The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Recorded for Elise Wolfram, Leipzig between 1906 and 1908) ¹

Regarding the upper scheme:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 signify the post-Atlantean cultural periods.

Regarding the lower scheme:

KH = Kuthumi, inspirer of the transition from Egypt to the Greek period.²

L. auf d.W. = Inspirator of “Light on the Path” (his occult name Hilarion), inspired the Greek period.³

J.v.N. = Jesus of Nazareth, inspiring the transition from the Greek to the Germanic era.

S.G. Saint-Germain, inspirer of the Germanic culture.

M = Morya, inspirer of the Slavic culture.

• 1. The original is not available. Rendering based on an authentic copy.
• 2. Regarding the term “inspirer of the transition”: In the lecture Munich, May 29, 1907, it says: “It is said of the master: he is born in the same body. He needs it for centuries, even millennia. This is the case with the vast majority of leading individuals. An exception is made for certain masters who have their very special mission. With them, the physical body is preserved, so that death does not occur for them at all. These are the masters who are responsible for the transition from one race to another.” But how the physical immortality of adepts is to be understood in reality is explained in the lecture Berlin, December 16, 1904 as follows: “It is not a matter of physical death, but of the following. The physical death of the one who has recognized the Philosopher's Stone for himself and has understood how to extract it is only an apparent event for him. For other people, however, it is a real event that marks a major stage in his life. For the one who [...] understands how to use the Philosopher's Stone, death is only an apparent event. It does not even constitute a particularly important stage in life; it is something that only exists for others, who may observe the adept and say that he is dying. But in reality, he does not die at all. The fact of the matter is that the person in question has learned not to live in his physical body at all; that he has learned to let all those processes that suddenly occur in the physical body at the moment of death gradually occur during his lifetime. Everything that would otherwise happen at the moment of death has already happened to the body of the person in question. Then death is no longer possible, because the person in question has long since learned to live without the physical body. He discards the physical body in much the same way as one takes off a raincoat, and puts on a new body, like putting on a new raincoat.
• 3. That Master Hilarion was the inspirer of Mabel Collins' writing “Light on the Path” was generally known in the T.S. The daughter of Oskar von Hoffmann, who translated “Light on the Path” into German, passed on Rudolf Steiner's personal statement to her that Master Hilarion had helped her father with the translation in an inspiring way. He was a Greek, hence the beautiful language of his translation, which is even more effective than the English text in a mantric sense.

Lessing had faith in rebirth.

In Herder we find the ideas of re-embodiment in his writing on the development of the human spirit.

In Schiller we find it in his correspondence: Julius and Raphael (Schiller and Körner), Theosophy of Julius, and in the letters on the advancement of the aesthetic education of man.

Novalis had the belief in it.

Goethe presents the development of the human being from the lower to the higher powers of the soul in the fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily. His view was: Only the one who has gone through the stages of development, who has felt drawn into it, who has gone through doubts, has gained the great conviction, the great faith, and struggled through disharmony to harmony. His Faust is a song of human perfection. We do not need to look for it in the Bhagavad Gita. We also find the great problem in Faust. He sets himself the task of solving the mystery of evil.

Faust (Part One) Here we see the young man full of the feeling of disharmony. Earth spirit is not a symbol, but a real being for Goethe. He assumed that there are planetary beings in the planets, and that they have their bodies, just as we have our bodies of flesh.

His, that is to say, Goethe's creed: the earth spirit had taught him not only to see, but to feel and sense the unified essence of stone, plant, animal, and human. He taught him the brotherhood of all created things up to man, the crown of [creation]. He expressed his creed at the age of eighty in “the mysteries” – pilgrims walk to the monastery, the rosary is a sign of the three kingdoms of nature; stone, plant, animal is cross. Roses are love.

Goethe himself later said that each of the twelve personalities represents one of the great world creeds or religions. The purpose was to seek the true inner core of the world religions.

Three worlds: first, the dream world; second, the astral or soul world; third, the mental or spiritual world.

The awakening of the spiritual eye first brings about tremendous changes in the dream life. When the new vision, the new world, opens up, it takes on great regularity. Of course, no science may be founded on what the human being experiences there.

The disciple or chela must learn to bring the consciousness of the second, the astral world, into their daily consciousness through the dream. Later, in dreamless sleep, he experiences the spiritual and mental worlds. The consciousness of the astral world expresses itself in images. The consciousness of the spiritual world in spiritual hearing. The Pythagoreans called it the music of the spheres.

Prologue in Heaven – the spiritual world.

In Mephistopheles, Goethe created the image for an ancient idea that is contained in all profound spiritual wisdom. He tried to solve the mystery of evil. Evil is the sum of all those forces that oppose the progress of human perfection. If truth consists in further development, then every obstacle is a lie. The one who corrupts through lies is called Mephistopheles.

Part Two

Faust had to end as a mystic. In “Conversations of Eckermann with Goethe”, Goethe says: “For the initiate, it will soon be apparent that there is much depth to be found in this Faust.” The main idea of “Faust” presents the three main parts of human nature: spirit, soul, and body.

The spirit is eternal, was there before birth and will be there after death. The soul is the link between spirit and body; in its development it first tends more towards the body, then towards the spirit, and with this towards the lasting, the eternal. The development of the spiritual eye helps in this.

The realm of the mothers represents the source of all things; the spirit comes from this.

To enter the spiritual realm – Devachan in theosophy – requires a moral qualification. The aim of theosophy is to lead people upwards. To do this, a person must first make themselves capable, worthy. When Faust leads Helen up for the first time, he is consumed by wild passion, and this causes Helen to scatter.

Helena represents the various incarnations.

Homunculus is a soul. In the classical Walpurgis Night, it is shown how a soul comes into being. Goethe sees the gradual development before him. Homunculus is to receive a body. He must begin with the mineral kingdom; then the plant kingdom follows. Goethe's expression: “It grunts so”.

Faust's blindness represents: the physical world dies away for him; now his inner vision opens up. A magnificent image! Whoever does not have this, this dying and becoming...

Jakob Böhme puts it this way: And so death is the root of all life. And in another place:

He who does not die before he dies
Will perish if he dies.

Chorus mysticus:

All that is transitory
Is but a parable
The inadequate,
Here it becomes an event
The indescribable,
Here it is done;
The eternal feminine
Draws us onward.

In all mysticism, the striving human soul is described as something feminine. The union of the soul with the mystery of the world: spiritual union in mystics is expressed as the marriage of the lamb. This view brought Goethe even deeper into the above-mentioned fairy tale of the green snake and the beautiful lily.

Euphorion embodied poetry.

Goethe himself said about the last part of Goethe's “Faust” that he wanted to depict Faust's ascent in the image of the end – Montserrat.

The poem suggests: Parzival, a hiker in the valley. When Faust went blind, he was given the opportunity to develop rapidly. He entered the higher regions; we would call it Devachan or Suschupti. But Goethe brought Catholic ideas with him. So he had Father Marianus appear in the cleanest cell. This indicates: liberation from all sexual things, thus standing above man and woman. That is why he also gave him a woman's name with a masculine ending. Now the dual sex was replaced by the single sex. He had awakened completely in Budhi. Budhi, the sixth basic element, had gained the upper hand over everything else.

Two prejudices exist against Theosophy. Firstly, it is accused of being unscientific – I will deal with this later in my lecture on “Haeckel's World Riddle and Theosophy” – and secondly, it is accused of turning people away from their religion, namely Christianity.

What is the theosophical position on Christ? The way in which the Christian religion has been taught so far arose from childish prejudices. But the striving person is not satisfied with that; he must go beyond it. Many of them have rediscovered their Christianity through Theosophy. Through Theosophy they learned to find the core of wisdom in it; for Theosophy and Christianity are completely compatible. All of our Western culture, the work of our great thinkers, and all artists as well, have been shaped by Christianity and are permeated by the source of Christianity. Theosophy has to unfold the core of truth in it.

That this is its purpose was also stated by the important Indian brahmins Chakravarti at the 1904 congress in Chicago: materialism has taken hold of all circles, including the Indian people; Theosophy has given us the opportunity to return to the old ideal of truth; she has a world vocation, so she has a mission to all religions, including Christianity. Once we accepted the faith of our ancestors with faith and simplicity. Through science, many have become doubters. If the faithful turn to Theosophy, something completely new will open up for them, the doubters or unbelievers will return to Christianity and recognize the infinite greatness of it. All religions have the same truth; only Christianity has expressed the ancient wisdom in its best form.

What is this truth? Let us first look at the Gospel of John in the New Testament. Christianity is based on the truth that there is a lower and a higher human being in us. This higher human being can be born out of the soul through immersion, contemplation, and integration. The everyday person strives to follow his desires, his inclinations, while the other seeks to ennoble himself, endeavors to make something visible of this higher human being. The divine nature in us can be awakened in two ways: lower way: by awakening the moral inclinations; higher way: in an ever higher aspiration for the divine nature in us.

Higher nature is only just beginning to be noticeable in us; we divide the lower nature into: firstly, the physical body, secondly, the etheric body, thirdly, the astral body.

We divide the higher nature into: manas, budhi, atma. What is manas? Translated literally, it means “spiritual self”. Everyone reflects and seeks to understand the world around them, in their own way. I don't just mean the scholars, but everyone; the farmer behind the plough has his ideas and mental images. But if there were no original world thoughts, man would have no thoughts; they arise in him only as thought-images.

To develop the spirit itself, cooling and warming are necessary, and here we come to the second element, to Budhi, that is love. We have to compare the things of the spiritual world with the things outside. A comparison in the sensual realm is, for example, the warmth radiating from the brooding bird to call new life into existence. That is a form of sensuality. We can also speak of spiritual lust in the elaboration of thoughts. The birth of thoughts, that is the element of spiritual love. Any artist can express it to you. Anyone who sends original thoughts out into the world can feel it. The great leaders of mankind all knew it.

Take the greatest of them all: Christ Jesus. He was permeated by this spiritual sun-glow, by this love. It is this that transforms thoughts into forces. This is called Budhi or Chrestos; or the Christ principle. That, then, is Budhi! The third element is Atma, the Father. This only comes to expression in man gradually; and through work everyone can bring about the manifestation of these three within him. The most significant event in world history was the appearance of this Christ Jesus; through him, the principle of truth was brought to our realization.

In the past, there were schools of initiation — among the Egyptians, the Asian peoples, the Greeks — with different levels leading to knowledge, to the new birth.

First stage: Man must gain the knowledge to distinguish between higher and lower in the world; for example, the plant needs the mineral soil for its nutrition, thus the kingdom below it; the animals need the plant kingdom. They could say to the plant kingdom: We owe our existence to you. And man? All kingdoms are subservient to him; and he must be grateful to them, these kingdoms. So we see: one must perform the lower services in order to serve the higher. Thus man must develop a feeling of gratitude towards everything that is below him, that serves him. And he who wants to be great must be a servant. This first step of initiation is symbolically expressed in the washing of the feet. This is a stooping down to be a servant to all in a free way.

The second step is to develop strength within oneself, to become insensitive to all the hostility we face from the outside world. This means enduring blows to the cheeks, scourging, and bearing everything so that we stand firm in the face of it all.

The third step is to remain inwardly calm in the face of all the contempt and scorn that the world brings us. This is symbolized by the crown of thorns.

The fourth stage is reached when one becomes indifferent to one's own body as if it were a foreign body. Then the soul is ready to lead its independent life; then it no longer lives in the body, but takes it upon its shoulders like a burden: the carrying of the cross.

Fifth stage: Everything becomes objective for man; he dies to all ordinary life. He suffers the mystical death, and there he grows together with the whole earth; and this is the sixth stage or the sixth act: the burial.

The seventh stage is resurrection and ascension.

The initiate must experience all of this; only then has he resurrected the higher man within himself. This took place in the mystery centres; first in the temple and then through years of association with initiates. But it took place only in the astral body. Now it should also take place in the ether body, that is, the ether body must also be freed from the physical body with the astral body. A state of sleep was needed for this.

When a person sleeps, only the astral body is released. But in lethargic sleep, the etheric body could be freed. Such a state of sleep lasted three days; then the sleeper was awakened; he was now also freed from the etheric body and the Chrestos had awakened in him.

During such sleep he entered into the supersensible life. The supersensible had now conquered the sensual.

Who was it that could know this? Those who had seen it! They had become blessed, they had penetrated the spirit with the soul. That was the pre-Christian state. But now something new was coming; all this took place as a historical event in Palestine. Now the physical body of the earth experienced all this. The symbol became a reality, a truth. In this personality, this Christ Jesus, they who believed could experience it even if they did not see. In the past, only those who had seen it in the mysteries could become blessed; now the physical eye could experience it through faith in the manifestation.

The wisdom teachings are the same everywhere; but Christ Jesus brought the inner experience to external view. And therefore he could say:

Logos used to be a teaching; he made Logos come to life. The Christian mystics of the Middle Ages recognized this. Master Eckhart put it this way:

Most people look at Christ as one loves a cow. One must first let him live in oneself so that one can recognize him in the outside world.

For Tauler, the life of Christ was not a theory; for him, these facts were real. In order to understand these facts, one must first have experienced the inner Christ. Angelus Silesius expressed this most beautifully. He says:

The body must come to life in the soul, but the soul must come to life in God if you want to live in bliss. And elsewhere:

If Christ were born a hundred times in Bethlehem and it were not born in you, you would be lost forever.

Why did this faith without vision take the place of the old initiation? Because it had become a necessity for the outer man. At the time when the pyramids and other structures that appear to us as miracles were built, the world forces had developed within man. Now the spirit had to develop in the physical world; the spiritual eye had to be opened. But what has become of the world forces, the physical forces of man? They have receded, regressed, as an eye regresses when it is not kept active – for example, in the animals in the Kentucky cave.

In the first 2000 years of Christianity, the doctrine of karma receded. On Mount Tabor (“mountain” is synonymous with solitude, seclusion from people), Jesus explained something to his disciples, his most intimate students, Peter, James and John, and led them into the sanctuary. He showed them something they could only see outside their bodies, Elijah and Moses. His testament spoke to them of reincarnation and karma, of his return: “until I return to you” (Mk 9,9). What is this return? The awakening of the Christ in the soul of man. As long as people were to live in the world of the senses, it was enough for them to satisfy their spiritual needs by observing historical events. Thus Theosophy is not hostile or opposed to Christianity, but seeks to be a servant of Christianity.

Theosophy is a mediator of peace, and its second principle, to find the seeds of truth in all worldviews, should not only apply to the past, but especially to the present.

Haeckel's “Welträtsel” (World Riddle) now wants to deal with the great question of existence. The sensation caused by this book shows the interest in this question. But the book is entirely rooted in materialism. If theosophy wants to be life, it has to deal with such facts.

What is the position of the author in modern intellectual life? A bold spirit has shown itself in this work. Ernst Haeckel has had a great influence on modern intellectual life for a decade. He was one of the first to take up Darwinism, boldly and courageously to its ultimate consequences.

Let us first deal with Haeckelianism and Darwinism. Everything that comes from Haeckel has been worked through and is acquired. But how are the conclusions to be drawn from his scientific views? Man is trapped between birth and death, is only a higher animal. After his death, there is no existence. Scientific materialism is a way of thinking from the last century, but not a consequence of Darwinism. Haeckel saw in Goethe his predecessor. Goethe discovered the intermaxillary bone that he had inferred and sought in humans. For him, this was proof of the truth of the relationship between humans and higher animals. Even as a privy councillor in Jena, he was still in the midst of students for this purpose.

Haeckel saw his materialism in his Darwinism. Haeckel's view has been very much shaken in the last decade. Haeckel established the ape relationship. Now he concludes: one must have descended from the other. For example, let's assume two brothers. One is a tramp, the other a moral person. They both have the same ancestors. One descends, the other ascends. Once there was only one nature with the possibility of development in both directions. That was Haeckel's hasty conclusion.

There is nothing more useful today than studying the secret writing of nature. Disregarding individual one-sidedness, the first 30 pages of Haeckel's book are of importance.

Riddle questions:

1. What provided the impetus for matter and force?
2. How did motion come about?
3. Where did life come from?
4. Where did the idea of fitness come from?
5. How could consciousness arise?
6. How did language come about? (Laws must underlie it).

Theosophy makes it clear to us in a different way. Let us look at sleep with her. What lies within a person during sleep? Life is present, but there is no ability to perceive. The soul has two directions, one towards the lower, one towards the higher, the Devachanic. Now the soul in us is still a baby, but it will develop and become more and more richly structured and grow up into the divine. Occultism promotes this development. There the higher world is experienced. That which lives as spirit shines in the darkness of night.

What Haeckel lacks is that he only pursues the idea of development in the past, instead of also pursuing it in the future. In this way, Theosophy will make Haeckel's thoughts fruitful.

We should learn from him, but not criticize him. Force and matter are nothing but crystallized spirit; figuratively speaking, they are like ice to water. Matter is nothing real, it is only spirit in another form. Take coal. What is it? Stone - and was a growing Farrenbaum millions of years ago. The living has become the lifeless. All of the earth's crust originated from the living.

The origin of all things lies in the All-consciousness. The question should not be: how did spirit arise from movement, but rather the other way around: how did movement arise from spirit? The religion of the materialists is nothing more than fetishism. The atom is a fetish. The worst superstition is the belief in the atom, which is real fetishism. Haeckel says: “For us, God is in every atom. That is moving matter.” There is a grain of truth in this, because the Spirit of God lives in every atom. It is just that the materialist regards matter as the first. For the theosophist, God is spread throughout the world: theosophy strives to draw all beings up to God. In doing so, it deifies and spiritualizes the world.

There have always been great searching minds. There have always been epochs in which the human mind sought to penetrate into the deepest questions; at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was particularly astonishing. In the German thinkers, we find the highest level of training. But precisely these important ones have become the least known. One man stands at the top: Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Who knows and still reads his “Addresses to the German Nation” today?

Fichte's world view is a difficult one, so let us first take a look at Immanuel Kant. Kant, so to speak, set firm limits to human knowledge. He sought the thing in itself. He did not penetrate into its depths. Fichte went beyond him in a way. The Age of Enlightenment began with Kant. He said: “Man, you shall dare to use your own reason.” This caused the old belief in authority to falter. Stirring memories of the spirit of enlightenment came from France. Rousseau's spirit had a powerful effect on Kant. Materialism appeared there first, and the spirit of enlightenment also made itself felt in Germany; but something else was added there.

Lessing, in his “Education of the Human Race”, showed how he had been seized by this spirit of enlightenment; but with him, for the first time, we encounter a new idea, the idea of re-embodiment. He said: “Is not all eternity mine?” Through many lives, man walks the path to perfection. We see how Goethe showed us the great idea of re-embodiment in great images. That was Fichte's “deed”: Fichte showed in his teaching of science that man has to find the “I” within himself, and it was precisely this that was difficult for man to grasp. Fichte said: The great thing is that man himself says “I” to himself. No one can call out “I” to us from the outside. It is the only name that only we can give ourselves; it is the designation of our unique nature in relation to nature. It is there that the God in man begins to speak. With this, man has begun to ascend to ever higher levels. In 1800, Fichte wrote “On the Destiny of Man”. One should not read it, but live it, let it take effect on oneself. He suggests observing our inner life, immersing ourselves in the inner power of our nature in order to come to the certainty of our eternal essence. In his booklet “Instructions for a Blessed Life” he shows that the I has always lived in us and will always live in us. In such German writings you receive the best theosophical training.

Novalis was an eminently theosophical spirit; he died at the age of 29 as a mining engineer. He himself felt that his mathematics was a great poem. In this he recalls Pythagoras' saying that there is music of the spheres in it. Novalis sensed the movement in the universe as harmonious tones. For him, the starry world was a world built according to mathematical principles — just as the harmonies that one perceives in music can also be calculated. He also sensed and thought the layers of the earth. It was clear to Novalis that man must develop his inner senses. In “The Apprentices of Sais” he clearly stated that man is related to God and the whole world – Pictures: Hyacinth, a beautiful boy, loves the beautiful Rose Child. He owes the realization of the human ego to Fichte.

Another thinker: Schelling. In his 1809 publication “On Human Freedom”, he seeks to bring out Jakob Böhme's ideas. He is concerned with the interesting research into the origin of evil. I can only hint at a comparison today: everyone will see harmony at the bottom of everything. But how does disharmony come about? How can man come to freedom? By also having the possibility of doing evil. Schelling says: the divine good is like sunlight. When light throws light into darkness, it awakens shadows. The light would not be able to develop its power if there were nothing to cast the shadows. — Jakob Böhme calls it the counter-throw. Darkness is precisely the nothing. The something, the good, can only be understood by the fact that evil is a nothing, only a shadow. Schelling also called human beings, as a physical body, a perfection. Hands, for example, are perfect and independent, but can scratch themselves if they turn against each other. — Conversation: Clara and Benno. He had been silent for a long time, then Frederick William IV appointed him to the University of Berlin. Then he wrote “Philosophy of Mythology” and “Philosophy of Revelation”. He speaks there of ancient mysteries. What is a mystery? If we go far back behind Homer to the culture of the Greek secret schools, temple cults, we see that the disciples first had to observe the external drama, the God who descends into nature, who is hidden in all four realms, who only awakens in man. In the human breast is the place of the resurrection of God. This was not art, religion, science, it was all three at once: beauty, religion and piety. It was only later that truth, beauty and piety, science, art and religion separated. The mysteries illustrated this. In Schelling you can find the most beautiful in his “Mystical Revelations”.

Heinrich Kleist: “Käthchen von Heilbronn”, “Prinz von Homburg”. The former cannot be understood if one denies hypnosis and does not look deeper into the soul life. Kleist delved deeply into Schubert's philosophical lectures, which he heard in Dresden at the time, about dreams and the interior of the soul, and through this he gained those thoughts.

Justinus Kerner found a way to study the abnormal soul life with the seer of Prevorst. She came into a spiritual and mental environment in that state. This has many concerns. While the physical body rested during sleep, the soul perceived conditions in its environment. Kerner said: “For her, the state of constant illness is a constant dying.” Eckartshausen presents everything in an idealized way up to a certain point.

Ennemoser was somewhat superficial.

This chain of theosophical thinkers provided deep insights into the further development of humanity, showed the eternal core of being in individuality, and demonstrated re-embodiment.

What significance does the personality have for the being? It gains experience in thinking, feeling and willing. It does not discard this experience when it dies like a garment; no, life was a school for it, and what it took in during its lifetime, it takes with it as treasure into its new existence. A human being would have lived in vain if that were not the case. Thus, with each life, the individuality becomes richer. Everything that the personality has collected is the pearls of a pearl necklace. The personality is the tool for developing out of life. Earth life is what makes us more perfect. The personality lays the foundation for development.

Certain Western views underestimate the personality and believe that we simply shed our personality at death. No, we take its fruits with us. It is valuable to learn what the personality means. And all those spirits are masters at describing the personal. The mission of the German spirit at that time was to emphasize what is pure and beautiful and noble in the personality. And this is precisely what Theosophy shows: beautiful, pure and lofty thinking. Each age has its task and mission. That was the mission of German philosophy. The great minds have been almost completely forgotten, and it is our duty to learn from them. The most wonderful fruits can be gained there. Then one will truly understand the energy that emanated from those minds. “Man can do what he should, and when he says, 'I cannot,' he will not.” There were two great eras: the first when the Vedanta philosophy emerged in Asia in the post-Vedic period, the second at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Germany. On both occasions, the human mind experienced its greatest depth. During this time, will and strength were directed towards the ideal.

Nature is a great living thing,
And everything is fruit, and everything is seed.

Only those who view mythologies superficially can overlook the profound wisdom that is expressed in them, and only they can fail to recognize that something much deeper is hidden there than mere poetic fantasy, popular fantasy. Real spiritual research knows that there have always been select personalities who stood higher than other people. Such superior personalities were, for example, Buddha, Pythagoras, Moses and the greatest initiate, Christ Jesus. These are individuals who are far ahead of other people; it is such individuals who know the higher worlds from their own experience, who have knowledge of what lies hidden behind the physical world. They know the spiritual world themselves. They have brought a part of the truth to the nations to which they came. The wisdom is the same at all times. But it must be brought differently to different peoples at different times. That which is true is preserved by the great leaders, the initiates of humanity, and they clothe it in those concepts that any people can understand at a particular time. The various religions are the one truth, adapted to different peoples according to their aptitude and their character.

The collective wisdom, which we also call the secret doctrine, expresses itself in the most diverse religious beliefs. To understand why one people have these ideas and another people have different ideas, we must get to know the nature of the people. We must examine the nature of the ancient Germans and the Indian peoples.

First, we will give a brief sketch of the secret doctrine, which is preserved by the initiated leaders of humanity. The basic tenet of the common secret doctrine of all these different peoples is that man is a dual being, that he consists of a spiritual-soul part and a physical-corporeal part, and that the spiritual-soul part is called upon to uplift, ennoble, purify and bless the physical-corporeal part. Schiller speaks of the purification of the lower parts of man in the letters on the aesthetic education of the human race. There he speaks of how the whole development of man consists in purifying and refining the lower nature. The whole development of man consists in his ascending to ever higher and higher levels in this purification. This view connects the Secret Doctrine with a very specific idea about the relationship between man and the world. All mysticism calls man the microcosm in comparison to the macrocosm, to the great world. If you now go through the natural kingdoms and then examine the powers, abilities and qualities of man, it turns out that man is a confluence of all the powers that are out there in the world. Paracelsus said: “When you look out into nature, you see the letters everywhere, and man is the word that is composed of these letters.” Schiller wrote to Goethe about his conception of man: “I see how you take all of nature to explain man. You look for the parts everywhere to explain man from the totality of appearances.” All the essences of the individual forces of nature have merged in the essence of man; this is how the Secret Doctrine presents man.

Man's foundation is also an image of that cosmos. The battle between the lower and higher nature in man is an image of the great cosmos. Man is a battleground of the spiritual against the physical. This is also the case in nature. But man is still in the middle of the battle. He looks back to a time when he was still in the midst of the battle and to a future when he will have overcome the struggle. The spiritual, the physically invisible forces, are fighting against the physically visible world. This struggle is presented in various ways to the most diverse peoples in the Secret Doctrine. The story of the battle of spiritual forces of nature can be found among all peoples. Out in the world, the battle has already been decided. There the lower nature kingdoms have been left behind. When man in the future has cast off his lower nature, he will have achieved what the gods have already achieved. The nature kingdoms are the traces left behind by the gods. Man looks up to the divine beings, who give a picture of what man will one day be. The gods are the elder brothers of man. Man is on the way to becoming a god. Outside in the world, man also sees the conquest of the lower nature by a higher one. This is expressed in the old legends and myths in some images common to them. In ancient India we find the god Dhyans, in new India the god Indra. He conquers the serpent. In Germanic mythology we find the god Dhin or Dhinz. It is said that he overcame a dragon in ancient times. The gods Wotan, Wille and Weh overcame the giant Ymir and formed the microcosm out of him. The old gods Wotan, Wille and Weh emerged from what remained in nature. Another concept of the Secret Doctrine is that man is the younger brother of the gods and that he who is an initiate comes closer to the gods. He has passed through certain stages to become divine. The various mythologies have regarded nature as the traces left behind by the gods. This secret doctrine found different expressions depending on the different dispositions of the peoples. The Germanic peoples had a very special expression for it.

To understand how the ancient Germans arrived at their ideas, one must delve deeper into their way of thinking. The ancient Germans did not simply make up their sagas as scholars have believed. German scholarship could have provided a good basis for a correct understanding. There is a work that presents a thorough study of legends: Das Rätsel der Sphinx (The Riddle of the Sphinx) by Ludwig Laistner. He used to take the same view as the old German scholars of legends that people have symbolized natural phenomena. In his work, Die Rätsel der Sphinx, he has succeeded in getting to the bottom of the legends that still live in the people today. There is a widespread legend, the legend of the Noon-Day Woman. If a farmer stays out in the fields instead of going home at noon, the Noon-Day Woman appears and asks him three questions. Those who cannot answer these questions will be killed by the Noon-Day Woman. In some areas, it is said that you can only ward her off by reciting the Lord's Prayer. Ludwig Laistner has shown that this legend is nothing more than a reflection of what a person actually encounters when they stay out in the fields at midday. They fall asleep and enter a state in which they perceive their surroundings as the symbol of the witch of noon.

Dreams are symbolic. The ticking of the clock next to our bed is perhaps symbolized as the clatter of horses. Dreams are symbolic, even when they are about external sensory events. That is the peculiarity of dream experiences: they are symbolic.

Everything in the world has developed, including consciousness. The present day consciousness has developed from a kind of somnambulistic consciousness. Everything has gradually come into being. Thus, from a certain clairvoyant consciousness, today's consciousness has emerged. Some organs that used to serve a purpose are now only present as rudiments. The dream is also a rudimentary state. It is the last remnant of an earlier so-called astral consciousness. In the clairvoyant, out of the dream consciousness, the clairvoyant consciousness is developed. He attains a consciousness that is not only the physical consciousness, but also a spiritual consciousness. The somnambulists seek to tune down the ordinary physical consciousness in order to induce the so-called trance consciousness. With the advent of the day consciousness, people have lost the astral trance consciousness. In the past, people needed a somnambulistic, clairvoyant consciousness. In the future, the earlier clairvoyant consciousness will return and will be developed alongside the daytime consciousness. People who have less developed intellect often still have traces of the old clairvoyant consciousness. It is not uncommon for people in the countryside to have a clairvoyant consciousness.

If we go back in time, we would find people who use their senses very little but still have the old Atlantean clairvoyant consciousness. They knew that the gods are nothing more than creations of the old astral consciousness. The soul of the people has retained remnants of the astral consciousness. Germanic mythology is an expression of spiritual experiences. Our ancestors still had spiritual consciousness. The ancient Germans preserved their astral experiences in their mythology. The ancient German saw the gods fighting with the lower forces of nature in the astral world. The whole of Germanic mythology comprises tales of experiences within the astral world. The sagas describe how ancient clairvoyant humanity moved downwards. Baldur once dreamt that he would soon die. All creatures swore an oath not to harm him. But Loki used mistletoe, which had been forgotten, to make Hödur, the blind Hödur, kill Baldur. Humanity, which has become blind to the spiritual world, is Hödur. His ancestor with the old somnambulistic consciousness is Baldur. Only that which belongs to him can kill him: mistletoe, which dates back to an earlier epoch of development. At that time there was a mineral kingdom on earth that was half plant-like; plants grew in it as if in a living being. Mistletoe is a remnant of that plant kingdom that can only grow on another living plant.

The ancient Germans realized that the spiritual world is also a world of light, but that humans cannot perceive it. Baldur is a man of light from this spiritual world. He can perceive the astral world. Hödur, however, is the new man who does not see the astral world. Germanic mythology also expresses that man is a younger brother of the gods. In Germanic mythology, we are told how Wotan hung on the gallows of the cross for nine days and nine nights and that Mimir gave him a drink. This is reminiscent of Christ Jesus. Here, too, the crucifixion is presented as a symbol. Wotan is portrayed here as an initiate. It is then said that Wotan crawls through the crevices of the earth as a snake and that he reaches Gunnlöd, the Valkyrie. He stays there for three days and three nights. She hands him the potion of wisdom. The initiate remained in the cave in lethargy for three days and three nights. There he was to unite with his higher soul. The higher consciousness of man has always been represented as something feminine. The feminine is the higher consciousness that man attains when he enters the realms of the spiritual world.

The story of Wotan is adapted to the abilities of the human race at that time, which is told by all initiates. Gunnlöd is the Valkyrie. She is the higher consciousness. This is also referred to as the Valkyrie in other Germanic legends. Siegfried also reaches the Valkyrie when he attains his higher consciousness. — This portrayal of the Valkyrie Gunnlöd takes us deep into Germanic mythology. The Germanic peoples were a warlike people who placed the greatest value on bravery. A warrior who fell on the battlefield was led to Valhalla by the Valkyrie. Those who fell on the battlefield reached their higher soul part. This came to meet him as the Valkyrie. The human being who passed through the gate of death had to unite with the Valkyrie. That is why Wotan stayed with Gunnlöd. In Germanic mythology, every initiate was thought of as being connected to the Valkyrie.

Siegfried is said to have worn the magic hood of invisibility. The initiate is hidden in a certain way. People do not recognize the initiate. The hood of invisibility hides him from people. Siegfried is an initiate; he unites with the Valkyrie Brunhild. He becomes invulnerable like all initiates. He remains vulnerable only where he carries the cross, between the shoulder blades. A greater initiate is promised, who will also be invulnerable there. Because the ancient Germans had retained their astral beliefs for a long time, the secret teachers were able to give them the teachings in the astral consciousness.

Almost all Asian peoples are descended from the ancient Atlanteans. Their ancestors came from Atlantis. The ancestors of the ancient Germans had also come from Atlantis. They had remained in Europe, while another part had continued to migrate as far as Asia. Those who had advanced further had first developed sensory consciousness and intellectual consciousness. They were already living with advanced spiritual ideas. Hence the urge arose in India to take an artificial path to penetrate into the other worlds. For this, the Indian needed an artificial path. This is what is called yoga, a certain training that leads from the sensual world to the spiritual world. A yogi is a person who seeks to find his way back to the spiritual world. In India, the intellect found expressions for the artificial clairvoyance that was developed through the practice of yoga. The ancient Germans also had astral vision. In India, on the one hand, artificial clairvoyance developed, and on the other hand, intellectual philosophy. Those who no longer have astral vision need external symbols and rituals, as found in Indian symbolism. These are sensual expressions for the spiritual worlds. In India, what had now developed in its most glorious form was also in Christianity. Germania had also been pointed to Christianity. In Siegfried, one saw an initiate who was invulnerable except for the one spot. Kriemhild pinned the cross to that spot. This is a picture that prophetically points to the future of Germania. Here is the place where the cross will lie, making it invulnerable. Thus the old saga points here to Christianity, which made this place invulnerable.

Because the Germanic world felt so close to what came over through Christianity, that is why Christianity found such an entrance there. Within Europe, there was no need for Indian philosophy. We could do without it altogether. What is gained from the correct immersion in the Germanic sagas of the gods must appear even more profoundly.

These concepts will come to life again when that which is still alive, albeit veiled, in the soul of the people is awakened to life. This treasure will be unearthed; then we will understand in a unique way what our European ancestors have to say to their descendants.

Theosophy is intended to create a brotherhood across all of humanity, causing people to carry into the future what they understand from the past.

It is not by chance that we have a theosophical movement. It has to do with the whole of 19th-century development, with the spread of materialism which came to the fore in the 1840s—more or less, also a little before and after that. Materialism had also spread during the four centuries that went before. To understand this we have to go back to the 5th and 6th centuries. People have a completely wrong idea about the way people's minds went in those days. It is the worst of errors to imagine they thought the way we do today. They had quite different ideas about the stars in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, for example. Today people see only material things in them. In medieval times every star was seen to be a spirit. Not only uneducated but also educated people saw a star as a spirit. And so the whole space of heaven was filled with spirit. There is a big difference between assuming the universe to consist of bodies only or thinking that there is also spirit. In those times people felt secure in a spiritual cosmos. We have no need, however, to long for those medieval views to come back.

Copernicus²⁰¹ conquered cosmic space for a materialistic approach. Exploration of the physical world reached its greatest height. Schleiden²⁰² and others discovered the cell. Railways and everything of that kind gave a tremendous boost to materialism. The great guides of humanity then asked themselves what was to be done. How can we make people understand that there is a life of the spirit? People then only had a feeling for material things and would say: ‘If there is a spirit, let it prove itself to be a spirit.’ Spiritualism broke out and people actually attempted this.²⁰³ Initiates always seek to teach people in a way they will understand, and efforts were therefore made to produce manifestations, revelations from the other world.

Now we must first of all consider human destiny after death. When we are asleep, physical body and ether body are united and the astral body is floating above the physical body. When we die, not only does the astral body separate from the physical body, but both the astral and the ether body go away, leaving the physical body behind. The astral and ether bodies remain together for a short time, a review of life follows that takes two or three days. Then they, too, separate, the ether body dissolves to be part of the power of life in general, and the astral body reaches a state known as kamaloka. It is disembodied but still has the habits and inclinations of the physical body. Let me illustrate this. A gourmet still has his food fancies. He no longer has a palate, but the palate's desire remains as a sensation of burning thirst. In kamaloka such habits are shed, with the desires finally consuming themselves. Then the astral body, too, is shed, in so far as it was the vehicle for desires.

There is a way in which such abandoned astral corpses can be galvanized and brought into the world we perceive through the senses. The medium makes his ether body available for this and ‘materializations’, as they are called, are brought about with its help. This was the method used to show materialistic humanity what remains after death, and the initiates had hoped that this would convince people.

Two problems arose, however. In the first place, people who became convinced because of spiritualism did not improve morally with this, that is they did not reach a higher level ethically. In the second place this way of seeing, or of being convinced, actually proved unfavourable—after death. People who had it did not have it easier in kamaloka but harder. For on top of everything else they now also brought the desire with them to see all things of the spirit satisfied in material terms, through the senses, for any such view will appear as a quality in kamaloka. An oppressive, leaden weight lay upon these dead. The initiates therefore said to themselves: ‘This will not do.’ Ah, you'll say, the initiates got things wrong then. But they, too, have to learn from experience, trial and error. It was then the almost unanimous decision in the great community of occultists that as this external means had not proved effective they would take another route, which was the inner route of theosophy. What are its aims? The aim is to get to know the spirit that lives in the human being himself. This spirit is the goal. But it is only possible to get to know the spirit if one is without prejudice. One has to understand the things that humanity has in common.

Egotism had evolved parallel to materialism. Here's just one example. Participation in group travel is contingent on one particular condition, which is that religious subjects must not be brought up in conversation. People are afraid of the egotism of personal opinion, for if you have seven people you'll also have seven opinions. Opinions are thus put above general love for humanity. But brotherhood only begins where love of humanity ranks above opinions.

Theosophy exists so that truth may be sought with personal opinions in balance. People have to be tolerant again, not only as regards the person but also with regard to individual nature. To be tolerant is not just to let others be but in this context to open oneself up to understanding their peculiar nature. Theosophy should thus not be a dogma but an expression of love. We must help our brothers, that is, put love above opinions, and this brings a uniform spirit to human evolution. This is the practical approach which should develop in the theosophical movement.

Answers to questions

Question. What method of training should be chosen instead of yoga training?

Answer. Do not confuse occultism with theosophy. The aim of theosophy is to teach the profound wisdom. It does not in itself exist to make people clairvoyant, though it does also go towards such training.

Occult training is available. Some people think they have to look to India for this, but in this they are greatly mistaken. Training of this kind is also available in Europe. Someone looking for a teacher or guru will find him in the world. Theosophists are wrong to look for this only in India. Chacravarti,²⁰⁴ an Indian of high repute, significantly said at the Chicago congress: ‘My people, too, have gone downhill when it comes to understanding the world in spiritual terms, and theosophy has helped us to rise up again.’

Mrs Blavatsky actually did not only present Indian views, as many people assume. First a European was her guide, and then an Egyptian.²⁰⁵ That was when she wrote Isis Unveiled.

You should not think that the training should be the same for all. The nature of the Indian organism is such that the ether body may be drawn out much more easily. It is at a different level, the first level of the Indian root race, i.e. its first root race, whereas Europeans are at the fifth level of the fifth root race. It is relatively easy to get an Indian to be clairvoyant, drawing out the ether body and putting it into the state known as lethargy, i.e. numbness and lack of sensation. It is as if the body has gone dead. If we were to let a finger die by tying it off, a clairvoyant would see the ether finger hang down beside the tied-off finger. When someone has been hypnotized, the clairvoyant sees the etheric brain hanging down on either side of the head. When the body has thus been deadened, the astral body has to be used, and this imprints anything impressed in it into the ether body. It is extremely difficult for a European to get such astral impressions, or to have them given to him, and a way was sought, therefore, where it was not necessary to draw out the ether body. The Rosicrucians found this from the 14th century onwards, and their method is the best for Europeans. Our bodies have grown denser than Indian bodies; they have gone through a downward development, which is in accord with the necessary process of evolution. On the other hand we enter this state in full conscious awareness, whilst daytime consciousness is suppressed with the Indian method.

Hypnotizing people is not, on the whole, a good thing. Firstly the intervention weakens the subject's will. Secondly it is black magic, with the subject being overcome by the hypnotist. It definitely should not be used with healthy people, though the situation may be a little different in case of sickness.

What does the term ‘downward development’ mean?

Take the materialistic view of things. Here ape, here man—and man is therefore descended from the ape. This is not the case, for ape and man have common ancestors, something modern scientists also accept.²⁰⁶ The truth is that the one must develop at the cost of the other. Thus there was a realm of life forms during the ancient moon period of evolution that were somewhere between animal and plant. Mistletoe is a relict of this. The plant evolved downwards, the animal upwards. The same applies to man. Human beings developed some parts upwards and others downwards. Thus it is a fact, for instance, that humans once had cartilage instead of bones. To put it crudely: they are progressively hardening. On the other hand any loosening or separation of the higher bodies brought about by occult training is an anticipation of general evolutional stages that will be reached in the future.

Why has man been incarnated in his physical body?

Man already had all the potential in those earlier times which he is to develop on earth, but none of it was his own. When man will no longer gain anything from being in this world he will no longer need to incarnate. He will then give his body to the planet.

What is the situation with the Flood?

This Flood was the great event which came when the greater part of Atlantis went down. The actual end of Atlantis covered vast spaces of time. Like everything important told in the Bible and the oldest records—much treasure trove still waits to be found there—the rainbow which came into being in Noah's day²⁰⁷ is something of great significance. We are told it symbolized the covenant between god and humanity. In occult terms it has another meaning as well. On Atlantis, moisture and air were distributed in a very different way. German mythology refers to Niflheim, home of mists. The whole of the air was filled with water then. Human beings of post-Atlantean times were only able to live after the sinking of Atlantis. The rainbow could only develop when both rain and sunshine had become possible on earth.

We read of dirigible airships in records of Atlantis.²⁰⁸ What was the situation there?

The Atlanteans had developed their second body, the ether body with its vital energies, to a high level. The rational mind was only feeble at that time. Memory had to take its place. Thus Atlanteans would not do sums, now knowing the value of figures, but were able to judge quantities from memory. They knew what amount they would have if they added 3 items to 3. Earlier situations they were able to remember helped them to know this. Having fully developed their vital energies they knew how to make use of the vital energies in the whole natural world. They knew the germinative potential of grain seed, for instance, and how to draw it forth and use it. Just think of the power in a seed grain! Think of everything that may come of it. The yogis also know, in a way, how to lure the germinative power out of the seed. The stories of a mango seed being put in the soil and a shoot arising, then the tree, leaves, flowers and finally fruit is not fiction, it is a fact. Atlanteans who were able to use vital energies for a dirigible as well as for other things therefore need not be mere fable.

Is it possible to avoid having to go through devachan after death?

At a particular stage of development the ether body is so firmly put together that it will not dissolve after death. This happens when the astral body has imprinted much spirituality in the ether body. With the ether body able to continue, the pupil need not go into the devachan, which is the place where the new ether body is created.

Does the kind of food we eat really have such great significance for the development of occult powers?

Absolutely. Development is completely impossible if alcohol is taken. And it is strange, but there are deep reasons for this, that the issue of abstinence and temperance is coming alive so much again at this time.

But wine is surely only grape juice, and therefore fruit juice?

Juice obtained from grapes is good for development for as long as it is only fruit juice, though when it has fermented it has a detrimental effect. Look back once more in history. Wine began to be taken 600 years before Christ, when the custom was probably already at its height, for the feasts of Dionysus developed at which homage was paid to the god of wine. But just like everything else, so every fruit, too, has its time, and grapes will vanish from the earth again. Just think of the coming of the vine pest. Everything coming from a living animal serves us for food—milk, eggs—and so does every part of a plant that seeks to reach the light, the sun. Because of this, tree fruits are very good. Tubers growing in the soil, such as potatoes, and roots are not so good. In the past, people ate people, then they ate animals. They will gradually change to a pure vegetable diet and finally end with the minerals. Everything that precipitates should be avoided, salt, for instance. All this has to do with the development of occult powers and not with gaining knowledge of spiritual truths.

• 201. Copernicus, Nicolas (1473–1543). De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, Nürnberg 1543.
• 202. Schleiden, Matthias Jakob (1804–1881), German botanist. Beiträge zur Phylogenesis, in Archiv für Anatomie, Physiologic und wissenschaftliche Medizin vol. 5, 1838.
• 203. See Rudolf Steiner's public lecture on the history of spiritualism in The History of Spiritism and the History of Hypnotism and Somnambulism (in GA 52, Berlin 30 May 1904. Tr. F. E. Dawson. London & New York: Rudolf Steiner Publishing Co. & Anthroposophic Press 1943; also lectures of 10 and 11 October 1915 in The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century (GA 254). Tr. D. Osmond. London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1973.
• 204. Chakravarti, Prof F. N. spoke for Hinduism at the World Religious Congress in Chicago and also for theosophy, being a theosophist himself.
• 205. Nothing further is known about these two guides. See Olcott HS Old Diary Leaves 1895.
• 206. See Poppelbaum H. Man and Animal, chapter on origins
• 207. Genesis 9: 13-17.
• 208. E.g. in W. Scott-Elliot's The Story of Atlantis, preface by A. P. Sinnet

The aim of these lectures is to be an introduction to the theosophical world-conception and its connections. We shall have to deal with problems such as the cause of death, the cause of suffering, the origin of evil, and so forth. By setting out from man, from the nucleus of his being, we shall study the great law of reincarnation and karma, and also the origin of man, of the Earth and of the solar system. Moreover, of the way in which the great truths come to expression, especially in Christianity and in the different religions.

Occultism, the wisdom of the hidden beings, looks upon man in such a way that the visible part of his being, the physical body, constitutes the first member. As a material form, it is looked upon like other lifeless objects.

The second part or member is the etheric body, which is invisible and finer than the physical body. We may therefore say: in the upper parts of man's being, the etheric body is the image of the physical body, but it takes on a different form in the lower parts. A blind-born person considers the description of a seeing person for fantasies; the descriptions of those who perceive the etheric body clairvoyantly are treated in the same way. At present there are about three or four hundred people and all who have this clairvoyant capacity. But it lies dormant in every human being; for this reason things will present a very different aspect in a hundred years. In the near future there'll be a gigantic progress, also in the technical field.

Modern theosophy is only the elementary part of occultism. To-day it is not possible to teach more. The faculty of spiritual vision develops through an inner schooling. Those who are endowed with clairvoyance see the etheric body as follows: first of all, they must deviate their attention completely away from the physical body, they must—so to speak—suggest it away completely. Suggestion, hypnotism, abnormal soul-conditions, a lowered state of consciousness, positive and negative suggestion which harm the person on which it is practiced, all this has nothing to do with theosophy as it is meant here. Those who develop their higher soul-forces are able, by their will-power, to throw out of their field of vision the whole sensory reality of a human being or object of stands before them. The same space occupied by the physical body will then be occupied instead by a form resembling man, consisting of an inwardly luminous form of forces which is very much like the human being of the present time except that the etheric body slightly projects above the head. In plants, animals and children projects greatly by the physical head.

The third member or part of man is the astral body. At first, it should be studied more from the inner aspect. When a person stands before us we can touch his physical body with our hands. Let us now leave aside the etheric body. Where muscles, bones and nerves exist in the physical body, there are also a certain amount of instincts, pains, joys, ideals, and passions. They are all as real as the former. This is the astral body seen from within. Seen from the outside, the astral body does not exist at all as far as the power of vision of ordinary people is concerned. But when we pass through training of the soul we learn to know also the astral body as it appears to us as the soul-part of man. The astral body is designated as the aura.

A wild unchecked passion is like a dull red cloud that passes through the astral body; a pure ideal sends out white-gold rays. The painters of past times, who were still more closely connected with clairvoyance, used to paint this aura in many different ways. People who have a great deal of sympathy and love for their fellow-men are surrounded by a greenish aura; religious feelings, religious fervor, sends out blue rays. The aura is simply the external expression of inner instincts, passions, and so forth. The external form of the aura is quite different from that of the physical body and it surrounds man, and enwrapping him in a kind of oval form. This form of light soars around the human being and sends out rays.

In a few decades these truths will be of immense value in education, in pedagogy. Much will be gained when spiritual science will be included in our educational system. It is of immense importance in external life.

Let us now study the child in regard to these three bodies. They do not develop simultaneously in the child. From the first to the seventh year the physical body unfolds; the other two bodies are not free and they influence the physical body from within. Consequently, during this period, the only way of educating a child is to work upon his physical body, for the other two members of his being have still have to unfold. A sound education will therefore refrain from influencing the etheric body and astral body prematurely. From the first to the seventh year the child needs visible, perceptible images, examples, and so forth. The child's visible environment should therefore be a pure one, and this even applies to the thoughts of the people around him. For a child is able to feel good and evil thoughts. We should endeavor to sharpen and develop the child's senses. His fantasy should be stimulated. Consequently, a child should not be given beautifully finished things to play with. He should instead make something for himself, a form, etc. This rouses and awakens the child and develops the forces of his physical body. Therefore abolish beautiful toys! ...

A special change takes place in the child during his seventh year, for a part of the etheric body becomes free, and for this reason we should now begin to exercise an influence upon the etheric body. In what way can we exercise an influence upon the etheric body? Observe, to begin with, the process which takes place when we die. Only the physical body lies there, while the etheric body and astral body separate themselves from it and ascend. It is not the same when we are asleep. When we are asleep, the etheric body is still connected with the physical body lying on the bed, and only the astral body separates itself from them. But at the moment of death something very strange takes place in man: his whole past life lies spread out before his memory and goes past him. Sometimes this may happen in moments of great danger, for example when a person is drowning or suddenly precipitates from a great height, and afterwards regained consciousness. At such moments his whole past life rises up before his soul. What has really occurred? His etheric body was more loosely connected with the physical body. Something similar takes place when a part of the body “falls asleep”, or when we underbind, tie off extremity. When a finger is underbound a clairvoyant perceives that the finger's etheric body is hanging down, it is loosened. In a hypnotized person this condition is very dangerous, for his etheric brain is hanging down limply at both sides of his physical head. Since the etheric body is the carrier of memory, the memory-tableau rises up before us after death. When the etheric body emancipates itself from the physical body, it can follow its own movements and memory is more free than ever. Normally, the etheric body fills the physical body like a dense cloud of light. And until death, the physical body obstructs the finer influences and forces of the etheric body.

From the seventh year onward the forces of the child's etheric body are free and from the seventh to fourteenth year we should therefore work upon his memory and develop it. Since the etheric body sets forth everything in the form of images, the child should be given images in parables and we should work upon him with the aid of fairy tales and beautiful stories. During this period the child accepts everything on the authority of his parents as teachers.

The astral body emancipates itself wholly from the fourteenth to the 21st year. It begins to unfold with puberty, consequently a little sooner in girls than boys. The astral body is the carrier of reason, of the conscious judgment. During this period we shall be able to influence the astral body by developing the power of judgment. If this is attempted sooner, we sin against a child, it would be of the greatest harm to him. A time will come to which the science of the spirit will be applied in pedagogy.

Man shares his physical body with everything mineral, his of etheric body with all plants, his astral body with all the animals. But man rises above all these things through his self-consciousness, through the little word “I” which is unique in its kind. For “I” is the only name which each one can only give to himself.

This is a greatly significant fact. In the ancient Hebrew religion, the occult word “I” could only be uttered by the highest initiate, by the High priest. This was a solemn cultic moment. The whole congregation waited for the utterance of the word “Jahve” (meaning “I”), and a shudder of holy awe ran through the assembled people, who were filled with reverence. Jahve is the God who speaks within man ... and the word Jahve (Jehovah) was looked upon as the “unutterable name”. It is the voice by which God begins to speak in man. Never can this word enter into us from outside. In the word “I” the eternal touches the transient.

We have thus learned to know the four members of man's being: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and man's nucleus, the “I”, or Ego. At the moment of death, the etheric body, the astral body and Ego separate from the physical body. The etheric body and astral body gradually dissolve, until the Ego enters Devachan, where it remains until it begins a new life on Earth.

Yesterday we endeavored to explain man's being in so far as the three bodies and the nucleus of his being are concerned. Let us now consider man's ascent into the supersensible worlds. For this purpose we must cast a glance into what we call the three worlds and only when we have described the characteristics of these three worlds will it be possible to discuss the nature of the other members of man's being.

The first world is the physical world which we perceive through our senses: it is the one which man inhabits. We then have a second world, the astral world, and the third one, the spiritual world or Devachan. Deva means God in Chan means field or habitation. Devachan therefore means the spirit of God. In so far as man is a spiritual being, he participates in the spiritual world. The physical world need not be described, for it is clearly known to everybody. I will try to speak of the astral and devachanic worlds by keeping as far as possible to the descriptive form.

The first thing which we should bear in mind is that the outer worlds are not to be found in other places, but we are surrounded by them the same way in which we are surrounded by the physical world and they permeate the physical world. After death, man consequently does not travel to other places, but he simply changes his way of looking at things, his consciousness changes. When we die or become initiated, the same thing happens as in the case of a blind-person who suddenly acquires the power of sight; he too will not be transferred into another world, but he simply acquired a new sense. After death, we are not surrounded by a new, completely different world, but the senses for the perception of the physical world are eliminated and we perceive instead things which escaped our notice before, which had remained concealed to us until then.

Let us now consider the astral world: It is the world in which we live every night and to begin with also after death. If we no longer open our senses to the physical world, the senses of the astral world disclose themselves. When we become clairvoyant, we first live in the astral world and perceive what has been described as the etheric body and the astral body.

The astral world greatly differs from the physical world. Those who enter it, face a confusing mass of phenomena. What they first perceive, is so different from what they were used to seeing, that they must first grow accustomed to the sight. They will read things wrongly if they begin to read them as in the physical world. For in the astral world everything appears as a mirrored picture, upside down, or in the reverse order. In the astral world the number 365 would be 563. Especially in the beginning, this is very confusing. In the physical world, when dealing with circumstances connected with time, we reckon everything from the beginning to the end. In the astral world it is the very opposite. In the astral world, a human life, for example, is not traced from birth to death, but from the last moment of life backwards. Here in the physical world first see the egg and then the chicken that slips out of it; but in the astral world we first see the chicken and then the egg.

The most important thing to be borne in mind is however that in the astral world all the images of our moral qualities, such as pleasure and displeasure, pain and joy, hatred and love, appear as if they were rushing towards us. A clairvoyant sees as if they were rushing towards him. To an unexperienced person this is very confusing. He may see all kinds of animal-forms, even terrible human forms, and so forth, rushing towards him. There are people who tell us of such experiences. They are really to be pitied, when through some illness they attain such an abnormal vision of the astral world. But when we begin to meditate in a serious way, when we school ourselves, then the clairvoyant power develops in a normal, regular way, and then we know what is taking place in the astral world. But when people obtain an abnormal, irregular vision of the astral world through some illness of the brain or some other cause, they perceive terrible shapes rushing towards them and throwing themselves upon them. In reality these shapes are their own passions which go out from them and appear as a reflected mirror-image in the astral world. Then everything appears to be rushing towards them, because in the astral world everything is reversed and they cannot read its phenomena. Everything appears in the form of pictures and images. A bursting rage, for example, may appear in the form of a tiger that attacks them. This is how all these wild shape should be explained. Every lust, every passion, becomes a demon. And an untrained person is unable to cope with them and thinks that they are illusions, fantasies. Yet this is not true, for what he sees, is an image, a mirrored picture.

Why must some people pass through such experiences to-day? The cause for this must be sought in our materialistic age. Let us look back into the 13th or 14th century and picture to ourselves a German town of that time. There everything was formed out of the sense of beauty of that time. Each house, each lock, each key had its own characteristic quality: everything had its special character and was formed with love. Those who formed these objects were inspired by a feeling which still exercises an influence upon us even to-day. In the present time it is quite different. In a modern city the things we see no longer appeal to our feeling, nothing touches us; at the most the things in shop-windows, for example books, etc. may attract our attention. Nothing sacred, nothing having a religious character is now spread out before us in the external world. In the past, there were few books, but in those few books one could find something for the soul. But think of all the things that people read to-day: sensational things which excite the senses. ...

Although the soul no longer receives anything from outside, it nevertheless bears deep within it the yearning for religious things; this feeling lies deeply buried within it. Of course, this does not imply that we should long for the things which existed in the Middle Ages! The religious yearning may suddenly break out in people who no longer hear anything of the higher worlds, so that it appears as a religious passion in a mirrored picture, as indicated above. For everything which exists in the physical world as a so-called true reality, appears in the astral world in the form of a picture. In the astral world you do not perceive pain or joy in an immediate, direct way, but pain is perceived as a shape in dark colors, whereas joy appears as a kind shape in a light yellow color. Little by little you will have learnt to understand these images. There is nothing arbitrary or uncertain, for he was perceive that pain or joy of a certain kind always appears as pictures of certain time. The pupil therefore gradually learns to read on the astral plane and he learns to recognize the different pictures. Lightly-colored pictures always indicate something connected with the sympathetic side of life wereas darkly colored pictures always indicate things connected with the antipathetic side. Essential thing in the astral world is imaginative vision. Goethe, who undoubtedly had the astral power of vision very beautifully characterizes this quality of the astral world at the end of his “Faust”: “Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis”. (Everything transient is but a symbol.)

But the astral world does not only contain the mirrored pictures of the physical world; it also contains beings that we can never learn to know on the physical plane. Man's spirit descended as far as the physical world and clothed itself, so to speak, in flesh. But on the astral plane we also come across Beings that never clothed themselves in flesh. They continually hover to and fro among physical shapes, but they remain invisible to the ordinary power vision. But they are not inventions nor fairy-tale characters: Anyone who can look into the astral world may perceive them.

There are other beings besides, that surround man: namely his own thoughts. Just imagine the influence of a thought. For example, we first have in our soul the thought: “This man is a bad fellow.” In the astral world this thought takes on shape; each thought that goes out from us, takes on shape in the astral world. Upon the astral plane, thoughts are realities. Each thought which we set into the world takes on astral substance, even as the child in the mother's womb takes on physical substance. Whenever we have a thought, it clothes itself with natural substance and condenses itself into certain forms. There are Beings to whom man's thoughts offer a welcome occasion to incarnate themselves, to form themselves an astral body; these Beings have a real lust to materialize themselves astrally.

This important fact indicates our responsibility in life. Imagine a room where men sit around enjoying their evening-pint of beer or wine. What are their thoughts? They talk for the sake of talking, thoughts are quite worthless. For a clairvoyant, such a room is afterwards very strangely populated. The enjoyment of talking for the sake of gossiping, talk which is not born out of the intention of transmitting noble thoughts to others, affords certain very evil Beings occasion to incorporate themselves, and these Beings then do all manner of horrible things, just because they incorporate in such great numbers.

In occultism we say: Upon the physical plane a lie is a lie, but upon the astral plane it is a murder. Matters namely stand as follows: Whenever you relate something, you produced the corresponding thought-form; but also the fact which you relate rays out a thought-form. If your thought-form corresponds with it and agrees with it, then the two forms flow together upon the astral plane and strengthen each other. You thus strengthen the life of the being you are talking about. But in the case of an untruth the thought-form streaming out of your words does not correspond with that which goes out from the thing itself; the forms collide and destroy each other. An untruth, a lie, does have a life-destroying, killing effect on them. To speak of morality in the occult meaning, does not mean to preach morality, but to establish it by facts pertaining to the higher worlds. Schopenhauer rightly said: It is easy to preach morals, but is difficult to establish morals.

Man has a short sojourn in the astral world when he is asleep. What takes place with him when he is asleep? His physical and etheric body remain upon the bed, while his astral body and his Ego go out. A clairvoyant sees that at night the astral body is very active. During the day, man consumes his physical forces in work, etc. He grows tired, his forces must be restored. This is the work done by the astral body during the night. But what does he do during the day? He perceives the physical world. When he is asleep, the astral body goes out of the etheric and physical body and then we see and hear nothing—for we have perceptions through the astral body. Our eyes and ears, all our sense-organs, are merely instruments used by the astral body when it has perceptions. The astral body transforms all the vibrations of the air, etc. into sensations of sound. But in the night the astral body no longer needs to do this work; it can then produce new forces for the physical body and above all for the etheric body. In order to do this work of restoring the balance, it must go out of physical body. When we dream a lot, this work is so to speak, interrupted. Restless dreams are therefore bad for our health.

What changes take place in person during sleep when he gradually becomes clairvoyant? The night changes completely for such a person. Ordinary people lose consciousness when they fall asleep and regain it when they wake up; but they are unable to perceive what takes place astrally, because they do not have the organs enabling them to see this. But for a clairvoyant, the night is quite different. He does not lose consciousness like ordinary people. An untrained person experiences the astral world chaotically, in the form of dreams. But a trained person sees the astral world in regular forms. At first these will be transient realities surging up and down, but arising in a regular way.

Let us suppose a person falls asleep and sees a reddish-brown shape rising up before him, with a human face, but a distorted one, which gradually begins to resemble that of a friend. The dreamer wakes up and asks himself? What can this mean?—My friend—he thinks—is in New York, and he looks upon his draem as an illusion. After a time, he hears that his friend has been in great danger, that he passed unscathed through some accident. He investigates matters and discovers that the impression that night came at the very moment when his friend was in danger. This event had stood before his soul in the form of a picture.

Such experiences mark the beginning of clairvoyance; the regular forms that become more and more frequent and this new world takes on a more and more definite shape. To a clairvoyant a man's inner life is not concealed. When you acquire clairvoyance, you can see a person's aura, the image of his soul-life, which hovers around him. The souls of men lie open before your eyes. Even as you see the complexion and the hand of a person, you then see before you the pictures of his soul-life.

So far, I only spoke of pictures, of images. Do only images surge up and down? Is the astral world dumb? Indeed, at first it is dumb for the clairvoyant. The astral world is to begin with, silent. The time comes when these pictures begin to resound; voices from the spiritual world can be heard. Pythagoras spoke of the music of the spheres; this was not a fantastic invention, for the orbit of a star becomes a sound to a clairvoyant. Goethe also knew this. In “Faust” he says:

“Die Sonne ton't nach alter Weiss
in Bruders, haren Wettgesang,
und ihre vergescriebne Reise
vollendst sie mit Donnergang ...”

The sun resounds according to an old measure (or: in an accustomed way)
In the singing-match of the brother-spheres,
and its prescribed journey
it ends with thunder-step ,,,

and further

“Tönend wird für Geistesahren
schon der neue Tag geboren ...”

“To spiritual ears is born
resounding the new day ...”

Of course, learned men say that Goethe meant this symbolically. But after a certain development, the clairvoyant begins to hear sounds. Goethe spoke of the Sun's spiritual being. And when the men of ancient times designated the stars, the names which they gave them were intended for the Spirits of the Planets. The sun that we see, is but the physical body of the sun and Goethe knew quite well that there exists a Spirit of the Sun.

When a clairvoyant hears sounds after certain time, he is later on able to hear the “Inner Word”. The gift of hearing the “Inner Word” is called Inspiration, even as the gift of perceiving images in the Astral world is called Imagination. Imagination therefore enables one to see, whereas Inspiration enables one to hear. When Jakob Böhme and Paracelsus spoke of Imagination, they meant this gift.

In this meeting we can also say that the religious documents are inspired. Those who wrote them were inspired, that is to say, they were initiates who possessed the Inner Word. When a person develops the power of vision, the astral world opens out to him; the inner power of hearing discloses the Devachanic world, the spiritual world.

Yesterday I described the astral world. To-day we shall deal with man's life after death in the astral world. This will give us a basis for an understanding of reincarnation and karma.

We have seen that when we die the following processes take place: The physical body remains behind as a corpse; whereas during sleep the etheric body remains connected with physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and the Ego go out of the physical body at the moment of death. Immediately after death, the whole earthly life unfolds itself in every detail before the soul of the departed in the form of pictures. This process lasts for about three days, until the next separation, namely that of the etheric body from the astral body and the Ego. In the occult meaning we therefore speak of two corpses. After a while, the etheric body remains behind as a second corpse.

When the second separation has taken place, the capacity of memory ceases—but not for always—and a new condition begins for the human being. What is this new condition? Man now experiences himself in the world which he enters every night during sleep. But this after-death condition greatly differs from the sleeping condition. Theosophical books sometimes describe death as if it were a kind of sleep. But this is not the case; soon after death man grows conscious of the astral world. Nevertheless there exists in the proverb: Sleep is the brother of death. ... and this is justified. This new state of existence is called life in Kamaloca.

We have seen that during sleep the astral body works on the physical body and on the etheric body in order to renew their forces. This work suppresses consciousness during sleep and prevents us from having perceptions of the astral world. After death the astral body is dispensed from this work indeed no longer to restore fatigue, and for this reason it begins to grow conscious of the astral world. Upon the Earth, this force was used for the reconstruction of the physical body, but now it is free and exists in the form of consciousness. When the astral body is no longer obliged to restore anything, it perceives the images of the astral world. This also shows you why we should strive after a sound sleep.

Observe physical life here in this world, how everyone seeks to satisfy his senses. What a human being enjoys, is enjoyed by his soul, but the organ which enables him to enjoy is physical. If a person enjoys eating, the soul needs the palate for its enjoyment. After death the longing for these enjoyments continues to exist, whereas the organs no longer exist. The soul yearns for good food, but the organ enabling it to taste it is lacking. The longing can no longer be satisfied. The soul is like a wanderer suffering terrible thirst looking in vain for water, for a possibility to quench his thirst.

This state of existence does not last forever, little by little the longings cease. Many religions describe it as a life in purgatory. And old painter sometimes depicted in other pictures with flames of fire. In fact, the soul suffers a burning thirst.

The further courses is that the human being feels his last longings and lives through his whole life backwards, as far as his birth; when he had no passionate longings. Afterwards man enters Devachan. This is clearly indicated in the Gospel verse: unless ye become like little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of God.—Little by little the human being must free himself from everything which linked him up with the physical world. Kamaloca is the condition in which he emancipates himself from everything which chains him to the world of the senses. It is influenced entirely by the sensory life in the physical world. If a person entirely submitted to his senses, his life in Kamaloca will be long and difficult. Ordinarily the Kamaloca-existence takes up about one third of the duration of earthly life. Past life rises up before the soul in the form of images and beings that torment us. In Kamaloca everything is reversed: what used to satisfy us, is now want. Hot passion calls up the feeling of horrible chilling Beings. And the burning thirst remains throughout. The more a human being freed himself from physical life before death and the easier his death, the more readily will he disaccustom himself to the world of the senses. In the case of suicides this will be most difficult of all, for they were the prey of an illusion: they do not consider that in violently severing themselves from the life of the senses, they will be seized by an unspeakable greed for their physical body, which would keep them in close proximity to the physical world. A similar fate—though in a weaker form awaits those who lost their life suddenly through some accident. Such a sudden death also brings with it an avidity for the physical world, for the physical body, but later on this will be compensated in Devachan. When the soul has laid aside its earthly desires, it enters the Devachan state of existence.

Spiritual science does not teach us to turn away from life. The spiritual scientist may use the following comparison: the soul resembles a bee that flies out to the meadows to seek honey and bring it back to the hive. Here on earth the soul gathers the honey of life which he brings to the altar of the Godhead after death. The soul could never do this without a life in the physical world.

When man incarnates and begins to see, he at first simply perceives through his eyes. Gradually spiritual enjoyment grows out of this. Physical pleasure changes into spiritual enjoyment. The savage with but a few incarnations enjoys the many colors and the simplest sense-impressions. With each incarnation his senses grow more refined.—If we had never enjoyed colours sensually, we could never attain spiritual enjoyment of colors. The sensually enjoyment is therefore a necessary deviation. We should enjoy the beauty of the physical world. Similarly, sensual love gradually leads to the highest, purest, spiritual love. The soul should transform every experience and carry it up to the altar of spirituality. Nothing, really nothing, is ever lost. Without the school of sensuality, we can never reach spirituality. The Earth is not a valley of tears, it is a gathering place and the human beings are—so the Bible says—messengers, Angels of God, sent out to gather honey.

The human being is passing through a process of transformation. Think of your childhood years! How many thoughts and concepts approached you and how much you took in! And how your thoughts and concepts changed from the 10th to the 20th year! Your temperament undergoes a far weaker change. A passionate child will still be passionate in old age. The temperament is engraved in the human body. A choleric person has quite a different expression, bearing and walk from a sanguine, melancholic or phlegmatic person. We should strive, above all, to change our temperament to a certain extent at least. This was a training Occult Schools. The whole trend of life was changed in Occult Schools. The essential thing there was to transform the will.

After death, our spiritual connections and ties reach us as far as Devachan. Two people are intimate friends and their friendship takes on more and more spiritual character. Yet the physical body constitutes a certain obstacle. In Devachan this friendship will find its full, pure expression.

Everything that we drew out of our earthly life becomes interwoven with the soul, with the spirit. This enables us to shape our next incarnation, as far as the body, and earthly life is the expression of what we worked out for ourselves. In the East there is a proverb which says: what you think to-day, you are tomorrow.

During each incarnation we thus work for the next one. In my next lecture I will describe man's experiences in Devachan. Life in Devachan is not a dream-condition, for the human being does not sleep through the spiritual world. There, his consciousness is a much higher one, it is more alive than here on Earth. In Devachan everything appears in a stronger light. We do not lose our friends in Devachan; our connections with them are simply of another kin—it is a far more intimate and spiritual union. Devachan is a far more real state of existence than earthly life.