On the Astral World and Devachan
GA 88
As background, immediately after Rudolf Steiner took over the leadership of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, which he had founded as its General Secretary, he began an extensive teaching activity, initially within the Berlin branch. Starting on October 25, 1902, he spoke there every Saturday at 6 p.m. on the entire field of Theosophy. A “Theosophical Conversatorium” was announced for mid-November 1902, and from December 1902, discussion evenings (Conversatorium A and B) were held on Tuesdays at 6 p.m. and on Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. All these events initially took place in the rooms of the Theosophical Library at Kaiser Friedrich Strasse 54a in Charlottenburg, where Rudolf Steiner's colleague Marie von Sivers (later Marie Steiner) also had her apartment until March 1903.
In January 1903, the following announcement appeared in the journal Der Vähan: "In response to numerous requests, the lecture series On the Whole Field of Theosophy, given by Dr. Rudolf Steiner, will in future take place on Saturdays at 8 p.m. (Charlottenburg-Berlin, Kaiser-Friedrich-Straße 54a). The Theosophical Conversatorium scheduled for that day has been moved to 7 p.m."
In March 1903, the residence at Kaiser-Friedrich-Straße 54a had to be abandoned. The books of the theosophical library were provisionally housed in the apartment of an old member, Clara Motzkus (Charlottenburg, Schlüterstraße 62), and from March to October 1903, all the theosophical events of the Theosophical Society also took place there: Saturday evening lectures by Rudolf Steiner, Tuesday and Saturday conversation classes A and B.
In August 1903, the Vähan announced another regular event: "In addition, a lecture and discussion evening open to the general public will take place every Friday (7 p.m.) (at Miss Motzkus's) throughout the summer. And in September 1903: "The weekly lecture and discussion evenings on Fridays (7 p.m., Charlottenburg, Schlüterstraße 62 at Miss Clara Motzkus' house) will continue throughout September. In the fall, Dr. Rudolf Steiner will begin a cycle of 6 to 8 lectures on the “Astral World”. The time and place will be announced later." These are found in Part I of this series.
Rudolf Steiner said: “I want to turn these Friday evenings into working hours; I want to move towards continuing the conversation more in the form of a discussion.” One participant in these events, Walter Vegelahn, who later became known as the stenographer of Rudolf Steiner's lectures, reports about this time: ”In the summer of 1903, before we could move into Motzstraße, we were in the small private apartment of a member. Those who had specific questions were allowed to come at 6 o'clock in the morning, and so we sat at the 'round table' with Dr. Steiner. If a member of the audience had not understood something, Dr. Steiner started from the beginning.”
In September 1903, Rudolf Steiner wrote a review in the journal Luzifer of a booklet by C. W. Leadbeater that had recently appeared in German. The review is in GA 34. At the end of the review, he announces: "For my Berlin audience, I might perhaps mention that I will be giving a cycle of lectures on the “astral world” in the fall." And he adds: "For us Germans, I would just like to say that we should finally replace the term “astral plane” with another, since it is generally admitted that it is as misleading as possible. In January 1904, six lectures followed with the title: 'The World of the Spirit or Devachan'. Of these, only four lectures can be reproduced in Part II of this volume, since only some of them were written down.
The chronologically earliest presentations in this edition in Part III are from the summer of 1903; they concern private lessons that Rudolf Steiner gave to Marie von Sivers in her private apartment in Berlin-Schlachtensee for herself, her sister Olga von Sivers and her friend Maria von Strauch-Spettini. Marie Steiner-von Sivers wrote about this time (in 'What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society', vol. 2, no. 34, August 23, 1923): “In addition to the public lectures he gave for the Society after he had become associated with it at their request, and in addition to his work for the listeners at the Workers' Educational School and the Free University, he gave internal lectures for the few, but rapidly growing number of members of the Theosophical Society in Berlin, and in the most loving and in-depth way also for the people in his immediate surroundings. He gently led them to an understanding of the spirit in its concreteness, its manifold modes of expression within hierarchical being. He gave me a wealth of instruction, initially tying in with the Indian terminology that I had acquired through studying books, but soon leading me to the forms of Western conceptuality. My girlfriend, who visited me during the summer months, was allowed to participate in this.”
Part IV of this volume contains the few records that still exist from 1903 in chronological order: In addition to a self-presentation by Rudolf Steiner about his lecture at the 1st General Assembly of the German Section of the Theosophical Society and a report from the journal “Der Vähan” about the same lecture, these are fragmentary notes by Franz Seiler of eight individual lectures that Rudolf Steiner gave in the Berlin branch between August and December 1903. Despite their sometimes aphoristic character, these notes convey a vivid picture of the development of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophical work in Berlin.
In these lectures, Rudolf Steiner still frequently used the Indian-Theosophical terminology familiar to his listeners.