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The Temple Legend III
GA 93

23 October 1905, Berlin

19. The Relationship Between Occult Knowledge and Everyday Life

Today, may I say a few things relevant to some of the questions which have been coming before your souls recently. Today, may I amplify something which may have been provoked [in your minds] by remarks made in the last few days. Much has been said about the relationship of occultism to theosophy, of esotericism to theosophy and so on; but nothing has been said yet about the relationship of theosophy to everyday life. I already indicated a week ago that I wished to say a few words precisely on this subject;1 At the previous Members' meeting of the Berlin Branch (on Monday 16th October), Rudolf Steiner made the following remark during the announcement of the forthcoming activities: ‘At next Monday's meeting I shall speak about occultism, esotericism and theosophy. I wish to draw your attention to the fact that this subject will be dealt with in conjunction with current happenings. I would beg you to invite as many members as possible, also those living at a distance.’ and that I might direct your attention rather less to higher vantage points, but rather speak about how occult perception directly influences everyday living. Not only is our perspective directed into distant time and space by the theosophical world outlook, but in addition we can gain a quite different explanation of everyday questions through occult concepts which would not be possible through other concepts. We shall then see how erroneous is the opinion which we so often encounter, namely that occultism is something impractical, uncommonly far removed from ordinary everyday life.

And we will mention another question as well. This question is: How can anyone who has not yet developed the faculty—which, however, every human being is destined to have in the future—of seeing into super-sensible worlds, how can such a person—given the standpoint that everyone absorbs in their ordinary education—gain a conviction that theosophical teachings are true, and that the endeavours of theosophy are valid in practice? The evidence need not be obtained only by occult observations; indeed, they cannot be so obtained until they have first been drawn out of another realm, that of everyday life, which [in fact] prepares us to acquire conviction about the higher realms of existence. Whatever may have happened in the past, is still happening today in our daily life.

If we trace humanity back to the earliest periods of its development, we find that man originated from a much finer, more spiritual substance than that of which he is composed today. Present-day man displays a form consisting of three main bodies—the physical body, the etheric body and the astral body. The etheric body is a kind of archetypal image of the physical body. The astral body, the auric sheath that envelopes and permeates the human being, is the structure in which the soul life, the life of the instincts and passions, and every thought as well, all find expression. Basically it was from the still undifferentiated astral body that the whole human being evolved in the course of time. If we go back far enough, to the early primeval epochs of humanity, we find that the physical and etheric substance that distinguishes modern man used to be dissolved in the original astral body, like a seed [buried] in the earth.

Present-day man is so to speak condensed out of the astral basic substance. This process is still taking place every day. When two people confront each other, then it is above all the astral bodies which confront each other in love or hate, in kindness or displeasure, anger or good nature, antipathy or attraction. These are all phenomena which manifest themselves between astral bodies. Interaction between people consists of continual exchange of astral body conditions and relationships. When I confront another person, v physical body experiences no great change, nor does my etheric body, but my astral body certainly does. If a person says something filled with hate to me, then the waves of hatred enter my astral body and change it. I have to accept what streams out of him into my own astral body, which is then imbued with very different attributes, depending on whether it is love and patience or anger and impatience which stream towards me from the other person.

Something very similar takes place between teacher and pupil. It makes a great difference whether a teacher has a loving disposition or is a narrow-minded egoist. In the astral body of a child we have something which differs in appearance from the astral body of an adult. The astral body of a child is bright and clear, and reveals itself to us as something virginal compared with an astral body which has developed itself during the course of life. What is the astral body of a child? It seems like an undifferentiated cloud of light which only gradually acquires form. Whatever [will] gradually make the astral body fixed has as yet scarcely begun to be engraved in it, so that everything possible can still be born to it. It will be formed by the concepts which the child acquires from its surroundings. These enter it, colour it, and make it different.

Different structures flow into the child's astral body and form it, according to whether what the child absorbs by way of concepts derives from a materialist or an idealist standpoint. For a process of progressively filling the soul with concepts begins. If a child is treated lovelessly, the echo of this lovelessness manifests itself in the child's astral body. It then seals itself in, as if with a hide, against the outer world. All this shows us that a continual remodelling of the astral body is actually taking place, and that interaction with people has a major influence in this reshaping.

The child thus has an astral body which is still undifferentiated in form, but which contains a limitless abundance of possibilities. Take the astral body of a child which has met with an idealistic teacher, who himself has a harmonious soul, who views the world with devotion and is susceptible to its beauty and sublimity, a teacher who is in a position to create within himself an image of the beauty of the world; such a teacher will also develop the ability to enter into the disposition of the child's soul. He will thus encourage tender and sensitive structures in the child, into which he can direct currents which become absorbed in the child's own astral substance. A teacher who is so harmoniously formed within himself continually directs harmonious currents towards the child. The characteristics of the teacher flow quite naturally into the child, and together with them all that world harmony which the teacher has gleaned from his surroundings in the form of beauty. As teacher he directs into the child's nature all the greatness he, as a fine person and good observer has received, thereby bringing about harmonious development in the child.

Let us take by contrast a teacher who confronts the child as an egoistical and pedantic person with narrow and opinionated concepts and ideas. These qualities conjure up structures in his own astral body which give it the appearance of being covered with a hard crust, which make it thoroughly rigid and ponderous in structure. It then emits darts which are rigidly enclosed within themselves, so that it is impossible for the child's astral body to absorb them. At the most they wound the child's astral body like a dart, but they cannot be absorbed [by it] and they simply go right through.

Or take something still more everyday. Two people are talking to each other. One can very well observe in two such people the interaction of their astral bodies which results from reciprocal communication with each other.

Something new is always coming into being in the astral, in the astral substance. I will make this intelligible to you in the following way. Through his concepts, a person is continually creating structures in his astral body. These show themselves in the most various forms. The astral substance that lies unused between the individual structures is called ‘intermediary’ astral substance, to distinguish it from that which has been shaped into structures. This intermediary astral substance is continually supplementing itself out of the astral substance in our surroundings, is continually flowing in and out, is continually renewing itself. But the structures that man has cultivated by the way he feels and thinks and decides remain fixed.

Let us then assume we have two people engaging in an ordinary conversation with each other. One of them has cultivated rigid, fixed concepts, which have correspondingly engendered very fixed structures in the astral substance. The other talks to him and tries to explain something to him. What must happen if one person is to make something clear to another? He must inject his own concept into the other person's astral substance. This concept, this thought, thus flows into the other person's astral substance. Once there, it must first of all be absorbed in the intermediary substance and [then] remake itself and become transformed [in a manner] corresponding to the forms already developed there.

Now let us assume that the one is trying to explain to the other something to do with, say, reincarnation. The other has however already formed a fixed idea about reincarnation. Let us assume him to be a prejudiced person who has formed for himself the idea that reincarnation is something silly and absurd. This thought has hovered in his astral substance. The new thought of the first person now arrives and dissolves itself in the intermediary astral substance of the other, and would then have to be transformed by the thought forms already existing there. This will not work, however, because his [the second person's] concepts are too rigid, too fixed. He cannot adapt the newly transmitted thought to his [own] thought forms and therefore does not understand it.

The more a person keeps his concepts flexible, so that these can always be dissolved in the surrounding intermediary substance, the more he will understand the other people he encounters. This is why it is so difficult to convey theosophical life to academically trained people. The concepts acquired at university engender structures which are rigid, fixed and enclosed within themselves, which are not easily dissolvable. The academic usually comes to a theosophical lecture full of such structures and is then unable to comprehend theosophical life. It would be quite different if he were educated to say about any concept: Yes, it could possibly be different, too, for indeed we have only a limited amount of experience, and much of what we hold to be correct will still have to be modified in the future.—If he were to do that then his soul would still be capable of improvement.

Let us take yet another situation, that of a person who encounters someone else for whom he feels reverence. How does this reverence reveal itself to anyone endowed, with astral perception? Reverence means emitting the kind of thoughts which sink into the substance of the strange astral body, which that substance sucks up, as it were. If, for instance, you harbour a reverent thought, this is expressed by you yourself conveying this reverence to the other person as radiating warmth. This radiating warmth of yours has its reflection in the astral world, which shows itself as the thought form of reverence and devotion with a bluish colour. The warm reverent feeling engenders a thought form which is blue in character.

But what is it which appears blueish. You can perceive this if you gaze into the infinity of the dark universe. It appears blue to you because of the light in the atmosphere. Similarly, [the reverent thought makes the astral] that was previously dark appear to you as having this blueish shade as well; because it is now lit by the bright warm feeling of reverence. If a dark place is surrounded by a feeling of reverence, then the dark centre appears to be blueish; just as a flame appears to you to have a blue core that is surrounded by light. So is it with the reverent thought as well. It is an empty space permeated by warmth. If one transmits a reverential thought to another person, one thereby offers him the opportunity of allowing his own being to stream into this empty space. This is how the interaction between the person revered and the person showing reverence works itself out.

If on the other hand it is with a feeling of jealousy that you encounter someone, then a different thought form exists in you, and you bring this up against him. You then emit the red thought form of egoism or self love. This, for its part, encloses yet another thought form, that is full of the concept of [the thinkers] own self, perhaps as a result .of ambition. This expresses itself not in empty space or in a hollow structure, but by a form which is completely full, which nothing else can enter. It is ringed around by a feeling of coldness and has the directly opposite thought form of an outer ring of blue around an inner core of red. The coldness of the blue colour pushes away everything that wants to enter, and the worthless red thought form stays as it is. It accepts nothing. This is how a jealous person, that cannot revere anything, stands in relation to others.

You see, what takes place in our astral body is nothing else than the product of daily life. Only someone who is trained to do so can see what is happening in the astral body. However the effects of these processes in the astral body are continually present in the physical [plane] and anyone can satisfy himself about them in [ordinary] life. Anyone can make the following test if he says to himself: I will leave it undecided, whether the message of occultism is true or false; but I will test it without prejudice. I can live as if this message were based on truth. For I can behave accordingly towards my fellow men; and if I do this warily, I will indeed see whether life confirms for me what the occultist says in every individual case. And life will [indeed] confirm it to you in every instance. You will realise a tremendous gain from that.

Whoever reflects on that for himself; whoever, say as a teacher, devotes himself not only to his own pedagogical concepts and ideas, and works not only through what he says but also through what he feels, perceives and thinks; whoever makes himself thoroughly aware that two astral bodies are interacting, and knows what happens in this confrontation; whoever does all this will also know he has a duty to be continually making himself better. To the extent that he becomes better, the better his influence on the child's dispositions. He does not destroy these dispositions—on the contrary, he cultivates them.

It means something quite different from merely knowing the truth, the reality, of what we receive in return through revering another person who is worthy of it—it means something quite different to experience this: if we transmit to other people countless such thought forms enveloped in warmth, we ourselves grow thereby, through the greatness of that other person. That is something totally different again from merely grasping such things with our intellect, from simply knowing what they represent. In occultism, we learn to grasp life more earnestly, we learn to perceive that the things which are not palpable, which cannot be observed by the senses, are still a reality. We learn to understand and value the whole scope and significance of our soul world.

Perhaps someone or other may say that these are rather theoretical transformations. No, that they are not! We must become quite differently convinced about the importance of our actions and the responsibilities which life lays on our shoulders. It is the most down to earth aspects of life which can be influenced in this way by occultism. He who knows what results in the invisible world as a consequence of thoughts and feelings, will surely grasp that it is just as important for him not to direct evil thoughts towards a person as it is to refrain from firing bullets at him. He knows that throwing the thought of hate at astral man is just as harmful for him, as throwing a roofing slate is for physical man.

Understanding this is easy enough; those who meet together in groups such as the theosophical groups, will feel and experience it. For they find a new source of life there. You could say to yourselves that there is [only] a simplified reality for other people, a threefold one for us.

Other people experience reality only through the sense world, and do not think it wicked to say that ‘thinking is duty-free!’ However, anyone who has studied the world outlook of theosophy can no longer say that thinking incurs no cost, but is convinced that he is instead responsible for what he thinks and feels about other people. You take this feeling of responsibility out into the world as the finest fruit of the theosophical conception of the world. Even if we are only beginners in rehearsal, we arc still influencing the visible world through the hidden, occult world. We are refining and correcting the world through the hidden realms of existence.

That is one aspect, how we understand life. There are, however, others as well. Man does not live alone in the world as an individual; he also belongs to a family, to a tribe, to a people, that is, to a [larger] whole. Only in his physical and etheric body is he actually separate from others; the astral body, as I have already mentioned, has a porous exterior. The intermediary substance is continually disposed to receive currents from outside, and to renew itself. If we consider, however, that we belong to a nation, a tribe, a family, then the matter acquires a further dimension.

If we observe the astral bodies of individual people, we find that almost everyone differs from others in the basic colouring of the astral body. Each has a particular shade that manifests itself outwardly as temperament. Temperament expresses itself, then, through a particular basic colouring. A person relates to his entire surroundings in this way; the character of the family, the tribe, or the nation to which he belongs expresses itself in the basic colouring.

As an occultist one can make interesting observations if for instance, one revisits a town which one has not seen for, say, ten years. If one observes the unsullied astral bodies of the children, one will find that they possess, in addition to their personal basic colouring, another basic colouring, too. If one had carefully observed these virginal astral bodies on one's first visit and now compares them with what one finds in the astral bodies of the children ten years later, one will see that their appearance has altered. There is something in the human individual which moves with the evolution of the town or tribe or nation. This is because the currents in a collective astral body that is all around me are in continual interchange with my own [astral body] which lives within the collective astral body. Hence we have a national temperament, expressing itself in the group astral body of the nation.

Every nation, every other community, has such an astral body, and this flows into the astral bodies of the individual person. A great disharmony can develop between the individual person and the task of the whole nation, for this reason; the trends in evolution do not always all take the same course in the world. The more comprehensive often hurries ahead of the less comprehensive.

Let us consider a nation, for example. The nation, as a structure has not been haphazardly thrown together in the world, it is not something produced by chance; each nation, on the contrary, has its prescribed task in the course of human evolution. Anyone who contemplates a nation from a higher vantage point can reflect that every nation has a specific task; that his own nation has itself to fulfil a task which is incumbent on it. He can say to himself: I belong to this nation, so I must help to serve the common national task—and I am able so to serve, because an astrality lives in me which belongs to the whole nation. This national purpose is plainly expressed on the astral plane; it is an intentional thought—something that lives on higher planes than the astral plane. In order to meditate on the thought s of the world laws, one must rise above the astral plane to the mental plane [devachan].

For example, the fourth Sub Race, from which our Race came, developed itself from a small group of people in Asia and made itself into the Hebraic-Graeco-Latin Race. This had the task of fulfilling the first mission of Christianity from an ethnic standpoint. The thought [inspiring] this Race was to spread Christianity in its first stage through Europe and the adjoining regions. That is an ethnic thought.

In earlier times, the idea of reincarnation and karma was universally accepted. Then came a radical change; people were educated in the belief that the single physical life was of importance. This is very apparent in Greek art, because it developed the feeling for outward form. Therein lay the ennobling of the physical plane for the outward senses. The law then came to be developed in the Roman nation; this had its effect directly on the physical plane. Finally, Christianity permeates law with a morality, so that one single earth life gains so much importance that a whole eternity comes to be made dependent on it. This is a onesided thought, but it was correct and necessary. The Catholic peoples took upon themselves the mission of spreading Christianity, carrying it to Northern Europe, whereby the Germanic peoples received a new mission.

Thus we see that a national thought lives in the entire nation, and every individual [member] is fitted to this thought. In our time, we have turned to account in technology, for the benefit of the city-dweller, the same thing that was originally cultivated by Greek art in the beautiful forms of the sense world in the sphere of sculpture, the same thing that was cultivated as law, and later deepened into morality. Cities were founded, they grew and flourished and thus developed a culture of their own, the culture of the bourgeoisie. From this then evolved a utilitarian morality, which provided the impetus for the growth of a one-sided science, that ought to have reached its highest point in our present time.

In this we can recognise the workings of a devachanic principle. It is the universal aspect of these changes in the course of evolution which shows us in what way a national thought has its effect. How this thought comes to expression depends on the nation's group astral body, on the national temperament. Art, for instance, with any other nation than the Greeks, would find expression in a quite different way,

Now although the national thought does live in every individual [member], the individual is much more than just his national thought. In addition, he brings his own personality to expression. Something quite remarkable and special shows itself to us here. It is much easier for a person to see his way in the thought world of his nation, in his devachanic mission, than it is to bring about the [correct] balance between his own feelings and the national feelings. This is not so easy, especially for those who have acquired higher education and sophistication of a particular kind. The adjustment between the feelings of the individual and the nation is more quickly made in the lower levels of evolution, because at those levels a greater empathy develops between individual sensibilities and the national sensibility. The lower the individual level, the stronger the expression of the national sensibility within him, rather as the animal is an expression of the species.

As man develops, however, he raises his own astral body up, it becomes more differentiated, more specific. And it is then possible for his astral body to be in a position to acquire that form of mind which lies above the mind of his nation. When what shines down from this higher level is intellectually or mentally grasped, then ideals can easily be taken up. It sometimes also happens that the feelings of a person's astral body have not developed so far as his thinking. The thoughts of a nation could influence the thinking of the individual so powerfully that they take hold of him before he has developed far enough within himself.

Individuals for whom this proves to be the case are passionate idealists; they are the martyrs for the progress of a nation. They are so because they themselves are hurrying ahead of what is actually in the rest of their astral body, because they direct their wholly elevated souls to an ideal in a selfless way. Then, when such people come to die, their undeveloped astrality asserts itself all the more strongly; for that part of it which does not lie within the national ideal comes into play. Henceforth it is only concerned with its own development. When such a person dies, who was a great and noble idealist, who has devoted himself to the ideals of his nation, he becomes overrun by the personal element still present in him. For the lower qualities of his astral body become totally predominant. Now suppose that such a person has become a martyr. He created something noble, but has been illtreated by his nation, just as such advanced natures sometimes are. Despite this, he would indeed habitually follow his ideals boldly and spiritedly so long as he lived, looking neither to the left nor the right. But if he is persecuted, perhaps killed, on account of his ideals, then the thought of revenge comes into play immediately after his death. What he had suppressed as personal will still be there in Kamaloka.

A nation which treats its idealists in this fashion creates for itself bad powers in Kamaloka, which rebound against it. Russia has created bad powers of this kind. For years it has illtreated many noble personalities with the knout. The baser forces of these personalities are now active in Kamaloka as enemies of what lives in Russia, as enemies of those for whom they made sacrifices in life. Such martyrs, who have recently died, can now be seen fighting on the side of the Japanese, against their own people. This is a fact which becomes comprehensible to us if we look into the more deeply active powers of the life of the soul. The events of the future become clear to us if we look at them from this aspect.

We live as members of the Germanic peoples, flanked by Slavonic peoples in the east, and by Anglo-American peoples in the west. Both the Americans and the Slavs are rising races who have to fulfill their purpose in the future, races who still stand at the beginning of their national thought. The basic characteristic of the Slavonic peoples is expressed in their spiritual talents. If you try to understand the Slavonic culture, you will find that it tends towards a spiritual culture, that something spiritual is growing there. These Slavonic peoples had first to confront the races lying to the east, the Chinese and Japanese. These are the remnants of earlier races from Atlantis, as indeed all Mongolians are the residues of later Atlantean culture. They have astral bodies which intrinsically tend towards spirituality. The Slavonic peoples have to confront these.

In America we have a certain parallel. There, materialism is carried to the extreme, and has been pursued radically in all national perspectives. In modern times, that has led to the spirit itself being interpreted in a materialistic way. Whereas, among the Slavonic peoples, individual personalities such as Tolstoy arose, who sought to stimulate development in a great and beautiful way, the American people took pains to conceive spirituality and the soul in a material way. Thus we find a strongly material spirituality and [indeed] spiritualism among them. With them, the spirit is sought for in exactly the same way as they search after physical truths. But it is precisely in the manner of seeking that the difference lies. If you seek to see the spiritual with the eyes, it becomes psychic, and this psychic aspect has developed itself very strongly in America.

The American nation has to confront another ethnic element deriving from Atlantis and endowed with psychic tendencies. This ethnic element lives in the negro peoples. The way and manner in which these two races develop together is significant: psychic has to confront psychic, spiritual has to confront spiritual. Thus we have a spiritual national thought in the east and a psychic one in the west.

We have experienced science and art on an external level; the spirit should now be raised back up again. This can happen in a double way—either in a spiritual way or in a psychic way. The spiritual way leads to progress, the psychic way is retrogressive.

You can see how the world here becomes understandable, when we contemplate it from an occult basis. Again, no one need say that we cannot convince ourselves of these things. One only has to take what actually happens. One will be led to conviction through experience, when one compares the psychic view of the world and psychic research with the occult view of the world. If we seek to understand the occult view of the world then the world of phenomena becomes more and more comprehensible as well. Such an occult-spiritual world outlook leaves us no gaps in the comprehension of the world. From that we will then gain the belief in the world which the occultists report; and through that we educate an element in ourselves, which will raise us higher. This is no blind belief, but a tried and tested belief. This belief will grow stronger and more justified, firmer and surer, with every gain in experience. And when belief has engendered this sense of sureness in itself it has also developed the basis for knowledge. Man has always had to experiment before being raised to knowledge. Anyone who wants to have knowledge before investigation is like someone wanting to have the fruit before the seed. We have to earn our knowledge. What we already know, we need not investigate. What the investigator lacks in certainty or confidence, the certainty and confidence of belief must supply. [The two] must work together, therefore, and then they will undividedly produce in the end what must come to us undivided—the fruit of experience, knowledge.

Let us listen to the occultists and let us say neither yea nor nay to them. But let us treat is as a basis for our own life and our own conduct; let us treat it as if their investigations were useful guides for our life, for we will find that they will [indeed] lead us through life and will ultimately bring us to an inner knowledge, to a life pulsating in us. Then we will find that we can indeed trust them to guide us to investigation, to satisfaction and to a harmonious life within ourselves.

Die Beziehung der Okkulten Erkenntnisse zum Alltäglichen Leben

Heute möchte ich einiges sagen, was als Fortsetzung mancher Fragen, die in diesen Tagen Ihnen vor die Seele getreten sind, gelten kann. Heute möchte ich manches ausführen, was vielleicht durch Bemerkungen in den vorhergehenden Tagen angeregt sein dürfte. Es ist so viel gesprochen worden über die Beziehungen des Okkultismus zur 'Theosophie, der Esoterik zur Theosophie und so weiter, aber noch nichts von der Beziehung der Theosophie zum alltäglichen Leben. Ich habe schon vor acht Tagen angedeutet, daß ich gerade über dieses 'Thema noch einige Worte sprechen möchte. Und zwar möchte ich heute einmal die Aufmerksamkeit auf weniger hohe Gesichtspunkte hinlenken, sondern davon sprechen, wie die okkulten Erkenntnisse in das Leben des Alltags unmittelbar hineinspielen und wie tatsächlich durch die theosophische Weltanschauung unser Blick nicht bloß über weite Zeiten und Räume hingelenkt wird, sondern wie wir auch durch die Begriffe des Okkultismus über die alltäglichsten Fragen einen ganz anderen Aufschluß gewinnen können, als das ohne solche Begriffe möglich wäre. Wir werden dann schen, wie irrtümlich die Meinung ist, der wir so oft begegnen, nämlich daß der Okkultismus etwas Unpraktisches und dem gewöhnlichen Alltagsleben ungemein Fernstehendes sei.

Und eine andere Frage werden wir noch berühren. Es ist die Frage: Wie kann derjenige, der es noch nicht dazu gebracht hat - was jedem Menschen in Zukunft aber beschieden sein wird -, Einblicke in die höheren Welten zu tun, wie kann er sich von dem Standpunkte, den jeder Mensch mit einer normalen Bildung einnimmt, die Überzeugung davon verschaffen, daß die theosophischen Lehren Wahrheit sind und die Bestrebungen der ’Theosophie eine wirkliche Berechtigung haben? Die Beweise brauchen durchaus nicht bloß aus der okkulten Beobachtung gewonnen zu sein, ja, sie können gar nicht eher daraus gewonnen werden, bevor sie nicht aus einem anderen Gebiete geholt sind, dem des alltäglichen Lebens. Das bereitet uns vor, uns auch die Überzeugung von den höheren Gebieten des Daseins zu verschaffen. Was sich immer zugetragen hat, das trägt sich auch heute noch zu in unserem alltäglichen Leben.

Wenn wir den Menschen zurückverfolgen bis in die frühesten Zeiten seines Entstehens, so finden wir, daß er seinen Ursprung aus einer viel feineren, geistigeren Materie genommen hat als die ist, aus der er heute besteht. Der heutige Mensch zeigt uns der Form nach in der Hauptsache drei Körper: den physischen Körper, den Äther- und den Astralkörper. Der Ätherkörper ist eine Art Urbild des physischen Körpers. Der Astralkörper, die aurische Hülle, die den Menschen umgibt und durchdringt, ist dasjenige Gebilde, in welchem sich das Gemütsleben, das Instinkt- und Leidenschaftsleben sowie jeder Gedanke Ausdruck verschafft. Aus dem noch undifferenzierten Astralkörper hat sich im Grunde genommen der ganze Mensch im Laufe der Zeit herausgebildet. Wenn wir genügend weit zurückgehen, bis zu frühen Urepochen der Menschheit, dann finden wir, daß die physische und ätherische Substanz, die den heutigen Menschen durchsetzt, aufgelöst ist in dem ursprünglichen Astralkörper des Menschen, wie ein Samenkorn in der Erde.

Der heutige Mensch ist sozusagen verdichtet aus der astralen Grundsubstanz. Dieser Vorgang findet heute noch alltäglich statt. Wenn zwei Menschen sich gegenüberstehen, so sind es zunächst die beiden Astralkörper, die sich gegenüberstehen in Liebe oder Haß, Wohlwollen oder Mißfallen, Zorn oder Güte, abstoßend oder anziehend. Das alles sind Erscheinungen, die sich zwischen den Astralkörpern abspielen. Der Verkehr zwischen den Menschen ist ein fortwährender Austausch von Zuständen und Verhältnissen der Astralkörper. Wenn ich einem anderen Menschen gegenüberstehe, dann erfährt mein physischer Körper keine große Veränderung, auch der Ätherkörper nicht, wohl aber der Astralkörper. Wenn ein Mensch zu mir etwas sagt, das haßerfüllt ist, so gehen die haßerfüllten Ströme in meinen Astralkörper ein und verändern denselben. Ich muß dasjenige, was von ihm ausströmt, in meinen eigenen Astralkörper aufnehmen, und dieser bekommt dann ganz andere Eigenschaften, je nachdem mir von dem anderen Liebe, Geduld oder Zorn und Ungeduld zuströmt.

Zwischen dem Erzieher und dem Kinde spielt sich etwas ganz Ähnliches ab. Es ist ein großer Unterschied, ob ein Erzieher liebevoll oder ob er ein engherziger Egoist ist. In dem kindlichen Astralkörper haben wir etwas, was anders aussieht als der Astralkörper des Erwachsenen. Der Astralkörper des Kindes ist licht und hell, er zeigt sich uns als etwas Jungfräuliches im Vergleich zu dem Astralkörper, wie er sich im Laufe des Lebens entwickelt. Was ist der Astralkörper des Kindes? Wie eine undifferenzierte Lichtwolke erscheint er, die erst nach und nach gestaltet wird. Es ist noch wenig in ihn eingegraben, was ihn mehr und mehr in sich bestimmt macht, so daß noch alles mögliche aus ihm geboren werden kann. Er wird geformt durch die Vorstellungen, die das Kind aus der Umgebung aufnimmt. Sie gehen in ihn ein und färben ihn und machen ihn anders.

Je nachdem, was für Vorstellungen das Kind aufnimmt, ob von materialistischen oder idealistischen Gesichtspunkten ausgehend, strömen andere Gebilde in den Astralkörper des Kindes ein und formen ihn. Es tritt dann immer mehr eine Erfüllung der Seele mit solchen Vorstellungen ein. Wenn das Kind lieblos behandelt wird, tritt das Echo dieser Lieblosigkeit im Astralkörper des Kindes in Erscheinung. Er schließt sich dann wie mit einer Haut gegen die Außenwelt ab. Das alles zeigt uns, daß tatsächlich ein fortwährendes Umbilden des Astralkörpers stattfindet und daß der Verkehr mit den Menschen auf dieses Umbilden einen großen Einfluß hat.

Das Kind hat also noch einen gleichförmigen, aber eine unendliche Fülle von Möglichkeiten enthaltenden Astralkörper. Nehmen Sie den Astralkörper eines Kindes an, der einem idealistischen Erzieher gegenübersteht, der selbst eine harmonische Seele hat und mit Hingabe in die Welt hineinblickt und empfänglich ist für deren Schönheit und Erhabenheit, einem Erzieher, der imstande ist, in sich selbst ein Abbild der Schönheit der Welt zu schaffen. Ein solcher Erzieher wird auch die Eigenschaft entwickeln, auf die Anlagen der kindlichen Seele einzugehen. Er bildet dann im Kinde weiche und empfängliche Gebilde aus und sendet in diese Ströme hinein, die von dem eigenen Astralstoff des Kindes aufgelöst werden. Ein solcher in sich selbst harmonisch gebildeter Erzieher sendet dem Kinde fortwährend harmonische Ströme zu. Wie selbstverständlich fließt dann die Charaktereigenschaft des Erziehers in das Kind über, und damit fließt auch über alle jene Weltharmonie, die er in Form der Schönheit aus der Umgebung entnommen hat. Was er Großes aufnimmt, als edler Mensch und guter Beobachter, das sendet er als Erzieher in die Natur des Kindes und bringt diese dadurch zu harmonischer Entwickelung.

Nehmen wir dagegen an, der Erzieher stehe dem Kinde als egoistischer, pedantischer Mensch gegenüber, als Mensch mit engen, eigensinnigen Vorstellungen und Begriffen. Diese Eigenschaften rufen in seinem eigenen Astralleibe Gebilde hervor, die ihn wie in einer festen Kruste eingeschlossen erscheinen lassen, ihn zu einem durch und durch festen, schwerbeweglichen Gebilde machen. Dann sendet er Strahlenströme aus, die fest in sich geschlossen sind, so daß es dem Astralkörper des Kindes unmöglich ist, sie aufzulösen. Sie verletzen höchstens wie ein Pfeil den Astralkörper des Kindes, können aber nicht aufgelöst werden und gehen einfach durch denselben hindurch.

Oder nehmen Sie etwas noch Alltäglicheres an. Zwei Menschen sprechen miteinander. Man kann zwei solche Menschen sehr gut in bezug auf die Wirkungen ihrer Astralkörper aufeinander durch das gegenseitige Aufeinandereinsprechen beobachten.

In der astralen Substanz, im Astralen bildet sich immer etwas Neues. Ich will Ihnen dies in folgender Weise begreiflich machen. Der Mensch baut durch seine Vorstellungen fortwährend Gebilde in den Astralkörper hinein. Diese zeigen sich in den mannigfaltigsten Formen. Die astrale Substanz, die zwischen den einzelnen Gebilden unbenützt bleibt, nennt man eine intermediäre Astralsubstanz, im Gegensatz zu derjenigen, die sich zu Gebilden gestaltet hat. Diese intermediäre Astralsubstanz ergänzt sich fortwährend aus der Astralsubstanz unserer Umgebung, strömt fortwährend ein und aus, wird fortwährend erneuert. Aber die Gebilde bleiben fest, die der Mensch durch die Art seiner Empfindungen, Gedanken und Willensentschlüsse ausgebildet hat.

Nehmen wir also an, zwei Menschen stehen vor uns und führen ein gewöhnliches Gespräch miteinander. Der eine von ihnen hat starre, feste Begriffe ausgebildet, die auch sehr feste Gebilde in der Astralsubstanz erzeugt haben. Der andere spricht auf ihn ein und versucht, ihm etwas klarzumachen. Worauf beruht dieses einem anderen etwas klarzumachen? Es beruht darauf, daß er seinen eigenen Begriff in die astrale Substanz des anderen Menschen hineinsendet. Dieser Begriff, dieser Gedanke strömt dann zunächst in die fremde Astralsubstanz hinein. Dort muß er sich erst durch die Zwischensubstanz auflösen und sich entsprechend den bereits vorhandenen Formen wieder erzeugen und umgebildet werden.

Nehmen wir nun an, der eine versuche dem anderen etwas klarzumachen, zum Beispiel, was sich auf Reinkarnation bezieht. Der andere hat sich aber über Reinkarnation bereits einen festen Begriff gebildet. Nehmen wir an, er sei ein befangener Mensch und habe sich den Begriff gebildet, daß sie etwas Törichtes und Unsinniges sei. Dieser Gedanke hat in seiner Astralsubstanz geschwebt. Nun kommt der Gedanke des ersteren und löst sich in der intermediären Astralsubstanz des anderen auf, müßte sich aber in die bei ihm bereits bestehenden Gedankenformen umbilden können. Das geht aber nicht, weil sein Begriff zu starr, zu fest ist. Er kann den ihm zugesandten Gedanken nicht in seine Gedankenform umbilden, und deshalb versteht er ihn nicht.

Je mehr sich ein Mensch die Beweglichkeit der Begriffe erhält, so daß diese immer von der sie umgebenden Zwischensubstanz aufgelöst werden können, desto mehr Verständnis wird er dem anderen Menschen entgegenbringen. Davon rührt es her, daß es so schwierig ist, akademisch gebildeten Leuten theosophisches Leben zu vermitteln. Die auf der Universität aufgenommenen Begriffe erzeugen starre, feste, in sich abgeschlossene Gebilde, die nicht leicht auflösbar sind. Mit solchen Gebilden erfüllt, kommt der Akademiker gewöhnlich zum theosophischen Vortrag und ist dann unfähig, theosophisches Leben zu erfassen. Ganz anders würde es sein, wenn er so erzogen wäre, daß er sich bei allen Begriffen sagte: Ja, es könnte möglicherweise auch anders sein, denn wir haben ja nur einen geringen Grad von Erfahrung, und manches, was wir jetzt für richtig halten, wird in der Zukunft noch korrigiert werden müssen. - Würde er das tun, dann wäre die Seele noch aufnahmefähig.

Nehmen wir noch einen anderen Fall. Ein Mensch steht einem anderen mit Gefühlen der Verehrung gegenüber. Wie nimmt sich für den Beobachter, der mit astralen Sinnen begabt ist, die Verehrung aus? Verehrung heißt, solche Gedanken aussenden, welche sich in die Substanz des fremden Astralkörpers hineinsenken und sie gleichsam aufsaugen. Wenn Sie nämlich einen verehrenden Gedanken haben, so kommt dieser dadurch zum Ausdruck, daß Sie selbst die Verehrung als ausströmende Wärme dem anderen entgegenbringen. Diese von Ihnen ausströmende Wärme hat in der astralen Welt ihr Spiegelbild, das sich in bläulicher Farbe als die Gedankenform der Verehrung und Devotion zeigt. Das warme, verehrende Gefühl erzeugt eine Gedankenform, die bläulichen Charakter trägt.

Was ist es aber, was bläulich erscheint? Das können Sie erkennen, wenn Sie in den unendlichen finsteren Weltenraum hinausschauen. Er erscheint Ihnen blau infolge der erleuchteten Atmosphäre. Ebenso erscheint Ihnen [im Astralen durch den Gedanken der Verehrung] etwas, was vorher finster ist und nun umleuchtet ist von dem warmen, hellen Gefühl der Verehrung, auch in dieser bläulichen Farbe. Man umschließt einen dunklen Raum mit dem Gefühl der Verehrung, und der dunkle Kern erscheint dann als bläulich, ähnlich wie Ihnen in der Flamme ein blauer Kern erscheint, der vom Licht umzogen ist. So ist es auch mit dem Verehrungsgedanken. Er ist ein von Wärme durchflossener leerer Raum. Sendet man den Gedanken der Verehrung einem anderen entgegen, so bietet man ihm dadurch die Gelegenheit, sein eigenes Wesen in diesen leeren Raum einströmen zu lassen. So spielt sich der Ausgleich zwischen dem Verehrenden und dem Verehrten ab.

Stehen Sie einem anderen dagegen gegenüber mit dem Gefühle des Neides, dann lebt in Ihnen eine andere Gedankenform, die Sie ihm entgegenbringen. Sie senden dann die rote Gedankenform des Egoismus, der Selbstliebe aus. Diese umschließt ihrerseits wieder eine andere Gedankenform, die voll ist von der Vorstellung des eigenen Selbstes, die vielleicht durch Ehrgeiz erzeugt wurde. Dieser drückt sich nicht in einem leeren Raum, in einem Hohlgebilde aus, sondern in einer ganz erfüllten Form, in die nichts mehr hinein kann. Sie ist rings umschlossen von dem Gefühl der Kälte und hat die entgegengesetzte Gedankenform, nämlich ringsherum einen bläulichen Kreis, in der Mitte einen roten Kern. Die Kälte der blauen Farbe stößt alles zurück, was hinein will, und die eitle rote Gedankenform bleibt wie sie ist. Sie nimmt nichts an. So steht der Neidische, der nicht verehren kann, dem anderen gegenüber.

Sie sehen, was sich in unserem Astralleibe abspielt, ist nichts anderes als das Ergebnis des Alltagslebens. Was sich im Astralkörper abspielt, kann nur der sehen, der darauf trainiert ist. Aber die Wirkungen dieser Vorgänge im Astralkörper sind im Physischen fortwähend da, und von diesen kann sich jeder durch das Leben überzeugen. Jeder kann folgende Probe machen, indem er sich sagt: Ich lasse es ganz dahingestellt, ob die Mitteilungen des Okkultisten wahr oder falsch sind. Aber ich will sie unbefangen prüfen. Ich kann so leben, als ob diese Mitteilungen auf Richtigkeit beruhten. Ich kann mich dann meinen Mitmenschen gegenüber dementsprechend verhalten, und wenn ich das vorsichtig tue, dann werde ich ja sehen, ob das Leben mir in jedem einzelnen Falle bestätigt, was der Okkultist sagt. Und das Leben wird Ihnen das in jedem Fall bestätigen. Sie werden einen ungeheuren Gewinn davon haben.

Wer sich das durchdenkt und zum Beispiel sich als Erzieher nicht nur mit seinen pädagogischen Begriffen und Ideen durchdringt, und nicht nur durch das wirkt, was er sagt, sondern auch durch das, was er fühlt, empfindet und denkt, wer sich durchdringt mit dem Bewußtsein, daß zwei Astralkörper aufeinander einwirken und weiß, was bei dem Gegenüberstehen dieser Astralkörper vor sich geht, der weiß auch, daß er die Pflicht hat, sich immer besser und besser zu machen. In dem Grade, wie er besser wird, wirkt er auch besser auf die Anlagen des Kindes ein. Er tötet nicht die Anlagen, sondern holt sie heraus.

Es bedeutet noch etwas ganz anderes, als nur zu wissen, daß es eine Wahrheit, eine Wirklichkeit ist, was uns durch die Verehrung eines anderen Menschen, der verehrungswürdig ist, entgegengebracht wird; es bedeutet noch etwas anderes, zu erleben: wenn wir unzählige solcher Gedankenformen, umhüllt von Wärme, anderen Menschen zusenden, so wachsen wir durch die Größe des anderen Menschen. Es ist das noch etwas ganz anderes, als solche Dinge nur äußerlich mit dem Verstande zu erfassen, als nur zu wissen, was sie darstellen. So lernen wir im Okkultismus das Leben mit größerem Ernst erfassen, lernen erkennen, daß das, was nicht handgreiflich ist, was nicht mit Sinnen wahrgenommen werden kann, doch eine Wirklichkeit hat. Wir lernen die ganze Tragweite und Bedeutung unserer seelischen Welt verstehen und würdigen.

Es mag vielleicht der eine oder andere sagen, das sind ja schematische Umgestaltungen. Nein, das sind sie nicht! Wir müssen ganz anders durchdrungen werden von der Tragweite unserer Taten und von der Verantwortlichkeit, die uns das Leben auferlegt. Das alleralltäglichste Leben ist es, was auf diese Weise vom Okkultismus beeinflußt werden kann. Derjenige, der weiß, was infolge von Gedanken und Gefühlen in der unsichtbaren Welt erfolgt, der bringt es schließlich dahin, daß es ihm ebenso wichtig wird, einem anderen Menschen kein böses Gefühl entgegenzusenden, wie es ihm wichtig ist, ihn nicht mit Flintenkugeln zu traktieren. Er weiß, daß es ebenso schlimm ist für den astralen Menschen, einen Haßgedanken auf ihn zu werfen, wie es für den physischen Menschen schädlich ist, wenn ein Ziegelstein auf ihn geworfen wird.

Verstehen kann man dies sehr bald; fühlen und erleben werden es diejenigen, welche in solchen Zusammenkünften sich zusammenfinden, wie es die theosophischen sind. Sie bringen dann daraus einen neuen Quell des Lebens mit. Sie können sich sagen, daß es für die anderen eine einfache Wirklichkeit gibt, für uns eine dreifache. Der andere fühlt die Wirklichkeiten nur aus der Sinnenwelt und denkt sich nichts Böses dabei, wenn er sagt: Gedanken sind zollfrei! - Wer aber durch die theosophische Weltanschauung durchgegangen ist, der kann nicht mehr sagen, Gedanken sind zollfrei, sondern der ist überzeugt, daß er dafür verantwortlich ist, was er den anderen Menschen gegenüber denkt und fühlt. Dieses Verantwortungsgefühl tragen Sie als schönste Frucht der theosophischen Weltanschauung in die Welt hinaus. Wenn wir auch noch Anfänger, Probierer sind, so wirken wir doch schon aus der verborgenen, okkulten Welt heraus in die sichtbare hinein. Wir verschönern und verbessern die Welt von den verborgenen Gebieten des Daseins aus.

Das ist die eine Seite, wie wir das Leben verstehen. Aber es gibt noch andere. Der Mensch lebt nicht allein als Individuum in der Welt, er gehört auch einer Familie, einem Stamm, einem Volk, also einer Gesamtheit an. Er ist eigentlich nur seinem physischen und seinem Ätherkörper nach so abgegrenzt. Ich habe schon gesagt, daß ein Astralkörper fließende Grenzen hat, daß die Zwischensubstanz fortwährend geneigt ist, Strömungen von außen aufzunehmen und sich zu erneuern. Wenn wir aber bedenken, daß wir einem Volk, einem Stamm, einer Familie angehören, dann bekommt die Sache noch einen weiteren Gesichtspunkt.

Wenn wir den Astralkörper des einzelnen Menschen betrachten, so unterscheidet sich fast jeder von dem Astralkörper des anderen der Grundfärbung nach. Er hat eine gewisse Schattierung, die sich nach außen als Temperament äußert. Das Temperament kommt also in einer gewissen Grundfarbe zum Ausdruck. Der Mensch steht auf diese Weise zu seiner ganzen Umgebung in Beziehung, indem sich der Charakter der Familie, des Stammes oder Volkes, denen er angehört, in der Grundfarbe ausprägt.

Man kann da als Okkultist interessante Beobachtungen machen, wenn man zum Beispiel eine Stadt wieder besucht, die man vielleicht vor zehn Jahren gesehen hat. Wenn man die jungfräulichen Astralkörper der Kinder betrachtet, so findet man, daß diese außer der persönlichen Grundfarbe noch eine andere Grundfarbe haben. Hat man nun bei dem ersten Besuch diese jungfräulichen Astralkörper der Kinder genau angeschaut und vergleicht sie mit denen jener Kinder, die nach zehn Jahren in der Stadt leben, so findet man, daß sich deren Aussehen verändert hat. Es gibt etwas in der menschlichen Individualität, das so fortschreitet wie die Entwickelung der Stadt, des Stammes oder Volkes. Das kommt davon her, daß die Strömungen von einem Kollektiv-Astralkörper, der mich von außen umgibt, fortwährend mit meinem eigenen in Wechselwirkung steht, der in diesem Kollektiv-Astralkörper lebt. Daher haben wir auch ein Volkstempetament, das sich in dem gemeinsamen Astralkörper des Volkes ausdrückt.

Jedes Volk und jede andere Gemeinschaft hat einen solchen Astralkörper, und dieser strömt in die Astralkörper der einzelnen Menschen ein. Das ist der Grund, weshalb eine gewisse Disharmonie entstehen kann zwischen den einzelnen Menschen und der Aufgabe des ganzen Volkes. Es gehen nämlich nicht immer alle Entwickelungsanlagen in der Welt den gleichen Gang. Das Umfassendere eilt sehr häufig demjenigen voraus, was weniger umfassend ist.

Betrachten wir zum Beispiel ein Volk. Ein Volk ist nicht ein beliebig in der Welt zusammengewürfeltes Gebilde, nicht etwas, was durch Zufall erzeugt wurde, sondern jedes Volk hat seine bestimmte Aufgabe im Entwickelungsgang der Menschheit. Wer ein Volk von einem höheren Gesichtspunkt aus betrachtet, der kann sich sagen, daß jedes Volk eine bestimmte Aufgabe hat und daß auch seinem Volke eine bestimmte Aufgabe zu erfüllen obliegt. Er kann sich sagen: Ich gehöre diesem Volke an, so daß ich mit ihm der gemeinschaftlichen Volksaufgabe dienen muß, und ich kann ihr so dienen, weil in mir eine Astralität lebt, welche dem ganzen Volke angehört. Diese Bestimmung des Volkes ist auf dem Astralplane deutlich ausgedrückt, sie ist ein bestimmter Gedanke, etwas, das auf Planen, die höher sind als der Astralplan, lebt. Um die Gedanken der Weltordnung zu studieren, muß man über den astralen Plan hinaufsteigen zu dem mentalen Plane.

Die vierte Unterrasse zum Beispiel, aus der unsere Rasse hervorgegangen ist, entwickelte sich aus einem kleinen Kreise von Menschen in Asien und bildete sich zu der hebräisch-griechisch-lateinischen Rasse aus. Diese hatte die Aufgabe, die erste Mission des Christentums vom Völkerstandpunkte aus zu erfüllen. Der Gedanke dieser Rasse war der, das Christentum in seiner ersten Etappe über Europa und die angrenzenden Gebiete zu verbreiten. Das ist ein Völkergedanke.

In früheren Zeiten galt der umfassende Gedanke von Reinkarnation und Karma. Dann trat ein Umschwung ein und die Menschen wurden in der Vorstellung erzogen, daß das eine physische Leben von Wichtigkeit sei. In der griechischen Kunst tritt das deutlich hervor, indem sie den Sinn für die äußere Form ausgebildet hat. Darin lag die Veredelung des physischen Planes für die äußeren Sinne. In dem römischen Volke kam dann das Recht zur Entwickelung, welches sich unmittelbar auf dem physischen Plan auslebt. Das Christentum endlich durchdringt dieses Recht mit einer Moral, so daß ein einziges Erdenleben eine solche Wichtigkeit erlangt, daß eine ganze Ewigkeit davon abhängig gemacht wird. Das ist ein einseitiger Gedanke, aber er war richtig und notwendig. Die katholischen Völker haben die Mission der Verbreitung des Christentums übernommen und sie nach dem Norden Europas getragen, wodurch die germanischen Völker eine neue Mission empfingen.

Wir sehen also, daß ein Volksgedanke lebt im ganzen Volke, und jeder einzelne gehört diesem Gedanken zu. Was früher auf dem Gebiete der plastischen Kunst an schönen Formen der Sinnenwelt in der griechischen Kunst ausgebildet worden ist, was als Recht ausgebildet und später zur Moralität vertieft wurde, das haben wir in unserer Zeit zum Nutzen der Bürger herausgebildet zum technischen Leben. Städte wurden gegründet, sie wuchsen und blühten und bildeten so eine eigene Kultur heraus, die Kultur des Bürgertums. Aus dieser ging dann eine Nützlichkeitsmoral hervor, die den Anstoß gab zur Entwickelung einer einseitigen Wissenschaft, die den Höhepunkt in unserer jetzigen Zeit erreicht haben dürfte.

Hierin können wir das Wirken eines devachanischen Prinzips erkennen. Das ist das Umfassende bei diesen Veränderungen im Laufe der Entwickelung, das uns zeigt, in welcher Weise ein Volksgedanke wirkt. Wie dieser Gedanke zum Ausdruck kommt, das hängt von dem gemeinsamen Astralkörper des Volkes ab, von dem Volkstemperament. Die Kunst zum Beispiel wäre bei einem anderen Volke als dem griechischen in einer ganz anderen Weise zum Ausdruck gekommen.

Obgleich nun der Volksgedanke in jedem einzelnen lebt, so geht der einzelne doch nicht im Volksgedanken auf. Er bringt daneben noch seine Persönlichkeit zum Ausdruck. Hier zeigt sich uns nun etwas ganz Merkwürdiges und Eigentümliches. Leichter ist es zunächst für den Menschen, sich in die Gedankenwelt seines Volkes, in seine devachanische Bestimmung hineinzufinden, als den Ausgleich zwischen den eigenen Gefühlen und den Gefühlen dieses Volkes zu bewirken. Es ist das nicht so leicht, namentlich für solche, welche schon eine gewisse höhere Bildung und Gesittung errungen haben. Auf den niederen Entwickelungsstufen ist dieser Ausgleich der Gefühle zwischen Mensch und Volk eher möglich, weil da immer eine größere Einordnung des individuellen Empfindens in das allgemeine Volksempfinden stattfindet. Auf je niedrigerer Stufe der einzelne steht, um so stärker kommt das Volksempfinden, der Volksgedanke bei ihm zum Ausdruck, in ähnlicher Weise, wie das Tier ein Abdruck der Tiergattung ist.

Wenn der Mensch sich aber entwickelt, so hebt er seinen eigenen Astralkörper heraus, er wird differenzierter, bestimmter. Und dann ist es möglich, daß sein Astralkörper diejenige Form der Mentalität aufzunehmen imstande ist, welche über der Stufe der Mentalität seines Volkes liegt. Wenn man das, was von dieser höheren Stufe herunterleuchtet, verstandesmäßig oder gedanklich erfaßt, so kann man leicht die Ideale ergreifen. Manchmal kommt es auch vor, daß die Gefühle des Astralkörpers eines Menschen nicht so weit entwickelt sind wie seine Gedanken. Die Gedanken eines Volkes können so mächtig auf die Gedanken eines einzelnen einwirken, daß sie ihn ergreifen, bevor er sich sonst genügend entwickelt hat.

Individuen, bei denen dies zutrifft, sind ideale Schwärmer, sind die Märtyrer für den Fortschritt eines Volkes. Sie sind es deshalb, weil sie selbst dem vorauseilen, was ihr sonstiger Astralkörper tatsächlich ist, weil sie ihre ganze edlere Seele dem einen Ideale in selbstloser Weise zuwenden. Wenn solche Menschen dann mit Tod abgehen, dann tritt ihre unentwickelte Astralität mit um so größerer Stärke hervor; dann tritt das, was nicht in dem Ideale des Volkes war, in Wirkung, denn sie haben es in Zukunft nur mit ihrer eigenen Entwickelung zu tun. Wenn ein solcher Mensch, der im Leben ein großer und edler Idealist war, der sich dem Ideale seines Volkes gewidmet hat, gestorben ist, wird er übertönt von dem in ihm noch vorhandenen persönlichen Element. Dann treten die niedrigen Eigenschaften seines Astralkörpers ganz hervor. Nehmen Sie nun an, ein solches Menschenwesen ist zum Märtyrer geworden. Er hat Edles geschaffen, ist aber von seinem Volke mißhandelt worden, wie manchmal solche fortgeschrittenen Naturen mißhandelt werden. Dann wird er gewöhnlich zwar trotzdem während seines Lebens kühn und mutig seinem Ideale nachgehen, nicht nach rechts und nicht nach links schauen. Ist er aber gemartert oder gar getötet worden wegen seines Ideals, dann treten unmittelbar nach seinem ’Tode die Rachegedanken auf. In Kamaloka bleibt dann übrig, was er als Persönliches zurückgedrängt hatte.

Ein Volk, das auf diese Weise seine Idealisten behandelt, schafft sich schlimme Kräfte in Kamaloka, die auf das Volk zurückwirken. Rußland hat sich solche schlimmen Kräfte geschaffen. Seit Jahren hat es gewisse edle Persönlichkeiten mit der Knute mißhandelt. Die niedrigen Kräfte dieser Persönlichkeiten sind nun in Kamaloka wirksam als Feinde dessen, was in Rußland lebt, als Feinde derer, für die sie sich im Leben geopfert haben. Man konnte sehen, daß solche Märtyrer, die jüngst verstorben waren, jetzt kämpften auf Seite der Japaner gegen ihr eigenes Volk. Dies ist eine Tatsache, welche uns verständlich wird, wenn wir in die tiefer wirkenden Kräfte des Seelenlebens hineinsehen. Die Erscheinungen der Zukunft werden uns klar, wenn wir sie von diesem Standpunkte aus betrachten.

Wir leben als Mitglieder germanischer Völkerschaften, eingeschlossen im Osten von slawischen, im Westen von englisch-amerikanischen Völkerschaften. Beide, die amerikanischen und die slawischen Völkerschaften sind aufgehende Rassen, welche in der Zukunft ihren Zweck zu erfüllen haben, Rassen, die erst am Anfang ihres Volksgedankens stehen. Der Grundcharakter der slawischen Völker drückt sich aus in der spirituellen Veranlagung. Versuchen Sie die slawische Kultur zu verstehen, und Sie werden finden, daß sie zu einer spirituellen Kultur hinneigt, daß sich da etwas Spirituelles herauflebt. Diese slawischen Völker mußten sich zunächst mit den im Osten liegenden Volksstämmen auseinandersetzen, mit den Chinesen und Japanern. Das sind Überbleibsel früherer Völkerschaften der Atlantier, wie überhaupt alle Mongolen die Überreste der spätatlantischen Kultur sind. Sie haben Astralkörper, welche selbst schon zur Spiritualität neigen. Mit diesen haben sich die slawischen Völker auseinanderzusetzen.

In Amerika haben wir etwas Ähnliches. Der Materialismus ist da auf die Spitze getrieben und radikal ausgebildet in allen Anschauungen des Volkes. Das führte in der neueren Epoche dazu, den Geist selbst in materieller Weise aufzufassen. Während bei den slawischen Völkern einzelne Persönlichkeiten auftreten, wie Tolstoi, die schön und groß, aus der spirituellen Seele heraus, die Entwickelung anzuregen versuchen, bemüht sich das amerikanische Volk, das Seelische und Geistige in materieller Weise zu fassen. Daher finden wir bei ihm einen stark materiellen Spiritualismus und Spiritismus. Der Geist wird bei ihnen in genau derselben Weise gesucht, wie sie nach physischen Wahrheiten suchen. Aber gerade in der Art des Suchens liegt der Unterschied. Versuchen Sie das Geistige mit Augen zu schauen, so wird es psychisch und diese psychische Seite hat sich in Amerika stark entwickelt.

Die amerikanischen Völker haben sich mit einem anderen Volkselement auseinanderzusetzen, das von der Atlantis herstammt und mit psychischen Anlagen begabt ist. Dieses Volkselement lebt in den Negervölkern. Die Art und Weise, wie diese beiden Völker zusammenwachsen, ist charakteristisch. Das Psychische hat sich mit dem Psychischen auseinanderzusetzen, das Spirituelle mit dem Spirituellen. So haben wir einen spirituellen Volksgedanken im Osten und einen psychischen im Westen.

Wir haben Wissenschaft und Kunst auf dem äußeren Plane erlebt, nun soll auch der Geist wieder emporgehoben werden. Das kann auf zweifache Art geschehen: entweder auf die spirituelle oder auf die psychische Weise. Die spirituelle Weise ist Fortschritt, die psychische ist Rückschlag.

Sie sehen, wie hier die Welt verständlich wird, wenn wir sie von der okkulten Grundlage aus betrachten. Wiederum braucht man nicht zu sagen, wir können uns von diesen Dingen nicht überzeugen. Man nehme nur das, was sich wirklich abspielt. Man wird probeweise zu der Überzeugung geführt werden, wenn man das psychische Weltbild und die psychische Forschung mit dem Weltbilde des Okkultismus vergleicht. Versuchen wir das Weltbild des Okkultismus zu verstehen, dann wird uns auch immer mehr die Erscheinungswelt begreiflich. Eine solche okkult-spirituelle Weltanschauung läßt uns keine Lücke im Begreifen der Welt. Daraus werden wir dann den Glauben an die okkulte Welt gewinnen, von der die Okkultisten berichten und durch diesen erziehen wir in uns ein Element, das uns höher heben wird. Das ist kein blinder Glaube, sondern ein probierender Glaube. Mit jedem Erfahrungszuwachs wird dieser Glaube stärker und berechtigter, immer fester und sicherer. Und wenn der Glaube diese Sicherheit in sich selbst erzeugt hat, erzeugt er auch die Anlage zum Wissen. Immer hat man probiert, bevor man zum Wissen aufgestiegen ist. Wer das Wissen haben will vor dem Forschen, gleicht dem, der die Frucht haben wollte vor dem Samen. Das Wissen soll von uns selbst erworben werden. Wüßten wir schon, so brauchten wir nicht zu forschen. Das, was den Forschern an Gewißheit und Sicherheit fehlt, muß die Gewißheit und Sicherheit des Glaubens ergänzen. So müssen sie zusammenwirken, und so werden sie zuletzt in Einheitlichkeit erzeugen, was uns als Einheitliches entgegentreten muß: die Frucht der Erfahrung, das Wissen.

Hören wir die Okkultisten und sagen wir dazu weder ja noch nein. Betrachten wir es aber als Grundlage unseres eigenen Lebens und unserer Lebenshaltung; betrachten wir es so, als ob ihre Forschungen brauchbare Leiter für unser Leben wären, dann werden wir finden, daß sie uns Führer sein werden durch das Leben und zuletzt hinleiten zu einem inneren Wissen und einem Leben, das uns durchströmt, dann werden wir finden, daß sie uns Führer von Vertrauen sein werden zur Forschung, zur Befriedigung und zum harmonischen Leben in sich selbst.

The Relationship Between Occult Knowledge and Everyday Life

Today I would like to say a few things that may be considered a continuation of some questions that have been on your minds in recent days. Today I would like to elaborate on some things that may have been inspired by comments made in previous days. So much has been said about the relationship between occultism and theosophy, between esotericism and theosophy, and so on, but nothing has been said about the relationship between theosophy and everyday life. Eight days ago, I already indicated that I would like to say a few words on this very subject. Today, I would like to draw your attention to less lofty points of view and talk about how occult knowledge plays a direct role in everyday life and how the theosophical worldview not only directs our gaze across vast times and spaces, but also gain a completely different insight into the most everyday questions through the concepts of occultism than would be possible without such concepts. We will then see how mistaken is the opinion we so often encounter, namely that occultism is something impractical and extremely remote from ordinary everyday life.

And we will touch on another question. It is the question: How can those who have not yet achieved what will be granted to every human being in the future—namely, insight into the higher worlds—how can they, from the standpoint of every normally educated person, become convinced that theosophical teachings are true and that the aspirations of theosophy are truly justified? The evidence does not need to be derived solely from occult observation; indeed, it cannot be derived from it until it has been obtained from another realm, that of everyday life. This prepares us to gain conviction about the higher realms of existence. What has always happened continues to happen today in our everyday lives.

If we trace human beings back to the earliest times of their origin, we find that they originated from a much finer, more spiritual matter than that of which they are composed today. In terms of form, modern human beings mainly display three bodies: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. The etheric body is a kind of archetype of the physical body. The astral body, the auric shell that surrounds and permeates the human being, is the structure in which the life of the emotions, the life of instincts and passions, and every thought finds expression. From the still undifferentiated astral body, the whole human being has basically developed over time. If we go back far enough, to the early epochs of humanity, we find that the physical and etheric substance that permeates human beings today is dissolved in the original astral body of the human being, like a seed in the earth.

The human being of today is, so to speak, condensed from the astral substance. This process still takes place every day. When two people stand facing each other, it is first the two astral bodies that face each other in love or hate, goodwill or ill will, anger or kindness, repulsion or attraction. These are all phenomena that take place between the astral bodies. Interaction between people is a continuous exchange of states and relationships between astral bodies. When I stand opposite another person, my physical body does not undergo any great change, nor does my etheric body, but my astral body does. When someone says something hateful to me, the hateful currents enter my astral body and change it. I have to absorb what flows from them into my own astral body, and this then takes on completely different characteristics, depending on whether love, patience, or anger and impatience flow toward me from the other person.

Something very similar happens between the educator and the child. There is a big difference between an educator who is loving and one who is narrow-minded and selfish. In the astral body of a child, we have something that looks different from the astral body of an adult. The astral body of a child is light and bright; it appears to us as something virginal in comparison to the astral body as it develops in the course of life. What is the astral body of a child? It appears as an undifferentiated cloud of light that gradually takes shape. Little has yet been engraved in it that determines it more and more, so that anything is still possible to be born from it. It is shaped by the ideas that the child absorbs from its environment. They enter into it, color it, and make it different.

Depending on the ideas the child absorbs, whether from a materialistic or idealistic point of view, different formations flow into the child's astral body and shape it. The soul then becomes increasingly filled with such ideas. If the child is treated without love, the echo of this lovelessness appears in the child's astral body. It then closes itself off from the outside world as if with a skin. All this shows us that a continuous transformation of the astral body is actually taking place and that contact with other people has a great influence on this transformation.

The child therefore still has an astral body that is uniform but contains an infinite wealth of possibilities. Consider the astral body of a child who is faced with an idealistic educator who himself has a harmonious soul, who looks at the world with devotion and is receptive to its beauty and grandeur, an educator who is capable of creating within himself an image of the beauty of the world. Such an educator will also develop the ability to respond to the predispositions of the child's soul. They then form soft and receptive structures in the child and send streams into them, which are dissolved by the child's own astral substance. Such an educator, harmoniously formed within themselves, continuously sends harmonious streams to the child. The character traits of the educator then flow naturally into the child, and with them flows all the world harmony that the educator has taken from the environment in the form of beauty. What the educator takes in as a noble person and good observer, he sends as an educator into the nature of the child, thereby bringing it to harmonious development.

Let us assume, on the other hand, that the educator stands before the child as an egoistic, pedantic person, as a person with narrow, stubborn ideas and concepts. These characteristics give rise to formations in his own astral body that make him appear enclosed in a solid crust, turning him into a thoroughly rigid, sluggish entity. Then he sends out streams of rays that are tightly closed within themselves, so that it is impossible for the child's astral body to dissolve them. At most, they injure the child's astral body like an arrow, but they cannot be dissolved and simply pass through it.

Or take something even more commonplace. Two people are talking to each other. One can very well observe two such people in relation to the effects of their astral bodies on each other through their mutual conversation.

In the astral substance, in the astral, something new is always forming. I will try to make this clear to you in the following way. Through their ideas, human beings are constantly building structures in the astral body. These appear in the most varied forms. The astral substance that remains unused between the individual structures is called an intermediate astral substance, in contrast to that which has formed into structures. This intermediate astral substance is constantly replenished from the astral substance of our environment, constantly flowing in and out, constantly being renewed. But the structures that humans have formed through their feelings, thoughts, and decisions remain fixed.

Let us assume that two people are standing in front of us and having a normal conversation. One of them has formed rigid, fixed concepts that have also created very fixed structures in the astral substance. The other person responds to him and tries to explain something to him. What is the basis for making something clear to another person? It is based on sending one's own concept into the astral substance of the other person. This concept, this thought, then flows into the foreign astral substance. There it must first dissolve through the intermediate substance and be recreated and transformed according to the forms already present.

Let us now assume that one person tries to make something clear to another, for example, something relating to reincarnation. The other person, however, has already formed a fixed concept about reincarnation. Let us assume that he is a prejudiced person and has formed the concept that it is something foolish and nonsensical. This thought has been floating in his astral substance. Now the thought of the former comes and dissolves in the intermediate astral substance of the other, but it should be able to transform itself into the thought forms already existing in him. However, this is not possible because his concept is too rigid, too fixed. He cannot transform the thought sent to him into his own thought form, and therefore he does not understand it.

The more a person retains the flexibility of concepts, so that they can always be dissolved by the intermediate substance surrounding them, the more understanding he will have for other people. This is why it is so difficult to convey theosophical life to academically educated people. The concepts acquired at university create rigid, fixed, self-contained structures that are not easily dissolved. Filled with such structures, the academic usually comes to a theosophical lecture and is then unable to grasp theosophical life. It would be quite different if he had been educated in such a way that he said to himself about all concepts: Yes, it could possibly be different, because we only have a limited degree of experience, and some things that we now consider to be correct will have to be corrected in the future. If he did that, then his soul would still be receptive.

Let us take another case. One person stands before another with feelings of reverence. How does this reverence appear to an observer endowed with astral senses? Reverence means sending out thoughts that sink into the substance of the other person's astral body and absorb it, as it were. When you have a feeling of admiration, it is expressed by your own admiration flowing out toward the other person as warmth. This warmth flowing out from you has its mirror image in the astral world, where it appears as a bluish color, the thought form of admiration and devotion. The warm, admiring feeling produces a thought form that has a bluish character.

But what is it that appears bluish? You can see this when you look out into the infinite dark space of the universe. It appears blue to you because of the illuminated atmosphere. In the same way, something that was previously dark appears to you [in the astral world through the thought of worship] and is now illuminated by the warm, bright feeling of worship, also in this bluish color. You enclose a dark space with the feeling of worship, and the dark core then appears bluish, similar to how a blue core appears to you in a flame, surrounded by light. It is the same with the thought of reverence. It is an empty space filled with warmth. When you send the thought of reverence to another, you offer them the opportunity to let their own being flow into this empty space. This is how the balance between the reverer and the revered is achieved.

If, on the other hand, you face another person with feelings of envy, then another thought form lives within you, which you send toward them. You then send out the red thought form of egoism, of self-love. This in turn encloses another thought form, which is full of the idea of your own self, perhaps generated by ambition. This is not expressed in an empty space, in a hollow structure, but in a completely filled form into which nothing more can enter. It is surrounded by a feeling of coldness and has the opposite thought form, namely a bluish circle around it with a red core in the middle. The coldness of the blue color repels everything that wants to enter, and the vain red thought form remains as it is. It accepts nothing. This is how the envious person, who is incapable of reverence, stands opposite the other.

You see, what takes place in our astral body is nothing other than the result of everyday life. Only those who are trained to see it can perceive what takes place in the astral body. But the effects of these processes in the astral body are constantly present in the physical world, and everyone can convince themselves of this through their own lives. Anyone can try the following experiment by saying to themselves: I will leave it entirely open whether the occultist's statements are true or false. But I want to examine them with an open mind. I can live as if these statements were true. I can then behave accordingly toward my fellow human beings, and if I do so carefully, I will see whether life confirms in every single case what the occultist says. And life will confirm this in every case. You will gain immensely from this.

Anyone who thinks this through and, for example, as an educator, not only imbues themselves with pedagogical concepts and ideas, and does not only influence others through what they say, but also through what they feel, sense, and think, anyone who is imbued with the awareness that two astral bodies interact with each other and knows what happens when these astral bodies face each other, also knows that they have a duty to improve themselves more and more. To the extent that they improve, they also have a better effect on the child's predispositions. They do not kill the predispositions, but bring them out.

It means something quite different from merely knowing that what is shown to us through the veneration of another person who is worthy of veneration is a truth, a reality; it means something else to experience that when we send countless such thought forms, enveloped in warmth, to other people, we grow through the greatness of the other person. It is something quite different from merely grasping such things outwardly with the intellect, from merely knowing what they represent. In occultism, we learn to grasp life with greater seriousness, to recognize that what is not tangible, what cannot be perceived with the senses, nevertheless has a reality. We learn to understand and appreciate the full scope and significance of our soul world.

Some may say that these are merely schematic rearrangements. No, they are not! We must be thoroughly imbued with the significance of our actions and the responsibility that life imposes on us. It is our everyday life that can be influenced in this way by occultism. Those who know what happens in the invisible world as a result of thoughts and feelings will eventually come to realize that it is just as important not to send another person bad feelings as it is not to shoot them with a gun. They know that it is just as bad for the astral human being to throw a hateful thought at them as it is harmful for the physical human being to have a brick thrown at them.

This can be understood very quickly; those who come together in gatherings such as theosophical ones will feel and experience it. They then bring back with them a new source of life. They can say to themselves that for others there is a simple reality, but for us there is a threefold one. The other person feels realities only from the sensory world and thinks nothing of it when he says: Thoughts are duty-free! But those who have gone through the theosophical worldview can no longer say that thoughts are duty-free; they are convinced that they are responsible for what they think and feel toward other people. You carry this sense of responsibility out into the world as the most beautiful fruit of the theosophical worldview. Even if we are still beginners, trying things out, we are already working from the hidden, occult world into the visible world. We beautify and improve the world from the hidden realms of existence.

That is one side of how we understand life. But there is another side. Human beings do not live alone as individuals in the world; they also belong to a family, a tribe, a people, in other words, to a community. They are only separated from this community by their physical and etheric bodies. I have already said that the astral body has fluid boundaries, that the intermediate substance is constantly inclined to absorb currents from outside and to renew itself. But when we consider that we belong to a people, a tribe, a family, then the matter takes on another aspect.

When we look at the astral body of an individual human being, almost every one differs from the astral body of another in its basic coloring. It has a certain shade that manifests itself outwardly as temperament. Temperament is thus expressed in a certain basic color. In this way, the human being is related to his entire environment, in that the character of the family, tribe, or people to which he belongs is expressed in the basic color.

As an occultist, one can make interesting observations when, for example, one revisits a city that one may have seen ten years ago. If one looks at the virgin astral bodies of children, one finds that they have another basic color in addition to their personal basic color. If one has looked closely at these virgin astral bodies of children during one's first visit and compares them with those of children who have lived in the city for ten years, one finds that their appearance has changed. There is something in human individuality that progresses like the development of a city, a tribe, or a people. This comes from the fact that the currents of a collective astral body that surrounds me from outside are constantly interacting with my own, which lives in this collective astral body. That is why we also have a national temperament that is expressed in the collective astral body of the people.

Every people and every other community has such an astral body, and this flows into the astral bodies of the individual human beings. This is the reason why a certain disharmony can arise between individual human beings and the task of the whole people. For not all developmental tendencies in the world always follow the same course. Very often, the more comprehensive rushes ahead of the less comprehensive.

Let us consider a people, for example. A people is not a random collection of individuals thrown together in the world, not something created by chance, but each people has its own specific task in the course of human development. Anyone who views a people from a higher perspective can say that each people has a specific task and that his own people also has a specific task to fulfill. He can say to himself: I belong to this people, so I must serve the common task of the people, and I can serve it because there is an astrality living within me that belongs to the whole people. This destiny of the people is clearly expressed on the astral plane; it is a specific thought, something that lives on planes higher than the astral plane. In order to study the thoughts of the world order, one must ascend above the astral plane to the mental plane.

The fourth subrace, for example, from which our race emerged, developed from a small circle of people in Asia and formed the Hebrew-Greek-Latin race. This race had the task of fulfilling the first mission of Christianity from the point of view of the peoples. The idea of this race was to spread Christianity in its first stage throughout Europe and the neighboring regions. This is a national idea.

In earlier times, the comprehensive idea of reincarnation and karma prevailed. Then a change occurred and people were brought up to believe that physical life was important. This is clearly evident in Greek art, which developed a sense of external form. This was the refinement of the physical plane for the external senses. Among the Roman people, the law then developed, which is lived out directly on the physical plane. Finally, Christianity permeated this law with a morality, so that a single earthly life attained such importance that an entire eternity was made dependent on it. This is a one-sided idea, but it was correct and necessary. The Catholic peoples took on the mission of spreading Christianity and carried it to northern Europe, whereby the Germanic peoples received a new mission.

We see, then, that a national idea lives in the whole people, and that each individual belongs to this idea. What was formerly developed in the field of plastic art in the beautiful forms of the sensory world in Greek art, what was developed as law and later deepened into morality, we have developed in our time for the benefit of the citizens into technical life. Cities were founded, they grew and flourished, and thus developed their own culture, the culture of the bourgeoisie. From this arose a morality of utility, which gave impetus to the development of a one-sided science, which has probably reached its peak in our present time.

Here we can recognize the workings of a devachanic principle. This is the comprehensive aspect of these changes in the course of development, which shows us how a national idea works. How this idea is expressed depends on the common astral body of the people, on the national temperament. Art, for example, would have found expression in a completely different way in a people other than the Greeks.

Although the national idea lives in each individual, the individual does not merge into the national idea. He also expresses his personality. Here we see something very strange and peculiar. At first, it is easier for people to find their way into the world of ideas of their people, into their devachanic destiny, than to achieve a balance between their own feelings and the feelings of this people. This is not so easy, especially for those who have already attained a certain higher level of education and culture. At the lower stages of development, this balance of feelings between the individual and the people is more easily achieved because there is always a greater integration of individual feelings into the general feelings of the people. The lower the individual stands, the more strongly the feelings and thoughts of the people are expressed in him, in the same way that an animal is an imprint of its species.

But as man develops, he raises his own astral body, he becomes more differentiated, more definite. And then it is possible that his astral body is able to take on a form of mentality that is above the level of his people's mentality. If one grasps what shines down from this higher stage intellectually or conceptually, one can easily grasp the ideals. Sometimes it also happens that the feelings of a person's astral body are not as developed as their thoughts. The thoughts of a people can have such a powerful effect on the thoughts of an individual that they seize them before they have otherwise developed sufficiently.

Individuals to whom this applies are ideal enthusiasts, martyrs for the progress of a people. They are so because they themselves precede what their other astral body actually is, because they devote their entire noble soul to the one ideal in a selfless manner. When such people die, their undeveloped astrality emerges with all the greater force; then what was not in the ideal of the people comes into effect, because in the future they will only have to deal with their own development. When such a person, who was a great and noble idealist in life and devoted himself to the ideal of his people, dies, he is overwhelmed by the personal element still present in him. Then the lower qualities of his astral body come to the fore. Now suppose that such a human being has become a martyr. He has created something noble, but has been mistreated by his people, as such advanced natures are sometimes mistreated. Then, during his life, he will usually pursue his ideal boldly and courageously, looking neither to the right nor to the left. But if he has been tortured or even killed for his ideals, thoughts of revenge arise immediately after his “death.” What he had suppressed as personal remains in Kamaloka.

A people that treats its idealists in this way creates evil forces in Kamaloka that have an effect on the people. Russia has created such terrible forces for itself. For years it has mistreated certain noble personalities with the knout. The base forces of these personalities are now active in Kamaloka as enemies of what lives in Russia, as enemies of those for whom they sacrificed themselves in life. It was evident that such martyrs who had recently died were now fighting on the side of the Japanese against their own people. This is a fact that becomes understandable to us when we look into the deeper forces of the soul life. The phenomena of the future become clear to us when we view them from this standpoint.

We live as members of Germanic peoples, enclosed in the east by Slavic peoples and in the west by Anglo-American peoples. Both the American and the Slavic peoples are rising races which have their purpose to fulfill in the future, races which are only at the beginning of their national consciousness. The basic character of the Slavic peoples is expressed in their spiritual disposition. Try to understand Slavic culture, and you will find that it tends toward a spiritual culture, that something spiritual is coming to life there. These Slavic peoples first had to deal with the tribes in the East, with the Chinese and Japanese. These are remnants of earlier Atlantean peoples, just as all Mongols are remnants of the late Atlantean culture. They have astral bodies that are themselves inclined toward spirituality. The Slavic peoples have to deal with these.

We have something similar in America. Materialism has been taken to extremes and radically developed in all aspects of the people's outlook. In the modern era, this has led to the spirit itself being understood in a material way. While individual personalities such as Tolstoy emerge among the Slavic peoples, who are beautiful and great and try to stimulate development from their spiritual soul, the American people strive to grasp the soul and spirit in a material way. That is why we find a strongly materialistic spiritualism and spiritism among them. They seek the spirit in exactly the same way as they seek physical truths. But it is precisely in the way of seeking that the difference lies. If you try to see the spiritual with your eyes, it becomes psychic, and this psychic side has developed strongly in America.

The American peoples have to deal with another element of the human race that originated in Atlantis and is gifted with psychic abilities. This element lives in the Negro peoples. The way in which these two peoples grow together is characteristic. The psychic has to deal with the psychic, the spiritual with the spiritual. Thus we have a spiritual national consciousness in the East and a psychic one in the West.

We have experienced science and art on the outer plane; now the spirit must also be raised again. This can happen in two ways: either in the spiritual way or in the psychic way. The spiritual way is progress, the psychic way is regression.

You see how the world becomes understandable when we look at it from the occult basis. Again, there is no need to say that we cannot convince ourselves of these things. Just take what is really happening. You will be led to this conviction if you compare the psychic worldview and psychic research with the worldview of occultism. If we try to understand the worldview of occultism, then the world of appearances will become more and more comprehensible to us. Such an occult-spiritual worldview leaves no gaps in our understanding of the world. From this we will then gain faith in the occult world reported by occultists, and through this we will educate within ourselves an element that will lift us higher. This is not blind faith, but a tentative faith. With every new experience, this faith becomes stronger and more justified, ever more firm and secure. And when faith has created this security within itself, it also creates the predisposition for knowledge. One has always tried before ascending to knowledge. Those who want knowledge before research are like those who want the fruit before the seed. Knowledge must be acquired by ourselves. If we already knew, we would not need to research. What researchers lack in certainty and security must be supplemented by the certainty and security of faith. Thus, they must work together, and thus they will ultimately produce in unity what must confront us as a unity: the fruit of experience, knowledge.

Let us listen to the occultists and say neither yes nor no. But let us consider it as the foundation of our own lives and our attitude toward life; let us consider it as if their research were useful guides for our lives, then we will find that they will be our guides through life and ultimately lead us to an inner knowledge and a life that flows through us, then we will find that they will be our guides of trust toward research, toward satisfaction, and toward a harmonious life within ourselves.