The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture Ten

[ 1 ] The occultist is never concerned with establishing dogmas. They recount what they have seen, what they have researched on the astral plane and on the spiritual plane, or what masters, whom they recognize as such, have revealed to them. They have no ambition to convert others, but rather want to awaken in others the sense that has been awakened in themselves and enable them to see as well.

[ 2 ] Here we will discuss the astral human being as he appears to clairvoyant vision. The astral human being encompasses the entire soul world of feelings, passions, emotions, and drives. They reveal themselves to the inner sense in forms and colors. The astral body itself is a cloud-like, egg-shaped structure that flows around and envelops the human being. We can perceive it inwardly.

[ 3 ] With the physical human being, it is a matter of considering the substance and the form. The substance renews itself within seven years, while the form remains unchanged. For behind the physical substance there is a supersensible builder. This builder is the etheric body. We do not see it, we only see its work, the body. The physical eye sees only what is complete in the organism, not what is in the process of becoming.

[ 4 ] The opposite is true when one has the imagination of the astral body, that is, of one's own astral body. We perceive it from within through our passions and the various stirrings of the soul.

[ 5 ] The clairvoyant's ability consists in learning to see from the outside what we feel from the inside in ordinary life. Then feelings, passions, and thoughts are transferred into living and visible forms. This is what forms the aura around the physical shell, a form of light.

[ 6 ] In the same way that the etheric body builds up the physical body, feelings shape the astral body. Everything that lives in the aura is expressed in it. Every human aura has its own special nuances, its predominant colors. All other colors play over this basic color; for example, the melancholic temperament has a blue tinge. But so many different impressions pour into the aura from outside that the observer can easily be deceived, especially when observing his own aura.

[ 7 ] The clairvoyant sees his own aura in reverse, that is, the outside as the inside and the inside as the outside, because he sees from the outside. What does he see?

[ 8 ] All religious founders were accomplished clairvoyants and spiritual leaders of humanity, and their moral principles became rules of life determined by astral and spiritual truths. This explains the similarities between all religions. Such a similarity exists, for example, between the eightfold path of Buddha and the eight beatitudes of Christ. Both are based on the truth that every time a person develops a virtue, they also develop a new faculty of perception. But why are there eight stages? Because, as the clairvoyant knows, there are eight possibilities for developing clairvoyant organs.

[ 9 ] In occultism, the organs of perception of the astral body are called lotus flowers, sacred wheels, or chakrams. The sixteen-spoked wheel or sixteen-petaled lotus flower is located in the area of the larynx. In ancient times, this lotus flower rotated in a certain direction, namely counterclockwise, that is, from right to left. In modern humans, this wheel stands still; it no longer rotates. But in clairvoyants, it actually begins to move again, in the opposite direction, from left to right. Eight of the sixteen petals were once visible. The eight in between were hidden. In the future, they will all become visible. For the first eight are due to unconscious higher perception, the eight new ones to conscious perception, which springs from personal effort. And it is precisely these eight new petals that bring about the Beatitudes of Christ.

[ 10 ] Human beings possess another lotus flower, the one with twelve petals. It is located in the region of the heart. Once, only six petals were visible. The acquisition of six virtues will cause the other six petals to unfold in the future. These six virtues are: control of thought, initiative, mental balance, positivity, which allows one to see the best side of everything, a mind free of prejudice, and finally, harmony of the soul. Then the twelve petals will begin to move. They express the sacred character of the number twelve, which we find in the twelve apostles, in the twelve companions of Arthur — and each time it is a matter of creativity, of activity. And this is so because everything in the world develops in twelve different nuances. In Goethe's poem “The Secrets,” which expresses the ideal of the Rosicrucians, we find a new example of this. According to an explanation given by the poet Goethe himself to young people, each of the twelve knights of the Rosicrucians represents a religious movement.

[ 11 ] These truths can also be found in signs and symbols, for these symbols are not arbitrary inventions, but correspond to realities. For example, the symbol of the cross, like that of the swastika, is the representation of the four-petaled chakram of man. And the twelve-petaled lotus flower finds its expression in the symbol of the Rosicrucians and the twelve companions. The thirteenth among them, the invisible companion who unites them all, is the truth, the unifying bond of all religions. Every new beginning, every new religious revelation, is a “thirteenth” that provides a new synthesis of the twelve nuances of spiritual truth.

[ 12 ] The rites and cultic ceremonies of religions spring from this truth. At the root of all rites and all cults established by clairvoyants is divine wisdom. Through it, the astral world expresses itself in the physical world. The rite represents, as in a reflection, what happens in the higher worlds. This fact can be found in the rites of the Freemasons as well as in the religions of Asia. When a new religion is born, an initiate lays the foundations on which the ritual of the outer cult is built. With the evolution of humanity, the rite, a living image of the spiritual world, develops to the point of artistic production. For art likewise emerges from the astral world – and the rite becomes beauty. This happened, as is well known, at the time of Greek culture.

[ 13 ] Art is an astral process whose origin has been forgotten. We find a clear example of this in the mysteries and among the gods of the Greeks. In the mysteries, the hierophant describes human development in its three phases: animal man, actual man, and god-man—the true superman and not Nietzsche's false superman. In these three types, he conveyed to the initiates a living image as he received it from the astral light. At the same time, these three supersensible types found expression in poetry and the visual arts through the following three symbols: first, the animal type, the satyr; second, the human type, Hermes or Mercury; third, the divine type, Zeus, Jupiter. Each of them, with everything that surrounds them, represents an entire cycle of humanity. In this way, the students of the mysteries transferred what they had seen in the astral light into art.

[ 14 ] The peak of human life is currently around the age of thirty-five. Why is that? Why does Dante begin his journey at the age of thirty-five, in the middle of human life? Because at this point, the human being, whose activity had previously been concentrated on developing the physical body, ascends to the spiritual regions and can devote his activity to becoming clairvoyant. Thus, at the age of thirty-five, Dante also becomes clairvoyant. At this point, the physical forces cease to claim spiritual influence for themselves. These powers, now freed from the physical body, can now transform themselves into clairvoyance.

[ 15 ] Here we touch upon a profound mystery: the law of the transformation of the organs. The entire development of the human being passes through a transformation of the organs. What has reached the higher level in him is the result of the transformation of the lowest. Thus, the reproductive organs must also be transformed.

[ 16 ] With the separation of the sexes, the astral body has also divided: into a lower part, which produces the physical reproductive organism, and an upper part, which ignites thought, imagination, and speech.

[ 17 ] The reproductive organ, the power of procreation, and the vocal organ, the creative word, once formed a whole. One understands the unifying bond between these two poles where they still formed a single organ. The negative animal pole and the positive divine pole were once united and have separated.

[ 18 ] The third Logos is the creative power of the word, as expressed at the beginning of the Gospel of John. Its echo is the human word. In ancient myths and legends, this fact found profound expression in the description of the limping Vulcan. His task was to guard the sacred fire. He limps because, during initiation, man must lose something of his physical body—the lower part of the body comes from a past that must disappear. The lower human nature must fall in order to rise to a higher level in the future. Thus, in the course of his development, man has split into a lower and an upper part.

[ 19 ] In certain medieval images, humans are shown split into two parts by a line. The upper left part and the head are above the line, while the upper right part and the lower part of the body are below the line. This line indicates the past and future of the human body. The lotus flower with two petals is located below the forehead at the root of the nose. This is an astral organ that has not yet developed, but will one day develop into two antennae or wings. A symbol of this can already be seen in the two horns on Moses' forehead.

[ 20 ] Viewed from top to bottom, from the head to the reproductive organs, the human being is composed and equally identical in both halves; this is the product of the past. From left to right, he is symmetrical: this is the present and the future. But these two symmetrical parts do not have the same value.

[ 21 ] Why are we usually right-handed? The right hand, which is the one that works most actively today, is destined to regress later. The left hand is the organ that will survive when the two wings on the forehead have developed. The brain of the chest will be the heart, which will be an organ of consciousness. And there will be three organs for locomotion.

[ 22 ] Before humans stood upright, there was a time when they walked on all fours. This is the origin of the riddle posed by the Sphinx. She asked: Which creature walks on all fours in its childhood, on two legs in the middle of its life, and on three legs in its old age? Oedipus answered: It is man, who indeed walks on all fours as a child and leans on a stick as an old man. In reality, the riddle and its solution refer to the development of all humanity: past, present, and future, as known in the ancient mysteries. Four-footed in a bygone era of his evolution, man today stands upright on two legs. In the future, he will fly and will actually use three aids: the two wings that develop from the two-petaled lotus flower will be the organ of his will to move, and in addition, the transformed tool of the left side of the chest and the left hand. Such will be the tools of future locomotion.

[ 23 ] Just as the right side and the right hand, the current reproductive organs will regress, and humans will, as we have seen above, produce their equals through the word. Their word will form their equals in the etheric body.