily understood by those lacking the power of clairvoyance. We can however form a conception of this when we observe the normal manner of nourishment of mammals, which feed their young with their own milk. With the division of the power of reproduction this kind of nutrition also appeared. Earlier human beings could absorb food substance just as today the lungs take in the air. At that time threads of suction connected man with the whole of Nature around him, somewhat in the manner in which today the embryo is nourished in the body of the mother. This was the old form of nourishment on the Earth. A relic of this is the suckling of mammals, and milk is like the nourishment mankind took in Pre-Lemurian times. It is the old food of the Gods, the first form of nourishment on the Earth. At that time the nature of the Earth was such that everywhere this nourishment could be sucked from it. Thus milk is a product of the first form of human food. When the physical constitution of man was nearer to the divine he sucked milk out of his surroundings. Occultists know how man is connected with Nature.

The taking of milk is a transformation of a primeval form of nourishment. Man's first food was always milk. In the saying: 'The milk of human kindness,' this expression is used intentionally. We must ask: How was it originally brought about that milk, as it then was, could be sucked out of the Earth? The Moon forces in the Earth made this possible; like an all-pervading bloodstream they permeated the entire Earth. But when the Moon departed these forces could only be concentrated in special organs of living beings.

The occultist calls milk: the Moon-food. Sons of the Moon are those who nourish themselves on milk. The Moon brought about milk. It has been verified that the Oriental healers, who only live on milk, again absorb the original forces which were on the Earth when milk still flowed in streams. They said: These are the forces which brought mankind into existence. These productive forces must also be health bringing, so we ourselves gain the power to further health, when we only take milk and exclude everything else.

Let us transfer ourselves into the pre-Lemurian Age. Then the condition prevailed when milk was sucked out from the surroundings. A condition arose when milk became the general nourishment for mankind, and then the condition when nourishment was provided by the mother's milk. Before the time when milk was imbibed from Nature, there was an Age in which the Earth was still united with the Sun. There then existed a Sun nourishment. Just as milk has remained over from the Moon, products have also remained over which gained their maturity from the Sun. Everything irradiated with sunlight, blossoms and fruits of the plants, belongs to the Sun. Formerly their growth inclined towards the centre of the Earth when it was united with the Sun. They planted themselves into the Sun with their blossoms. When the Earth separated from the Sun they retained their old character: they again turned their blossoms towards the Sun. Man is the plant in reverse. That part of the plant which grows above the Earth has the same relationship to the Sun as milk has to the Moon, is therefore Sun-food. Side by side with milk nourishment there arose a kind of plant nourishment, namely from the upper parts of the plant. This was the second form of human food.

Thus when the Lemurian Age was approaching its end two human types faced each other: the one kind, the Sons of the Moon, who bred animals and nourished themselves from what the animals produced, from their milk; and a second kind who fed on plants, on the produce of the Earth.

This fact is portrayed in the story of Cain and Abel. [80] Abel is a shepherd, Cain a tiller of the soil; Abel represented the Moon race and Cain the Sun race. This allegory is very profound. Occult teaching reveals this in a somewhat concealed way. That divine being who gave man the possibility of becoming a Moon-being, nourishing himself with the transformed Moon food, was called by the Jewish people 'Jehovah'. He was the nourishing force of Nature; this flowed towards Abel and he took it from his flocks. It was a falling away from Jehovah when man went over to the Sun-food. This is why Jehovah would not accept Cain's offering, because it was the offering of a Sun-food.

When we go back into the most ancient times we find no nourishment at all except milk, the food which man receives from living animals. This is the first form of nourishment as it still is now in the first weeks of life, and the Eastern healer relates this form of nourishment to the saying: 'If you do not become as little children, you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.' All these things have their significance.

Now we come from the Lemurian to the Atlantean Age, to the peoples who lived in the region of the present Atlantic Ocean. With the Atlanteans something new appears. They began for the first time to eat food that was not taken from what is living, but which came from what was dead. They consumed what had yielded up life. This is a very important transition in human evolution. Through the fact that human beings nourished themselves from the lifeless it became possible to make the transition to ego-hood. This feeding on what is dead is rightly connected with the desire for the ego. Man became independent through eating what is dead. He took the lifeless into himself in various forms, at first in the case of the developing hunting peoples who killed animals. Later, peoples arose who ate, not only what was ripened by the sun, but what ripened below the surface of the earth. This is just as lifeless as the dead animal. Everything living in the lowest part of animal nature, what is saturated with, blood, has turned away from the Moon-force. The Moon-force itself is still in milk, which is connected with the life-process, whereas man absorbs the forces of what is dying when he eats what is dead. Equally dead is that part of the plant that grows below the surface of the Earth, that is not shone upon and warmed through by the life principle of the Sun. Thus there is a correspondence between the root and the blood-saturated body of the animal.

Later another form of food was added which did not exist earlier. Man introduced into his food what was purely mineral, what he took out of the Earth, salt and so on. In his food therefore he passed through the three kingdoms. This is approximately the course which the Atlantean civilisation passed through in regard to nourishment. Firstly came the hunting peoples, then the farming peoples and thirdly the development of mining, which brought to light what is under the Earth.

All these things represent a turning away from the actual force of life or production. The dead animal is separated from life. That part of the plant which is in the soil is also separated from life. Everything of the nature of salt is the dead nature of the mineral kingdom, that remains over from the past.

Now we come to the fifth human race. The drinking of milk and the eating of fruit continued; other things were added as something new. In the Fifth Root-Race the most outstanding addition is what was gained from minerals, that is to say, by means of a chemical process. This is indicated in Genesis. What is it that was gained by means of a chemical process? There is an ascent in evolution, chemistry is applied to plants, to fruit. Out of this wine arose. This did not exist on Atlantis. Therefore the Bible tells us that Noah, the original ancestor of the post-diluvian race, became intoxicated by wine. By means of a mineral-chemical process something was produced from the plant kingdom. Wine then played a special role in the whole of the Fifth Root-Race. All initiates from the beginning of the Fifth Root-Race had taken over their traditions from the time of the Atlantean Race, when there was as yet no wine. The Indian, Persian and Egyptian initiates had no need of wine. What played a part in the sacred rituals was exclusively water.

With the Fifth Root-Race wine made its appearance, in which the mineral treatment of the plant had to play its part. The first three Sub-Races were repetitions of what came earlier. The Fourth Sub-Race was the first to develop the new, which was to appear in the Fifth Root-Race. A certain sacredness was claimed for wine. In this connection cults emerged in which wine played a part (the cult of Dionysos). A wine-god even appeared.

This had gradually been prepared for in the development of humanity. Wine had first made its appearance with the Persians. Here however wine was still something quite secular. Only gradually did it find its way into ritual, into the Dionysos-Cult. The Fourth Sub-Race is the one which first brought forth Christianity and also the one which seven hundred years earlier announced its mission through the Dionysian dramas. These first took wine into the sphere of the cult. This fact was portrayed in the most wonderful way by that evangelist who knew most about Christianity: St. John. He describes at the very beginning the transformation of water into wine, for Christianity came at first for the Fourth Sub-Race of the Fifth Root-Race. A teaching was needed which makes sacred what had to come about on the physical plane. Wine cuts human beings off from everything spiritual. Whoever takes wine cannot attain the spiritual. He can know nothing of Atma, Buddhi and Manas, of what is lasting, of what reincarnates. This had to be. The whole course of human evolution is a descent and a re-ascent. Man had to descend to the lowest point. And it was in order that he should come right down onto the physical plane that the Dionysian Cult made its appearance. The human body had to be prepared for materialism through the Dionysian cult; this was why a religion had to appear that changed water into wine. Formerly wine was strictly forbidden to the priests, they could experience Atma, Buddhi and Manas. Now a religion had to come about which led right down onto the physical plane, otherwise human beings would not have completely descended. This religion which led them downwards had to have an outer manifestation, a manifestation that was turned away from Atma, Buddhi and Manas, from reincarnation, and only drew attention to what was of a general nature. The next thing will be that wine is again turned into water.

If at an earlier time water had not changed into wine, man would not have received everything which is in this earthly vale. At the beginning of St. John's Gospel in the description of the changing of water into wine at the marriage in Cana, we are shown how Christ took into account what was there. But he also reckoned with the future, through the fact that for his part He inaugurated the Sacrament of the Last Supper. The Last Supper is the greatest symbol of the One who began this stream of civilisation with the Fourth Sub-Race. Being indeed the true 'Son of Man', who descended to the greatest depths in order to rise again with the greatest power, He had to hold to what was there and show mankind how the physical constitution of the race was connected with His mission. If humanity were to ascend again it was necessary for them to have a symbol leading once more from the dead to the living: Bread and Wine. In the occult sense, bread is what only comes about when the plant has been killed. Again, wine comes about when the plant has been killed, but then further treated with mineral substance. When one bakes the plant one does the same as when one kills the animal. When we draw wine from the plant kingdom in a certain sense we do the same as when we bleed the animal. Bread and wine are there as the symbol of the Fourth Race. What should develop in the future is a further ascent from plant to mineral nourishment. Bread and Wine must again be sacrificed, must be given up. Thus as Christ appeared in the Fourth Sub-Race he pointed to Bread and Wine: 'This is my Body; this is my Blood.' Here He wished to create a transition from animal nourishment to plant nourishment, the transition to something higher.

At that time there were two classes of human beings: Firstly those whose nourishment was flesh and blood; these are the pre-Christian people with whom Christ in no way concerned himself. Secondly those who only killed plants, who drew from plants their blood: people who drank wine and ate bread. With these He was still concerned; they are the forerunners of that humanity which will exist in the future.

The significance of the Last Supper is the transition from nourishment taken from the dead animal to nourishment taken from the dead plant. When our Fifth Sub-Race will have reached its end, in the Sixth Sub-Race, the Last Supper will be understood. Even before this it will be possible for the third form of nourishment to begin to make its appearance, the purely mineral. Man himself will then be able to create his nourishment. Now he takes what the Gods have created for him. Later he will advance and will himself prepare in the chemical laboratory the substances he will require.

So you see that all these things arise out of deep intuitions. When with the old Eastern peoples we find all kinds of instructions about what should be eaten, these are not actually laws, but stories: You should not expect the effect of substance to be other than they are.

That which Christ killed, which was actually sacrificed after he had partaken of the Last Supper, is the physical body. This dies. For the whole of humanity this will die. Towards the middle of the Sixth Root-Race, in the last third, there will no longer be a physical body. Then the entire human being will again be etheric. It will pass over into the finer substance. But this will not happen if man himself does not bring it about. For this he must first pass over to the nourishment which he prepares in the laboratory. So that man, in so far as he no longer takes his nourishment from Nature, but gains it from his own wisdom, from the God within him, so far does he also hasten. towards his own deification.

When man begins to nourish himself, the foundation will also be laid for something higher, that is, self-propagation. He will gradually create life for himself out of the mineral world.

This is the great progression of human evolution. What the natural scientist knows today is only a fraction of the great cycle.

With Saturn we come into the Mineral Age. In the Atlantean Epoch, through consuming what was dead, preparation was made for what was to bring about egoism. From the original Semites up to the Fifth Sub-Race, the human ego was very gradually developed. In the Sixth Sub-Race of the Fifth Root-Race the 'I' will again reach a higher stage of development. This means that we stand before a new so-called spiral of existence. The previous spiral began in the time when the original Semites laid the foundation for the present Root-Race.

It is to the original Semite civilisation that we owe everything that has existed up till the present time. But now there begins a new impact with the Slavonic Peoples which will lead into the future. A kind of break with the past will be brought about by a people who will introduce a new impulse into the world. This is working as hidden spirituality out of the Russian peasantry. It will form the second part of the coming spiral. At the present time a certain culture is in process of destruction and a new one is being prepared. It is being prepared in the West and will come to fruition in the East. But the Old must activate the New. Wherever in our time we have new impulses these are germinal, awkward, unskillful. On the contrary the Old is clear-cut, but has a critical, destructive character. It was the Semitic Race which gave birth to the bearers of the Old Culture, who are the bearers of what spirals within the spiral.

All these have something Semitic about them. Examples: Lassalle, Marx. The spiral turns inwards. A continuation from here is not possible. Now a leap must be made as though from one shore to another, to the spirituality of the future culture of the East. This is a completely new impulse.

What belongs to the future is as yet unformed and naturally infiltrated by the old. Haeckel is a man who swims in midstream and is pulled by both spirals. The first part of Haeckel's 'Weltritsel' (Riddles of the World) [81] is positive, elementary Theosophy: the second part is negative and altogether destructive. This is a double spiral (Wirbel).

We can also observe these contradictions in the Socialism of the East and the West. The Socialism of the West is a Socialism of production; that of the East is a Socialism of consumption. One who orders the social life in the direction of production reckons with possessiveness, with egoism. He who reckons with consumption turns his attention to what others require from him; he bears in mind his fellow men, reckons with brotherhood. The socialism of production — Marx, Lassalle — only bears the worker in mind, in so far as he is the producer. In the East the consumer is placed in the foreground, as for instance with Kropotkin, Bakunin, Herzen. You can see things building up to a climax if you follow Kropotkin. He had an immediate understanding of the principle of helpful interaction in the case of animals. The socialism of the West is entirely built up on strife. Thus do the currents of World evolution play into one another.

Lecture 31

Berlin, 5th November 1905

Our Fifth Root-Race, the present Post-Atlantean humanity, was preceded by that of Atlantis, on the now submerged continent between Europe and America. The Atlanteans can in no way be compared with the human beings who today inhabit our Earth Globe. For even the remnants of that old race have learnt a variety of things from the later inhabitants of the Fifth Continent and we are therefore unable to reconstruct from them the conditions of that civilisation. At the beginning of the Atlantean civilisation there were no tools. By means of clairvoyant forces it was possible for the Atlantean to make the earth serve his needs. The preparation of metals for such uses only appeared towards the end of the Atlantean Epoch.

A small group was separated off from the population of Atlantis, just as now in the Theosophical Society a separation should once again take place. It was their task to carry over a new civilisation into the Fifth Root-Race. You would find the place where those who were chosen lived, a small colony, in present England and Ireland. At that time this was where the original Semites lived. They were the first people who were in a position to think with their intellect. All the ideas of the Atlanteans were still of the nature of pictures. The rounded shape of the front of the brow, the formation of the part of the brain on which thought depends, first appears with the population of the original Semites, who were in no way similar to the present Semitic race. This original Semitic people who, one can say, discovered thinking, journeyed through Europe into Asia and there founded a civilisation. They formed the Fifth Sub-Race of the Atlanteans. The seven Sub-races of the Atlantean RootRace were as follows: Firstly the Rmoahals, secondly the Tlavatlis, thirdly the original Toltecs, fourthly the original Turanians, fifthly the original Semites, sixthly the original Accadians, seventhly the original Mongolians.

The Fifth Root-Race therefore arose from the Fifth Sub-Race of the Atlanteans. When we look towards Asia we find there as, the First Sub-Race of the Fifth Root-Race, the Ancient Indian race, that people who later journeyed in a more Southern direction and there became the ancestors of the later Indians. The most essential characteristic of this ancestral race, who had travelled towards the north of India, was that it developed no real sense for material culture. It possessed spiritual vision of the highest order combined with a completely undeveloped sense for the material. The ancient Indians were turned away from the world; their souls were completely similar to the Atlanteans, in that they were able to develop a superlative, glorious picture world. Through the practise of Yoga, working from within outwards, they later evolved what today seems to us a learned conception of the world. Of this, what has been handed down as external tradition, only fragments remain. The Vedas and the Bhagavad Gita no longer give any real picture of the mighty conceptions of the Indians, but only echoes. In the Vedanta philosophy also there is only an abstract remainder of the original teaching of the Indians, which was handed down by word of mouth.

Think of the faculty which appeared in the later Kabbalistic teaching in a form which elaborated matters in minute detail with subtle intricacy, think of this faculty applied to lofty cosmic thoughts. When later the Jew was able to apply thought to such things in the Kabbalistic teachings, it followed that the later Jewish occult teaching was only a decadent reflection, an echo of that finely articulated thought system of the primeval Indians. And what the teaching of the Brahmans became is by no means only religion in the sense of later systems, but knowledge, poetry and religion in a single great whole. All this was, as it were the finest flower, the extracted essence of what had developed in the old Atlantean civilisation.

The Europeans also came over from Atlantis to Western and Central Europe and here there developed a quite different teaching. Groups of people settled who were not yet advanced enough to be chosen to found new civilisations, but yet possessed in germinal form what in India came to expression in so magnificent a way, but which here remained at a much earlier stage. What had its start in Europe moved ever further and further towards Asia. A common teaching formed its foundation, but in Europe this remained at a somewhat primitive level.

The Indian teaching was expressed in the Vedas. 'Veda' means the same as 'Edda', only the content of the Vedas is more finely developed than that which remained here in Europe in a more primitive form as the Edda, which was only written down at the end of the Middle Ages. We must realise that this great primal spiritual teaching underwent a certain modification brought about by the migrating peoples. Its original greatness consisted in grasping the mighty divine unity which was recognised by the spiritual vision of the (ancient) Indians. This was no longer so with the next, the (ancient) Persian Race. In the wisdom arising from this primeval Indian vision the concept of time was almost entirely absent. It was with the Second Sub-Race, the ancient Persian, that the concept of time made its appearance. Time, it is true, was recognised by the Indian but was more uniform; the concept of history, the progression from the imperfect to what is more perfected, was lacking. Thinking was governed by the idea that everything has emanated from divine perfection.

Persian thinking was governed by the concept of time. Zervan Akarana is one of the most important Divinities of the Persians and this is in fact Time. How did one arrive at the concept of time? Whoever seeks above all the primal unity of the Godhead, as in the case of the ancient Indians, must conceive it as the absolute Good. Evil, the imperfect in the world, was for the ancient Indian nothing but illusion; 'illusion' was a very important concept. These ancient people said: Nothing whatever exists in the world that is imperfect and evil. If you believe that something evil exists, you have not looked at the world in a way sufficiently free from illusion. Rust, for instance, which eats into iron, is elsewhere very beneficial: you must only consider where it is. When you look at a criminal through the veil of illusion, he will appear to you as such; if however you turn away from illusion you will realise that there is no such thing as evil. — This teaching is inwardly connected with a turning away from the world.

It was otherwise with the Second Sub-Race. There, with the earliest of the Persian peoples, the Good was given a particular place in the World-process, was regarded as the goal. It was said: The Good must be sought for. The world is good and evil, Ormuzd and Ahriman; and what conquers the evil is Zervan Akarana, Time. This is how good and evil came into the early Persian world-conception as the principle of evolution. The Zarathustran teaching rests on the placing of evil in the world, and on the time-concept. Man is placed into life in order to conquer evil. This conception is connected with the fact that the Second Sub-Race was not one that was estranged from the world, but worked within it. Active, productive in various branches of human work, attention directed to the outer world, concerned as to how someone could himself create good out of the world: this was the Second Sub-Race. With the Persians therefore a whole company of Gods makes it appearance; not characteristics of one God, but a plurality of Gods; because the world, if not regarded as illusion, but as reality, presents a plurality, a multiplicity. The Gods which were venerated there were more or less personal-spiritual Divinities.

The earliest initiates, who founded the ancient Indian teaching, were also the teachers of the Second Sub-Race, the ancient Persian Race. Here they adapted the whole teaching to a working people. They created that religion which was brought to fruition by the various Zarathustras. [82]

A further initiation advanced towards the Near East: to Egypt, to the Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, these forefathers of the Arabs. There the Third Sub-Race was developed. This Third Sub-Race was such that it now sought to bring both directions — the inner nature of man and the outer world — into harmony with each other. Whether you look for the fundamental conception of this Third Sub-Race in Chaldea or Egypt, everywhere you will find a pronounced awareness of the connection between human work and the forces of Nature. This is an essential difference when compared with the Persian Race. In Persia you have two powers, the good and the evil, which do battle with one another. Now man tries to bring the different nature forces or beings into his service. What developed as Persian religion was mainly built up on human morality and industry. Now in the Third Sub-Race the consciousness developed that one does not master nature only by means of bodily strength and moral behaviour, but best of all through knowledge. In those lands where a skillful agriculture was pursued as in Egypt and Chaldea, there developed a co-ordination of heavenly-spiritual powers with what was carried out by human work. Knowledge of the meteorological environment and the heavenly bodies evolved there. Strength for work was sought for in the knowledge of Nature. So it came about that man directed his gaze to the stars, and astronomy was brought into connection with humanity on the Earth. Man's origin was sought for in the stars. Thus, in this sense we have for the first time to do with science. Now in the Third Sub-Race, instead of inner perception, we have practical knowledge. So we hear of great initiates who taught geometry, the practice of surveying, technical skills. The fructification of human activity with cosmic wisdom brought down from the spiritual world makes its appearance in the Third Sub-Race. With this, something was given which translated the whole conception of human life into a kind of heavenly science. With the different peoples this found expression in various ways. In the case of the Egyptians, Osiris, Isis and Horus were conceived of as representatives of astronomical phenomena.

Three different Sub-Races developed in Asia. Taking their start from Atlantis, a colony led by initiates traveled over to Asia. A special result of this was the ancient Indian civilisation, a second, the ancient Persian; the third result was the Egyptian-Chaldean civilisation: they all had a common initiation-source. In Europe however groups always remained behind which fell away from what culminated with such magnificence in the three great civilisations. These separate cultural streams were distributed in Europe in the most varied way. In Europe too there were initiates who formed Mystery Schools towards the end of the period of which we are speaking: they were called Druids: Drys means Oak. The strong oak was the symbol of the early European priest-teachers, for what dominated the peoples in the North was the thought that their old form of culture would necessarily have to decline. There the Twilight of the Gods was taught and the future of Christianity came to magnificent expression through these Northern prophets in what later became the Siegfried Saga. [83a] This may be compared with the Achilles Saga. [83b]

Achilles is invulnerable in his whole body with the exception of the heel, Siegfried with the exception of the spot between the shoulders. To be invulnerable in such a way signifies to have been initiated. In Achilles you have the initiate of the Fourth Sub-Race which lies on the ascending curve of man's cultural development: therefore all the upper parts of Achilles are invulnerable; only the heel the lower nature is vulnerable, just as Hephaistos is lame. The German Siegfried was also an initiate of the Fourth Sub-Race, but vulnerable between the shoulder blades. This is his vulnerable spot, first made invulnerable by the One who bore the cross. With Siegfried the Gods reach their downfall, the Northern Gods approach their end (Twilight of the Gods). This gives the Northern saga its tragic note, for it not only points to the past, but to the Twilight of the Gods, to the time which is to come. The Druids gave to man the teaching of the declining Northern Gods. Thus in what was still symbolic form, the battle of St. Boniface [84] with the Oak represents the battle of the Druids with the old Priesthood.

Everywhere in the North one can point to the traces of what came to expression over in Asia. For instance Muspelheim and Niflheim are a counterpart of Ormuzd and Ahriman. The giant Ymir, out of whom the whole world is made, corresponds to the cutting into pieces of Osiris. In the most detailed way one can follow the connection between the European peoples of the North and the other civilisations. When in the South of Europe the Fourth Sub-Race was developing, the Northern tribes had also made the transition into the Fourth Stage so that in the Germanic peoples Tacitus [85] found much that was related to the Southern culture. Irmin [86] for example is the same figure as Hercules. Tacitus also tells us of a kind of Isis worship there in the North. So the older stages of civilisations progressed towards what was to come as Christianity.

So think of Europe, Central Asia and Egypt as sown with the seed of what had developed under the influence of the Initiation Schools. These Initiation Schools sent out from their midst the founder of the Fifth [Fourth] Sub-Race, who had long been prepared in the shelter of the Mysteries. This is the personality who in the Bible is called Abraham. He came from Ur in Chaldaea and developed as an extract of the three older civilisations. The task which was represented in Abraham was to carry into the human realm all that had been held in veneration in the outside world; to create initiates who laid great value on what was human, in order to found the cult of the personality. This brought about personal attributes in the Jewish patriarchs. Here we have to do with duplicity and cunning. Jacob gains his inheritance by employing ruse and cunning in order to take what he wants from his brother. This is the reality out of which our present-day civilisation developed: it is founded on intelligence and possessiveness. In the stories of the Old Testament this is magnificently expressed as a kind of dawning of the new. It would be impossible to present this origin in a more powerful way. Esau is still a hairy man, that means he represents the human type which is still more enmeshed in the physical; Jacob represents one who relies on his intelligence and guile and thereby achieves what is now actually developing in human nature. The overcoming of physical force through intelligence is here inaugurated. The initiators do not always introduce something great into the world, but what must of necessity come about. 'Israel' means: He who leads man to the invisible God, who dwells within. Isra-el: El means the goal; Isra = the invisible God. Until then God was visible, whether it was the one who gave the urge towards Good and Evil as with the Persians, whether the God who had his body in the stars, in the Universe: This God was experienced as something visible.

And now we have the Jewish initiation portrayed in Joseph and his twelve brethren. It is a beautiful and powerful allegory. The allegorical now makes its appearance: the intellect, when it wishes to be effective, becomes the recounter of allegories.

How Joseph was initiated was first recounted. He was removed from his normal surroundings, sold for twenty pieces of silver and cast into a pit, where he remained for three days. This indicates an initiation. Then he comes to Egypt where his activities bring new life. And now we have finally indicated the transition which began at that time from the knowledge of God in the stars to the knowledge of man. Joseph was rejected because he had dreams. He had the following dream: Sun, Moon and eleven stars bowed down before him. The eleven stars are the eleven signs of the Zodiac. He felt himself to be the twelfth. The symbolism of the Star-Religion was now led over into the human. In the twelve brothers, the starting point of the twelve tribes' the knowledge of God in the stars was led over into the personal. "Now you surely do not wish to assert," said his father — "that your brothers will bow down to you." Here the change is given us. The divine knowledge of the stars is replaced by a knowledge attached to the personal human. This finds its form in the Mosaic law.

Out of the three Ancient Civilisations, through the initiation of the Jewish Patriarchs, this Fourth Civilisation, the primal Jewish, was derived. This we have as the Fourth Sub-Race, for there belong to it also the civilisations of Ancient Greece and Rome. The civilisations of Greece and Rome (Roman law) both become great just through this personal element, until eventually this thought incarnated, reaching its culmination in Christianity. So it is in this lesser racial branch that the actual stream of the Fourth Sub-Race makes its appearance. The Graeco-Latin stream is a higher form of the Judaic; here the cult of the personal is intensified. There is no contradiction between this descent to the deepest point and then the ascent.

Everywhere [within the Fourth Sub-Race] we can observe this. The personal had actually to come to expression in the way described in the Esau and Jacob Saga in order to find its purification in the beauty of the human culture of the Greeks and the greatness of the human culture of the Romans. In the Odysseus Saga the ancient civilisation of the priests was conquered by cunning. It was out of the civilisations that arose from this that Christianity could first develop, which in truth contains all the ancient cultures in itself and can therefore also absorb them. In accordance with his parentage Jesus Christ was a native of Galilee ... 'Galilean' means: 'The Stranger', someone who does not really belong; 'Galilee' means a small isolated territory where someone could be brought up who, in his native milieu had to take into himself, not only the Jewish, but also all the ancient forms of culture.

Out of the impact between the Romans and the Northern peoples there now developed the Fifth Sub-Race in which we ourselves live. It has still kept an impulse from the old Initiation Schools in the Moorish, and Arabian influence which came over from Asia. It is always the same influence, the same Initiation School. We can trace how the Irish monks, as also those who work in scientific fields, are essentially inspired by the Moorish-Arabian science. This gives the same fundamental character in a new-form, in a way in which it could now be received. It is here that Christianity first finds its real expression. It has merely passed through the ancient Greek civilisation for as long as the Fifth Period of Culture was being prepared; and then finds here firm ground, embodying itself in a whole range of nations. Everything at that time was permeated and inspired by Christianity. Our present time with its materialistic culture is the last radical expression of what was then inaugurated. The birth of this new culture is symbolically presented in the Lohengrin Saga. Lohengrin is the initiator of the 'city-state', and the city life which leads up to a new cultural stage is symbolised by Elsa of Brabant.

Into all these streams others penetrate, for instance the Mongolian tribes. What originally came over from the West was related to what came with the Huns from the East. So from East and West something came together that was related: the Mongolian and Germanic tribes. Those who originated from the West were left-behind descendants of the Atlanteans, as were also the Mongolians from the East. Fundamentally both streams were related. It is always one stream which crosses another. Both, however, have a common native ground since they both originated from Atlantis.

Now here in the North, everything that has remained from earlier times took on a more established form. At the same time as the epoch of the Jewish Prophets, in the centuries before Christ, we find here indications of a great, primeval, Atlantean initiate. Wod-Wodha-Odin. [87] This is a modernised Atlantis, in a new form, an atavism, a throwback into the Atlantean Age. And this happens everywhere, over in Asia also. In Asia W, the sound V, becomes B, Wodha = Bodha = Buddha. Buddhism appears as a throwback into the Atlantean Age. This is why we find Buddhism most widespread with what has remained over from the Atlanteans in the Mongolian peoples. And where the very pillars of its greatness make their appearance in Tibet, there we have a modern, monumental expression of Atlantean culture.

One must get to know such relationships between peoples, then one will also understand history. When Attila, [88] the fighter for monotheism, appears in Europe, it was Christianity which first halted him, because there he was confronted with something greater than anything the Huns possessed. The monotheism of the Huns was, as the outcome of an Atlantean civilisation, of a magnitude which they found in no other peoples that they encountered on their way. Christianity alone made a forceful impression on them. Many things in historical development are to be understood in the light of these great considerations.

The well-known traveler, Peters, [89] certainly feels that the old Bodhism and the Wotanism can flow together, but he does not know that we in Europe have not only to be representatives of what comes from the ancient past, but something new, a new spiral. Into the old part of the spiral there strikes the very newest, the wisdom pointing to the future. This is related to the old wisdom as clear day consciousness is related to trance consciousness. With completely clear day consciousness future peoples will develop a spiritual culture which will be different from the old. For this reason Theosophy must not be only what is carried over from the old, from Buddhism and Hinduism; this would certainly collapse. Something new must arise out of the seeds which slumber in the East of Europe, coming together with everything that is being worked out there.

The inherent culture of the future lies in the unfolding of what is now in a seed condition in the Folk-elements of Eastern Europe. We ourselves in Central Europe are the advance post. Eastern Europe must provide the means, the human material for what is here being founded in advance.

The Rosicrucian Schools always taught that Central and Western Europe are only advance posts of what will develop in the European East, what will proceed from the fructification of the Folk element and European knowledge. With Tolstoi everything is fructified through the West European culture, but in a way different from that of others before him. With powerful simplicity he utters what no Kant and no Spencer could have expressed. What there appears over-ripe appears in him as something still unfulfilled. But it is always so with what is in a seed condition. Not out of the fine perfected plant, but out of the seedling does the new, future plant grow.

Whatever one may experience, one can look with complete trust towards the future. For just as the crystal first develops out of an alkaline solution only after it has been vigorously stirred, so also something new can only develop after great upheavals.

Further Diagrams of Evolution

Glossary of Indian-Theosophical Terms

Arhats
Adepts, initiates, occult teachers, Mahatmas or Masters.
Arupa
Without form.
Arupa plane
The higher regions of Devachan. Higher Spiritual World (R.S.)
Atma
The breath of life-spirit. The seventh and highest principle in man. Spirit Man. (R.S.)
Avidja
Non-knowledge.
Avitchi
Hell.
Bhava
Individual existence.
Bodhisattva
One whose being (sattva) is illumination (bodhi) pre-stage to Buddha-hood.
Buddhi
Theosophical: World-soul or World-mind and as 6th principle of the human being: Spiritual soul. Called by Rudolf Steiner Life Spirit.
Buddhi-Manas
Higher Manas in contradistinction to Lower Manas (Kama Manas). Higher Ego.
Chela
Occult pupil.
Causal body
According to Rudolf Steiner, the extract of the etheric and astral bodies which man bears from Earth-life to Earth-life and continually enriches.
Devachan
Spiritual World. See under Planes.
Devas
Spiritual Beings functioning on planes higher than the physical.
Dhyan-Chohans
Planetary Spirits, perfected human beings of earlier Rounds. — Oriental name for the Archai or Archangels.
Jara-marana
The Fall.
Jati
What before birth presses towards birth.
Kali Yuga
Yuga: age; Kali: dark.
Kama
General Astrality, i.e. substance of wishes and desires.
Kama-Manas
Earthly consciousness or Lower Manas, in contradistinction to Higher Manas (Buddhi-Manas). Also called by Rudolf Steiner, Intellectual Soul.
Kama-prana consciousness
General consciousness of life.
Kama-rupa
Astral Body, Body of Desires.
Kriya-shakti
The power of self-procreation.
Kundalini fire, kundalini light
Serpent-fire, Serpent force. Described by Rudolf Steiner in ‘How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds’ as ‘force active in Spiritual Perception’, and as ‘An Element of Higher Matter’.
Linga Sharira
Etheric body.
Lipikas
Also called Maharajas: Exalted spiritual beings connected with human destiny (Karma): Lords of Karma, who guide incarnation.
Maha-para-nirvana
Highest of the Seven Planes.
Manas
Literally, spirit. As human principle called by Rudolf Steiner, Spirit-Self.
Manvantara
Cosmic Day; seven rounds, a period of manifestation in contradistinction to period of dissolution or rest — Pralaya.
Mental World, Mental Plane
Devachan.
Nama-rupa
Distinction between name and form (subject and object).
Nidamas
The twelve Nidanas are the twelve Karma-forces which bring about incarnation. See Lecture 15.
Nirmanakaya
According to Rudolf Steiner an astral body so highly developed that at death no traces are left behind: Body of a Buddha-Being who has achieved perfection.
Para-nirvana plane
Lying still higher than the Nirvana Plane (See under Planes).
Pitris
Fathers or Fore-runners of Earth-men on Old Moon and Old Sun.
Planes

The Theosophical-Indian terminology for the seven planes, levels or worlds was already replaced by Rudolf Steiner as far as possible by German expressions in his Theosophy (1904) and in later lectures.

Theosophical Literature Anthroposophical Literature
Physical Plane The same, also: physical world, world of understanding
Astral Plane The same, also: Soul World or Land, Imaginative World, Elementary World
Devachan or Mental Plane The same, also Spirit Land, Spiritual World, World of the Harmony of the Spheres, World of Inspiration
Rupa-Devachan Lower Devachan, Lower Spiritual World, also Heavenly World
Arupa-Devachan Higher Devachan, Higher Spiritual World, World of true Intuition
Shushupti or Buddhi plane Buddhi plane, also World of Fore seeing
Nirvana plane Nirvana plane
Para-nirvana plane Nirvana plane
Maha-pari-nirvana plane Nirvana plane
This world above the World of Fore-seeing is of such a nature ‘that in accordance with truth and uprightness its name may not be given in European languages, for it would not do to choose just any name for what in Oriental languages is called Nirvana and which is higher than the World of Fore-seeing.’ Rudolf Steiner, Lecture, Berlin, 25 October 1909 in The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego-Consciousness. See also The Theosophy of the Rosicrucian, The East in the Light of the West, Macrocosm and Microcosm, >Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and Philosophy.
Praja-patis
The Creative forces (from the point of view of embodiment).
Pralaya
Sleep condition; Existence during a Rest-period between two Manvantaras, also called a closed orbit.
Prana
General Life-principle; when poured into the physical body, spoken of as etheric body. Sometimes Life Ether.
Root Races
The seven main epochs or ages of the Fourth Globe or Condition of Form in Earth evolution: 1. Polarian, 2. Hyperborean, 3. Lemurian, 4. Atlantean, 5. Aryan or Post-Atlantean Root-Race; the following two epochs are always called the 6th and 7th Root-Races.
Rupa
Body, form.
Rupa Plane
Lower Devachan, Lower Spirit World. (R.S.)
Sanja
Perfection.
Sanskara
The organising tendency, desire.
Shad-ayatana
What the understanding makes out of a thing.
Shushupti plane
Buddhi plane. See under Planes.
Skandhas
According to Buddhistic reaching the five fundamental principles in every human being: body, sensation, thinking, will, consciousness. According to Rudolf Steiner virtually identical with Karma. See Lecture 17 of the Course.
Sparsha
Contact with existence.
Tat twam asi
‘That art thou’: Famous formula of the Vedas.
Trishna
Thirst for existence.
Upadana
Feeling of comfort in existence.
Vedana
Karmic results of feelings and sensations.
Vijnana
Consciousness. Understanding, intellectual knowledge.

List of Personalities — with reference to Lecture number(s)

Alexander VI, Pope (1430 – 1503), became Pope in 1492, 2.
Aristotle (384 – 322 BC), 6.
Attila (Absolute Ruler of the Huns from 445 – 453), 31.
Augustine (354 – 430), 8.

Bakunin, Michael (1814 – 1876), anarchist, 30.
Blavatsky, Helen Petrovna (1831 – 1891), 3,4, 6, 7, 10, 19, 20, 26.
Boniface, St. (Wynfrith, about 675 – 754), 31.
Buchner, Ludwig (1824 – 1899), 9.

Caesar, Caius Julius (100 – 44 BC.), 5, 10.
Collins, Mabel (1841 – 1927), author of Light on the Path, 11.

Dante Alighieri (1265 – 1321), 8, 20.
Dionysius the Areopagite, 13.
du Bois-Reymond, Emil (1818 – 1896), 21.

Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1762 – 1814), 21.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749 – 1832), 5, 21, 27.

Haeckel, Ernst (1834 – 1919), 9, 21, 30.
Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich (1770 – 1831), 21.
Heraclitus (540 – 480 BC.), 21.
Herzen, Alexander Ivanovich (1812 – 1870), 30.
Homer (9th century BC.), 13.

Kant, Immanuel (1724 – 1804), 8, 23, 31.
Kerner, justinius (1786 – 1862), author of ‘The Seeress of Prevost’, Note13.
Kortum, Karl Arnold (1745 – 1824), 4
Kropotkin, Peter Alexeievich Count von (1842 – 1921), 30.

Laplace, Pierre Simon Marquis de (1749 – 1827), 8, 23.
Langsdorff, Georg von, Note 56.
Lassalle, Ferdinand (1824 – 1864), 30.
Levi, Eliphas (1810 – 1875), 7, 13.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519), 2, 3.

Marx, Karl (1818 – 1883), 30.
Michelangelo (1475 – 1564), 21.
Moleschott, Jakob (1822 – 1893), 9.

Newton, Isaac (1643 – 1727), 21.
Novalis (Friedrich George von Hardenberg) (1772 – 1801), 13.

Oken, Lorenz (1779 – 1851), 6.

Paracelsus, Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, (1493 – 1541), 1, 4, 15, 28.
Peters, Karl (1856 – 1918), 31.
Plato (427 – 347 BC.), 3.

Raphael Santi (1483 – 1520), 21.
Robespierre, Maximilian de (1758 – 1794), 15.
Rosenkreuz, Christian (1378 – 1484), 9.
Rousseau, Jean Jacques (1712 – 1778), 15.
Row (Rao), Subba (1856 – 1890), 14.

Sinnett, Alfred Percy (English Theosophist), 8.
Spencer, Herbert (1820 – 1903), 21, 31.
Schuré, Edouard (1828 – 1929), 10.

Tacitus, Cornelius (about 55 – 116 AD.), 31.
Tolstoi, Count Leo (1828 – 1910), 2, 5, 31.

Ulfilas (also Wulfilas), Gothic Bishop (310 – 383), 2, 5.

Voltaire, Francois Marie A. (1694 – 1778), 15.

Wasman, Erich, S.J. (1859 – 1931) Natural Scientist, 21.

Notes

  1. The force active in Spiritual Perception.

  2. In the old Nordic germanic myth dealing with the beginning of the world the different parts of the world were created out of the body of the primaeval giant: from the flesh the earth, from the blood the water, from the bones the rocks, from the hair the forests, from the skull the sky, from the brain the clouds.

  3. See: Cosmic Memory, chapter on Saturn, also The Influence of Spiritual Beings upon Man. Lecture 2, 27.1.1908.

  4. See: Nine Lectures on Bees.

  5. See: The Gospel of John in Relation to the other Three Gospels, Lecture 14. The Gospel of St. John. Notes on 3 lectures, Lecture 2. also: Festivals of the Seasons, second lecture on Easter

  6. See: The Apocalypse, lecture 12.

  7. Often quoted by Rudolf Steiner. See: Darwin, Origin of Species, Chapter 5.

  8. See: Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and the Third Mystery Play.

  9. Published 1893. A detailed description of Tolstoi's ideas in contrast to Western ideas is to be found in Rudolf Steiner's lecture 3.11.1904. Theosophy and Tolstoy. (Typescript).

  10. No Note 10

  11. This is described in more detail in a lecture 22.11.1907. 'The plant is drawn with its direction vertically towards the earth, the human being also vertically directed away from the earth, the animal horizontal.' St. John, Notes on 8 lectures. Lecture 7. (Typescript).

  12. Plato, Timaeus Chapter 8.

  13. Notes published by Justinus Kerner. Stuttgart 1828.

  14. This is more clearly dealt with in lecture 4.

  15. Described by H.P. Blavatsky in The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3.

  16. See further in lecture 4.

  17. The Sphinx (daughter of Chimaera and her son the hound Orthus) — a monster with the body of a hound, a woman's head, lion's claws, dragon's tail and wings — was sent to Thebes where she dealt out death and destruction by means of a riddle. She asked the unfortunate ones who confronted her: What creature goes on four legs in the morning, on two at midday and on three in the evening? Oedipus was the fortunate one who found the answer — man. Upon which she threw herself down from her rock. In the painting in the large cupola of the first Goetheanum the motif representing Greece also includes this Sphinx-Oedipus theme.

  18. (In Latin Vulcanus, in Greek Hephaistos.) The god of fire and the forger of metals. He limped because twice Zeus, in anger, threw him out of Olympus. According to the original myth his smithy was in Olympus, but in later versions in volcanic regions.

  19. A comic epic poem by Karl Arnold Kortum, published in 1754.

  20. See more details in The Study of Man, lecture 12

  21. See: Knowledge of the Higher Worlds

  22. Light on the Path by Mabel Collins.

  23. The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily by Goethe was first published in 1795. See: Rudolf Steiner's 'Goethe's Standard of the Soul'.

  24. See: The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego Consciousness, lecture 1, 25.10.1909 and From Buddha to Christ 21.9.1911.

  25. Here Rudolf Steiner is presumably referring to the minor scientific writings (Parva naturalia) 'On Youth and Age, Life and Death'.

  26. Blavatsky calls Jehovah a Moon God. Secret Doctrine. Volume 11.

  27. In notes of a lecture in Berlin in 1903 there appears the following: 'In the overall picture of world evolution the Earthly Cosmos is called the Cosmos of Divine Love, the previous cosmos the Cosmos of Wisdom and the future one the Cosmos of Divine Fire ... the Cosmos preceeding the Moon Cosmos (is called) the Cosmos of Divine Omnipotence; this was preceeded by the Cosmos of Being'.

  28. ... The notes of the text here are inadequate and unreliable.

  29. Matthew, Chapter 17. 12 – 13

  30. Later Rudolf Steiner indicated these epochs more precisely. According to this the point at which the sun rises on the vernal equinox moves backwards through the 12 constellations of the Zodiac in 12 x 2160 = 25,920 years — the Platonic World Year — generally speaking, re-embodiments are connected with these epochs of 2160 years (though there are exceptions). See: Theosophy of the Rosicrucian, Rhythms in the Cosmos and in the Human Being (Typescript) 20.25.28.7.1923

  31. According to Rudolf Steiner these are beings of great significance for the evolution of mankind. 'These lofty beings have already left behind them the path that the rest of mankind has yet to tread. They work now as the great Teachers of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feeling.' (Letter to a member 2.1.1905.) See also lecture 13.10.1904.

  32. Order founded in 1140 in the Cistercian monastery of La Trappe in France. The reform in 1665 imposed strict ascetic practices and silence.

  33. The teaching of God's eternal decree which results in only a part of humanity being chosen for salvation while the other part is doomed to perdition. Compare lecture 7.10.1917 'The Crumbling of the Earth and the Souls and Bodies of Men' Anthroposophical Quarterly Volume 19 No. 1.

  34. See The Wisdom of man of the Soul and of the Spirit. The Twelve Senses and the Seven Life Processes (Golden Blade 1975).

  35. Theosophy teaches that all development proceeds in cycles, first on a descending curve from spiritual to material and then back on an ascending curve from material to spiritual. In a lecture to the same audience in Berlin 17.10.1904 Rudolf Steiner says 'Theosophical writings have described certain evolutionary developments as ascending and descending ... during the descent development is slowed down while during the ascent it becomes ever faster. This accelerated development does not apply to the whole physical plane but only to individual beings.' In a lecture in Berlin 27.1.1908 there is a further clarification: '... so that when we are at a particular moment of our development we can always say: Yes, there are certain forces there that draw into man and pass out of him, forces that descend and forces that rise. For every such force there is always a moment when it changes from a descending to an ascending force. All forces that become ascending forces have been at first descending. They descend down to man, so to speak, and in man they achieve the strength to rise'.

    In this sense 'when the body is on the ascending curve the senses are on the descending curve' should be understood as meaning that the physical body in general is on the rising curve because it has passed the deepest point of its material densification, while the senses are on the descending curve since there are two senses which still have to develop as physical senses.

  36. For further clarification of this passage see lecture 12.6.1907 Occult Seals and Pillars (typescript).

  37. The Lohengrin figure first appears in Eschenbach's 'Parzifal' as a knight of the Grail and son of Parzifal. The saga was further developed in a poem in middle high German dating from the end of the 13th century. A simpler form is Conrad von Würzburg's Schwanenritter. See also Rudolf Steiner's lecture 29.3.1906 on Parzifal and Lohengrin (Typescript).

  38. See: The Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz lecture 1912-13.

  39. See lecture 18.10.1904 in History of the Middle Ages (Typescript)

  40. In Marie Steiner's notes: 'formed out of an undifferentiated gelatinous mass like a mineral protoplasm'.

  41. Fish have a heart with two compartments consisting of atrium and ventricle.

  42. In the Acts of the Apostles Chapter 17 v.34 he is mentioned as a pupil of St. Paul. At the end of the 5th century there appeared in Syria under his name the following writings: The Celestial Hierarchies and On the Hierarchy of the Church which in the 9th century were translated from the Greek into Latin by Scotus Erigena.

  43. For detailed descriptions of the spiritual hierarchies see Rudolf Steiner: The Spiritual Hierarchies and their Reflection in the Physical World, Zodiac, Planets, Cosmos, and The Spiritual Beings in the Heavenly Bodies and in the Kingdoms of Nature

  44. See The Christian Mystery, Novalis the Seer lecture 22.12.1908 Berlin, not yet printed in English, (and in the Anthroposophical Quarterly 1967?)

    Rudolf Steiner alone was able to unveil the mystery enshrouding the personality of Novalis. Among many passages occurring in his lectures, the following is of outstanding importance: "... A deeply shattering event in life made him (Novalis) aware, as by a magic strike, of the relation between life and death and, as well as the great vista of past ages of the earth and cosmos, the Christ Being Himself appeared before his eyes of Spirit. ... In the rase of Novalis we cannot really speak of a self-contained lifc, for his was actually like a remembrance of an earlier incarnation. The initiation he had received as it were by Grace, brought to life within him experiences of an earlier incarnation; there was a certain mysterious consolidation of the fruits of insight acquired in an earlier life. And because he looked back through the ages with his own awakened eyes of spirit, he was able to say that to him nothing in life was comparable with the momentous event when in his inmost self he had discovered what Christ truly is. This experience was like a repetition of the happening at Damascus, when Paul, who had hitherto persecuted the followers of Christ and rejected their message, received in higher vision the direct proof that Christ lives, that He is present! ..." This quotation is from the above lecture.

  45. Knights of the Spirit or Fighters for the Spirit. They also called themselves 'Christians of the Spirit' and believed essentially in inner revelation. The sect arose in the middle of the 18th century and was later dispatched to Trans-Caucasia. Towards the end of the 19th century many of them emigrated to Cyprus and Canada. Tolstoi, who had a strong inner link with them, wrote about them in Followers of Christ in Russia in the year 1895.

  46. The Manichaeans. Founded by Mani (215 or 216 – 276 A.D) originating in Asia Minor. 'A powerful spiritual stream to which belonged the Albigenses, Waldenses, and Cathars of the Middle Ages. More distantly connected were the Templars and, through a remarkable interweaving of connections, the Freemasons. This is where the Freemasons actually belong although they had allied themselves with the Rosicrucians.' Thus run the notes of a lecture by Rudolf Steiner on the Manichacans given in Berlin 11.11.1904. See also Albert Steffen: Mani.

  47. His teachings appeared published as Esoteric Writings.

  48. See Rudolf Steiner The Apocalypse of St. John lecture 11 (1908).

  49. More details in The Occult Movement in the 19th century and its relationship to World Culture (1915).

  50. Written by a priest at the Deutschenherrenhaus at Sachsenhausen near Frankfurt am Main in 1497. Published by Luther in 1518. See also Rudolf Steiner Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Age.

  51. This spiritual-scientific concept of Rudolf Steiner is also to be found in the lecture Evolution, Involution and Creation out of Nothing 17.6.1909 (also contained in The Being of Man and his Future Evolution). See also lecture 15.9.1907 in Occult Signs and Symbols

  52. Compare Rudolf Steiner's notes for Edouard Schuré May 1906. Zeichnen und Entwicklung der drei Logoi in der Menschheit published in No. 14 of Nachrichten der Rudolf Steiner-Nachlassverwaltung Michaelmas 1965.

  53. See lecture 24.10.1915 in The Occult Movement in the 19th Century (In the Appendix below)

  54. Compare with Rudolf Steiner's comments on Mabel Collins' novel Flita in Luzifer-Gnosis (not translated).

  55. Light on the Path by Mabel Collins.

  56. Dr. Steiner refers to a booklet by Georg von Langsdorff, Freiburg i. Br. known as a translator and publiciser of spiritualistic material. Rudolf Steiner also refers to the matter in the lecture 24.8.1906 in At the Gates of Spiritual Science.

  57. In the original RS Archive version, this comment is included as a note. It is included here inline due to its apparent importance to understanding the text, which, as it says, the notes (from which the translation is made) differ and are not clear at this point.

  58. See Rudolf Steiner's comments in Goethe the Scientist

  59. The first principle of the Theosophical Society founded by H.P. Blavatsky in 1875 runs: 'To form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or colour'.

  60. In the original RS Archive version, this comment is included as a note. It is included here inline due to its apparent importance to understanding the text, which, as it says, "Text of this portion is very incomplete and cannot be considered as literal."

  61. See Note 51.

  62. ... given as explanation of the 7th Stanza of Dyzan in Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine.

  63. See lecture 7.10.1904 in Greek and Germanic Mythology (Typescript).

  64. In 1912 – 13 Rudolf Steiner gave two lecture cycles on this subject: 'The Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of St. Paul' and 'The Occult Significance of the Bhagavad Gita'

  65. This refers to the actual or first Zarathustra. In the public lecture on 'Zarathustra' 19.1.1911 Turning Points in Spiritual History, Rudolf Steiner says: 'Greek historians have frequently pointed out that the period ascribed to Zarathustra must be placed very far back, between 5000 to 6000 years before the Trojan War'.

  66. There was no Note 66 in the RS Archive version.

  67. See Note 31.

  68. A few days before, on 21.10.1905 Rudolf Steiner spoke on this subject but only very scanty notes exist.

  69. See further in lecture 15.2.1908 in The Influence of Spiritual Beings upon Man.

  70. Luke Chapter 10 verse 19.

  71. See lecture 7.10.1904 in Greek and Germanic Mythology

  72. The Golden Age – Krita Yuga = about 20,000 years
    The Silver Age – Treta Yuga = about 15,000 years
    The Bronze Age – Dvapara Yuga = about 10,000 years
    The Dark Age – Kali Yuga = about 5,000 years
    Our Age comprises a future 2,500 years
    Compare with the lectures The True Nature of the Second Coming 1910.

  73. Rudolf Steiner had explained these concepts to a part of his audience in lectures of October/November 1904 especially 22.10.1904 in Notes on 13 Lectures (Typescript), and 25.10.1904 in History of the Middle Ages (Typescript). Similar presentations are to be found later in lectures 15.9.1907 Occult Signs and Symbols and 17.6.1909 Evolution, Involution and Creation out of Nothing (also contained in The Being of Man and his Future Evolution).

  74. Compare with lecture 9 and the development of the pineal and pituitary glands.

  75. See Anthroposophy and the Social Question which appeared at about the same time in the periodical Luzifer-Gnosis.

  76. See later and more detailed presentations in for instance The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness. October 1917. (Typescript)

  77. Refers probably to the outbreak of the Russian revolution of 1905 following the end of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904/05. See lecture 12.10.1905 The Present Situation of the World. War, Peace and the Science of the Spirit (Anthroposophic News Sheet Volume 1 3, Nos. 35 – 40).

  78. Later Rudolf Steiner spoke on this subject from many different angles especially to the workmen engaged on the Goetheanum building. See Rudolf Steiner on Nutrition and Health and Illness.

  79. These are the words according to Mathilde Scholl. Marie Steiner's notes, on the contrary, report that the old healers 'call up in themselves psychic means of healing mainly for psychic illnesses'.

  80. Rudolf Steiner interpreted this allegory in different ways especially in lectures in 1904 and 1905 in connection with the Temple Legend. Die Tempel legende und die Goldene Legende. The only ones translated are Concerning the Temple Lost and Found 15, 22, 29 May, 5 June 1905, (Typescript).

  81. See lecture 5.10.1905 Three Essays on Haeckel and Karma.

  82. Re the original Zarathustra see note 65. The historical Zarathustra lived in the 6th century BC and according to Alexander Polyhistor and Plutarch, was the teacher of Pythagoras. On the tradition in mystery schools of transmitting the name of the teacher with the teaching, compare Rudolf Steiner on Dionysius the Areopagite in lecture 13.

  83. 83a: see lecture 22.3.1906, Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods (Typescript).

    83b: Invulnerability denoted initiation. (See lecture 7 in the cycle on The Gospel of St Mark.)

  84. In the 8th century St Boniface (actually Wynfrith) emissary from Rome, known as the apostle of the Germans, spread Christianity in Thuringia, Friesland and Hesse and was murdered in 754 by heathen Friesians.

  85. His descriptions are to be found in Germany and its Tribes.

  86. Divine ancestor of the Germanic tribes.

  87. Rudolf Steiner has spoken in greater detail of this connection, for instance in Universe, Earth and Man lecture 10

  88. Rudolf Steiner here refers to Attila's penetration into Italy in the year 452 when Aquileia was destroyed and the Roman bishop Leo I went out with his followers against Attila and was able to force him to retreat.

  89. Traveled especially in Africa where he founded the East African German colonies and the German East African Company. Wrote among other things Das Goldene Ophir Salomos (1895) and Im Goldland des Altertums (1902).

  90. The term "plastic" as Dr. Steiner uses it in this series of lectures, indeed in all of his lectures and writings, is meant something very different than its more current meaning:

    PLAS'TIC, adjective [Gr. to form.] Having the power to give form or fashion to a mass of matter; as the plastic hand of the Creator; the plastic virtue of nature. Source: Websters Dictionary 1828.

A Note on the Term "Theosophy"

At first glance the use of the term "theosophy" as it might appear in the above may be somewhat misleading for the English reader. It may suggest to him associations with Anglo-Indian Theosophy and the Theosophical Society founded by H. P. Blavatsky.

Rudolf Steiner, however, uses the term independently and with different and much wider connotation. In earlier centuries, particularly in Central Europe, "Theosophy" was a recognised section of Philosophy and even of Theology. Jacob Boehme was known as the great "theosopher". In English the term goes back to the seventeenth century.

Ultimately it leads us back to St. Paul who says (I Cor. ii, 6-7): "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world ... But we speak the wisdom of God (Greek 'Theosophia') in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our glory."

All "theosophy" implies a knowledge of the spiritual world, and such knowledge has been attained in different ways at different epochs of man's history.

Appendix: The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century, Lecture IX

24 October 1915, Dornach

If you recall what was said in the lecture yesterday, it will be clear to you that, fundamentally speaking, the appearance of materialism — I do not say the materialistic conception of the world, but materialism itself—has its very good sides. The harm occurs when materialism is made the basis of a conception of the world. As a method for investigating the external phenomena of the physical world, materialism is good; it is a good instrument for investigating the mineral world in Earth-evolution. Again it is of importance that man is embodied in this mineral world, for thereby he develops those faculties which can be acquired only in the physical-mineral body. Intelligence and free will must be acquired to a certain degree during the Earth-period. In the Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan periods, man will possess these faculties, but a being of soul such as he is, can acquire them only by being incarnated during the Earth-period in a mineralised body.

A counterbalance to this evolution in mineralised earthly bodies is created by the fact that man passes ever and again, without a mineralised body, through the life of soul between death and a new birth. It can be said that man must undergo very much on the Earth, on account of the fact that between birth and death he has a mineralised body. But what he undergoes, as it were to his cosmic disadvantage, by being embodied in a mineralised body, is balanced out by what he lives through between death and a new birth, when he is not a corporeal being but entirely a being of soul— using the word in its right sense.

To examine into the mineral element contained in stones, plants, animals and men is the task of materialism and its method; in practising this method in the course of the centuries man acquires that which, fundamentally speaking, he must acquire during the Earth-period. The modes of investigation preceding those of materialism were all still influenced by the clairvoyance inherited by man from his previous evolutionary states. And when, after our fifth postAtlantean, and the post-Atlantean epoch as a whole, he has passed through his mineral evolution and enters a different form of evolution, the closeness of his relationship to the spiritual world will depend upon whether he has already acquired, during the Earth-period, the intelligence and the measure of free will foreordained for him; otherwise he will not have fulfilled the purpose of his evolution.

Viewed in this light, the method of materialism assumes great significance; but it must remain "method", a method for investigating the physical, material world. It is there that, even in the higher sense, it has its truly great significance. In that man observes and also investigates the purely mineral world, is active in the mineral world, he gradually unfolds his free will. For while he stands in the mineral world, what really underlies this world is veiled from him.

We have heard during recent weeks what is the outcome if man limits himself to theoretical speculation within the perimeter of physical sense-perceptions. The outcome is atomism, and as we have also heard, atomism is nothing else than a subjective delusion. But if a man who allows himself to be thus deluded were to go out into the world where he looks for the atoms, he would find Ahriman and his beings. For through those spiritual beings of whom I spoke yesterday and whom man encounters when he breaks through the veil of nature, he will be led to develop forces of destruction. These beings, too, it must be remembered, are cosmic beings.

Thus we can understand what has to be said about materialistic methods. They provide man with illusion, maya. But this illusion is actually advantageous to man, for when he sees through it, he enters, to begin with, into the kingdom of Ahriman and his spiritual hosts — beings who are out for destruction and death and who cause him to develop certain subtly destructive forces in his own human nature. Intellect in particular, purely external cleverness, is developed in him by the powers into whose realm he enters, so that he becomes crafty, astute in a subtle way. If his earthly intelligence is not sufficiently developed to see through these things, he becomes unconsciously, but subtly cunning and crafty. It may therefore be said that materialistic philosophy represents a period during which man can mature and thus be able, later on, to enter this realm of Ahriman without danger.

So it is evident that materialistic natural scientists or philosophers follow a certain justifiable instinct. The custodians of the ancient symbols had not dared to make esotericism public and so hand over the secrets to men. The natural scientists said to themselves — not literally, of course, but one can put it in this way — 'we do great good if we lead men only so far as the veil and not behind it.' Naturally they do this instinctively, but they do it, nevertheless. Fundamentally speaking, they render humanity good service, for if the natural scientists were to succeed in piercing the veil, they would make man acquainted with the forces of those destructive beings of whom I spoke yesterday, beings who are in the service of Ahriman. And the consequence would be that men still unprepared would come into possession of the forces proceeding from that realm and would be able to bring about very much by their means — but it would all tend towards destruction, towards extermination of the good. Thus even the ignorance in which man is left through the natural scientific view of the world has in a certain sense something good about it. That is one side of the matter. But the other side is this.—

Man has been living, already for a number of centuries, in this world of illusions into which, instinctively, he is placed by the scientists. Yes — but this has not been without its effects on human nature! When a man is living in illusion he is not living in the world of reality. This illusion does not affect his forces of soul as strongly as reality would affect them, and the consequence is that doubt upon doubt heaps up in the soul — doubts which make themselves felt even in the domain of science. Natural scientists of great eminence have declared: Ignorabimus — we shall never know. The second half of the nineteenth century did everything to cause men to be beset by doubt upon doubt. But the truth is that we are facing the approach of an era brought about by the fact that man is living more and more in illusion, while believing he has reality. He steeps himself more and more deeply in the materialistic view of the world, but doubts about its validity constantly increase, and it would not take long for every human being to be living in a condition of unalloyed doubt as the outcome of scientific philosophy. People would then no longer be able to hold fast to anything; doubt would inevitably arise over every problem, every task. Scepticism would become a vast ocean in which the human soul would inevitably be engulfed.

It is the task of Spiritual Science to make men realise that a great ocean of scepticism and doubt threatens to break in and engulf the human soul. And the further task of Spiritual Science is to erect dams which will hold back this flood of scepticism and doubt. We are here facing a vista of something that will inevitably befall man if natural scientific doctrine continues as a view of the world.

What I am now saying is connected with a deep secret: the secret that everything in the outer, material world lives itself out in duality. Two is the number of manifestation; two is the number which governs all material manifestation — but material manifestation only. The world of material manifestation always passes through a certain process of evolution. — Let us think of the evolution of the maya presented by nature — nature-maya. Reaching its zenith in the nineteenth century, this nature-maya gradually emerged together with the natural scientific view of the world. But the consequence of man's living in maya is that underneath this view of the world, something else takes place, namely, the preparation for a different view, the preparation for penetrating into reality. This preparation is going on in the sub-consciousness; but timely care must be taken that the next phase of evolution is steered into reality — otherwise nature-maya will assert itself as scepticism, as the most terrible doubt which will engulf the human soul. Thus we are approaching a time of which it may be said that without Spiritual Science, man will fall more and more deeply into scepticism; but if Spiritual Science is accepted, then in the place of the doubt that would engulf the soul, there will come what men truly need.

There is duality, as you see. Nature-maya continues, but underneath it is the budding life, the preparation for Spiritual Science. In the material world, duality prevails everywhere. Therefore the occultist says: Two is the number of material manifestation. Directly one passes from the material world into another world, the number Two no longer has this significance, and it is entirely erroneous to characterise higher worlds as if duality also prevailed there. It is only the basic law of the material-physical world that can be so characterised. In the higher world, if we are to start from number, we must, for example, start from Three; this governs everything in that world, just as the material world is governed by duality. In the material world, duality prevails; in the spiritual world, threefoldness.

There are circumstances when it is by no means unimportant to understand that if someone says that there is white magic and black magic, this implies duality. But duality can have meaning only in the material world; such a person therefore immediately shows that he has no notion of the fundamental laws of the spiritual world, for in the spiritual world duality can never be a basic principle. True as it is that duality lies at the basis of the physical-material world, it is also true that in the super-sensible world we never have to do with duality.

Now the human being is related to the whole Cosmos; as earthly man he is a microcosm, and in order to understand certain matters it is necessary to learn more about this relationship.

We have heard that when man breaks through the veil of nature and penetrates into the world lying behind nature, he encounters Ahrimanic beings, beings intent upon destruction. In the World Order these beings are bitter enemies of man's earthly nature, so that if, through weakness, he allies himself with them — and this is possible, as I have indicated — he is allying himself with the enemies of man on Earth. That is a fact, and a certain relationship existing between the human being and the Cosmos does much to promote such an alliance.

These beings behind the veil of nature are highly intelligent. I have spoken of human intelligence, but these beings have their own kind of thinking and intelligence; they have feeling, although it is different from human feeling; they also have will, although it, too, is different from human will. They perform certain deeds which come to expression outwardly in manifestations of nature, but the essential substantiality of which lies behind the veil. Now there is a remarkable affinity between something in man and the highest faculties of these beings. I will make this clear in the following way. When man crosses the Threshold of the spiritual world and approaches these beings, it may seem to him as if he were entering a veritable inferno, or whatever he conceives it to be. What matters is that he shall understand the experience aright. What will strike him most forcibly is the remarkable intelligence of these beings. For they are extraordinarily clever, extraordinarily wise. Their faculties of soul come to expression in this cleverness. But the soul-forces, the higher forces of these beings are all related to the forces of man's lower nature. Sensuous urges in man are, in these beings, the very forces which strike one as so significant. Thus there is a relationship between the lowest forces of man and the highest forces of these spiritual beings. That is why they strive to identify themselves with the lower forces in man. When a man enters this other world, instincts of destruction or hatred, or the like, arise in him, because these beings draw up what constitutes man's lower nature to their own higher nature, and with their higher forces work through man's lower forces. Nobody can ally himself with these beings without debasing his own nature, without greatly enhancing the strength of certain sensuous urges and impulses.

This is a fact of which special account must be taken, for it shows us unambiguously how we must picture our relation to the Cosmos. In our own human nature there are lower urges and impulses. But these lower urges are forces which represent lower impulses only in us, as human beings. These same urges are, in these spiritual beings, higher forces. But these beings are working all the time within us. They are always there within our nature. Our progress in Spiritual Science depends essentially upon our recognising them, knowing that they are there. This enables us to say: we have our higher forces and we have our lower forces, and, in addition, those forces which in us are lower forces but in these spiritual beings are higher forces. — This expands the duality of our higher and lower forces into a triad. We are already at the border of the Threshold of the spiritual world when, instead of the duality of our higher and lower forces, we recognise the triad.

Now as I said, in our age it is impossible to adopt the method employed by Father Antonius in dealing with Paul the Simpleton; it is also impossible to do many things in the way certain Orders have been wont to do them. — It amounts to this: the knowledge in its old form cannot be used. For if it were thus presented to men, it would bring about exactly what I have been speaking about. It would without any doubt arouse lower instincts in them.

For example, there actually exists in the world an Order which leads men to knowledge of these mysterious beings without any preparation. In all such men, instincts of destruction are aroused, so that this Order is actually responsible for sending human beings with destructive instincts out into the world. In a passage in one of his writings Nietzsche hinted at the existence of this Order without knowing the actual circumstances. *

* Dr. Steiner may have been referring to a passage in The Genealogy of Morals, Section XXIV, page 287 in the translation (together with The Birth of Tragedy) by Francis Golffing. (Doubleday Anchor Books, New York). "When the Christian Crusaders in the East happened upon the invincible Society of Assassins, that order of free spirits par excellence, whose lower ranks observed an obedience stricter than that of any monastic order, they must have got some hint of the slogan reserved for the highest ranks, which ran, 'Nothing is true, everything is permitted.' " See also Dr. Steiner's own work, Friedrich Nietzsche. Ein Kampfer gegen seine Zeit, page 25 in the Gesamtausgabe 1963 volume. (Bibl. No. 5).

That is the one side which I have felt it essential to bring to your attention. Here (drawing on the blackboard) is a veil covering the secrets behind nature. The veil represents everything that can be acquired by materialistic methods. The real world lies behind, and to enter this world is verily no simple matter. Let us hold this firmly in our minds.

The other side is that of our life of soul, with its activities of thinking, feeling and willing. But in the form in which this life of soul appears to us inwardly as we actually experience it, it is maya, just as external nature is maya. The true form of our inner life is not that which appears to our own soul as thinking, feeling and willing; the true reality lies behind this thinking, feeling and willing.

Just as the learned scientists today instinctively develop the view that nature herself presents the reality, but ultimately arrive at atomism, so are the representatives of certain religious bodies at pains to indicate that the thinking, feeling and willing of which the soul is aware in the ordinary way are the reality, and continue in human beings after their death. Just as the scientists describe naturemaya, so do the representatives of certain religious bodies describe the maya of the life of soul, and in so doing, again instinctively, bring a certain trend into the evolution of mankind.

You know that already from the early Middle Ages onwards, trichotomy, as it was called — the division of man into body, soul and spirit—began to be a heresy in historical Christianity. As you know, a comparatively early Council abolished the Spirit and decreed that man was to be regarded as a being consisting only of body and soul. And since that time this has become customary in the West. In the Middle Ages it was a most terrible thing to speak of Spirit, of a trichotomy; it was deemed the worst of all heresies, because Spirit had been abolished and body and soul established as a duality. This is evidence of the endeavour to look, even in number as applied to the human being, for what has significance only for this earthly world. The tendency is to keep man within a world that is in truth only maya, because he stops short at the thinking, feeling and willing which are themselves of the same character. Attention is limited to those effects of the present incarnation which last only through the first period between death and a new birth. What is elaborated in man's being in order subsequently to come forth in the next incarnation is left entirely out of account.

I may perhaps indicate this diagrammatically in the following way (see diagram). Here is the body (red) and here what lies behind it — which is not visible and could be perceived only by penetrating through the nerve endings. If atoms were not accepted as forming the basis of the world but one were to go out of the body with vision, one would come to the realm where the beings of destruction seize hold of the whole man. And now, within this, I draw the life of soul unfolded by man in the physical world (blue). Thus the red and the blue represent what man is aware of here, namely, his bodily nature and his life of soul. But while we are living between birth and death, the imperceptible (yellow) develops, and remains wholly imperceptible to us. When we die, our thinking, feeling and willing do not continue; they are exhausted, and in the process the yellow is elaborated (the imperceptible). This increases in power between death and a new birth and in so doing becomes the foundation of the new incarnation. We are reincarnated with new thinking, new feeling, new will, and a new bodily nature. Thus when we speak of what is revealed to our soul here on Earth, we are speaking of something that comes to an end, does not go with us into the next incarnation. Of the soul itself, the representatives of certain religious bodies say: the human being dies, goes either to heaven or to hell, and we concern ourselves no more with him. According to certain representatives of religion, this is enough; what passes on to the next incarnation is not important. The aim is to conceal the fact that the spirit in man passes into the spiritual world and lives on until the next incarnation. It can be said that representatives of certain religious bodies are intent upon not allowing man to become aware of the yellow (diagram) in his nature, upon preventing him from knowing anything of it. Here again, they are really obeying a certain sound instinct, but one which shows even more clearly than the instinct prompting the learned naturalists, that in our time it has really lost its value.

Figure 1

The efforts of the representatives of various religious communities all tend quite decisively in the direction of concealing the fact that there is a spiritual world to which belongs the inmost core of our being, which is destined to appear in repeated Earth-lives, and in the intervals between them to pass through an entirely spiritual form of existence; they try to conceal this by offering men the consolation that the life of soul which comes to expression in thinking, feeling and willing is, after all, sufficiently immortal.

In their actions and trend of thinking these pastors of souls instinctively prevent men from coming into contact with certain beings. Man can never penetrate into the world of his true and innermost being without coming into contact with certain beings — just as in the way described he comes into contact with different beings if he desires or is actually able to break through the veil of nature. But the beings with whom he is related in this other world are of a Luciferic order.

If, as the result of certain teachings having been imparted to him without the requisite caution, a man comes into contact with certain destructive beings behind the veil of nature, he will become one who values nothing in the world, and it will soon be apparent that he takes actual pleasure in destruction—which need not necessarily be destruction of external things. Many men to whom this has happened have shown that they take pleasure in tormenting and oppressing other souls. These are the characteristics which come into evidence. But it can never be said that men who have such traits owing to their alliance with Ahrimanic elementary beings, are invariably egotistic. They need not be and indeed usually are not, egotists. They act out of an urge quite different from that of egotism. They act out of a lust for destruction, and they destroy without the slightest benefit accruing to themselves. The beings into whose sphere a man enters are essentially beings of destruction, and they tempt him, lure him, to destroy.

The other beings into whose sphere man comes when he penetrates behind the veil of the life of soul have a quite different character. They have no particular lust for destruction. In point of fact, what we know as destruction does not enter their ken. They have a veritable passion for creating, for bringing something into being — a tremendous urge for activity, for productivity. And they too have certain higher faculties which are less closely related to our thinking than to our feeling, and especially to our will. We enter here into a sphere of beings preeminently related to our will, but — curiously enough — to the noblest sides of our will.

Thus if we enter this world without knowing anything of what the Initiate knows, namely, that behind the world of nature and also behind the world of soul there is a spiritual world, when we fill our will with ideals, when we unfold noble, spiritualised will, this will becomes allied precisely with the lower attributes of these beings into whose sphere we have entered. There is a mysterious bond of attraction between the noble side of our will and the lower urges and desires of these beings.

And now think of it. — If a man's spiritual pastor gives him the consolation of immortality, laying stress on the dignity of the human soul, the majesty of the Divine and the like, it may happen that through some slight incitement, particularly if he was a noble character, he breaks through the membrane of his soul-activity at some point and penetrates behind the secrets of his thinking, feeling and willing. But he then comes into the region of these beings of will, and the consequence is that the idealistic side of his will actually begins to assume a sensuous character. And now, with this in mind, please read the descriptions given by certain mystics of either sex. As you read the biographies of these mystics, notice the sultry, voluptuous atmosphere which pervades them. The most sublime ideals assume a sensuous character. I would remind you of the rapture experienced by mystics in connection with their "soul-bride" or "soul-bridegroom"; in women mystics the mystical union is like a sensuous union with the Saviour, and in male mystics like an actual bond with the bride of the soul, with the Virgin Mary.

It is the endeavour of these beings of will to pour into man's thinking, into his ideals, what he otherwise knows as sensuousness. This is a hard saying. These beings into whose regions a man there enters, strive—and from their own standpoint it is a justified striving — to pour their sensuous instincts into his idealised will. And then the willing that goes out from the head, which otherwise has a certain quality of cool detachment about it, is pervaded by a sultry, voluptuous experience of the spiritual world, which often seems to have the character of fevered mysticism. The representatives of the various religious bodies have an infinite dread of this, and their greatest fear of all is aroused by those among their believers who come forward as mystics.

Verily, we have here Scylla and Charybdis. If we desire to pierce through the veil of nature, we come to Scylla, to the Ahrimanic beings who wish to endow us abundantly with destructive forces of intelligence. If we desire to pierce through the veil of the life of soul, we come to Charybdis, to the Luciferic beings of will, who would fain pervade us with the fumes of spiritual ecstasy, spiritual rapture, spiritual instincts.

Priestly Orders intent upon the cultivation of the religious life were therefore in a certain sense right to take care that when mystics appeared among them, at least the shadow-side of mysticism should not come to the fore. Hence in a certain sense they erected barriers against the entrance into the spiritual worlds. Just think how certain religious Orders — I am speaking, not of occult but of religious Orders — were associated with manual work, with labour that allows delight in nature, delight in what lives in the world around, to arise in the soul; just think how such Orders, if the right principles were understood, insisted upon outer, manual work. Those who founded such Orders said to themselves: "The worst thing we could do would be to isolate men and allow the mystic life to develop in them as the outcome of inertia and idleness." Read the monastic rules originating in better times and in the better Orders, and you will everywhere see that full account was taken of what I have just mentioned, how mystic rapture and fevered ecstasy were counteracted by manual labour. — And now you will also understand why Father Antonius caused Paul the Simpleton to work, even if it served no useful purpose. Had he allowed him to cultivate idleness for years, Paul the Simpleton would have become a senuous, ecstatic mystic.

We have, as you see, to do with a duality: with objective occultism which, if it is simply handed over to unprepared men, makes them destroyers; and with subjective mysticism, which if it is cultivated or suddenly appears in idealistic natures, makes men egotists — egotists such as are to be met with in numbers of mystics who have developed merely a subtle form of egotism, a subtle mania for fostering their own souls. If you read the biographies of the mystics, you will often be appalled by the egotism they display.

The region of Scylla is that of the spirits who serve Ahriman. We come into their sphere if we cultivate, not egotism but the will for destruction. If we cultivate the subjective mysticism connected with the Luciferic spirits of will into whose sphere we enter, then Charybdis approaches us from the other side; for these spirits do everything to foster egotism, so that our own inner nature forms the world for us. This is the duality in the material world: objective occultism — subjective mysticism. In both realms there may be aberrations.

Fundamentally speaking, in what has been developing for centuries there is present, on the one side, objective occultism, guarded in the Secret Societies and Orders but no longer effectively protected owing to the insistent trend towards publicity. We have heard of the efforts that were made to find a way out of the dilemma. And on the other side there is subjective mysticism.

It follows from this that when we wanted to lay the foundations of Spiritual Science, it behoved us not to allow ourselves to be enticed either by Scylla or Charybdis, but to steer between them; it behoved us neither to cultivate the old, traditional occultism, nor the old, traditional mysticism. And now you have a deeper conception of what gives our Movement its direction. Both objective occultism and subjective mysticism in the old sense had to be avoided. Our Spiritual Science had to be of a character ensuring that Scylla as well as Charybdis are avoided.

I have still to speak to you about the fundamental character which our Spiritual Science must bear in order that it may steer clear of both these dangers. But it obviously cannot be avoided that at the present time, out of mistaken notions, certain people come to us because some of them are looking for an old, objective occultism, while others are hankering after old, subjective mysticism. It is hardly likely that either the one type or the other will find among us what they are looking for. But they believe they find it by simply interpreting our teaching to suit their own liking. The form which our teaching must take, and what our attitude to it must be if our ship is to be steered between Scylla and Charybdis — of this I must speak again tomorrow.