The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Lecture Twelve

[ 1 ] Devachan—or the seat of the gods—corresponds to the Christian heaven and the spirit world of occultists. It goes without saying that these regions—which are only seemingly extraterrestrial, since they are in a living relationship with our world, but which are beyond the reach of our physical senses—can only be described in symbols and parables, for our language is only suitable for the world of the senses.

[ 2 ] Devachan comprises seven degrees or seven different regions, which are arranged in ascending order. These are not floors or specific locations, but states of the soul and spirit. Devachan is everywhere. It surrounds us like the astral world, only we cannot see it. Through successive exercises, the initiate acquires the necessary abilities to see it. Let us consider how it gradually opens up to those who acquire new powers of perception.

[ 3 ] At the first stage of clairvoyance, dreams become more regular, certain figures appear, meaningful words are heard; they increasingly take on a meaning that can be deciphered and that relates to real life. For example, one dreams that a friend's house is on fire, and later learns that he has just fallen ill. These first glimpses into the devachan make it appear like a sky streaked with clouds that group together and gradually take on living forms.

[ 4 ] With the second stage of clairvoyance, dreams take on very definite contours. These are the geometric and symbolic forms of the great religions, the sacred signs of all times, which are, so to speak, the language of the creative word, the sacred hieroglyphs of the cosmic language: the cross, sign of life; the pentagram or five-pointed star, sign of the word; the hexagram or six-pointed star, two triangles turned inward, sign of the macrocosm, mirrored in the microcosm, and so on. But these symbols, which we represent in abstract lines, appear here in color, alive and flashing on a background of light. They are not, however, the clothing of living beings, but rather denote, so to speak, the norms and laws of creation. They form the animal figures that the first initiates chose to represent the solar cycles in the constellations of the zodiac. The initiates have handed down their visions in these symbols, for example in that of Cancer, which represents a vortex of two opposing lines. The oldest characters in Sanskrit, Egyptian, Greek, and runes, each of which always has its own meaning, all originally go back to spiritual forms.

[ 5 ] At this stage of his clairvoyance, however, the disciple is still on the threshold of Devachan. It is a matter of going beyond it and finding the passage that leads from the astral world to the first stage of the Devachanic world. All secret schools have known this path, and even Christianity in the first centuries, although it did not go back to the ancient forms of initiation, nevertheless possessed an esoteric sign language, traces of which we can still find today.

[ 6 ] The Acts of the Apostles mentions Dionysius, who was an initiated disciple of Paul and taught esoteric Christianity. Later, in the 9th century, John Scotus Eriugena founded an esoteric Christianity at the court of Charles the Bald. This was then gradually obscured by dogma. But if one penetrates into the Devachan, one sees that Dionysius' description of it is confirmed.

[ 7 ] Rhythmic breathing according to the yoga system is one of the means used to enter the world of Devachan. The sure sign that this entry has taken place is that consciousness goes through an experience which in Vedanta philosophy is described by the words: tat tvam asi = that is you.

[ 8 ] In dreams, humans see their own physical form from the outside. They see their body stretched out on their bed, but as an empty shell. Around this hollow form, the astral body shines like an egg-shaped glow; it appears like an aura from which the body has been withdrawn, while the body appears as an empty hollow form. It is a vision in which the conditions are reversed, as in a photographic negative. One becomes accustomed to this view of all things. One sees, as it were, the soul of crystals, plants, and animals in the form of a halo, while their physical substance appears as a hollow form, an empty space. But only natural objects can appear this way, nothing created by human hands.

[ 9 ] At this first stage of Devachan, one sees the astral image of the physical world; it is what is called the mainland of Devachan, the negative form of the valleys, the mountains, the physical continents.

[ 10 ] By practicing meditation with held breath, one reaches the second stage of Devachan. The hollow spaces formed by physical substance fill with a system of spiritual currents. These are the currents of universal life that permeate everything; it is the ocean of Devachan. Here the initiate immerses himself in the bubbling source of all life. He sees this life as an immense network of rivers whose channels permeate everything. At the same time, he is filled with a strange and completely new sensation. He feels himself beginning to live in metals. Reichenbach, the author of the book on the od, discovered this phenomenon in sensitive individuals whom he asked to guess metals wrapped in pieces of paper.

[ 11 ] The beings encountered in this region are those whom Dionysius Areopagita calls the archangels or animators of metals; they correspond to the second degree of clairvoyance.

[ 12 ] One reaches the third stage of Devachan when one detaches one's thought life from any connection with the physical world, when one can feel oneself in one's thought life without any thought content. The master says to his disciple: Live in such a way that you put your intellectual thinking into action without any object! - Then a new world opens up. After seeing the continents and rivers of Devachan, that is, the astral soul of things and the currents of life, one perceives the air, the Devachanic atmosphere. This atmosphere is very different from ours. Its substance is alive, resonant, full of sensation, as if it could feel. It responds to each of our gestures, our actions, our thoughts with vibrations, light phenomena, sounds. Everything that happens on earth has an effect here in the form of color, light, and sound. Whether one lives here during sleep or after death, one can always follow the echo of what is happening on earth. For example, one can observe a battle: you do not see the battle itself, nor its ebb and flow, you hear neither the cries of the fighters nor the cannon shots. Rather, battles and passions manifest themselves as lightning and thunder. Thus, Devachan does not separate us from Earth, but it shows it to us as if from the outside. We no longer perceive pain and joy as something that takes place within us. We view them objectively, like a spectacle. It is a new apprenticeship in compassion and mercy. Devachan is a school where we learn to view the sufferings and joys of this world from a higher perspective, where we summon all our powers to transform suffering into joy, downfalls into new upsurges, death into resurrection.

[ 13 ] This has nothing to do with passive contemplation and a more or less selfish heavenly bliss, as depicted by certain religious authors who believe that the suffering of the damned contributes to the happiness of the elect. It is a living heaven, where the unlimited desire for sympathy and activity, which is inherent in the human soul, strives for unlimited fields of activity and infinite vistas.

[ 14 ] On the fourth level of penetration into Devachan, things appear in their original forms. This is no longer the negative aspect, but the original type that is revealed there. This is the workshop of the world, which contains all the forms from which creation sprang. This is Plato's world of ideas, the realm of mothers of which Goethe speaks and from which he lets the phantom of Helen rise. What appears at this stage of Devachan is what the Indians call the Akashic Records. In our modern language, we would call it the astral image of all world events. Everything that has passed through the astral body of human beings is recorded here in an infinitely subtle substance, which is actually a negative matter.

[ 15 ] In order to understand the validity of these images floating in the astral light of the earth, one must use comparative analogies. The human voice utters words and thereby forms sound waves that penetrate other ears and other brains, evoking images and thoughts there. Each of these words is a sound wave of a very peculiar shape, which, if we could see it, would differ from every other. Now let us imagine that these words could solidify and freeze like a wave of water due to a sudden, tremendous cold. In this case, these word formations would fall to the earth in the form of frozen air, and each of them could be recognized by its shape. These would then be crystallized words.

[ 16 ] And now let us imagine the opposite of a process of condensation. We know that every body can transition from a more solid to a more immaterial state: from a solid to a liquid to a gaseous state. The refinement of the material state can reach a degree which, if exceeded, ends in negative matter; it is called Akasha. In it, all events are imprinted in a definitive way, and one can find them all again, even those from the deepest past.

[ 17 ] The images in the Akashic Records are not immobile. They unfold constantly like living pictures, where things and people move and sometimes even speak. If one were to summon the astral form of Dante, it would speak in his style, as if from his former sphere of life. These are the images that almost always appear in spiritualist séances and are taken for the spirit of the deceased. This is misleading.

[ 18 ] One must learn to decipher the pages of this book with living images and to unfold the countless scrolls of this chronicle of the universe. This can only be achieved by distinguishing the outer appearance from reality, the imprint of the human being from the living soul. This requires daily practice and long training in order to avoid errors in interpretation. For example, it could happen that, in view of Dante's appearance, one receives exact answers, but they do not come from Dante's individuality, which is progressively developing, but from the old Dante, as he is attached to the etheric sphere of his age.

[ 19 ] The fifth stage is that of heavenly sphere harmony. The upper regions of Devachan are characterized by the fact that all sounds there are clearer, brighter, and more resonant. There, in a grandiose harmony, one hears the voice of all beings, and this is what Pythagoras calls the music of the spheres. It is the inner speech, the living word of the universe. Each being now takes on a special timbre for the clairvoyant who has become sensitive to sound, a kind of sounding aura. Each being tells the occultist its name. In Genesis, Jehovah takes Adam by the hand, and Adam names all beings. On earth, the individual is lost among the multitude of other beings. There, each has its own timbre, and yet at the same time, the human being merges into all beings, becoming one with his surroundings.

[ 20 ] At this stage, the student is called the swan. He hears the sounds through which the master speaks to him and transmits them to the world. The singing swan of Apollo lets the sounds from the beyond be heard. It is said that he comes from the land of the Hyperboreans, that is, from the world where the sun hides from the sky at sunset.

[ 21 ] We have arrived at the point where we bid farewell to the starry world from the other side. We no longer read the Akashic Records from the earthly side, but from the heavenly side; they become occult star writing. We look into the interior of the starry sphere and sense the source of the universe, the Logos.

[ 22 ] We find memories of this degree of the Swan in myths, especially in the Middle Ages through the legends of the Grail, which are the echo of experiences in the devachanic world. All the heroic deeds reported there are performed by the Knights of the Grail, who embody the great impulses that permeate humanity at the behest of the Masters.

[ 23 ] The time when the Grail legend arose under the influence of the great initiates is the time when the rule of the bourgeoisie began and when the founding of the great free cities spread from Scotland to England and from there to France and Germany. The liberated human being unconsciously longs for truth and divine life. In the legend of Lohengrin, Elsa represents the human soul, the soul of the Middle Ages, which strives for development and is always represented by a female figure in occultism. The knight Lohengrin, who comes from an unknown world, from the castle of the Holy Grail, to liberate her, represents the master who brings the truth. He is the messenger of the initiate, symbolically carried by the swan. The messenger of the great initiates is called “Swan.” One must not ask about his origin or his true name. One must not doubt the signs of his majesty. One must believe his word and recognize the ray of truth in his face. Those who do not have this faith are incapable of understanding him and are not worthy of hearing him. Hence Lohengrin's prohibition to Elsa to inquire about his origin and his name. The swan is the chela who brings forth the Master.

[ 24 ] The messenger of the Master on the physical plane is the initiated disciple who has ascended to the fifth degree and whom the Master sends out into the world. Thus, this legend expresses what happens in the higher worlds. The Logos, the Word of the Sun and the Planets, shines its light into myths and legends.