The Rudolf Steiner Archive

8. A Few Words on the Rosicrucian Mystery: “The Gate of Initiation”

The sun's light floods
The vastness of space,
The birds' song resounds
Through the realms of air,
The blessing of plants purifies
The beings of the earth,
And lifts human souls
In gratitude
Toward the spirits of the world.

[ 1 ] As those of you who attended the performance of the Rosicrucian Mystery Play in Munich know, this children’s song served to introduce the content of that mystery play. In this hour, certain spiritual-scientific insights will unfold before us in connection with what lies within this Mystery—one might even say has come to life.

[ 2 ] It is, if I may say so, a long intellectual process that has led to this mystery. When I reflect on it or take stock of it, its origins date back, so to speak, to the year 1889. It is not merely a matter of approximation, but with a precision observable in such matters, twenty-one years that lead me back to the seed of this Rosicrucian mystery. And I can trace very precisely the paths these seeds have taken over these three times seven years—and I may well say, without any particular intervention on my part, as they have led a life of their own during these three times seven years. It is so remarkable to trace such seeds on their path to what one might call formation. They make their way through what one might call a descent into the underworld. It takes them seven years to descend. Then they come back up again, and this ascent takes another seven years. They have then arrived where they were, in a sense, facing humanity when they began their descent, and then proceed for seven years in the opposite direction—one might say, toward the heights. That makes two times seven plus seven years, which is twenty-one years. Then, with some prospect that what is meant by these seeds might actually take shape, one could approach the process of formation. And if I were not aware that a distinct organism, which has truly lived a life of three times seven years within itself, lives within the Rosicrucian mystery, I would not dare to speak of it further in any particular way. But as it is, I feel not only entitled—which would be out of the question—but in a certain sense obliged to speak also of that which lives, and indeed must live, not only between the lines, not only in the persons, not only in the what and how, but also in many aspects of this very Rosicrucian Mystery.

[ 3 ] I have already mentioned here and there since the Munich performance of this Rosicrucian Mystery Play—and this is indeed true—that there are many, many things that exist in the realm of the esoteric and the occult no longer need to be spoken of by me, that no further lectures from me would be necessary if all of this were to take effect upon the souls of my dear friends and many other people, directly from the Rosicrucian Mystery, which lies within it. And in the kind of language typically used in lectures, I would have much, much to say—not just for days, weeks, or months, but for years on end—if I were to put into words what should be said and can be said through the Rosicrucian Mystery. All the things that you—and when it comes to occult matters, it is certainly justified to speak this way—find in a sort of stammering language in the text “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?”, what is contained there as a description of the path upward into the higher worlds—all of this connected with what was permitted to be said in a different form in “Outline of Esoteric Science”—is, in essence, much more intense, more true to life, and more real, because it is much more individual, to be found in the Rosicrucian Mystery. In a text such as, for example, “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” one can only present what is to be said about human development in such a way that it is, so to speak, applicable to every human individuality that sets out, in a certain way, to direct the steps upward into the higher worlds—to every human individuality. As a result, such a text, despite all its concreteness, nevertheless takes on an abstract character—one might say, a semi-theoretical character. For we must hold fast to this one thing: development is not development in general! — There is no development in itself, no development in general; there is only the development of this or that person, or the third, the fourth, or the thousandth person. And as many people as there are in the world, so many processes of development must there be. Therefore, the truest description of the occult path of knowledge must generally have a character that, in a certain way, does not coincide with individual development. If one wishes to truly present development as it appears in the spiritual world, this can only happen by depicting the development of a single human being, by translating into individuality what is true for all human beings. If the text “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?” contains, so to speak, the beginning of the mystery of every human being’s development, then the Rosicrucian Mystery contains the mystery of the development of a single human being, Johannes Thomasius.

[ 4 ] Thus, there was a long way from all that constitutes the occult laws of development down to a single, truly real human being. And in this process of development, in this journey, something contained in the “knowledge of the higher worlds”—and which can become theory there—had to be almost completely reversed. If it is not to become theory—especially if it is to become art—it must be completely reversed. For the laws of art are very special. And just as there are laws of nature, so there are laws of art that cannot be handled with ordinary human consciousness, for then the result is merely something akin to a straw-man allegory. The laws of art must be applied just as nature itself applies its laws when it brings forth a human being, an animal, or a plant. If what we can know about the world, viewed from one direction, is that we look into the world and it reveals its laws and secrets to us, then what must come to light in art and in every art form is something that must be placed into the work of art in question from the other side, through the opposite sense. Therefore, the worst possible interpretation of a work of art would be one that sought to introduce concepts, ideas, and laws known from elsewhere into a work of poetry. And one who were to introduce abstract or symbolic concepts into any work of art would not be making an artistic contribution. Therefore, it would be among the worst methods to apply to works of art from the past in which truly occult power has been at work—such as in *Faust*—if we were to search for concepts and ideas we already know within those works. Such a bad habit once ran rampant in the theosophical movement in the most dreadful way. Yes, I still remember, for example, something that took place last year when we performed Schure’s drama “The Children of Lucifer,” how the author of this drama, who is an artist in the best sense of the word, was horrified when someone approached him with the question: Does this character represent “Atma,” does that figure represent “Budhi,” this character “Manas,” this one “Kama Manas,” and so on? — This kind of allegorization would be impossible in an artistic process. Therefore, it must be impossible in an explanation, in an interpretation. That is why it may also be said that one should not ponder: What, for example, is Johannes Thomasius in the anthroposophical concept? — There is only one answer to this question: As the main character of this drama, he is nothing other than Johannes Thomasius. He is nothing other than this living figure of Johannes Thomasius, into whom nothing other than the secret of the development of a single human being—namely, Johannes Thomasius—has been placed. - As soon as one speaks of the individual figures in general terms, something is left out. What is left out is what is hinted at in the words of the drama in the lines: “Here in this circle a knot is forming from the threads that karma spins in the unfolding of the world.” — No development takes place at any point in human existence without the threads that Karma spins in the unfolding of the world knotting together all around this development. And no individual development can be depicted without showing everything that is at play in the occult environment—that is, in the physical environment, but as seen through the forces that lie behind the physical environment. Therefore, Johannes Thomasius must be placed within the human environment from which his development springs, within the real physical human world.

[ 5 ] And that is probably why the drama had to have a two-part introduction. The first part shows how the world appears to the outside world—the world in which, for Johannes Thomasius, the threads spun by karma in the unfolding of the universe come together. One might ask: Did this have to be shown? Did it have to be shown, specifically in the “Prelude,” how this world looks from the outside? — It had to be shown. And it would not have been complete if it had not been shown. It had to be shown because the world in which karma weaves its knots is a different one in the time of, for example, the fifth millennium before our era, a different one three hundred years before our era, yet another one a thousand years since the beginning of our era, and yet another one again in our present. The exoteric outer world, too, is always a different one, and it is connected to its karma, to what becomes the environment for the one who is developing. Thus the circle is drawn from the outside in. And within is then the small circle in which Johannes Thomasius himself stands. That is the second point. In the outer world, there are trivial waves breaking; in the smaller circle, waves that surge high. But they can only reveal themselves in their surging up within the soul of Johannes Thomasius himself. That is why we are first led to the physical plane. The physical plane is shown to us in such a way that, so to speak, the threads are pointed out that spin karma everywhere within the physical plane.

[ 6 ] Anyone who looks into any physical circle with an occult eye will find everywhere that threads run from person to person, intertwining in the most remarkable way. There are people who seem to have little to do with one another in life. But between soul and soul the most important, the most essential threads are spun. All of this becomes entangled. And all of this must be revealed little by little in such a way that, so to speak, a clear indication is given of a particular knot. At other times, it can only be shown subtly, only by implication, because it is in the process of becoming. These various nuances had to be touched upon where the matter plays out on the physical plane, where we are in a purely physical environment, where people from the most diverse circles of interest come together. Outwardly, they talk about this and that. But by speaking outwardly, they are manifestors of karma. All the people who first encounter us on the physical plane are karmically connected to one another. And that is the essential point: how they are karmically connected. There is not a single contrived case; everything has an occult basis. All are threads that can come to life. And these threads are very strange.

[ 7 ] You can get a sense of how peculiar these connections are when you consider figures such as Felix Balde and Mrs. Balde on the one hand, and Capesius and Strader on the other. What they say in their words is not the most important thing; what matters most is that these people are the ones saying it. And these are living people, not fictional characters. I know them very well, for example. By “know,” I don’t mean they’re made up, but that they exist and are alive. They are real, and especially the character of Professor Capesius, who has grown so dear to my heart, is a figure taken from real life. And it is our world. That is why the strange event represented by the seer Theodora—who can temporarily see into the future and foresees the strange event that will come before the end of the 20th century as the next Christ event—had to be woven into the story. This is something that can be interpreted karmically. It would be wrong to interpret other events in such a clear-cut manner. Then the karmic connection that exists between Mrs. Balde and Professor Capesius is hinted at in the peculiar connection that Mrs. Balde’s fairy tales have to Capesius. Karmic threads are hinted at, which arise in Strader’s heart toward the seer Theodora because he is particularly moved by her. All these are threads that lie occultly behind what takes place outwardly on the physical plane. These threads are spun by karma toward a single point. That single point is Johannes Thomasius. There they meet. And within the narrative on the physical plane, a light shines in the soul of Johannes Thomasius—a light that stirs terrible waves in his soul, yet at the same time kindles his esoteric development as a very specific individual one, as the intersection of his own karma with world karma. Hence we see what an impression it makes on him, what is present around him on the physical plane; how the Great in his soul, the Unconscious, surges upward toward the higher worlds.

[ 8 ] Now, this journey into the higher worlds must not begin without guidance. It must be steered and guided. It is here that the one you have seen described as the true leader of this circle, but at the same time as the one who knows the conditions of the worlds, as the one who sees through the knot that karma weaves in the unfolding of the worlds—it is here that Benedictus steps in. And he becomes the leader. The karma at work in Johannes Thomasius—which might have continued working for millennia or even tens of millennia—is kindled at a very specific moment by a karmic relationship between Benedictus and Johannes Thomasius, which quietly reveals itself in the scene in the meditation room. There we stand at the point where a human being destined by karma for development strives upward into the higher worlds. And so that he does not strive upward as a blind man, he is guided in the right way by Benedictus. What is meant by this will become clear once some of the relevant passages have been read aloud.

This was followed by a recitation of the scene mentioned: Scene 3; Benedictus, John, Mary, and the Child.

Maria:	I bring you the child, It needs a word from your lips.
Benedictus:	My child, from now on You shall come to me every evening, To receive the word That shall fill you, Before you enter the realm of sleep. Is that what you wish?
Child:	I wish it so very much.
Benedictus:	Fill your mind this evening, Until sleep enfolds you, With the power of this word: “The powers of light Carry me into the house of the Spirit.”

(Mary leads the child out.)

Maria:	And now that this child’s destiny Is to unfold in the future In the shadow of your fatherly grace, May I, too, having become his mother, If not by blood ties, Then surely by the forces of fate, Then surely by the forces of fate. You showed me the way, By which I should guide him From that day on, when he was found By his unknown mother And laid before my door. And miraculously revealed In the ward all the rules, By which I was permitted to guide him. All the powers came to light, That had sprouted in body and soul. It became clear how your guidance Had sprung from the realm, That this child’s soul had harbored, Before it built the shell of its body. We saw the hope of humanity grow, Which shone brighter with each new day. You know how difficult it was for me To first win the child’s affection, As he grew up in my care, And nothing more than habit First bound his soul to mine. He stood by me, sensing That I provided him with what he needed For the well-being of body and the growth of the soul. The time came when In the child’s heart arose Love for its caregiver. An external event brought about such a change. The seer entered our circle. The child loved to be around her, And many a beautiful word It learned under her spell. Then came a moment when enthusiasm Seized our wondrous friend, And our child could see The glowing light in her eyes. Shaken to the very core of its being The young soul felt itself. In its terror, it came to me. From that hour on The child was warmly devoted to me in love. But ever since conscious feeling Received the gifts of life from me, And not mere instinct alone, Ever since this young heart trembled more warmly, As soon as its gaze met mine with love, Your treasures of wisdom lost their fruitfulness. Much had to wither away, That had already ripened in the child. I saw reappear in that being, What had proved so terrible in the friend. I am more and more a dark riddle to myself. You cannot spare me the anxious question of life: Why do I ruin friend and child, When lovingly I attempt the work To perform upon them, Which spiritual guidance Lets me recognize as good in my heart? You have often pointed me to the high truth, That appearance spreads across life’s surface, Yet I must have clarity, If I am to endure this fate, Which is cruel and works evil.
Benedictus:	Here in this circle A knot is forming from the threads That Karma spins in the unfolding of the world. O friend, your sufferings Are links in a knot of fate, In which the deeds of the gods intertwine with human lives. When, on the soul’s pilgrimage I had reached that stage, Which gave me the dignity To serve with my counsel in the spirit realms, A divine being approached me, Who was to descend into the earthly realm, To inhabit a human’s physical form. This is demanded by human karma At this turning point in time. A great step in the course of the world Is possible only when gods Bind themselves to the human lot. Spiritual eyes may unfold, Which are to sprout in human souls, Only when a God has placed the seed Within a human being. It was now entrusted to me, To find that human being, Who was worthy to receive the God’s seed power Into his soul. Thus I had to unite a heavenly deed With a human destiny. My spiritual eye searched. It fell upon you. Your life’s course had prepared you to be a mediator of salvation. In many lives you had acquired Receptivity to all that is great, That the human heart lives. The noble essence of beauty, the highest demand of virtue, You bore them as a spiritual inheritance In your tender soul. And what your eternal Self Brought into existence through birth, It became ripe fruit In your young years. You did not ascend too soon To steep spiritual heights. And so you did not develop A longing for the realm of the spirit, Before you had fully grasped The innocent joys of the senses. Your soul learned to recognize anger and love, When every impulse Was still far from the spirit. To enjoy nature in its beauty, To pluck the fruits of the arts, You sought as the wealth of your life. You were allowed to laugh cheerfully, As only a child can laugh, Who has yet to experience The shadows of existence. You learned to understand human happiness And to lament suffering in times When not even your ancestors had the inkling To inquire about the roots of happiness and suffering. As the ripe fruit of many lives, The soul enters earthly existence, Which reveals such a mood. And its childlikeness is a blossom, Not the root of its being. Only this soul was I permitted to choose As a mediator for the God, Who was to attain the power to act Through our human world. And now understand that your being Must transform itself into a counter-image, Pouring out from you into other beings. The Spirit within you works in all things, That may ripen into fruits for the realm of eternity Within the human being. Therefore, it must slay much, That which belongs only to the realm of temporal existence. Yet its sacrifices of death Are seeds of immortality. To the higher life must grow, That which blossoms from the lower dying.
Maria:	So this is how it is with me. - - - You give me light, But light that robs me of the power to see And tears me away from myself. Am I then merely a mediator of a spirit And not my own being, Then I will no longer tolerate The form upon me, Which is a mask and not truth.
John:	O friend, what is the matter with you! The light of your gaze is fading, Your body is turning to stone, I take your hand, It is so cold, It is as if dead.
Benedictus:	My son, you have experienced many trials, You stand at this hour before the greatest, You behold your friend’s physical form, But before my eyes Her self ascends into the realms of the spirit.
John:	Oh, look! Her lips are moving. She speaks— — —
Mary:	You gave me clarity, Yes, clarity that in darkness Envelops me on all sides. I curse your clarity, And I curse you, Who fashioned me into an instrument Of the wild arts, Through which he seeks to deceive mankind. Not for a single moment until now Have I been able to doubt your spiritual loftiness, But now this one moment is enough To tear every belief from my heart. I must recognize that they are hellish beings, The spirits to whom you are devoted. I had to deceive others, Johannes: Because you deceived me first! I will flee from you into the distance, Where no sound of yours can reach me, Yet close enough, That my curses may reach you! The fire of my own blood, You have stolen it from me, To give to your false god, What must be mine. O this fire of blood, It shall burn you! I had to believe In deceit and delusion. And for it to become possible, You first had to Turn me into a phantom! I often had to witness, How the effect of my being Transformed into its opposite. So now let what was love for you, Turn into Into the fire of wild hatred. I will search through all worlds For that fire, Which can consume you. I flee---- ah ----
Johannes:	Who is speaking here? I'm not looking at my girlfriend! I'm looking at a hideous creature.
Benedictus:	The soul of my beloved soars to the heights, Leaving her mortal form Behind in this place, for us alone. And where a human body Is forsaken by the spirit, There is a space that The adversary of good seeks, To enter the realm of visibility. He finds a physical shell, Through which he can speak. Such an adversary spoke, Who seeks to destroy the work That is my duty For the future of many people And also for you, my son. And could I hold back those curses, That our friend’s shell has just spoken, For anything other than the tempter’s ruse, You would not be allowed to follow me. The adversary of the Good was at my side; And you, my son, Have seen cast into darkness, That which is temporal in that being, Toward whom all your love shines. Because spirits so often Spoke to you from their mouths, The karma of the world did not spare you, From hearing even the prince of hell Through them. Now you must first seek them And recognize the core of their being. They shall be to you the model of that higher human being, To whom you are to ascend. Their soul soars into the spiritual heights, Where humans find the archetype of their being, Which is founded within itself. You shall follow them into the realm of the spirit, And you shall behold her in the Temple of the Sun. Here it takes shape In this circle, a knot of threads, Which Karma spins In the becoming of the world. My son, since you have held fast thus far, You shall also press onward. I see your star in full splendor. There is no room in sensory existence For the struggles that people wage, Who strive for initiation. Whatever mysteries sensory existence holds, To be solved by the intellect, Whatever such existence generates in human hearts, It may arise through love or hate And discharge itself, however terrifying: For the seeker of the spirit, it must become A field upon which he can Cast his gaze from the outside, uninvolved. For him, powers must unfold, Which are not to be found in this field. You had to struggle through a trial of the soul, Which can only be undergone by Who finds himself prepared For such powers, Which belong to the spiritual worlds. And had you been found by these powers Unripe for the path of knowledge, They would have had to paralyze your feeling, Before you were allowed to know, What has now become known to you. The beings who gaze into the depths of the worlds, They guide people, Who strive toward the heights, First to that summit, Where it may be revealed, Whether they have been given the strength, To consciously behold spiritual existence. The people who possess such powers, Are released from the world of the senses; The others must wait. You have preserved your self, my son, When forces of the heights shook you, And when spiritual powers Enveloped you in shivers. And powerfully your self fought its way through, even as doubts gnawed within your own breast and sought to cast you into the dark depths. You have been my true disciple only since that moment of profound significance, when you were on the verge of despairing of yourself, when you gave yourself up as lost, and yet the strength within you held you fast. I was allowed to give you treasures of wisdom, Which gave you the strength, To hold onto yourself, Even when you yourself did not believe in yourself. It was the wisdom, Which you attained, More faithful to you than the faith, That was given to you. You have been found to be ready. You may be released. The friend has gone on ahead, You will find her in spirit. I can still show you the way: Ignite your soul’s full power With words that through my mouth Give the key to the heights. They will guide you, Even when nothing guides you anymore, What the eyes of the senses can still perceive. May she receive it with a full heart: The weaving Being of Light, it shines Through the vastness of space, To fill the world with Being. The blessing of love, it warms The succession of times, To call forth the revelation of all worlds. And messengers of the spirit, they unite The weaving essence of light With the revelation of the soul; And if man can unite with both His own self, He lives in the heights of the spirit. O spirits, whom man can behold, Enliven our son’s soul. Let it shine within him, That which can illuminate His soul with the light of the Spirit. Let it resound within him, That which can awaken His Self to the Spirit’s joy of becoming.

Voice of the Spirit: (from offstage):

His thoughts rise Into the primal depths of the world. What he thought of as shadows, What he experienced as phantoms, Rise above the world of forms, From whose abundance People, thinking, Dream in shadows, From whose abundance People, seeing, Live in phantoms.

(The music begins as the curtain slowly falls.)

[ 9 ] These were the sounds with which our dear friend Arenson musically expressed what rises in the poem as an echo from the higher worlds into the soul of Johannes Thomasius, after he had proven himself capable, through the great experience presented in the meditation room, of truly ascending into the higher worlds, so that he emerged from this experience as a mature soul. In the words that concluded what was recited, we see something that resounds in a thoroughly real way from the spiritual world into a soul that, to a certain degree—if we may say so—has passed the test. The main point is sometimes quietly hinted at in words that contain more than one might at first suppose.

[ 10 ] One must first realize that a knot is being woven from the threads of world karma, a knot that presents Johannes Thomasius with a fact of the most magnificent and powerful kind in its effect at a sacred site. What is actually happening?

[ 11 ] Johannes Thomasius witnesses a soul—with whom he is, as will later become apparent in the Devachan scene, karmically connected in a wondrous way—ascend into the spiritual worlds right before his eyes. It is a moment of world-historical significance when such a soul ascends into the spiritual worlds. Of course, it is not possible now to point out everything connected with such a moment. But it is a thoroughly real fact, known to everyone familiar with the occult life in its terribly powerful, luminous, and shadowy form. And such a person also knows what then happens in the physical world when the shock occurs that a soul disappears into the spiritual worlds—not through the calm course of its own karma, but challenged by world karma—and vanishes into the spiritual world. These are moments that are important for the evolution of humanity. But these are also the moments in which real, actually existing tempting powers—which look into our physical world from the spiritual world just as the good powers do—gain the power to turn abandoned physical shells into the scene of their wiles and tempting power. These are the points of attack; there they are, as it were, set loose. And then the circumstances arise in which Maya reveals itself in the most terrible way. Faced with the small deceptions of karma, a person who may not be very far along cannot resist temptation; but faced with the great deceptions of karma, when it presents something that, at a certain stage of development, one can no longer quite believe could be true, a soul that has not passed through certain abysses of life recoils. One can imagine that some might say they could have endured what took place in the meditation room. But they should only be placed there once! Reality is something quite different from what we think. In reality, other forces are at play. Anyone who does not believe this should simply ask themselves whether they have ever had a real experience of a human body that has been abandoned by its soul. People know only human bodies that are animated by a soul. There are simply other forces at work there. And in order to withstand these forces, Johannes Thomasius had to be led precisely to this point in world karma.

[ 12 ] Now there are two aspects to this. Johannes Thomasius first had to go through what is commonly called the Kamaloka. This is the world in which what we ourselves are appears to us, so to speak, as in a mirror image. This, too, is something that sounds far easier than it actually is. And when it actually occurs, it is not an image confined to space that tells us what it is, but rather it whispers to us from all corners of the world. Then the whole world is us. That is why, in the scene where Johannes Thomasius descends into the depths of his soul, where he is among rocks and springs, you hear that it is not some single mirror image he conjures up that speaks to him from his soul, but rather it resounds to him from everything—from rocks and springs, from the entire surroundings. And indeed, in such a moment, the words that pass so tamely through world theories, through philosophical and spiritual-scientific works, become terrible forces. For they resound from the whole world, as if reflected from everywhere in infinite space and catching themselves in the individual events of nature. “O human, know thyself!” Thus they resound when they are heard, after having lived for years and years in the soul. Then the soul stands in its solitude, in its great desolation, facing itself. Nothing is there but the world. But this world is itself. And within this world is that which it itself is, the soul; also that which is its karma, everything it has done. — In a poem, only individual elements can be singled out. An old deed, the abandonment of a personality, appears. But in all its liveliness, it appears before Johannes Thomasius’s soul. I can only cite individual words.

[ 13 ] In this context, Johannes Thomasius loses what he must lose: his confidence in himself, in his own strength, and even in his ability to find healing in solitude for what causes him such immense torment on the physical plane when he perceives it from outside that plane. Hence these words, which I ask you to take exactly as they are meant to be taken—as shattering and wholly fulfilling the soul. When Johannes Thomasius hears the words “O human being, know thyself!” from all worlds, his soul responds as if his ego were not present:

For years now I have heard them,
These words so rich in meaning.
They resound to me from air and water,
They ring out from the depths of the earth,
And just as the structure of the giant oak
Mysteriously presses its way into the tiny seed,
So, at last, there is enclosed
In the power of these words,
That which, of the nature of the elements,
Of souls and of spirits,
Of the passage of time and eternity,
Is comprehensible to my mind.
The world and my own being,
They live in the words:
O man, know thyself!

But the answer is powerful: “O man, know thyself!” Then one’s whole inner being is turned upside down:

And now! — it becomes
Terribly alive within me.
Darkness weaves around me,
Gloom yawns within me;
It resounds from the darkness of the world,
It echoes from the gloom of the soul:
O man, know thyself!

(It resounds from springs and rocks: O man, know thyself!)

[ 14 ] You must imagine the self moving in step with the world’s process. Otherwise, we stand there, passing through the hours without observing what is taking place. We do not know this; we believe ourselves to be within our inner selves. But this takes place in full awareness. In full awareness, it follows all the elemental forces, moves with the passage of the day, and transforms into night.

I follow the Earth on its journey through the universe.
I roll in the thunder,
I flicker in the lightning.

[ 15 ] All of this gives him the impression: I am. - This is the moment when the “I am” becomes the demon of one's own soul. Before that, all human self-assertion falls silent. And no sooner has one tried to utter the “I am” than one's own soul says:

...Oh, already gone
I feel at one with my true self.

[ 16 ] Then one's own being appears in a limited way, in a limited form:

I see my physical body;
It is a foreign entity separate from me,
It is far removed from me.
Then another body floats toward me.

[ 17 ] Now he can speak not only with his own mouth, but with the mouth of another person. There is the person to whom he has done wrong:

He brought me bitter sorrow;
I trusted him so completely.
He left me alone in my grief,
He robbed me of the warmth of life
And cast me into the cold earth.

[ 18 ] Now back to our own bodies:

The one I left behind, the poor one,
I was that very one myself.
I must endure her torment.
Insight has given me the strength
To carry my self into another's self.

[ 19 ] This marks the beginning of a path that is further characterized by the words intended to suggest, at the end of this scene, how the world and how loneliness affect us. In the world, everything that flows in from the outside has the most terrible effect. From within, that which comes from within has an effect such that solitude becomes the most populous thing there can be. This is a test designed for the purpose implied in the words that have been read to you:

The beings who gaze into the depths of the world,
They guide people,
Who strive for the heights,
First to that summit,
Where it may be revealed,
Whether they have been given the strength,
To consciously perceive spiritual existence.
Those people who possess such powers,
They are released from the sensory world;
The others must wait.

[ 20 ] At the very moment we are facing here, consciousness would be lost, and Johannes Thomasius would be cast back into the sensory world if he had not stood his ground in the scene I have described, where he stands face to face with his own self. Two things came into play here: His own self, as far as he knows, has little power; this robs him of self-confidence. But what is the eternal I within him—of which he knows nothing yet—that possesses great power. This sustains him and enables him to overcome what he experiences in the meditation room as the disembodiment of Mary. Then he need only be led upward through the words of Benedictus, through the power of these words.

[ 21 ] And in the words that have been read to you, you must see a mystery of words. What is meant by this cannot simply be written down like so many other things. In these lines, cosmic forces are indeed present, right down to the individual sounds. And those sounds cannot actually be altered. In these words, there is indeed an opening of the gate to the spiritual world. That is why these words must indeed be taken exactly as they have just been spoken here. Something like this cannot be put together in just any way, such as these lines:

The weaving essence of light, it shines
Across the vastness of space,
To fill the world with being.
The blessing of love, it warms
The succession of times,
Calling forth the revelation of all worlds.
And messengers of the spirit, they unite
The weaving essence of light
With the revelation of the soul;
And when man can unite with both
His own self,
He lives in the heights of the spirit.

[ 22 ] Only then can what is meant to resonate from the other world find its way into the soul. But as I said, these are all just isolated hints.

[ 23 ] Johannes Thomasius is now truly taken up into the spiritual world. However, he cannot ascend directly into the spiritual world, where everyone must go. He must pass through the astral world. In the fourth image, you then have a depiction of the astral world as Johannes Thomasius must experience it, given his particular individual circumstances. It is not a general description of the astral world, but a description of this world as Johannes Thomasius must experience it, illustrated by specific examples. This astral world is different from the physical world. There it is possible that we see a person we encounter as they were several decades ago, or we see a young person as they will be in the future. These are all realities. In your soul, you are still today the same person you were as a three-year-old child. What you see in the astral world is not at all what the outer physical image of a human being shows. The physical image of a person conceals at every moment what was true before and what will be true afterward. Above all, the gaze into the astral world must have the effect of enabling us to overcome the first Maya of the sensory world and to see through time in its illusory power. Therefore, Johannes Thomasius sees the person he came to know as Capesius on the physical plane in the astral world as he was as a young man, and the person he came to know in the physical world as Strader, he sees as he will be as an old man. What does this mean? Johannes Thomasius knows Strader as he is now in the sensory world, with the forces that are now in his soul on the physical plane. But within that lies the precondition for what he will become decades from now. One must also recognize this if one wishes to understand a person. Thus, time tears itself apart. Time is truly a rather elastic concept when one ascends into the higher worlds. Johannes Thomasius knows the older Capesius and the younger Strader from the physical world. Now they stand side by side in the astral world: the younger Capesius and the older Strader. Here, time is not stretched forward or backward, but rather one is depicted in his youth and the other in his old age. This is an entirely real fact.

[ 24 ] But this is connected to something else that is actually evident and which people today treat with childish derision: that our soul experiences are even more than we usually think of them; that nothing evil or good is experienced in the soul without consequence—for example, when we think evil thoughts or even just wrong thoughts—that this radiates into the depths of the world and radiates back, and that we are connected in our soul experiences with the elemental forces of nature. This is not a metaphor. In the occult sense, it is a reality, for example, when Capesius is led before the Spirit of the Elements, who guides every human being into their existence. It is indeed the case that Capesius also stands before that which is linked to this Spirit of the Elements. And linked to this is the fact that, when we experience anything in the soul, it is connected to the elemental forces of nature. It becomes clear to Johannes Thomasius that Capesius, in the depths of his soul—and Strader as well—can arouse the opposing forces of the elements. Thus, in this world, lightning and thunder follow what they themselves experience in their souls—whether in pride or arrogance, in error or in truth or falsehood. In the physical world, what a person holds in their soul as error or falsehood is something most remarkable. For example, a person stands before us; error and falsehood dwell in their soul, yet they may stand before us quite innocently. But the moment the astral gaze turns upon him, storms rage that are otherwise only depicted in the most terrible outbursts of the elements of the earth. Johannes Thomasius must experience all of this. And also what may already reveal itself to him in the astral world regarding the strange connections that he had not yet recognized when they confronted him on the physical plane.

[ 25 ] The terms found in this Rosicrucian mystery are not random. Terms such as “the other Mary” and so on all point to specific relationships, so that the one Mary and the other Mary are not merely the two Marys, but represent the Marys in relation to all other persons. And the other Mary, the mysterious natural figure, reveals to Johannes Thomasius that soul which lives beneath the ordinary, conscious soul, and which remains utterly inaudible and imperceptible as long as the human being lives only in the physical world. But you must not take these relationships and figures as symbols. In all this, the other Mary is again, just like the first Mary, an absolute, a real figure, a reality. And they are to be taken only as what they are.

[ 26 ] Everything Johannes Thomasius experienced has passed before the eyes of his soul. He has experienced the astral world. He can now bring this to his consciousness, as he says:

And so, in the realm of souls,
I find once more the people I know:
The man who spoke of Felicia’s stories—
Only here could I see him,
As he was in his youth;
And the one who, as a young man
Had resolved to become a monk
Appeared to me as an old man.
The spirit of the elements was with them.

[ 27 ] Johannes Thomasius has gone through all of this, which, so to speak, obliterates the ages before his eyes. And what has he now matured into? He has matured to the point of being able to gaze into the astral world. Is the astral world free from error? No, it is not. In this astral world, however, one thing can become a certainty for the human being. And one thing becomes a certainty for the human being in the astral world—provided he enters it with a pure heart—namely, that there is a higher world that shines into the astral world just as the astral world shines into the ordinary physical world. The only question is whether one can see it as it really is. The people who wander about in that world are themselves merely a kind of illusion, so that each of them has something behind them that leads them into the higher world, that sets them apart from something entirely different—what they may have been in times long or less long past, what they will become in the future. But certain errors do not reveal the astral world, with which one is so deeply intertwined in the sensory world. For example, they do not reveal the relationship of the great forces of existence, the relationship of will, love, and wisdom. This is so difficult to recognize in its truth that it remains veiled in the astral world for a long, long time. It is not so easy to get to the bottom of it there. And there, conditions that are errors in the sensory world continue into the astral world.

[ 28 ] This interplay—which can only be hinted at for now—of will, wisdom, and love takes place in the physical world through human beings. In the higher worlds, it takes place through those beings who send their powers here when, on the physical plane, the powers of the occult entities enter human souls. This takes place through the Initiates in those temples where human representatives stand for the individual world powers, in those temples where human beings have already progressed to the point of renouncing the desire to represent the whole human being at once, confining themselves instead to representing a single power. There the representatives then reign. But where the human being looks into the astral world, that sacred place appears to him, where the representatives of the powers of Will, Wisdom, and Love are, precisely in an image filled with maya. And there a terrible web is spun between the illusion of the sensory world and the astral world.

[ 29 ] And now I would have to speak for weeks on end if I were to explain the nature of that form of the higher powers which presents itself as the initiate for the powers of the will—the one who confronts Johannes Thomasius on the physical plane and actually appears to be a trivial figure on that plane. This may raise the question: Is it precisely through such a person that the primal forces of the will are to work their way in? — And yet they do. But one will be able to understand that it is precisely through a perhaps less developed human being that that aspect of such power—which is meant to be a revelation of the powers of the will—can penetrate, just as the ray of wisdom can enter through a person such as Benedictus. For one must understand the following. If we now have here a blossomed, wonderfully grown flower and place a seed beside it, then it may be that the seed, when it has grown to maturity, will yield an even more beautiful flower. One might already consider the flower to be very perfect, but in truth, in terms of world reality, the seed is something far more perfect. Thus we have, on the one hand, Benedictus, the great bearer of wisdom, and on the other, the person who, on the physical plane, behaves in a peculiar way toward everything spoken of from the spiritual worlds, rejecting it all in a peculiar manner. When he hears people in his circle speaking of the spiritual worlds, he says, like someone who wants to hear nothing of spiritual worlds: “I cannot find the bridge that could truly lead from ideas to deeds!” He is a person who finds what leads to deeds entirely elsewhere, and to whom talk of the spirit is nothing but empty words. To this person, just as he now lives on the physical plane, you could tell him all the most beautiful things about spiritual science, yet they are empty words to him. And what is valuable to him is when the wheels of the machines turn. And when he hears from the other Maria about the spiritual power that has connected with her and kindled within her the powers of feeling and love to perform this or that deed, he is once again the one who rejects all of that and simply says: That comes from the fact that she has a good heart! - He remains entirely on the physical plane and is truly a trivial figure of the physical plane, but he is an energetic, dynamic man of will. That is why he says:

When this woman of virtue accomplishes so much,
The impulse to do so
Lies in her warm heart.
It is certainly necessary for a person,
After having worked hard,
To find inspiration in ideas,
But only the discipline of the will
In union with skill and strength
In all genuine life’s work
Help humanity move forward.
When the whirring of wheels
Rings in my ears,
And when contented people
Pull on cranks with their hands,
Then I feel the forces of life.

[ 30 ] This is the man of will, the man of action. And even if you were to talk to him for days on end about the spirit, he would say: You can’t even turn a single crank with that, and what would people eat? — So you can turn cranks all day long, and when you have a free hour, you can talk about the spirit for amusement! These are the seed forces that have not yet sprouted. But they are good forces. They are forces that are very important and that shine into the world through the powers of will. One must not proceed theoretically when people hear about spiritual worlds and take it in differently, for it is terribly difficult to get through that. Whoever does not understand that in the seed one must see something like a counter-image to such people just characterized, experiences an illusion such as is depicted in the underground temple. This is an astral Maya. While what Johannes Thomasius experiences in the scene with Capesius and Strader—where he sees them in other ages of life—is reality, the fifth image depicts a Maya, a Fata Morgana of the spiritual world, which must first be unloaded onto the soul and through which one must pass. Therefore, you must regard the fifth image as something justified only by the fact that reality immediately intermingles with the Maya.

[ 31 ] This entire scene would contribute nothing at all to the development of Johannes Thomasius if it did not relate to the astral experience in the same way that the concepts and ideas of the physical world relate to our understanding of the world. What science is to the physical plane, the Maya Temple is to the astral world. Just as a concept is not something one can eat, so the Maya Temple is not something real that is rooted in the spiritual world. But concepts must live in the world so that an understanding of the world can truly take hold. And only in this way can something from another world come into play, which now provides Johannes Thomasius with profound enlightenment once again, as he now recognizes how a certain knot in world karma is spun by the fact that Felix Balde has realized that he should not bury the treasures of his soul in solitary wandering through the world, but must carry them to the temple.

[ 32 ] Only then does Johannes Thomasius have the opportunity to to see, so to speak, much more real conditions in the spiritual world, including those of a finer and more intimate nature, for example, the intrusion of the astral world into the physical world, which occurs when something like the inspiration of a person such as Capesius takes place through someone who does not actually know how much he holds within his soul. In this mystery, Mrs. Balde does not know this. In a person who has intellect and acts from the intellect, everything passes through the intellect. What can give us a power-knowledge of the world does not lie in the intellect at all. All of that lies outside the intellect. In a person who has a great deal of intellect, a power coming from the spiritual world can pass through the intellect and then go on. Then he will be able to speak of the spiritual world in beautiful “theories.” But the intellect makes no difference to the inner occult level, to the content of the soul. Thus, what comes from theories can also reach the soul without passing through the intellect and thus come to a person who is receptive to the Source and can summon there what, for example, Capesius describes on the physical plane. This is shown where he says what this woman actually is to him—the one living alone with Felix Balde—where he says that he likes to listen when she speaks, and that she then speaks the deepest, most ancient wisdom. It is important that we fully grasp what Capesius is telling us. On the physical plane, there is a woman whom he likes to listen to, who speaks with her mouth things that are full of occult sources. She cannot put it into specific words. But when it reaches Capesius’s ears, he can speak thus:

I must touch upon it,
If I am to tell of it,
A thing that truly seems more wondrous to me
Than many things I have heard here,
Because it speaks more deeply to my soul.
I could scarcely, in any other place,
Bring the words from my mouth,
That come so easily to me here.
There are times for my soul,
When it feels drained and empty.
It seems to me then as if the source of knowledge
Within me had run dry;
As if I could find no word,
Worthy of being
Heard.

[ 33 ] Such a thing does exist. People like that, no matter how much they know, end up feeling as if they can’t go on any longer.

When I feel such spiritual desolation,
I take refuge in the refreshing, quiet solitude
Of these good people.

[ 34 ] Now his own spirit is lifted, for there lies the gateway to the occult world for him.

And Mrs. Felicia tells
In wonderful images
Of beings who dwell in the land of dreams
And in the realms of fairy tales
Lead a colorful life.
It is the tone of her speech
Like the storytelling of olden times.
I do not ask where she gets her words from.
I then think of only one thing with clarity,
How new life flows into my soul,
And how, as if by magic,
All my soul’s paralysis is gone.

[ 35 ] Johannes Thomasius observes this phenomenon on the physical plane, but he must first look into the astral world to understand it. In the astral image, therefore, Mrs. Balde appears to him just as he now sees her in the form of the physical world. And she gives the Spirit of the Elements one of her fairy-tale images, such as she has told Capesius hundreds of times. But now the interplay comes to what is taking place beneath the threshold of consciousness.

[ 36 ] She tells Capesius the fairy tales. And when she tells him one that she herself does not understand, the powers within his soul are awakened, dispelling his spiritual paralysis, and he is then able to tell his listeners something again. This sounds quite different from what Mrs. Felicia had told. Secret forces are at work in Capesius as well. If one traces them, one finds their origin in the astral world. There one can see how they give rise to countercurrents. And just as the words of Mrs. Felicia evoke such an echo in Capesius’s soul, they evoke it wherever elemental forces are present. Something similar exists for our brain as well. A small spirit lives in our brain that perhaps devises the most wonderful things. If we look for how it relates to the macrocosm, we find, for example, the Earth’s brain. It thinks thoughts on a completely different scale than those that appear in the small human brain. In his own brain, a person sometimes does not see what he actually claims. But it looks grotesque when it is reflected in the giant Earth-brain. That must also be reflected. Hence the relationship that exists between German, who appears on the physical plane, and then as the spirit of the Earth-brain. One could speak at length about that as well. But if one were to see with the astral gaze what is happening in the lonely little cottage when Mrs. Felicia tells her fairy tales, and if one were then to look all the way up to the Spirit of the Earth Brain, one would see many a secret, for example, how this Spirit of the Earth Brain is an ironist, sometimes a mocker. And it must be inclined to mockery, for it has much to laugh about regarding what people do.

[ 37 ] Artistically speaking, it makes sense that, the moment he is out of place, he also takes on the role he so often has to play and reveals his true form. Thus, following the scene in which Frau Balde has told one of her fairy tales to the Spirit of the Elements, we see an abnormal effect on the Spirit of the Earth Brain, who translates the fairy tale into entirely different words. Frau Balde recounts:

Once upon a time, there was a being,
That flew from east to west
Following the sun’s path.
It flew over lands, over seas;
From its lofty height,
It watched the comings and goings of humans.
It saw how people loved one another
And pursued one another with hatred.
Nothing could hinder the creature
In its flight;
For hatred and love create
The same thing, always a thousandfold.
But above a house,
There the creature had to pause.
Inside was a weary man.
Who pondered human love
And also pondered human hatred.
His musings had already
Etched deep furrows into his face.
They had bleached his hair.
And in the midst of his sorrow
The being lost its sun-guide
And remained with that man.
It was still in his room
When the sun went down,
And when the sun returned,
Then the being was once more
Taken up by the spirit of the sun. —
And once again it saw people
In love and hate
Spending their time on earth.
And when it came a second time,
Following the sun over that house,
Then its gaze fell
Upon a dead man.

[ 38 ] And the spirit of the Earth's brain echoes this back, quite unjustifiably, of course:

Once upon a time there was a man,
Who journeyed from east to west;
Driven by a thirst for knowledge,
He traveled across land and sea.
Guided by his own rules of wisdom,
He observed the ways of mankind.
He saw how people loved one another
And persecuted one another with hatred.
The man saw at every moment
The end of his wisdom.
But just as hatred and love
Rule the earthly world,
It could not be reduced to any law.
He wrote down many thousands of individual cases,
But the big picture eluded him.
The dry researcher
Encountered a being of light on his way;
Existence was hard for this being,
As it was in constant struggle
With a dark shadow form.
Who are you, then,
The dry researcher asks.
“I am love,”
said one being;
“In me you see hatred,”
said the other.
The man no longer heard
the words of these beings.
From then on, as a deaf researcher,
the man journeyed
from east to west.

[ 39 ] These are indeed experiences of the astral world. Johannes Thomasius must go through them in order to ascend into the spiritual world.

[ 40 ] And for today, I will simply say briefly that, for Johannes Thomasius, a real connection with the spiritual world—one that has already been established in the physical world—is necessary in order to ascend into the spiritual world itself. And this is, as you will hear later, the connection arising from that karma encompassing all incarnations, which is revealed only in devachanic vision. But the devachanic elements must truly be at play there. Therefore, I ask you to note that everything lives within the weaving and life of the devachanic sea. There, one cannot merely describe; one can only ever hint at this or that in an approximate way. But if one wishes to describe it truly, one must go further. One should not believe one knows anything when speaking of higher worlds and using the terms: Sensitive Soul, Intellectual Soul, and Conscious Soul, by which Philia, Astrid, and Luna are meant. These three figures are not personifications of those three soul members or symbols for them. If you listen to the vowels with which these three figures characterize their own activities, and if you listen to what lives within the vowels, you can trace how, in the sequence of the individual vowels, the individual words, there is given what one can make clear to oneself in a completely different way than as the soul of feeling, the soul of understanding, and the soul of consciousness. And if you take anything out, it is no longer the whole. Therefore, it is important to listen to the words in order to gain a sense of the devachanic element of the soul of consciousness, for example when Luna says the words:

I wish to warm the substance of the soul
And to strengthen the ether of life.
They shall condense,
They shall feel one another,
And, existing within themselves,
Sustain themselves,
So that you, beloved sister,
For the seeking human soul
May create the certainty of knowledge.

[ 41 ] In the flow of words, the description of Devachan conveys what cannot otherwise be expressed. This must also be taken into account. For when speaking of higher worlds, one is compelled to express this in multiple ways. And what I could never say theoretically about the feeling soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul—you can perceive this if you wish to understand what is contained in the characterization of the three figures: Philia, Astrid, and Luna. But you will understand well that these three are not symbols or allegories for the feeling soul, the intellectual soul, and the conscious soul. If you ask yourselves: What are these three? — the answer is: They are people who live there: Philia-, Astrid-, and Luna-people. This must always be kept in mind.

[ 42 ] The way karma ultimately intertwines and manifests itself in the image—what Johannes Thomasius experiences as a microcosm within the human soul—was fully revealed in the final scene of the Munich performance. The individual characters stood in their respective places according to how karma works. Whoever was closer to a particular person had their place accordingly. If you imagine this reflected in reality into the soul of Johannes Thomasius, then you have roughly what is contained in this scene of the seventh tableau, the realm of the spirit—something that is very difficult to put into words.

This was followed by Marie von Sivers (Marie Steiner)'s recitation of the seventh tableau, introduced and concluded by music by Adolf Arenson.