The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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.

Today I should give you a description of Devachan, that is to say, of man's experiences in that world, between death and a new birth. We should not think of this world is situated somewhere else. It always surrounds us. But an ordinary human being does not possess the organs which enable him to perceive the facts pertaining to this world. We should moreover, bear in mind that our language, our words, are only coined for the physical world. The higher worlds can therefore only be described by comparisons.

An object in the physical world is found in Devachan as a vacuum corresponding to the space occupied by the object in the physical world, and a void, a nothing in the physical world is found in Devachan as something resplendent, radiant and resounding. We may compare this with the photographic negative. The physical object would exactly fit into the vacuum. It is however strange that this only applies to objects of Nature, whereas artificial forms made by man appear in Devachan as a positive. Everything consisted of firm, mineral substances, including the mineral parts of plants, animals and men, is a negative, a vacuum, existing in the first region of Devachan. This constitutes, as it were, the firm foundation of Devachan: the continent of Devachan. Negative images of physical-mineral objects therefore form the continental regions of Devachan.

In Devachan, all that constitutes life here on earth, all that enables plants and animals to grow, may be compared with the ocean. This is the second region of Devachan. There we find flowing, streaming life. And this streaming life, these oceans of Devachan, have a great regularity. One might compare them with the blood-circulation in the human body.

The third region consists of air, it is the atmosphere in Devachan. It contains everything which is known on Earth as feeling and sensation. There, the currents of pain may be felt like the winds which blow on the Earth. Every calamity that takes place in the physical plane can be heard in this region. For example, through clairvoyance he was able to have perceptions in Devachan, a battle appears as a terrific tempest, unchaining itself in lightning, thunder and storms.

In the fourth region we find all the fruitful and valuable ideas ever thought out by man. Even as the starry sky surrounds us here on Earth, so in this fourth reason we find a wonderful starry writing. It can be read as these so-called Akasha Chronicle. All the thoughts connected with human deeds are everlastingly engraved there and may be read. But we come across a still larger writing in Devachan. At the foundation of each animal, each plant, each crystal, there is a thought, an idea. All this is engraved in Devachan.

In the fifth region man discovers his true being. “Tat twam asi—this is thou”, the great central truth of the Vedanta philosophy resounds in this region.

In the continental region man gradually overcomes the feeling of importance which he attributes to his own body. He learns to compare his physical existence in a selfless way with every other form of physical existence. With every incarnation he becomes a degree less selfish. The first region of Devachan is the great school leading to this degree of perfection.

Whenever man passes through the second region, the oceanic region of Devachan, he experiences the unity of all life. Little by little, with the development of a theosophical mentality, this truth of the one life contained in everything, will gradually enter human life. When we incarnate again, we still have a pale reminiscence of this streaming life which pervades everything.

In the third sphere, the atmosphere of Devachan, the initiate and the human being living between death and a new birth perceive every pain and pleasure in the form of wonderful atmospheric phenomena, in the sound of thunderstorms, lightning and tempests. We are then outside the soul-emotions and can therefore look upon them objectively, recognize their full significance. We come back to a new earthly life enriched by this observation, this experience gained in Devachan.

When we reach a certain stage in our inner development, we shall be able to recall our past earthly lives. This is only a question of development. Everyone will finally reach this stage. The frequent repetition of Devachanic experiences will impress these pictures so deeply upon us, that our ordinary memory will suffice.

Yesterday I spoke of the path followed by man's nucleus after death and of his return into a new earthly life. After death there arises first of all the picture-tableau of etheric body, then follows a short sleep-like condition in which the causal body frees itself. This asserts itself in the form of rays which radiate in blue and indigo colors out of the ether flame-like forms. When the astral body has remained behind is a third corpse, it continues to live for a time in an existence of its own and then it is absorbed by the astral world. Such "astral shades" (specters) are often cited by mediums in spiritistic séances. Then after a long preparation (Kamaloka), man enters Devachan, where he transforms his experiences into capacities.

After having passed through the first two regions, he reaches the third region, the atmospheric region of Devachan. There he experiences everything which takes on the form of pleasure and pain, passions and instincts, these constitute the "atmosphere" of Devachan. To the spiritual human being this is as vivifying an element as oxygen the physical human being.

When the human being has thus transformed his whole life in an alchemistic way, his causal body and his Ego return to the earthly sphere. The human germs arise, described as bell-like shapes, which arise through the fact that the astral substance comes flying towards them in accordance with the inner force-streams of the capacities acquired by each human germ. None of these forms resembles the others in regard to color and shape; this expresses the different individualities. Their whole character is contained in these forms and colors and is expressed in them.

The new etheric body arises, as we have seen, not through the attraction of etheric substance, but only through the activity of the so-called Mahadevas. The attraction of the new etheric body takes place when the bell-like shape has already found a path leading to the embryo. A complete connection of the etheric body with physical germ of man only takes place in the seventh month after conception. Until then the bodies are connected, but this connection does not reach as far as the germ. Beings called the Lipikas lead the human being to the parents and into the family-conditions in which he can best live according to his karma.

Let us now discuss how karma works in the individual human being. Let us envisage man deeds: this will show us that behind them always lies a definite character-disposition. The external deed may be the same, though the motives may differ. Deeds and their effects appear to begin with, in the external favorable or unfavorable karma. Also the character, the inclinations and habits express themselves in karma.

These lasting qualities of man are contained in the etheric body and in the next life they are elaborated in the physical body. They transformed themselves into forces which appear in the next life in the physical body as organ-forming forces. Since the qualities of the etheric body have such an influence upon the physical body of the next life, the healthy or unhealthy constitution in one life depends on inclination and habits of a past one.

In this life we may thus influence our next one by cultivating noble inclinations and feelings, thus rendering the body of our next incarnation strong and healthy. The causes of illness are indeed of a moral kind.

This transformation of the moral forces often lasts very long. Decadent peoples and races have a kind of putrefaction process in their astral bodies. The invading Huns and Mongols also brought such fear and terror to the European populations because they had this decadent astral substance. But fear and terror are a good soil for such putrefying astral substances. These forces entered the bodies of European peoples and the result was the terrible disease of leprosy in the Middle Ages. Such putrescent substances, carried by the Huns and Mongols, cannot harm those who are fearless and courageous.

Since moral qualities appear physically in the next generation, we not only work our own benefit by living morally, but for the health of the next generations.

Let us continue our considerations on the effects of the law of Karma, and report what has already been explained: The actions of past lives come to expression in the present life as external life-destinies. The inclinations, the temperament, etc. of the past life change into the physical constitution of health in this life.

Another connection presents itself when we study man's life of thoughts. Our thought-life is an activity of the astral body. The nature of our thought-life influences the etheric body of our next life, that is to say, the lasting moral attitude and mentality. Let us study the mood of the Schopenhauer, who was a pessimist. To view life pessimistically or optimistically, produces a quality in the etheric body; in the case of pessimism this attitude is due to the fact that in a past life such a person had unsatisfactory or unhappy experiences. When someone judges his fellow-men negatively, does nothing but criticize, this inclination will express itself in a next life in a definite physical constitution, namely in the fact that this person will soon grow old and not evince much youthfulness. A good preparatory condition for the next life is to meet all people in a loving way and not reject them.

How is heredity linked up with the fact of reincarnation and Karma? Many will try to oppose reincarnation with the objection that there are our families in which all generations were musicians, and they will trace this back to heredity. A great theosophist once said: It is not true that children resemble their parents, it is rather that the parents resemble the children. Let us throw light upon the meaning of these words.

In the beginning of his development the human being had an astral body which had not yet been elaborated by his Ego. During the course of the incarnations the Ego begins to work into the astral body. The astral body and thus becomes more perfect. The capacity of distinguishing truth from error is only an acquisition of later incarnations. Everything in life must first be learned through experience. A true judgment only develops through error. Mathematical truths also arise through the fact that the opposite is false. Man continually works upon his astral body with his Ego; A clairvoyant sees a great difference in the astral body of a developed or undeveloped person.

As a result of this work upon the astral body there is in every human soul a part still filled by lower instincts and passions, and a part spiritually elaborated by the Ego. Francis of Assisi for example had completely transformed and elaborated his astral body. That part of the astral body which has been transformed by the Ego is designated by the occultists with the Oriental expression of Manas.

Far more difficult than the work upon the astral body is the work upon the etheric body, because it is far more difficult to permeate it. This impermeable quality of the etheric body is in part man's own work, in so far as it is the result of former deeds, but in part it is also the work of other higher Beings who were active when the etheric body was formed. The more a human being works into his ehteric body, the more he becomes what is cllled a religious, wise person.

An occultist must not only know the method of working upon the astral body, but also that of working upon the the etheric body. The occult disciple transforms his etheric body consciously, so that he acquires the faculty of exercising a harmonizing influence upon the forces of the etheric body. In the case of an initiate this influence on the etheric body manifests itself in such a way that in certain phases of his life he can command over forces which he would otherwise not have. What thus arises, as a result of the Ego's work upon the etheric body, is called Buddhi, and a person who has reached this stage is called a Chela.

At a certain moment the Chela grows conscious of his past earthly lives.

Last of all, upon a very high stage of development, the human being also gains control over his physical body. Such an initiative is called a "Master&". The part of the physical body over which the human being gained control, is called Atma. In this lecture we cannot deal with the mystery of working into the physical body, and with the flashing up of Atma, which is the result of this work.

Everything coming from a past life which has not yet been elaborated by the human Ego, continues along the path of ordinary heredity and faces him in a new life as the karma of the generations. This is in the case of modern people a more or less larger part coming from the astral body, the greatest part coming from the etheric body and generally everything coming from the physical body.

In the case of an Initiate or a “Master”, we see the following: When he is born, he only bears a small outward resemblance to his family, and in his whole appearance he bears a far greater resemblance to the appearance which he had during a past incarnation, because he was already able to work into his physical body. Heredity works most strongly of all in the incarnation of insignificant personalities but where personality is strongly differentiated and marked, resemblance is slight. Let us take a human nucleus with definite capacities, that was incarnated many centuries ago and now tends towards a new incarnation. In accordance with his capacities he must feel attracted towards parents whose physical qualities most closely correspond with his capacities. He seeks out the family whose bodily constitution and being can give him the most suitable physical body, the one he needs in order to give full expression to his capacities. A great musician will need a line of ancestors that can give him a body with the best organ for his musical activities. This is the meaning contained in the seemingly paradoxical sentence: The parents resemble their children.

Another question arises: Is man's only work in Kamaloca and Devachan to work for himself? On the contrary, he also works on the remaining world. The fact that man continually enters new incarnations is not devoid of meaning and purpose, for each time he underwent an essential transformation. He returns to the earth only when he can learn something new. The events on the physical plane have their origin in the spiritual worlds. What produced the changes in the fauna and flora of Central Europe since the past 1500 years? Spiritual Beings and the not incarnated human souls! The physical is the expression of purely spiritual processes.

Even as the stones of houses do not accumulate of their own accord and become a house, so the animal kingdom cannot change of its own accord. Everything that changes within the animal kingdom proceeds from the astral plane, at least as far as the warm-blooded animals are concerned. Everything that undergoes a change in the vegetable kingdom is directed from the sphere of Devachan. Natural science traces back changes in the animal kingdom to adaptations to external life-conditions. To use the word adaptation is a make-shift. For it is the work of Spiritual Beings. Natural science can never discover the true causes for such transformations, a clairvoyant can see them.

There are Beings concerned with the transformation of the vegetable and animal kingdoms of the earth. Man also cooperates in this, when he lives in Kamaloca and Devanchan. Nothing ever happens by “miracle” everything is determined by lawful ordered influences.

Even as upon the physical plane the human spirit gradually formed communities and states out of small tents and huts, so he also transforms the fauna and the flora in Devachan. We ourselves prepared the nest where we were born. In Kamaloca, to be sure, man works upon the different animal species.

Before the human being incarnates, he has a foresight of his coming earthly life. (Karma) If this life will be a hard one, he may have a strong shock, and under certan conditions he may become an idiot, because his etheric body rebels against the descending into the physical body, so that its center of power becomes dislocated outside the brain.

In the following lectures we shall deal with the evolution of man and of the earth itself, with the evolution of the whole solar system. Also with the methods of an occult inner training, particularly with the difference between the oriental and the occidental initiation. Then with the Christian initiation, which exists since the time of St. John, the author of the Gospel of St. John and of the Revelations.

Occult research of man's evolution goes back far into the times dealt with by history and natural science. How does the occultist know of these long-past things? He knows them by investigating the Akasha Chronicle. This living chronicle of the spiritual world contains the documents and facts of which we shall speak. They completely harmonize with the investigations of natural science. Natural science also begins to be interested in the continent of Atlantis [See Rudolf Steiner's “Akasha Chronicle”.]. Atlantis always existed and was always known to occult investigation. It is important to bear in mind that modern natural science is better acquainted than in the past with what can be seen through the eyes, but the old science of the Mysteries knew of more encompassing, more powerful realities. What is not yet admitted by modern science, namely that also man already lived on the Atlantean continent, is a fact advanced by Occultism. Our forefathers, the peoples who lived on our continent descended from the Atlanteans. Of course, the Atlantean human beings, whose organization was adapted to the conditions of the earth which existed at that time, greatly differed in aspect from modern man. Atlantis had a quite different climate, and consequently entirely different distribution of air and water, it was a land of fogs and mists ... at that time there was no alternating rain and sunshine. Everything was wrapped in clouds and the only thing which varied with the degree of moisture. Only when the floods of water began to recede and Atlantis had gone down, rain and sunshine alternated. This may be found in the description of the Old Testament, where it speaks of the rainbow seen by Noah after the Flood.

Religious documents may be viewed from four aspects. 1) By taking them naïvely and literally. 2) From the standpoint of science which considers itself far cleverer than the authors of these documents. 3) From the standpoint of an allegorical-symbolic interpretation (which may be very clever, but is in many cases quite arbitrary). 4) From the occult standpoint, by taking the things described in the characteristic language of such documents again in their exact meaning, thus reaching again a literal understanding of the words. For example, Noah's rainbow, it's not a symbol, but it expresses the fact that a rainbow could only arise after the descent of Atlantis and the receding of the mists. There could be no rainbow in the ancient Atlantean epoch. Noah (“Bringer of Peace”) should be looked upon as the leader (the Manu) whose task was that of guiding the peoples out of the sinking Atlantis. It was at this moment that the rainbow first arose.

We thus learn once more to read the Bible literally and at the same time we gain an occultist's sense of devotion for facts which others criticize. Here we may apply the sentence: “With the growth of knowledge and understanding, you will feel that the critic in you becomes a mere apprentice.” There is a deep meaning and ancient truths in legends and fairy-tales. The German saga speaks for example of “Nifelheim”. This is the misty land of Atlantis. “Nibelungen-land” is a metamorphosis of the word “Nifelheim-Nebelheim”—meaning land of fogs.

The animal and vegetable world upon Atlantis differed from the present one as greatly as the human being of that time differs from modern man. The Atlantean's did not have high foreheads; their foreheads were flat and receded. The connection between the etheric and physical body of Atlantean were as follows: His etheric body protruded far, especially from the head. Human evolution consisted in fact that the etheric body gradually entered further into the head. The ancient Atlantean did not yet possess the capacity of abstract thinking, nor the power enabling him to say “I” to himself with a certain conviction. He had instead other highly developed faculties, for example the power of memory. The larger the anterior brain, the greater the intellectual power.

The Atlantean and was able to work in the outside world through his will. By a special volitional impulse he could stimulate the growth of plants, for his will-power exercised a magic influence. The Atlanteans lived in a state of dull clairvoyance. They did not see things materially, as we see them to-day, but in supersensible images. For this reason all their spiritual products have been imaginative-symbolical character.

In general, their civilization was quite different from those which followed. Particularly in the earlier Atlantean ages, they controlled the life-forces. They built machines which enabled them to rise from the ground and soar above it. But these gliding machines were propelled by the life-forces that lie concealed in plants. The vehicles of the Atlanteans were fed with grains of wheat, in the same way in which our railways are fed with coal. In this field many important discoveries will be made in the future.

Since the Atlanteans controlled the life-forces, they could build their houses out of trees which they bend at will. For their dwellings they only used living substances and no lifeless matter. The Atlantean was far more closely connected with Nature than modern man and his culture was a higher one. There was a city in which the highest Initiates lived which was spoken of in the ancient Mysteries as the city with the golden portals. At that time, also the way of teaching was different. By strong will-power, a suggestive influence was exercised upon the pupil.

The Atlantean still had a direct experience of how the divine essence flashed up in every phenomena of Nature. To him the breathing process was still something sacred and religious. In man all these religious feelings converged in a fundamental feeling. It's external sound has been preserved in the Chinese word “TAO”. Its sign, the ancient cross-symbol of the Tao is still preserved in Occultism.

The Lemurians were the forerunners of the Atlanteans; Lemuria sets forth a still more ancient stage of mankind's evolution. The conditions of the earth then greatly differed from the present ones, in view of the much higher temperature. The human being existed even at that time. This leads us to the relationship of animal and man. The human soul flowed together with the body towards the middle of the Lemurian age. Towards the end of Lemuria and upon Atlantis the human soul already lived upon the earth. But before, there was a time when the human being could not as yet have a soul within his physical body. The human soul then lived entirely in higher worlds, upon the astral plane. But we shall speak of this tomorrow.

We have followed the evolution of mankind back as far as Atlantis and will now proceed to the study of Lemuria and speak of the Lemurian human forms. These human beings are the first representatives of real men with bodies permeated by souls. Let us first consider the structure of the Lemurian continent and the type of human being who lived on it.

In the Lemurian age everything was filled with the kind of watery mass, out of which emerged islands which were all of a volcanic kind. Typical for Lemuria is the manifold change in Nature, in the forms and in life. The single forms and species underwent a rapid transformation. The Atlantean soul-characteristics were in the case of the Lemurians, still more strongly marked, especially the will, which also had the greatest influence on the form of the physical body. This consisted only of gelatinous, transparent substances, into which the present bones and muscles had still to be built in. An organ which plays a very great role to-day was then in its very first beginnings. This is very significant, for with the development of the lungs is connected the fact that man was endowed with a living soul.

This installment did not happen in a moment, but lasted throughout long epochs of time.—How was the human soul connected with the body, before giving life to this body which, according to present-day concepts was very misshapen? It was the same connection which now exists during sleep: the soul was outside the body, it soared above it and drew it with it to an earth which was at that time still permeated by powerful streams of life.

The Lemurian constantly lived in a sleep-like condition which may be compared with our dream-consciousness in which a living image-world appears. He could only perceive in this manner and he knew the meaning of the single images, thus recognizing the soul-aspect of things.

An important moment in evolution was when he first used his body for the purpose of perception. The human being moved about in swinging, soaring movements. For this purpose he had a special organ in his bodily cavity, a kind of swimming bladder. The lungs developed out of this bladder, under the influence of the soul that soared above the body. The soul entered the human body in the same measure in which man began to breathe through his lungs. He actually breathed in his soul, with the air he breathed. This process too is described with literal accuracy in Genesis, in the Six Days' Creation, with the words: And God breathed his breath into man and he became a living soul ...

At that time man had the outward appearance of a very soft-bodied dragon (the designation of snake does not quite correspond to the reality); his companions were toads, fish, frogs, etc., in short, a primeval world of reptiles and amphibians, though their present-day descendants can in no way be compared with them; for they are quite degenerate descendants. At that time there were no mammals. To-day no remains can be found either of these reptiles or of the human beings of that age.

How should the relation between animal and man be tought of? The theory of man's ascent from apes may be considered as obsolete, for it is based upon a false train of thought. Think of a morally degenerate and of a highly ethical man. The assertion that man is descended from apes is like saying that the perfect man descends from the imperfect one. They need not descend from one another at all, but they may have a common father and be brothers! The one developed upwards, the other became decadent. Also the relation between ape and man may be viewed in this light. On Atlantis, the human form was still ape-like. During the Lemurian age the sole possession of a body which was even less perfect. This body then took an upward course of development. But the ape-like forms have partly degenerated and have become the apes of to-day. The apes are therefore the degenerated bodily brothers of man.

In the Atlantean age the human race branched out; the one main stem to an ascending development and became the human being of to-day, whereas the other descended and became the ape of to-day. All animals which live among us are consequently human beings who were expelled and condemned to degeneration. The ascent of certain beings is only possible through the fact that others sacrifice themselves. The higher expels the lower, in order to rise still higher; later on there will be a compensation for those who were expelled.

In this connection we must speak of a cosmic event of greatest importance, without which the soul could never have incarnated. This is the exit of the moon from the earth. The moon severed itself from the earth and formed a secondary planet. Formally, moon and earth were one planet. Thus the evolution of the Earth and the evolution of man are closely connected. What the astronomer sees of the moon, is not the whole moon, for everything in the world also has a soul. So also the moon has its soul. The moon went out of the earth with all its forces, with its whole aura, or its astral part.

This event stands in closest connection with everything which one calls fecundation and procreation. The ancient Greek Mysteries still knew this. In the Lemurian age the sexes began to separate; before that time the human beings were hermaphrodites. There was no act of fecundation and conception; procreation took place in a manner which has been preserved in certain lower living beings. The separation of the sexes coincided with the separation of the moon. This applies to all living beings. At that time, certain forces were eliminated from the earth, which had given man the possibility to bring forth descendants without the aid of another being. These forces were eliminated through the exit of the moon. At that time earth plus moon circled round the sun. But the moon maintained the old movement of the earth-moon planet, for it does not turn around its own axis as does the earth. Even as the moon of to-day always turns the same side to the earth, its “sun” and never the back side, so at that time the earth-moon planet always turned the same side to the sun.

Sun, moon and planets are also inhabited by beings. In a still earlier time, sun, moon, and earth were one body, and everything which now exists in the form of human beings, animals and plants, still lived together with sun. At that time man still had a quite etheric form of a very fine substance and he lived a kind of plant-existence. Animal forms and human forms arose much later, for at that time everything still stood at one stage of planned-existence.

These sun-plants were of course entirely different from the plants of to-day. Nevertheless when they say with their blossom they strove towards the center of the planet, i.e. the sun, and that their roots stretched upwards. When the sun severed itself from the earth, the plants turned completely around and again turned their blossom to the sun. From that time onwards the blossom stretched upwards and the root downwards. the animals only made a right-angle turn, when the moon left the earth.¹ Man made a complete turn, so that he is a reversed plant, even as the plant is a reversed human being.

The life-soul passes through the three kingdoms of Nature. Plato therefore says that the world-soul is nailed on to the cross of the world. Also the human soul hangs on that cross, by passing through the three realms of Nature. This is the significance of the Cross in the ancient Mysteries.

From the world-historical aspect, the whole process of development exists for the sake of man. Life can only arise out of life, but life eliminates the lifeless. Everything lifeless has arisen out of life. The minerals are deposits of living substance. But life comes from the spirit. The spirit is consequently the first original source, from which everything descends. And man is the first-born of creation. He has thrown out animals, plants and minerals; the lower always comes from higher.

To-morrow we shall speak of the development of man towards higher stages of knowledge.

• 1. See in this connection: Rudolf Steiner: “Goetheanismus, ein Menschen-Umwandlungsimpuls und Auferstehungsgedanke” 1st Lecture: Die Antwort der Geistwissenschaft auf die wichtigsten Fragen der Zeit. (Philes.Anthrop.Publish. Company, Dornach)

The human soul is capable of development, its present state may be changed by training, particularly by a training of the etheric body. People who precede others in their inner development are called Initiates. The path which they tread and teach is that of occult schooling.

Our root-race (5th post-Atlantean epoch), the Aryan, descends from the most highly developed sub-race of the Atlanteans, the original Semitic race, that lived approximately in the region of present-day Ireland. The island Poseidonis mentioned by Plato may be considered as a last remnant of descending Atlantis. Manu, a leader of the Atlanteans, guided the most mature men to the East. From there, they wandered into the region of present-day India. An ancient civilisation arose: This ancient Indian civilisation arose long before the time of the Vedas. It still had a dream-like, altogether inner character. The soul-constitution of the ancient Hindoo was the very opposite of our modern one. To him everything external and visible was Maya, Illusion; he saw reality only in Brahman and in what could be grasped by Brahman.

A second civilisation arose further west. This second culture is the ancient Persian one, whose inaugurator and chief guide was the great Zarathustra, or Zoroaster. The Persias were already able to harmonize spirit and matter and. began to work and to transform the physical world through the human spirit.

A third civilisation arose still further west, namely the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian culture. Man's gaze turned still more towards the physical world, the external branches of science arose, with the study of the forces of Nature and of their laws.

From the very outset, this ancient primeval science revealed the following truths concerning our earth: The earth too is a being subjected to reincarnation. It passed through earlier stages and in future it will pass through further incarnations. One speaks of seven planetary conditions or Planets", through which the earth passes in its development. The names of these "Planets" are not identical with our present planets, but refer to past or future condition of the earth. But these conditions are related to the planets after which they are named. The first incarnation of our earth is called. "Saturn". Then comes the "Sun", followed by Moon"; "Mars" and Mercury" are the designations for the first and second half of the earth's development. The conditions which will follow are "Jupiter" and "Venus", These seven incarnations of the earth are intimately connected with man's development and are therefore even mirrored in ordinary life; names of the days of the week.

Saturday - Saturn
Sunday - Sun
Monday - Moon
Tuesday - Zeus-day, Mardi - Mars
Wednesday - Mercredi, Mercury
Thursday - Wotan-day, Jupiter
Friday - Freya-day, Vendredi, Venus

The world of the stars is thus closely connected with ordinary life. The ancient Egyptians still arranged their whole civilisation in accordance with the stars, the affairs of State, agriculture, and so forth. The genius of the Dog-star, Sirius, was the one who indicated the inundations of the Nile, when that star appeared in a special constellation. A fourth epoch of culture is the Graeco-Latin one. It imprints on matter the Wisdom of things. This is how works of art arise. In the middle of this epoch falls the deed of Christ; the Mystery of Golgotha.

We ourselves live in the fifth epoch of culture, of the fifth root-race belonging to the fifth age of the earth. This is the Germanic-English-American culture; its chief task is the conquest of the physical plane. The task of the subsequent sixth epoch will be to lead external civilisation again to a more spiritual life. Its standard-bearer is Anthroposophy. The future task or civilisation as a whole consists in becoming reunited with the Spirit.

Every epoch has its particular tasks. Modern science has rejected the Ptolemaic world-system as erroneous and has adopted the world-systems of Galilei and Copernicus: but for the astral plane the Ptolemaic system is correct; for there one sets out from quite different perspectives. The sixth epoch of Culture still reposes as a seed in the East of Europe; it will be the carrier of the spiritual culture of the future.

A time will come when the human being will have overcome bi-sexuality. Lower forces, sexual instincts will change into higher ones. It is not a question of destroying any instinct, but of refining, ennobling them. Thus phantasy is a product of spiritual ennoblement, the result of already purified passions. When phantasy reaches a higher stage of development it leads to clairvoyant imagination. In future all human beings will be able to perceive as Initiates do now, the soul-content of their fellows. To-day the word can transmit spiritual experiences through the medium of the air; in the future spiritual beings will be produced through the word, and finally the word itself will become creative; then the human beings will be magicians of the word.

The indications on occult training come from a deeply-founded knowledge. There are two fundamental qualities which man must have; he must be able to bear what one calls great loneliness, and he must gain a certain fundamental mood of devotion. In regard to the first, the loneliness of a few minutes each day is meant, in the middle of the active life of daily living, minutes dedicated to concentration and meditation. Even this can give inner strength to the soul. At first there will be an inner feeling of emptiness and sadness; but this must be overcome. All people who achieved a great deal require this inner loneliness for their concentration. The second fundamental requirement is devotion, the capacity to look up to something with feelings of reverence and devotion. Those who wish to ascend to higher stages of development must first be below and feel that they are there below.

The occult training of India calls for a complete submission of the pupil to his Guru. The Rosicrucian Initiation is the right one for Modern people of the West.

Before that there was the Christian Initiation. All three kinds of Initiation are in reality the expression of one and the same initiation, but the forms of initiation must change with the times.

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

On an earlier occasion I spoke of the powers that lie dormant in every human being, powers that can be developed and raise man to a higher level of existence.²⁰⁹ Just as the physical world is perceived with physical organs, so can the higher world be perceived with higher organs. At the time I spoke of the means, though only in a fragmentary way, by which human beings can gain higher vision. To take us forward to our theme, let us today consider certain means that are used in inner training.

New instructions have to be followed at every level. The things we are going to talk about today will not be sufficient on their own, but they are part of the process. One instruction given to prospective pupils is that one should develop a particular approach to the higher world, a moral approach. As a first step, we have to realize that just as we are sentient, so are animals sentient. But whilst people have individual souls, genera of animals have group souls. All lions, all sharks, all frogs and so on have a common soul. To put it another way: Whilst humans have their souls as an inner principle animal souls, with soul threads linking them, as it were, extend into the astral world. If you hurt a person, he alone feels the hurt. But if you hurt a lion, the group soul feels it, and this does not live on the physical but in the astral plan.

The aim of training is to find an approach, a feeling relationship to the animal souls on the astral plan. Let me give you an example. In some regions, the ancient Germans venerated the horse. They would put a horse skull at the top of their houses as a symbol. The choice of symbol shows that they had a specific relationship to the horse. Where did this originate? The horse only came into existence at a particular time. This animal genus evolved in the mid-Atlantean period, bit by bit, of course. This coincided with the evolution of cleverness. People may not have been clear in their minds about it, but they felt attracted to the horse the way a lover does to his lass. Arabs have a special relationship to their horses to this day. Mythology can give us some pointers. Thus clever Ulysses thought up a wooden horse. In this sense human beings will develop a feeling for the generic souls of different animals. When this comes to their conscious awareness, the relationship to the astral plan begins to open up.

It is also possible to develop a moral relationship to the plant world in this way. An occultist sees not only the beauty of a plant but senses something of a smiling or a sad face. You gain much from such moral feelings. If you develop such a moral relationship you enter into a relationship with the lower region of the devachan plan.

We can also develop a sensitivity for the dead mineral world. Rocks have a group soul on the devachan plan just as animals have a group soul on the astral plan. The souls of minerals live in the devachan, which is why human beings cannot reach them. Just as a fly running across my hand does not know there is a soul behind it, so do human beings not know that rocks have soul.

Now if stones have souls, you will also see that it is possible to have a moral relationship to them. A human, an animal body has desires, passions and drives. The plant body no longer has desires but it still has drives. The rock body has neither desire nor drive and thus is an ideal for us human beings, the ideal of letting our drives be made spiritual. This will be achieved in the far distant future for humanity. Human beings will then have bodies free from desires or drives. They will be diamond-like, no longer having inner drives, for these will then be controlled from outside.

A rock has this chastity today; it is matter free from desire. The occult pupil must develop such chastity here and now. In this sense, a stone is above animal, plant and man. An ancient Rosicrucian formulation begins with the words: ‘I have put the eternal creator word into the stone.’ Being chaste and virginal, the stone preserves this creator word in the depths of physical existence.

If we are able to enhance this inner response to the stone and make it a spiritual experience, we become clairvoyant in the highest parts of the devachan.

Let me now characterize the mineral world from another point of view. Let us go back to Atlantean times in earth evolution, such as we know it. The atmosphere was full of water vapour. Atlanteans also looked very different from present-day human beings. Even further back in time, on the Lemurian continent, where the temperature was extremely high, human beings were semi-aquatic creatures. All the minerals were also in a different state then. Lead could not possibly be solid then. There was also a time when gold was not yet a solid; this was when sun and earth were still one. When the earth separated from the sun, traces of this more subtle matter were still apparent. It coagulated, like all metals, and then existed as veins of gold in the rocks. Going back still further, we come to the time when precious stones coagulated. At that time coal was still transparent, existing in the form of diamonds. Physical conditions at that early time made this possible. Carnelian came into existence at another time, topaz at yet another time.

Now you need to remember that the human being had a soul at that time, but as yet no physical body. The condition of the earth was such in early times that it would have been quite impossible for a physical body to inhabit it. Human beings only had an ether body at that time. At a particular time, the potential for eyes developed in this ether body. The physical eye was only developed later by means of the ether body. All other organs were first differentiated and created out of the ether body. Every such ether organ development was triggered by desire. The astral body desired to perceive something, to see; it therefore acted on the ether body and out of this created the ether eye; the physical eye only differentiated out later. The etheric counter image arose in the mineral world, and this desire-free counter image is the chrysolite (olivine). Thus there truly is a close link between human vision and chrysolite. Occultists will therefore use stones for specific purposes. They are sentient of a sympathy that exists between vision and chrysolite and know how the stone may be used to influence some eye conditions.

The potential organ of hearing developed earlier than that of vision. In the mineral world, the idea of hearing arose chastely in the onyx. The sense of hearing is most closely related to matter in its purest form. Where sound waves move through space, the most subtle sound ether is present, also known as numbers ether or chemical ether. Other ethers are the warmth, light and life ethers. The subtle sound ether gave rise to the development of hearing and of the potential for the onyx. Let me remind you of the old man with the lamp in Goethe's Tale of the Green Serpent. His lamp changed all wood into silver, dead animals into precious stones, the dead pug dog into an onyx.

Carnelian developed with the sense of touch, topaz with the sense of taste, jasper with the sense of smell, beryllium came as the rational mind evolved, and the carbuncle stone when man grew able to form ideas based on images. There is a beautiful legend²¹⁰ about Lucifer losing a precious stone from his diadem when cast down from the heavens—the carbuncle. It is indeed true that this precious stone evolved at the same time as the human ability to form ideas awoke, first of all in images.

The emerald evolved together with the solar plexus, which has to do with the involuntary, unconscious movements in the human body. The potential for the diamond arose at the earliest stage of evolution, when the first beginnings of the human physical body developed. You see how deep relationships go in the world. This is not superstition but wisdom.

Let me give you two facts from the rich field of occult studies. You know that some unions are on the moderate side. One particularly moderate group represents a trade—the printers. The editor of their journal was actually dismissed because he was very moderate. In the printing industry, workers and principals first met. People have no idea of how much they depend on their environment. Printers work with lead—which attacks more than just the lungs—and this affects the soul sphere, creating a particularly sober attitude to life.

Another example. I met someone who eventually became a good theosophist. A particular ability he had caused him concern. He publishes a journal and is able to find analogies quickly. A scholar looking for such analogies may well sit for months and not get anywhere. This person found what he wanted by just picking a book from his bookcase. His thinking had grown so independent that the physical brain no longer impeded it. This does, of course, also hold great dangers. ‘Where do I get this from?’ he asked me. I told him that he might possibly have a lot of contact with copper. And that was indeed the case. He was playing the French horn, an instrument that also contains copper. This was sufficient to produce such a powerful effect. You can see from this that everything in the world around us has a profound influence on the human being, and this is how metals and precious stones relate to the nature of the human being.

Questions and answers

(Question not taken down.)

Looking at plants with an artist's eye the situation is that this does indeed first of all have an effect on the astral body, whilst occult vision influences the ether body. An artist may well get in touch with the archetypes for many of his works, be they sculptures, paintings or melodies; you meet them consciously on the devachan plan.

What is gold?

When earth and sun were still a single mass and still wholly pure ether, everything was dissolved, and the degree of subtlety was like that of sunlight. Minerals could not coagulate then. It was only after the sun had departed and some of the pure sunlight had remained with the earth that this condensed into gold in the earth's veins. Gold is condensed sunbeam and directly connected with the sun.

Sapphire corresponds to the feet in humans. The feet are much more important than is usually thought. There was a time when the feet still had the ability to hold fast by means of a kind of suction, similar to the way a fly does it.

Opal corresponds more to a region from which the lung, too, has evolved.

Ruby has to do with the 'higher organ of the brain', as it is called, the organ of intuition.

Iron causes some excitation of sensual nature in man. When the earth met with Mars, this quality also entered into the blood. An occultist does not like to touch objects made of pure iron.

Question concerning Edward Bulwer's novel The Coming Race²¹¹

Everything that has existed on earth before will return. The vril power is based on something special. Today people can really only make use of the powers that lie in mineral nature. Gravity is mineral, electricity is mineral by nature. We are able to run railways thanks to coal. Something human beings are not yet able to use is the power that lies in plants. The power that makes the tall stems of wheat grow in a field is as yet a latent power. Human beings will make it serve their aims just as they do the energy of coal. And this is vril. It is the power fakirs use, and they live in an atavistic way—characteristic of the ancestral state.

Was Goethe an initiate?

Goethe's initiation took place between the time he lived in Leipzig (1765–1768) and his time in Strasbourg (1770–1771), at a time when he was close to death. He was not conscious of the fact, however. He only became aware of it in 1795. It had come up again in him as early as 1794, but only vaguely. At a moment of enlightenment he then wrote his poem Die Geheimnisse (the secrets), which has remained a fragment. He only truly revealed his beliefs in his Tale of the Green Serpent and the Beautiful Lily. His initiation on the physical plan was done by a particular individual.

• 209. See lectures given in Leipzig in June and July 1906, in Kosmogonie (GA 94), Engl, as ‘Extracts of 12 lectures, Leipzig 28 June–10 July 1906’ in Anthroposophical News Sheet 1946; vol. 14, 39-50.
• 210. Interpretation of the grail found in Albrecht von Scharfenberg's ‘Jüngerer Titure’. See Uehli, Ernst, Eine neue Gralssuche S. 6 & 248; Stuttgart 1921.
• 211. Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George, 1st Baron (1803–73). The Coming Race published in 1870. Was translated into German at the suggestion of Rudolf Steiner and Giinther Wachsmuth.