The Rudolf Steiner Archive

When a person has developed their spiritual faculties through meditation and concentration and consciously enters the astral plane, they see a completely different world. They see a world of images, a world of symbols around them. Usually, the astral world is viewed too sensually, that is, it is felt and described by the clairvoyant, who is still new to this, much like a material, sensually perceptible world. In addition, he often mistakes mirror images of the etheric realm for astral images; some descriptions of the astral world are not much different from mirror images of this etheric realm. In the astral realm, everything is seen in colors: if a hostile being approaches us, the clairvoyant sees an orange-yellow color image; if it is a being that is sympathetic to us, the color image is indigo blue. Everything is seen the other way around, as in a mirror image, and this also applies to time. For example, you first see the chicken and then the egg from which it hatched; or you first see the flower and then the root of the plant. The same happens with our soul life: The passions and desires that emanate from a person come towards him on the astral plane as animal-like beings from space, as snakes, wolves and so on, depending on the nature of the feelings and desires. Every noble desire and feeling that is held back by circumstances on earth comes towards him there in magnificent color images. Man, immersed in materialism, and in many cases highly gifted personalities whose thoughts, however, go no further than the world of sensory perception, see here the emptiness of their ideals. The artist, the scholar who loves his art and science for the pleasure they give him, and does not place them in the service of the development of humanity towards the spiritual ideal, sees here the vanity and futility of his aspirations. The knowledge of the higher realms that Theosophy gives us must provide us with the means to advance the spiritual development of humanity.

We will now move on to the experiences on the astral plane after death. Death differs from sleep only in that not only the astral body but also the etheric body with the higher bodies leaves the material body.

Otherwise, the physical body is never left by the etheric body between a person's birth and death if they do not undergo certain states of initiation. The most important moment for a person after death is the moment immediately after dying. This moment can last for hours, sometimes days. In this state, the life of the last incarnation passes by as a memory. The peculiar thing about this memory panorama is that when looking at these life memories from the cradle to the grave, all subjective feelings of joy and pain have disappeared. It is as if one is looking at the life story of someone else, so impersonal is one's relationship to it. The same phenomenon is experienced when, due to a sudden shock – for example, falling into an abyss or being in danger of drowning – an instantaneous separation of the physical and etheric bodies occurs. The etheric body, not the astral body, is the carrier of our memory. As long as the etheric body remains attached to the astral body, the memory image of our last incarnation remains with us. This depends on the duration of our ability to stay awake during our life in the material body. If we can stay awake for three days, then the etheric body will remain connected to the astral body for three days. As soon as the etheric body lets go of the astral body, the panorama of memories disappears. But as a fruit, as a seed for a future incarnation, an essence of these life experiences remains, which is stored in the causal body.

From each life, one brings one's experiences as the essence of life in the causal body; each life increases the power of the content of that life essence. This is the cause of the diversity of innate abilities that each person brings into their new life as a result of their previous lives, whereby their life will be rich or poor according to their abilities and predispositions. To understand the life of the astral body after it has separated from the etheric body, we must first take a look at the astral world and its conditions. The astral body is the body of desires. The seat of our desires and passions lies in the astral body. The material body is only the tool of the astral body to live out its desires and passions in the material realm. At death, the material body, the tool of desires, falls away, but the desires remain. This is where the burning fire of lust and desires in the Kamaloka period arises.

The Kamaloka period, the time you spend in the lower part of the astral plane, will be shorter or longer depending on whether we have desired more strongly and coarsely during our life on the material plane. On average, the Kamaloka period lasts one-third of our lifetime on the material plane. The peculiar thing about the Kamaloka period is that one relives one's life again, but now from back to front: one begins with the last life experience and goes back at triple speed to the time of childhood. While the memory of one's life in the etheric body [immediately after death] was without joy or pain, one now relives all the joys and pains of one's past life again, but in reverse, which means that one experiences everything one has done to others, the suffering and the joy, oneself. These memories remain as impressions in the astral body, to fulfill our karma in future incarnations, in which we are born with the same personalities to whom we have done good or evil in previous incarnations. Now [after the Kamaloka period] the astral body is released. When the person has left his material, etheric and astral bodies, he reaches the state that is mystically expressed in the Bible with the words: Unless you become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.

We must now study the devachanic world. It is just as varied as our material world. There, as here, we can speak comparatively of a continental area, an ocean area and an air area (atmosphere or aura), which permeate each other. The continental area contains the archetypes of the material world, insofar as they are not animated with life, that is, the material forms of minerals, plants, animals and humans.

Imagine a limited space filled with material bodies. Seen with a devachanic gaze, the material forms disappear, but a radiance around the bodies begins, while the space occupied by the material bodies forms an empty space, a negative or shadow image. Animals and humans, seen in this way, appear as negative images: Blood appears green, which is the complementary color of red. The entire material world is present in this way as an archetypal image in the devachanic realm.

The second realm, the oceanic realm, consists not of water but of flowing life that permeates the entire devachanic realm, just as the bloodstream permeates everything in the human body. The unique substance, the “Pran”, which flows here [on earth] in separate animal and human bodies, forms an eternally flowing stream of life in the devachan, the color of peach blossoms. This element is the creative force of everything that appears on earth as a living being. In Devachan we see that the life that animates us all is indeed a unity.

The third realm can best be characterized by saying that everything that takes place here [on earth] in the soul in terms of inner feelings of joy or pain, passion or anger, is revealed there as an atmospheric phenomenon. The silent longing of a human soul can be perceived there like a gently whispering wind; an outburst of passions like a storm wind; a battlefield caused by the outbursts of hatred, anger and lust for murder causes a heavy thunderstorm with rolling thunder and bright lightning strikes. Just as the earth is surrounded by its aura, so the devachan has around it, scattered about, all the feelings that are nurtured or expressed here on earth.

The fourth region of devachan has no direct connection with the lower worlds. The archetypes found there are beings that rule over the archetypes of the lower devachanic realms and bring them together. They are therefore more concerned with organizing and grouping the archetypes that are subordinate to them. A greater power emanates from this realm than from the lower three.

In the fifth, sixth and seventh regions of Devachan, we find the creative forces of the archetypes. Those who can ascend this far learn about the underlying objectives of our world. The archetypes are still present here as soul-inspired germ cells, ready to take on the most diverse forms when they enter the lower realms. The ideas through which the human spirit appears in the material world are a reflection, a shadow image of these germs of the higher spiritual world. The harmony of the spheres of the devachanic realm is here translated into spiritual language. Here one begins to hear the spiritual word, whereby things express their inner being not only in tones and sounds, but also in words. They say their “eternal names” to [the human spirit.

We will only understand the value of the stay in Devachan when we follow the soul's pilgrimage through the three worlds in brief. As long as a person lives in his body, he works and creates in the material realm, but he works there as a spiritual being. What his spirit creates is expressed in material forms; as an emissary of the spiritual world, he must inspire the material with his spirit. However, as long as he is bound to the material body, his spiritual life cannot fully develop. He must repeatedly return to the devachanic realm to gain new spiritual strength and new insights into the goal and striving of the soul and the world. Thus the material world is at the same time the place for creating and for learning, that is to say: [the human being] must learn about the properties of matter in the material world and know how to make them subservient to revealing the spirit. In Devachan, what has been learned and the experiences of the material realm are transformed into spiritual qualities. The person works on themselves in order to better fulfill their life's work with each re-embodiment. Thus, their gaze is always directed towards the earth, their current place of work, in order to bring it ever closer to perfection.

What he has thought on earth, he experiences in Devachan. There, the human being lives between thought images that are reality there. One sees the world of thought in action, creating and forming thoughts and sending them to earth. Among the thought images that one sees there is also the thought image of one's own body. One no longer feels related to one's body at all, but completely identifies with the spirit and asks oneself: Who are you? One learns to see one's body as part of a greater whole; one learns to understand the unity of everything that surrounds us. Thus, from the devachanic realm, one views one's entire life as if from a higher vantage point from the outside. The fruits of life experiences are collected here in the causal body so that they can be transferred to the following incarnations. One looks back on many past incarnations and strives to incorporate one's life experiences into the life plan for future incarnations. The past and the future are illuminated for a moment in a bright light before the person descends again to a new incarnation.

By the esoteric life we mean the knowledge of the things of the higher worlds, to which we already feel drawn by a longing, a homesickness. How can we attain knowledge of them? To put it in a nutshell, it happens through initiation, which Dr. Steiner compared to the seeing of one born blind. Initiation is accompanied by a gradual awakening of abilities and powers, whereby we perceive unknown things that belong to a world of light, color and radiance beyond the realm of the material senses. The astral, devachanic and still higher worlds are indeed around us, and the development of spiritual life takes place according to the laws of nature, and not outside of their regular development. At some point we all reach these worlds, and there have been initiates since ancient times whose development has progressed faster than that of the rest of humanity. Looking back into the dim and distant past, we find that in those ancient times the souls of men had not yet fully taken possession of their bodies. Men of those early times lacked the power of forming fixed ideas, and great Teachers were needed to guide them.

The first point to be emphasized is that no man can conquer initiation for himself. There is a mysterious occult law that no selfish desire can further our spiritual development, but only a sense of duty and altruism, and not only the feeling that I want to help my fellow human beings, but also the insight that I must prepare the tools to do so in the most purposeful way.

Consciousness of this duty is one of the first great conditions for the inner life and the influence of its laws. This is because there is a great difference between the thinking of the primitive man and that of one who has developed esoterically. For from the thoughts and feelings of the latter, consequences and effects emanate into the outer world. Therefore, the person who wants to begin the esoteric life must first be imbued with a sense of duty to humanity, of responsibility for the consequences of his occult influence on the outside world.

The next point that must be clearly in our minds is that the esoteric life is dependent on certain conditions in connection with the great laws of the occult world. It is now quite difficult for us to realize that it is not as we imagine it should be, but as those who know it by experience tell us. You make a glass rod electrically by rubbing it. But if you start saying, “I don't want to rub it,” you will never succeed in making your stick electric. Without submitting to the great laws of occult life, you will not get anywhere. To gain a preliminary understanding of these laws, we must clearly visualize the state of present humanity.

If we look far back into early humanity with the occult eye, we come to a strange discovery. In ancient Lemuria and also later, in the Atlantean era, as the Akashic Records teach us, man felt the influence of his surroundings much more than he does today. The physical possibility of sleeping depended on the sunrise or sunset. In another way, people were subject to the influences of the moon. Certain bodily functions depended with great precision on the cosmic clock. Certain events occurred at sunrise and sunset. It was physically impossible at that time to turn night into day, as it happens now in our big cities. Mankind lived in harmony with the rhythms of nature. The fact that this harmony was lost in Lemuria was due to the unconscious ego. It was only with the conscious development of this ego that disharmony arose. The ego began to show its self-awareness by deviating from the rhythms of nature. The activities that had previously been connected with the course of the sun and moon were postponed. Until this time, when this took place (in the epoch of the transition to the fifth race), man had possessed a kind of dreamy clairvoyance. Now, in conquering our present form of consciousness, which, as I said, first expressed itself in the deviation from the rhythms of nature, this clairvoyance was temporarily lost. The effectiveness of the self that had awakened to consciousness consisted in the ordering and purifying of the astral body, and this purified and ordered part became Manas. This Manas encompasses all thoughts, all memories, every intellectual function, and we can call it the self of the spirit, the spirit self. And it is the task of the self to make the astral body a manasic body through purification. But how can clairvoyance and clairaudience, which used to be part of the human being, even if only in a dreamlike way, but has been lost through deviation from the rhythm of nature, be acquired again? This can only be done by the influence of the principle of Budhi on the etheric body, which is its shadow in the lower worlds. In this way it can be conquered again, but not in a dream-like state, but with full consciousness.

The esoteric life wants to awaken this clairvoyant state of consciousness again through methods that influence the soul. The gift of clairvoyance is not given to man. The master or [the disciple he has tested] gives the candidate instructions, which, if followed, must bring him back into harmony with the rhythm of nature. In preparation, he can familiarize himself with the theories and teachings of the great esoteric wisdom through study, but this purely intellectual exercise is not enough. The candidate must devote himself to meditation and concentration at regular times each day, cultivating inner contemplation of his own soul life. Regular repetition has an effect on the higher soul life, of which the etheric body is the vehicle. The content of meditation should be one or other profound saying, and it is best if the teacher chooses this, even if it is desirable that the saying itself comes to us from a high spiritual authority, such as: “Before the eye can see, it must wean itself from tears.” This sentence contains a world of spiritual depth and was given by a Master of Wisdom.

From such a well, the truth flows inexhaustibly and springs forth again and again in new reflections and in a thousand shades of spiritual light. The esoteric life does not consist in intellectually understanding such a saying, one must approach it again and again with one's whole soul. One should not always seek or want a new saying, but the same content must go through the soul again and again. This also explains the powerful effect of prayer: those who pray allow the same spiritual current to pass through their soul again and again. And repetition means acting on a different spiritual vehicle than that of the intellect.

If we follow the structure of the human being, we find on the one hand the I, this name that is inexpressible to the environment, and on the other hand the four lower principles, each of which must be transformed and made conscious by the I. Thus, the desires must be transformed into moral ideals. If we compare the savage with the European with the occult eye, we see that in the former the astral body is unified, but in the latter, a part of it has been transformed by the ego into manas. The sight of the aura proves this. And this manas is the spiritual self in occultism, but in its lowest form. 'But man is not only manas. As a person grows older, he gains in knowledge, at least up to a certain age. But what remains almost the same – unless he develops his being according to occult methods – are his habits and temperament. These habits, these characteristics, these habits proceed from the etheric body. Only impulses from the buddhi, of which the etheric is the reflection, can have a determining and developing effect on the etheric body. These impulses, which must act on the etheric body again and again, are awakened by devotional religious feelings, true art, and music. Thus, through the influence of Budhi, the etheric body is awakened and transformed, and the power to consciously change a habit arises, which actually means to renounce a habit or to unlearn a moral failing.

And repetition also plays a role here. At regular intervals, every day, a person should devote themselves to the meditation mentioned above, not only grasping the content of the meditation but also immersing themselves in it with their soul. As much of the etheric is recreated in consciousness, so much is Budhi consciousness. Later, when the candidate wants to bring the principle of the Atma to consciousness, he will have to act on the physical body.

Now - said Dr. Steiner - we still have to get a clear idea of this repetition in rhythms. We have to imagine the matter analogous to the growth laws of the plant world. The growth of a plant is governed from within by the etheric principle. This etheric principle is guided by the law of repetition, so that the branches come on the trunk and the leaves on the twigs. The astral principle of the plant surrounds it from the outside as a shining light, guiding and taming the principle of repetition in its work and stopping the further formation of leaves at the right moment to make room for the formation of blossoms, flowers, fruit and seeds. The etheric principle is that of repetition, the astral principle that of closure. In the human being, the effect of the etheric principle can be seen in the structure of the spine, which is closed by the formation of the skull. To live esoterically means to influence the etheric body through repetition, because what happens unconsciously must be repeated in the mind. This repetition must take place day after day in meditation. Just as all the forces in a plant work outwards in growth, so in man all the forces must work outwards through meditation. Through this spiritual repetition, the soul regains rhythm; in other words, it has regular spiritual points of rest.

You can follow a simple rhythm every day or use the same saying week after week, but you can also make the rhythm composite, for example, by having a different saying for each day of the week. In this way, the rhythm is developed from that from which we ourselves are developed, and the I comes to independence, emerging from itself in rhythm. That is why in old legends, initiates of the sixth degree are called solar heroes, because they did not deviate from the rhythm given to nature by the course of the sun.

The esoteric life is not repetition alone, it must also have guidance and limitation, just as the astral highlight has in plants. This element is represented in the development of the esoteric life of man by devotional feelings, religion, true art; aligning oneself with an individuality as one's ideal. And this meditation and this devotion must then coincide, as in the plant, the flower bud and fruit.

But the man who devotes himself to the esoteric life must also keep his eye on the world around him. Escaping from the world is not his ultimate goal. He has capacity for work and industry and does not want to be a saint in the distance, but a saint in the world. It is not esoteric to go one's way, absorbed in oneself, when there is much to see, to learn and to do outside. And the work of such a person must be the outward expression of his inner being. Therefore, separation based on misunderstanding must give way to holiness in the service of humanity.

Dr. Steiner distinguishes three degrees or levels of higher knowledge that the ordinary person can attain through a certain kind of development: firstly, imaginative knowledge; secondly, inspirative knowledge; and thirdly, intuitive knowledge.

We attain imaginative knowledge when we see the things around us in symbols. The human race of the Lemurian period was familiar with this state of consciousness, albeit in an imperfect way. They did not perceive things as we do now, but saw floating images of certain colors and shapes in space, which appeared to them as either pleasant or unpleasant. Gradually, our normal day-consciousness developed from this Lemurian consciousness, and only remnants of the former remained. (Compare our dream state, in which an event in the material realm, for example a chair falling over, is symbolized by one or other complicated drama.) Through what is called the esoteric life, one can regain higher knowledge in a more perfect way. The conditions for this cannot be discussed in this lecture; the speaker only noted that a great deal of patience and renunciation of all lower human inclinations is absolutely necessary, and that it is not without danger to enter the higher worlds consciously, in accordance with higher degrees of knowledge, without an authorized teacher.

If you now fulfill the conditions, after some time you will see light images when you concentrate your attention on one or the other material object, which together form the so-called imaginative (astral) image that belongs to that object. Thus, when observing a plant from which new life blossoms, one will notice violet images that gradually change to a light red; when the plant dies, on the other hand, orange images appear, which after some time become brownish and dirty in color. Besides these astral images, one will also get to know beings that are unknown in the material realm, including the group souls of animals, which present themselves in the astral world as independent beings with whom one can make contact. As the impressions of the material world fade away, the new world of light, color and sound opens up for the person, but not before he has gone through a period of complete silence and without any light.

As one progresses in one's inner development, one experiences at a certain stage that one no longer perceives only imaginative images, but at the same time begins to grasp them. At this stage, so-called inspirative knowledge begins, and one becomes aware in the lower Devachan world. One gets to know one's fellow creatures through a certain sound: the “music of the spheres” is revealed to man, as are the group souls of plants, which in this world are certain beings and, so to speak, parts of the great spiritual being, the planetary soul, of which the earth is the material body. The material earth shows itself in the lower world of Devachan as a transparent crystal.

The third degree of higher knowledge, intuitive knowledge, comes to a person when, after long practice, they have developed the ability to live in all things themselves. Then one can empathize with plant and mineral souls and, for example, share the pleasant feeling of these souls when the flower is picked, the grain is mowed or the stone is pounded into gravel. Then one shares the life of all fellow creatures, and true compassion is developed. And one sees that of all forms in the nature kingdoms, beings are the ensouling life.

After Dr. Steiner had given an overview of how to gain consciousness in higher realms the previous afternoon, this time he spoke in detail about the results of clairvoyant research into cosmic development. Dr. Steiner outlined the following very briefly:

First of all, the esoteric teachings of the Rosicrucians should not be seen as different from other teachings. They present only one particular aspect of the truth that meets the demands of certain individuals. They are one side of a mountain that has a summit where all the mountain slopes come together.

The Rosicrucian teaching is, however, best suited to the man of the modern world, in which industry and the struggle for material things come to the fore and the intellect rules. Since the year 1400, human brains have been changed by the transformation of the astral and etheric bodies, and the teachings of the Messenger of the White Lodge, known as Christian Rosenkreutz, also date from this time. The main idea is the intimate connection between man and the world, microcosm and macrocosm, both forming an inseparable whole. Through the conscious “I am,” man distinguishes himself from all lower beings in creation.

The material body of man is the oldest and therefore the most perfect. The higher bodies do not yet have such a perfect organization, but one day the whole four-membered human being - consisting of I, the astral, the etheric and the coarse material body - must become just as perfect as the perfectly organized coarse material body. The development of the physical body begins on our planet in the state of Saturn, that is, on the first planetary chain. The etheric body begins its development on the second chain, when our planet was in the state of the sun. The astral body was born on the third chain, when our planet was in the state of the moon; and finally the I, which was only formed on this earth in the human being and is therefore the youngest link.

The four successive states of Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth correspond to the four elements of fire, air, water and earth.

The first sphere could be compared to a mirror of warmth that reflected everything it received, in which the spirits of will, wisdom, movement and form were mirrored, and the resulting mirror images were the germs of the future human being. In the Saturn state, the human body was nothing but a particle in a conglomeration. The first state of consciousness was very dull, but all-encompassing, like a stone in the material realm.

After the pralaya came the solar condition, here the gaseous formation occurs. The fire spirits then went through the human condition, and the future human being received his ethereal body. The human bodies looked like mirages, the consciousness was that of the plant, that is, the dreamless consciousness of sleep.

In the moon state, the astral bodies were added, and the liquid formation arose. Consciousness reached the third state, image consciousness, the imaginative.

Something special about this third period is that at a certain moment a part of the planet split off, taking with it the rapidly developing beings. This part became a sun; the old moon remained behind with the slower developing beings, the people of today. The moon also became denser, but there was no mineral kingdom yet. The moon can best be compared to a mass of spinach. Mountains and valleys were plant-like. On each following chain, a lower realm was created by those who were left behind, so that starting with man, the fourth realm or mineral realm did not arise until the earth period.

In this state of the earth, man finally received the ego, and a slower pace of development was adopted. The sun, the area of much faster development, emerged from our earth during the second root race; the moon, the area of crystallization of all development, emerged during the period of the third root race. In the first three rounds of the earth chain, the earth, sun and moon were connected.

On Earth, development progressed at a moderate pace, and in the period of the third root race, conditions had become such that man could receive the I.

Now the speaker briefly outlined the higher states of our planet, that is, the three later chains, which correspond to the Venus, Mercury and Vulcan states. In the Venus state, the higher manas is developed, in the Mercury state, budhi, while atma is unfolded in the Vulcan state. From the planets that had already reached this higher stage of development, guides and teachers came to our Earth to help humanity.

By considering the organs of the material body, the speaker pointed out that they were not all the same age. The heart, for example, is very old; the foundation for it was laid first. The reproductive organs, on the other hand, are younger and were only developed in a plant state.

In summary, the Rosicrucian esoteric doctrine regards the human being as a microcosm, a product of the macrocosm; everything that is revealed in the macrocosm must be able to be found in it.

At the end of the lecture, some questions were asked, in response to which Dr. Steiner gave his view of the composition and development of life in the planetary chains, whereby a very different view was given of the theory of the chains, rounds and races than we had been accustomed to until now, so that a great deal of adaptability was needed to think one's way into this way of thinking.

Dear attendees!

In our time, theosophy should deepen our entire cultural life on the spiritual side, so that through the theosophical cultural movement, humanity is once again pointed to the fact that everything in our physical, sensual life is based on the spiritual, the supersensible life.

All theosophical worldviews are based on two fundamental truths. The first fundamental truth is that our world, which is perceptible to our senses and our minds, is based on a supersensible, a spiritual one. And the other fundamental truth is that it is possible for man to penetrate into this supersensible, into this spiritual world.

In doing so, anyone who stands on the ground of this theosophical world view will very soon encounter resistance from some of our contemporaries and from those who claim that our science is beyond prejudice, that behind our physical world there is no superphysical, no supersensible world.

Others come and say: Of course, one may admit that there might be a supersensible, a superphysical world somewhere, but man's powers of knowledge, his faculties of perception, are in any case insufficient to reach such a world. The secret-scientific or theosophical world view should make man aware that although those powers of perception and abilities that make it possible for us to perceive the ordinary world around us do not lie in the supersensible world, the powers that lie dormant in every soul, when awakened, lead man into supersensible worlds. And if we want to clarify the whole relationship of man to the supersensible world in the sense of the theosophical world view, we do this best by means of a comparison, which shows that it is not fantasy and superstition when the theosophist speaks of distant spiritual worlds, but that these spiritual worlds are there, just as our world is there.

Let us assume that we could lead someone born blind into this room. He is surrounded by darkness and gloom, while you can see objects in light and color and shine. All that is around you is not there for the blind man. In the moment that we have the good fortune to operate on this blind man and give him the gift of sight, light and color and radiance emerge from the darkness. The whole world is now filled with new qualities and facts. And why? Because an organ of knowledge has been opened for him.

Just as a physical organ has been opened for this person, and a great experience is entering his soul, flooding it with a new world, so it is also possible that spiritual powers of knowledge and soul abilities, which lie dormant in every person, are awakened and that unknown worlds with spiritual facts and spiritual beings flow into the human soul. We cannot operate on everyone born blind, but these dormant abilities can be awakened in every human soul, enabling him to enter the [spiritual] worlds around him.

All that the spiritual, esoteric and theosophical spiritual current has to say to people today comes from such higher insights.

Now, our contemporaries who believe themselves to be on solid scientific ground will think that such a worldview will make us unworldly, will lead us away from the world, and will alienate people from the practical side of life.

Today we shall deal with a subject that is particularly suitable for showing how esoteric science or theosophy, based on its esoteric knowledge, is particularly suited to intervene directly in practical life; how it is precisely by revealing the forces and facts of the spiritual world that it becomes a useful means for people to work safely and appropriately in life.

We will follow a human life, a human course from birth to death, follow it from this theosophical or esoteric point of view, and see what practical aspects this theosophical school of thought can give us for such a view of life, which directly addresses the everyday, what is around us.

We do not want to talk about what Theosophy can bring in terms of knowledge for people, what extends beyond birth and death, not talk about repeated life on earth, not talk about the fact that Theosophy speaks of spiritual causes. We only want to look at the individual human life between birth and death with all the joy and pain, with all the expectations and hopes, with all the strength we need to lead this life as valuable as possible.

We see the human being enter life. But you all know that when a person enters life, they have already completed an important, essential part of their life, which is the part they go through as a human germ in the mother's body. There he is enveloped in a protective mother's shell, there he lives in this shell, and what does birth consist of other than in the fact that the human being, so to speak, sheds this protective mother's shell and steps out, so that his senses and his organism freely face the world and the elements?

Then, however, if we want to look at the effects of this external world on the human organs, we have to understand that the teaching of esoteric science does not only take this being as that which the external senses of human beings see, what the eyes perceive, what the hands can grasp, that for the theosophical view this is only part of the whole human being. When physical science takes this one part of the human being for the whole human being, it is not aware of the life that lies behind it in the superphysical.

In occult science, there is also talk of other garments, of a second garment; and you will immediately get an idea of what is meant by this second garment if we realize that spiritual science, like physical science, is based on facts, that [in the world of the supermundane life] the same substances are united by the same forces as outside in our seemingly inanimate environment.

There is a great difference between how these forces occur in a mineral and how they occur in human life or in any living life. This living life is the same forces that are out there in the inanimate world in the mineral kingdom, they are so intricately combined, so complicated, that this combination would immediately disintegrate if there were not a fighter against this disintegration of life in every moment of life. And this fighter is the second garment of the human being. We call it the etheric body or life body. And we say: every living being has such an etheric body, which prevents physical substances and forces from following their own laws between birth and death. Look at a crystal or another mineral. It has a form in which it presents itself to you. Through its chemical power it remains as it is.

A living being would never remain as it is through these forces. This is evident at the moment of death. Why then does the living being become a corpse according to its physical body? Why does it die? [Because at the moment of death the physical body has separated from the etheric body or life body.] Then the physical body follows its own substances and forces, its own laws, then it decays.

But spiritual science is well aware of the objections of physical science against the ether. However, this is not what we want to deal with today. We just want to sketch out how we have to consider the body according to the teaching of secret science.

We therefore have this second garment, which is a constant fighter against the disintegration of physical life. Then there is a third garment. This third garment is to be imagined as being in front of the soul. If you imagine a person standing before you and you ask yourself: Is there not something about this person that is much closer to them than a large part of their physical body and than their etheric body, they would admit: Within the skin of their physical body, they have something that is closer to them than their physical body and their etheric body. There is something even closer, especially if he is a naive person, if he is a primitive person who has not first convinced himself through scientific studies of what the inner man - his blood, his nerves, his muscles, everything that makes up a person - looks like, that is his urges, instincts, desires and passions. That is the body of sensations and perceptions, which flows up and down. This body of sensations and perceptions, the bearer of these cravings and passions, is the third garment of the human being, the astral body, as it is called for certain reasons in Theosophy.

This body is no longer shared by man with the plants. This body is shared only by the animals. The animals have just, like man, an astral body.

[But what makes man – the crowning glory of creation – stand out from animals is the fourth garment.] It is the sum of powers that command him to call himself an “I”. These abilities to call oneself an “I” mean more than many people consider.

This 'I' - or as one also says 'I am' - was, for example, called the 'unspeakable name of God' in Old Testament religions. Why? Because it was said that everything else in our environment, when it speaks or wants to speak to our soul, will speak to us in such a way that it speaks to our soul through the organs of the physical, etheric and astral bodies.

But that which flows through the world from divine beings does not need an organ to come to life in the soul. This announces itself to us indirectly in the soul. And when the soul says to itself, 'I am', and recognizes its own existence, at that moment it is rightly thought of as a drop or spark of divinity in the soul.

Some might object: Then you theosophists make a god out of man when [you claim] that the divine substances are contained in his ego. Anyone who makes such an objection could also say: If we take a drop from the sea and claim that this drop is of the same substance and essence as the sea water, then we claim that the drop is the sea. [Man's innermost self is divine in nature. It is a drop, a spark of the sea, of the divine, and therefore man also participates in the divine that flows through the world.] Just as the drop is part of the sea, so man is part of the divine.

These are the four garments. The physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and the body in which the powers lie, whereby man can express his “I am”.

If man has even the slightest grasp of the facts of life, then he can understand the various facts of life in relation to these different garments of the being. He would soon see the difference between sleeping and waking. One would see that during sleep, only the physical and etheric bodies lie in bed. The astral body and the I are lifted out of the physical and etheric bodies, and because the astral body is the carrier of joy, pain, desire and suffering, of all perceptions and sensations, the experiences of the soul, when the astral body is lifted out, descend into unconsciousness. Why is that the case? Where then is this astral body, where then is this “I” in the night?

It would be illogical if any person were to say that man dies every night and is born again in the morning. [Only this can make it understandable, if one understands that the ego and the astral body submerge into the physical and etheric body in the morning, that the ego and the astral body use the hands, the eyes, the ears, the whole physical body with the brain, use the physical body as a tool to be able to do everything.]

The ego is the spiritual essence of man, which in the morning descends into physical life and which in the evening, when man falls asleep, goes into other worlds, into spiritual worlds.

This is an experience that every person has every day from the alternation of sleeping and waking. But in death there is a completely different experience. Then the physical body separates from the etheric body and the astral body and I, which remain together for a while in the next moment. And because the physical body separates from the etheric and astral bodies, because the fighter who was there from birth to death is no longer there, the physical body follows its own forces and laws and falls apart.

We had to learn this in order to understand the course of human life, because in spiritual science, only the physical human being is born at the moment of birth, the physical birth, when the human germ leaves the mother's body. What is initially exposed to the external elements is initially only the physical human body, because from a theosophical point of view, we are not just talking about one birth, but about several births, and this language of multiple births makes the course of a person's life fully understandable.

We speak first of a second birth of man, which occurs approximately around the seventh year, or rather when the human being changes teeth. For many people, speaking of a second birth seems very strange.

Just as the germ is in the mother's womb until physical birth, so is the human being's etheric or life body, the second garment of the body, enclosed by an etheric sheath, by the etheric mother, until the change of teeth, and only then is this etheric sheath gradually pushed aside.

At first this may seem like a gray theory, but it is not. Only those who know that physical life is born at the time of physical birth and that the etheric body is only present at the change of teeth, only then does this etheric body freely face the world, can unfold principles for the education of the child. Now we present what follows from this: as long as the human germ is in the mother's womb, it does not come into contact with external light or external influences. This would be impossible, otherwise the germ would be destroyed. They have to wait to influence the light until the eyes, until the person is born. Every materialistically thinking person can see that. But they do not know that it is just as bad for the spiritual person to allow influences to flow into the etheric body that should only flow in after the change of teeth, when the etheric body is exposed on all sides. This means nothing other than that we have to base our educational principles on this.

However, until the age of seven, when only the physical body is exposed to external conditions, particular attention must be paid to the development of the body in the growing person, because all the forms in which the physical body must take shape are developed by the year the teeth change. And whatever is not laid down in the body in terms of form, in coarse or fine form, is lost for the whole of human life. The human being grows and develops, but the forms that become larger are laid down in the finest form up to that point. Therefore, during this time, when one does not have an effect on the etheric body, everything must be done to make the forms as good as possible.

We can only mention a few aspects that will show how to do this. There is a word that comes before the soul like a magic word in development, for this time until the seventh year, that is, until the change of teeth, and this word is: “imitation.” There is nothing as important for the development of the physical body as imitation. Everything that affects a person only works through imitation. What the child sees in his environment affects him through the senses. And not only physical things, but everything that happens in the physical world, including the moral things that the child sees around him, also affect the forms until the teeth change.

Imagine a child who has seen only evil and wickedness for seven years. This has an effect on his physical body. It causes such forms in the brain that these forms will be particularly suitable for becoming a special instrument for immorality, and it is no longer possible to improve in education what one has neglected to teach the child through ignorance.

I will give you an example from which you will see that everything we show the child, everything we teach him as principles, is imitated by the child.

Let's take a very good boy - a really good boy - who embarrasses his parents by taking some money from the till one day. The thought arises in the parents' minds: How can it be that a boy we have raised in this way takes money from the till? The child has stolen, the parents think. No, they say from the theosophical point of view. It is precisely because he is a good boy that he has done this. But what have you done? Day after day you did it, every day you took money from the cash box, the boy saw it every day. He should do everything that his parents do, and that is right. Therefore, he also took money. The boy was not a thief, he did not want to use the money for himself at all, or use it, he gave it to another boy. He just showed himself to be particularly moral, especially in this act. You have to make it a principle to only do in the children's environment what the child could actually do. What it must not do must not happen in its environment.

This is also very important for the plastic development of the organs, and only spiritual science can provide the right principles for this.

You know that a muscle becomes more plastic when it is used correctly. At this age, everything must be shaped plastically. The colors that are in the environment – be it red, blue, green and so on – all have a certain deep meaning for the development of the internal organs, as far as the physical organs are concerned; and many mistakes are made here. Because, as you know, there are many people who talk about what have been called nervous children, children who have a very restless nature. They believe that green, blue and dark colors should be introduced into the environment to calm them down. Others have very calm children and they believe that they should be dressed in light, red and white clothes. The opposite is true, because it is not the colors that affect these children. It depends on how these colors affect the children's inner being. For example, if you see a red spot on a black background, you will soon see that green lingers. This means that while you are looking at red, the inner organism perceives green. And so, when a child is excited and you bring red into its environment, red will not affect the child as you think it will. And it is precisely this that the child needs until the second dentition, that is, until the seventh year. Therefore, you have to dress a child who is restless in red clothes, while conversely, when a child is very calm, too calm, lethargic, green, blue, dark colors are needed.

You have to listen to me carefully. It is very easy to make the following objection, which is made again and again. People then say to me: “You see, when I put a red umbrella on the lamp in the evening, it makes me feel agitated.” The answer I have to give to such a lady or gentleman is: “Yes, but you are not a child before the change of teeth either. Of course, one must not forget that, and should bear in mind that for further development, other conditions are also present.

As soon as the soul has left the etheric shell, it is a matter of finding the right occupation for the child, and there is much in life for which a materialistic approach is quite, quite wrong.

One could – although someone who is grounded in spiritual science should not do this – one could become sentimental when looking at the many mistakes and their effects that are made in these areas. One could cite many things from the youth and life of a person who has become a great materialist, who denies everything else because he believes that everything results from the combination of molecules and atoms. This is because this person did not receive the right toy in his childhood, the one that can present life to him. If, for example, you give a child a toy like this, where it can create a whole new picture by putting together stones, thereby combining them, then new forms are formed through this. Any toy that evokes imagination is the right toy. This toy creates the impulse for the child to develop. For example, give a healthy child a doll that you made out of an old handkerchief, with two plaits for legs, two plaits for hands and a few eyes drawn on with ink. In the long run, the healthy child will most likely enjoy such a doll more than a real doll with real hair and beautifully painted cheeks, because such a beautiful doll – which is nevertheless always hideous – does not activate the powers of creative imagination, whereas if you give the child a doll made out of a handkerchief, it will see that this is not a human form. Then the imagination must be allowed to work. Then the inner plastic forms are called upon to be formed, and must be formed. These forms lie fallow if you give the child a toy that does not allow it to use its imagination. If you are aware that, as with the change of teeth, the child has to shape itself plastically, then you will find a great deal of support for the whole of education in theosophy, all of which has a good, deep foundation. We can only mention a few points here, for example, in the feeding of children, how the child is to be “educated”.

It used to be thought that young children should be fed a lot of eggs. Now, the best principle for this age is to absolutely not exceed the necessary protein requirement, because an excess of protein causes the child to lose its food instincts and the ability to shape its forms. A child to whom you do not give much protein will only demand what is healthy for him, and that is what the child needs to develop plastically. What is in the protein is something that, through its power, makes the plastic form exceed itself, and in this way secure instincts are not developed. By overfeeding the child with protein, you kill the power.

This, then, is the care of the physical body, the body that is born first. Now, with the change of teeth, the etheric covering withdraws, and the physical body and etheric body are now there. Now is the time to work with all our might from the outside to develop the etheric body. We must therefore first realize what forces the life body is the carrier of. Today, we want to give special consideration to the spiritual. This body is also the carrier of everything, especially memory, and then it is the carrier of the worldly power of imagination. Everything that a person does not grasp with his dry intellect, but rather what he can grasp through the image. If one knows this, then one will realize that at the moment the etheric body is born, an education must take place that takes particular account of this. This is therefore the second birth.

[The third garment is now still surrounded by an outer shell, by a protection.] This protection, the astral shell, will also be withdrawn, repulsed, and stripped off later, but only around the fifteenth year, at the time of sexual maturity.

Then, in the fifteenth year, the third birth takes place, and everything that penetrates the astral body from the outside and sends out its effects without realizing that it is still enveloped, has the same effect as light would have on a germ while it is still in the mother's womb. Now, for the second period of human development, which runs between the change of teeth, i.e. the seventh year, and sexual maturity around the fifteenth year, there is again a certain path that we have to follow. Here, too, there is another magic word that is just as important as imitation for the first seven years, and the word for this second period of life is 'authority'.

There is nothing that could ever replace the tremendously beneficial influence of the right authority in this age of life in later life. Just as everything around us awakens us to imitation up to the age of seven, so between the ages of seven and fifteen, no intellectual judgments have any effect on the human being. No moral principles can influence this person. That is all a matter for the astral body, and that has not yet been born. But when we look at the embodiment, the ideal striving, and confront the child with a true authority, then the right forces are awakened in the soul, which could not otherwise be reached later. If only people knew how important and significant the right kind of authority is! This authority is something very important for the human being in his life between birth and death. And in this time between the change of teeth and sexual maturity, all teaching and education must be built upon it. It is not enough for us to only say good things to the child; we must influence it through authority. We must teach the child everything there is to know through pictures, because only when the child has absorbed the image for the various 'whys' of nature within itself will it be able to receive everything it has seen in concrete forms so far in abstract concepts of the mind when the astral body is born.

It is necessary for the child to know how everything relates to the soul. You have to teach it this in pictures. When you show the child the butterfly puppet and show how the puppet develops until the butterfly flies out, and you tell him that the immortal soul leaves the body just as the butterfly flies out of the puppet, how it goes to the other world. Now, in our time, one can object: But children don't believe that! Do you know why they don't believe it? Because the teachers, because the educators themselves do not believe it. Now the materialistically thinking person says: Now you demand not only that children believe it, but also that teachers believe it!

Theosophy wants to make it clear again how the soul continues to exist after it has left the physical body, just as it is the case with the chrysalis and the moth. Yes, we will be able to believe in it again, and that is the most beautiful achievement of theosophy, that we do not see these things as a mere intellectual exercise, but that we have truths again that can also be understood through feeling. When people understand this, then faith is also passed on to the child, and the more the child is supposed to grasp of it, and the more the child is taught about it, the better it is for the child to learn to understand it through imagination. It is quite a different matter whether a child has experienced the secrets of nature through feeling and thus comes to the abstract concept, than whether a child has to understand the dry concept beforehand, without feeling coming into it. And this feeling works best when the etheric body is developing – and that is why particular emphasis must be placed on this in education.

In our time, in many areas of Europe, there are views that one should not turn the child into a memory machine. It is said that the child must learn to think. They teach him that Ix1=1 very early on, and the child must learn many other things soon. But there is nothing worse than having to exert the pure powers of reason too early. First, a fund of knowledge must be available, then one can judge what one knows. Today, children are taught history without understanding it, because children cannot yet judge cause and effect. The child must first have a sufficient amount of thoughts, and when the child sees many things in his soul, he can compare. If you only know a little and you start judging, you cannot compare, and [then] man is stupid. You cannot do anything worse for development in this [section] of life, in which our memory should really be enriched, than not to pay close attention to the child's ability to compare, which enables him to judge better. This is not yet understood today, [and that has already led to bad things]. Young people today give their judgment on everything, and we have to experience that articles appear in newspapers written by young people whose astral body has only recently been born.

If one knew how the laws work, then one should know that the astral body is only really born at the time of sexual maturity – around this time – and before this time the child does not yet have the ability to judge. The time from the change of teeth to sexual maturity should have the magic words: 'authority', 'image' and 'memory'. We could mention many things here, but one thing is particularly important: as soon as the astral body is born, the development of the powers of the mind and the aesthetic disposition of the human being come into consideration. Just as during the first seven years the physical body was developed, from the seventh to the fifteenth year the etheric body was developed, so now the astral body comes into consideration. If we want to assess this correctly, we need to be clear about a great many things, because during this time a great many images are placed before the soul. During this time, the human being must have good role models and ideals to strive for. The magic word for this epoch of human development is “emulation”. One must give these people pictures of great men and women and make clear to them what these people have done in the development of the world. And what has been neglected during this time in order to educate the senses for the beautiful and artistic cannot be made up for later. With sexual maturity, what has been inherited from previous generations, from the family and so on, comes out with the person, so to speak.

Then, when a person has reached sexual maturity, when he has shed his astral shell, the qualities that he has brought with him from previous lives come to light. Their shadows had already been cast over the young child, but if we look at the essential, what emerges is what goes beyond death and birth: individuality.

At puberty, the astral covering is pushed back and the astral body is released. And now there come times for the person when other things are important. Now, consideration is given to education, to the power of judgment, to a person's sound judgment. But something else is even more important. That which the person has brought with them from their previous life comes to the fore in a special way, that they want to shape in this life between birth and death. During this time, the human being is not yet capable of observing the external world in an objective way. But that which enters the world is of a beautiful, ideal nature. [This nature also wants to come out, and here it is a matter of how this nature, insofar as it comes out as idealism, will face life as hope.] This hope and idealism reveal themselves in their true form between the ages of 14, 15 and 21 to 22. During this time, everything that wants to come out reveals itself, even if it contradicts reality. These are all memories from previous lives, with the new fresh powers of the astral body. Woe betide people whose ideals of hope are clouded during this time, whose expectations are dimmed, who are told that a large part of these things will later appear merely as spring hopes, that these are merely unattainable ideals and hopes. That is not the point. It does not matter whether the ideals can be achieved, but rather it is a matter of the forces that lie within them. These are the favorable life forces that, if well trained, make our astral body safe and secure for life. When we have these ideals, we make ourselves a strong third garment, and there is nothing worse than not taking care for this time, that idealism can develop, when one encounters this idealism with a Philistinism that wants to try to break the idealism.

Because it is only around the twentieth year that the actual self in man, which has been in its shell until now, is fully born. And with that, the human being enters the world in free communication, and has become a being that places itself in absolutely free communication with the outside world.

Only then is everything that was in him out. Now he has to educate himself by grinding down. This takes a long time. It continues like this until the thirty-fifth year. This is an important year in a person's life. This thirty-fifth year is considered a turning point by those who stand on the ground of theosophical spiritual science.

If we look at the average lifespan, we see that the thirty-fifth year marks the end of everything that was predisposed in the human being. Up to this point, he has acquired everything he could practise. Towards the end of the thirty-fifth year, when the time of apprenticeship and wandering is over, he begins to exercise his powers and abilities. But then the powers begin to decline again. From the age of thirty-five, the astral body, which until then had been in free contact with the outside world and in which everything that had been established was engraved, now begins to harden and regress. This lasts until the age of forty. This is an important epoch in the development of man, because this degeneration is one side of the matter - and the other side is much more important.

The moment the shell, the astral body, begins to recede, the moment the forces of the astral body are consumed, that is the moment the core in man, the eternal core, is emphasized. If a person is educated correctly, this core can develop all the more for the times after death. While the temporal disappears downwards, this eternal in man grows. This is very evident in the fortieth year, when, after the astral body, the etheric body also begins to disintegrate. Just as it happened first with the astral body, so it now happens with the etheric body, which has now begun to regress. We can see this clearly in many people who, around this time, remember a lot of what they experienced as a child. Especially from the seventh to the fourteenth year, while they have completely forgotten many things that they have experienced recently. These old memories come back when the etheric body recedes.

The last epoch is when the physical body declines. This is, by and large, when the physical organs, the entire bone system, deteriorates. We do not need to describe this physical deterioration, but we point it out so that you can see what can actually be said about this epoch of life.

Now all this is no longer generally known, but there were times, very long, long ago, when all this was known, when it was known, for example, that the thirty-fifth year is the midpoint of life, and that only after this time, when you are completely finished with yourself - and that is around the thirty-fifth year - that you are only then mature enough to give to others, to spend what you have in abundance. Only after the thirty-fifth year do you have an abundance. Until then, man has to take care of the development of his clothes. So until his thirtieth year, man has to deal with himself. When he no longer has to deal with himself – only after his thirty-fifth year, because then the bodies regress – then the forces that previously flowed into his physical body flow into his spiritual body, in order to have an effect on his environment. In the times when people had an inkling of these things, this thirty-fifth year was therefore considered so important. A person was only trusted with judgment after he had reached the age of thirty-five, when he had received all his powers. Only then, it was said, did a person become capable of judgment. Other people should listen to his judgment when he no longer has anything to do with himself; and then it was valid as long as the person had his astral body. When the etheric body begins to fade away, then his judgment is not only decisive to be listened to, but to be accepted as something that applies not only to him, but to the community in which he finds himself.

In ancient times, when this was understood, when it was known that the one who had entered this age no longer needed to add anything to his etheric body because it was already declining, in that age the person could give his judgment in the council of the community. In the times when people knew about this, when they knew life in this way, they organized their lives accordingly, and they said something wonderful in those times when they felt these things. They said: Only when a person has reached the age at which his physical body gradually decays, so that he no longer demands anything and his time fades away, only then can you listen to him, only then is his judgment exalted. You can accept his judgment. Such things have existed, and many were aware of them.

I will remind you of just one fact. Just read the beginning of Dante's 'Commedia'. Then read how he describes what he experienced, where he writes that the most powerful thing he experienced was in the middle of his life – that is when he was thirty-five. There he experienced this initiation, which could be called the 'initiation into the mysteries of existence'. And there is a secret training, an initiation into the secrets of existence in special schools, in mystery schools, under such conditions that a person is never declared mature enough to speak about the facts of secret science, a person who still has something to do with himself, who is not already on the descending line.

If you take all this together from the spiritual-scientific point of view, you will see that on the one hand you have a path along which the various bodies - the physical body, the etheric body and the astral body - develop, and a path along which these bodies regress, an ascending and a descending path. But it is on the latter, on which the eternal in man grows, on which the source decreases, and man then has to pass through the gate of death. Then the powers that have been mysteriously developing in the sheaths emerge. And the more a person strives to develop himself in his life, and the more he applies theosophical views in the practical world, the better he has understood the true spirit of them.

We have now seen that we have gained practical principles directly from these theosophical views, and yet there are many people who say: There are such strange people in the world who call themselves Theosophists, who claim such strange things about a world that [in addition] is supposed to still exist [which we cannot possibly know about]. A reasonable person considers all this to be fantasy. You can say all that, but we assume that such people rise up until they say: Now, when you meet and talk to a theosophist like that, they do have a reasonable judgment about other things. So let us listen to the matter for once, even if they tell us something that we cannot yet understand directly; perhaps there is something good in what these strange people claim, but we can try it.

You can make life itself the proof. You can prove through life what is right. All the talking and discussing is only partially very good, but it is not the right thing. With discussion, you can prove virtually anything you want. It is the same with remedies. The healer thinks that his remedy is the best. But someone else may come along and say that what he has is definitely better, that his remedy is the best there is. Then someone else may come along and say: none of it is worth anything, and he proves it too. You don't get anywhere with such discussions. You only get ahead by using the remedy. If this remedy helps, then it is proven that it is good. If it does not help, then it is not proven.

If Theosophy is to have any influence on our lives, then life must be the proof for such things. Let man dare to put life under the facts that Theosophy talks about. You will then see that man comes up higher, healthy in body and soul, that man will develop better. You will see that life is the proof of the correctness of what Theosophy has to give, and you may place your whole life under the sign of the views, the facts, and you will see that the whole of life will develop more beautifully. You will see that it is not necessary for our hopes and our efforts to wane for it. If we fail to prove the correctness of our views to you, then they were not correct for you. But we know that what we say is right. We feel and know that the temporal dies and that the eternal grows. We run counter to the moments when we are to pass through the gate of death.

Thus, Theosophy, spiritual science, gives us the means to intervene in our immediate, practical lives in a healthy way, and the lives that have been influenced by this will provide the best proof of its truth. People today need the influence of Theosophy in their everyday lives. And life becomes healthy and fresh and hopeful and capable of work when man knows everything that confronts him in the outer world through the strong powers of the spirit, on which everything is based. Then everything should be a reflection of spiritual facts. Then, in all truth, spirit encounters spirit in evolution, and when spirit ignites spirit in evolution, then this development truly progresses, upward to the salvation of all life, to the salvation of all existence.

In general, Theosophy has only been known for a few decades, and yet it has always existed. Here we will talk in particular about how it meets the needs of our time. The word 'Theosophy' comes from the apostle Paul. He speaks of two kinds of knowledge: one related to the perception of the world and humanity through the senses, and one for contemplating the divine core in man. Through it, man ascends into the hidden spiritual world. Paul was called to work through his powerful word. In Athens, he established an esoteric school that was later continued by Dionysius the Areopagite, and from there the secret teachings that we have now spread. Although we cannot trace them in history, we do occasionally find inspired “bearers of these secret teachings. We see how they communicated the same to a few chosen disciples, giving rise to brotherhoods such as the Knights of the Holy Grail and, later, the schools of the Rosicrucians. It is the latter that will be the main subject of discussion here. Today we will talk about the nature of man as taught by the occult tradition.

Where does the knowledge of the spiritual worlds come from? There have always been individuals who were initiated, and in them what is in the spiritual worlds came to life. We do not perceive those worlds, but that does not give us the right to deny them; just as a blind person would be mistaken to deny what we tell him about his surroundings. In our midst live worlds full of beings, and just as the blind man can only see his surroundings if he is operated on, so we must, in order to perceive these higher worlds, undergo what I would call a spiritual operation, which is precisely the initiation. Spiritual science is a result of the life that the initiates led in these higher worlds through the organs of perception that developed within them [...]. We shall see later what is needed to develop these organs within us.

What does the initiate see? For him, the physical world and what is revealed by physiology and biology are only part of what he sees. Even the physical part of man, which comes from the mineral world, appears quite different to him; he sees higher things everywhere. We shall speak more precisely later about this spiritual origin of the physical world, which is the Logos, of whom it is said in the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.”

The first component of the human being is his physical body. This is permeated by the etheric or life body, which is the second link and is already supersensible. Man has it as well as all the kingdoms of nature, except the mineral kingdom, which also has it, but not individualized. In the Gospel of John, the etheric body is called “life” - universal life. We will see what happens to it when a person dies.

The third part is the astral body. In reality, a person does not just occupy as much space in space as his physical body needs. Beyond this, he has a larger one that is the carrier of pleasure and pain and the sensations that come to us in our daily lives. Only humans and animals have it, each for themselves, but not plants. It consists of a special substance called “astral”. Through our physical eye we perceive physical light, but the clairvoyant perceives through his spiritual eye a different light, of which the first is only the physical covering. This second light is the spiritual or astral light, from which the astral body is woven. This body resembles an egg-shaped cloud, in contrast to the etheric body, which exactly resembles the shape of the physical body. The Gospel of John says: And the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and you will do the works that God has shown us. It is precisely from this light that the astral body is formed. Now comes the fourth link, which is unique to humans and makes them the highest of all creatures. Every thing has its own name that distinguishes it from other things; we can call it by its name because it is different from us. But the “I” is unique and the same in all people. Therefore, in reality we are one single “I”, and the difference between “I” and “you” is possible in all cases except this one. In this supersensible part of man the divine announces itself. But that does not make man a god. Man is only as a drop is to the sea; the drop is of the same substance as the sea, but is not the sea for that.

It was the I that spoke through Moses: “Ejeh asher ejeh” - “I am that I am”. It was the same I that the priests called “Yahweh-I-am”, the proclamation of God through the innermost being of man. The clairvoyant can observe how the “I” spreads throughout the world, into the non-self-aware human being—as the primitive man of the Lemurian period was—that is, into darkness. That is why it says in the Gospel of John: “The light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not understand it.” Only gradually, as the “I” descends, will the darkness—that is, each individual human being—understand it. This understanding of the light coincides with the visions of the disciples in the school of Dionysius the Areopagite.

Now we come to a very ordinary fact of our life, which is very important and yet often ignored, namely waking and sleeping. When awake, man shows the clairvoyant eye all his bodies, including the ego, which sends out its rays like a star. In the state of sleep, however, the conditions change. While the physical and life bodies lie on the bed, the astral body and the ego move away. So-called unconsciousness sets in, joy and pain no longer take place. In the morning, the ego and the astral body submerge again into their physical tool.

Since every body is nothing more than a means of perception in relation to the sense organs, a person can perceive as many worlds – world revelations – as he has senses. But the clairvoyant lives in several worlds because he has developed the relevant organs to do so. For him, the spiritual world then becomes a reality.

Between life and death there is the same relationship as between waking and sleeping, but to a greater extent. We will discuss life and death in more detail later. Today, however, we will take a closer look at what happens at death. During life, under normal circumstances, the physical and life bodies always remain together. At death, however, the physical body remains behind alone, while the life body, the astral body and the ego move out, and the physical corpse dissolves into its elements.

The first sensation the dead person has is the feeling of expanding, more and more, and penetrating into his surroundings. It is a feeling of the greatest bliss to feel so united with that from which one was previously separated. The clairvoyant can experience it during life. One could compare this feeling to dissolving in the astral light, like snow [dissolving] in the sun. In the mysteries it was called: transforming into Dionysius. The dead person now has their own life before them like a panorama, because the life body, the carrier of memory, is now freed from the physical body, which obscured it on earth and only allowed imperfect perceptions. This panorama forms a single image that the dead person looks at objectively and impartially. Depending on the individuality, it lasts about as long as the person could stay awake in life. For thirty-six to forty-eight hours the dead person still drags his etheric body with him, and can therefore easily show himself to our physical [...] organs of perception. Then the human being discards his second corpse; the useful part of the life body is taken up by the higher limbs, while the rest falls away like dross. This fact explains the frequently occurring expression in the Bible: 'It was as if scales fell from his eyes'. Man takes something with him like an extract of his panorama, in which all his experiences are condensed. He takes this with him to a higher world; this world can also be reached by the clairvoyant.

Today we will continue to talk about what happens at death, when the human being enters into a new existence. We have already seen that the human being retains an extract of the life body, and we will see how important this extract and its absorption into the higher members is. Now we want to consider the astral body. It remains what it was before death, and retains all its good and bad qualities, its instincts, passions, and so on. What are the dead person's first sensations in their astral body?

When the life body, which still represented a connection with the physical world, has dissolved, the dead person, if he is not clairvoyant and has never risen above the circle of his own selfish interests in earthly life, will awaken after a first period of complete unconsciousness awaken in a painful state, in which he is aware that he is alive, but with the deceptive sensation of still having his physical body, just as a person still feels an amputated limb of his physical body and yet is aware that he cannot use it. On the other hand, however, the astral body, freed from the physical bond, vibrates in full power and strength, so that the person feels his urges, passions, and so on, to an increased extent, and suffers tremendously from not being able to satisfy them due to the lack of the appropriate tools. For the instincts are in reality inherent in the astral body and not in the physical body, and the astral body can only satisfy them through enjoyment. If, for example, a person is a gourmet, he retains the desire for fine food even though he lacks the palate. The same applies to the other sense organs.

Then there is the feeling of loneliness, which is caused by the fact that the person cannot perceive anything of the new world around him. But gradually he begins to perceive. First of all, it is auditory perception, because the astral world is eminently a world of sound. Then perceptions of light are added. It is important to note that while in physical life we see the things around us illuminated by light, in the astral life, on the other hand, man himself begins to shine like a small sun. When we observe him there, we see him at first as if shrouded in a dark cloud. This cloud is formed from that part of the astral body that contains the passionate elements and that must be shed at the end of life on the astral plane.

Life in the astral world usually lasts a third of the previous earthly life, although there are exceptions, for example for very intelligent people who are completely entangled in materialistic beliefs, whose life on the astral plane can last for centuries. It should be noted, however, that the perception of time there is different from ours. When the astral life is complete, the person leaves behind his third corpse. We are surrounded by such corpses, which hover around us and even penetrate into us. They are the ones that can be made visible through mediumistic powers or somnambulists at spiritualistic séances. The Christian religion calls life in the astral world “purgatory,” and in India it is called “Kamaloka”.

When we speak of supersensory worlds, we need not fall into the error of imagining them as spatial planes, as they are often called, one above the other. In reality, they are states of consciousness and different modes of perception in a single space. The length of time spent in Purgatory or Kamaloka depends on the intensity of the individual's desires and passions. It is a time of purification. Unfortunately, we do not always try to shorten it. However, those who are already capable of spiritual pleasures on earth will have a shorter Kamaloka. Artistic pleasures, such

the contemplation of Raphael's or Michelangelo's works of art, make life in the spiritual world accessible to us. But the same cannot be said of art that only seeks to glorify the physical form and has no uplifting effect at all. Furthermore, Kamaloka life is also shortened by noble deeds and by a life devoted to the search for truth and knowledge.

One peculiarity of the astral life, which is rarely mentioned in occultism, is that it runs backwards. At first, the initiate is completely confused because everything in that world is reversed and appears as if reflected in a mirror. So a number, for example 345, is read as 543. It is particularly disconcerting and confusing that this also applies to time, so that the past appears to us after the present as if it were the future. For example, you will see the chicken crawling back into the egg it came from. As for our lives, we go through it backwards as well, starting with the day of our death and ending with the day of our birth. In contrast to the panorama that the life body presented to us, however, the perceptions of the astral body do not leave us indifferent, and they are always accompanied by the feelings that go with them.

For example: If a person has died at the age of eighty and has caused another person pain when he was fifty, and if he has now reached his fiftieth year in his retrograde Kamaloka life, he feels the pain because he identifies himself with his victim.

But the same applies to experiences of joy. If a person did not experience joy, he would later find many obstacles in his path. But as it is, we learn that every evil must be made good. If this were not so, evil would never leave us, and union with God would be impossible.

In this way, then, we purify ourselves. And when we reach our childhood, we have come to the threshold of the heavenly world. This is what the Holy Scripture means when it says: Unless you become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Through purification, the fog that obscured the astral body lifts, and it then shines in all its glory. The self with the purified astral body enters devachan.

Has it always been like that? We know that humanity lived on earth in a certain way during the Egyptian period, in a different way during the Indian period, and so on, and that our time is also quite different from the Greek period. So is there also a history for the other world? Yes, most certainly: the soul life of an Indian from two thousand years ago was quite different from ours. He had no interest in the physical world. For him, people, animals, plants, etc. were all Maya, a dream. He wanted to decisively deny this world, which was an illusion to him. During this life, he was already in the spiritual world, and after death he did not feel disoriented at all. But humanity has not retained this tendency to flee from the physical world.

The ancient Persians, taught by Zoroaster – not the one in history, but a much greater one – learned to love life and take an interest in the physical world, while the Indians only ever thought of Brahma behind the stars. Zoroaster taught that man must live and work here on earth, but at the same time direct his mind upwards. He preached that mankind must work the material, physical world in order to unite with the great spiritual aura of the sun. He called this Ahura Mazdao, later it was called Ormuzd.

Meanwhile, however, humanity lost its direct and conscious connection with the Primordial Light, and its life on earth – and also after death – darkened. This darkening was already very great during the Egyptian-Chaldean period and reached its peak in Greek times. The Greeks placed the center of life entirely in the physical world. If we look at a Greek temple, we see that it is harmoniously built according to spiritual dimensions. It can stand there, abandoned and lonely, and yet we feel that it lacks nothing, even if there are no people inside, because the deity to whom it was dedicated could dwell in it and truly did so, filling it completely. If, on the other hand, we look at a Gothic church, we really feel a void. The souls of the faithful are needed to bring it to life. Seen clairvoyantly, the Greek temple appears only as a black spot in its astral form. That is why people in those days could not bring anything with them when they passed through the gate of death; they were not at all prepared for life after death. The life after death was the realm of shadows for them, which they feared so much that they said: Better a beggar on earth than a king in the realm of shadows. Man found himself alone in the spiritual world at that time. In contrast, the astral form of the Gothic church appears quite different; it is completely luminous and offers the eye the point of connection between the two worlds. Let us now follow the story of the spiritual world.

After the classical period, an immensely important fact takes place in it, which all the great teachers of mankind had previously proclaimed. The seven great Rishis of India had said: Our wisdom reaches to a certain point, but no further. After this point comes an entity that will redeem humanity. Zarathustra also had an inkling of this entity, and Hermes [Trismegistus] showed the Egyptians a being who was ready to come - Osiris - and would come with a divine mission.

Before this important fact, which we will discuss later, took place, another, equally important one occurred, namely, the appearance of the Buddha six hundred years earlier. We know that he came from a royal family and that his attention was drawn to the suffering of humanity by seeing a sick person, an old person, and a corpse. In evil, in old age and in death, he saw only suffering; likewise in unsatisfied desire. The whole of life seemed to him to be suffering, so that he wanted to educate humanity to flee from life. He left his family, his relatives, his possessions and devoted himself entirely

the search for the path to this liberation. Thus the so-called truths of life arose in his soul. [But six hundred years later, with the great event of Golgotha, we see that everything has changed significantly.

What did a corpse on a cross mean for the new community? This corpse had become the true sign of salvation and bliss! Nothing like this has ever occurred in the history of humankind, and it happened only through the Mystery of Golgotha. If there had been a Hellscher when the Mystery of Golgotha was consummated and the blood of Christ ran from the five wounds, he would have seen how the Christ penetrated like an arrow of light into the realm of the dead and transformed it from a realm of darkness into a realm of light.

At that moment, the substance of the astral body of the earth received the Christ principle and began to shine; which is also what happens to us the more we approach the Christ. In the past, man brought nothing with him from the earth; now he can love life [because the human elements have been formed by the elements of Christ]. The clairvoyant sees nothing of the Greek temple on the astral plane, but he does see the Gothic church and the works of art by Raphael and Michelangelo, and so on. What he sees there is infinitely more beautiful and sublime than what is physically present here on earth. The same can be said of the Gospels and the Book of Revelation. When we experience them, we appropriate a large part of the spiritual world.

Later we will see how the dead in heaven live on in the light of Christ.

We have followed man up to the point where he enters the spiritual world. Let us now take a look at this world. This is not so easy, because the conditions in the spiritual world are essentially different from those of the physical world and we have no words to describe such things. Every language is shaped for the physical world, and because we are talking about supersensible worlds, we cannot use the usual language, but must use images. Nevertheless, the spiritual world can be compared to the physical world. Everything the latter contains – lands, seas, air – has its counterpart in the spiritual world. What 'earth is in the spiritual world contains what the physical world also has, that is, people, animals, plants, minerals, but as in a negative image. For example, a crystal has a certain form of physical matter filled in [on earth]. But in the spiritual world, this matter does not exist. In its place there is a hole, and what the clairvoyant sees as an aura around the [earthly] crystal is all that is present of the crystal in the spiritual world. It is the astral light, whose rays penetrate into the space corresponding to the physical part of the crystal.

When we observe a plant in the spiritual world, we do not see its root, but only the part of the plant that rises above the earth, especially the leaves and flowers. A rose, for example, shows reddish glowing leaves; the flower is transparent and has a greenish-yellow color. Of the animals, only the nervous system, which looks like a tree, can be seen. These animal figures in Devachan are quite fantastic when you think of them as a prototype [...] of a future stage of the animal kingdom as we know it. A horse, for example, shows the clairvoyant eye a colossal mass above the head. The elephant has an even larger head, as big as a house, and the physical body disappears completely from the clairvoyant's eye. The same applies, comparatively, to humans. All these forms together form what could be called the solid earth of Devachan, on which its human inhabitants walk.

In Devachan there are also things that can be compared to our seas and rivers, also running regularly. There too there is a unifying element that can be compared to the water here on earth: the unified life that, as on earth, also there animates all people, animals and plants. But there, on the spiritual earth, it works like a spiritualized element. The rivers can be compared to the regular currents of the blood, the seas to the blood reservoirs [...].

There is also a spiritual air, which is formed from the same ever-changing substance that forms our sensations, feelings and passions here on earth. Just as our air has storms and thunderstorms, so it is there. The storms there are the passions materialized here on earth. So, for example, when violent passions here on earth bring people to fight each other, the clairvoyant above in the spiritual world sees the battle of passions, while on the physical plane the physical battle takes place. Hence the legend of the battles in the air, as they were seen after the defeat of Attila. Just as we have the four elements in the physical world, so in the occult we have earth, water, air and fire, and in Devachan just as many realms. The realm that would correspond to fire is formed by what we create that is original. And next to it we also see the archetypes of what exists on earth. In reality, man brings something original from himself that he does not receive from the outside world.

Let us consider the moment in the history of human development when the first fire was created by rubbing two pieces of wood together, and then let us look at all the passions that arose from this discovery. Progress is due to this inventive activity of man. The archetypes of these human thoughts are the fourth element, which spreads throughout the whole devachan as “warmth”. Then there are further fields, which, however, have no correspondence here on earth, so that it is unnecessary to mention them. Man enters devachan with his ego, his purified astral being and the essence of the life body. What happens to him then? He is then irradiated by the light like a vegetal germ. Everything that surrounds him affects him like the juices of the earth and the light affect the vegetal germ. And just as the plant develops here on earth, so does the human being develop in Devachan, gradually transforming into another being.

What are the first perceptions in Devachan? [The deceased] sees various forms. First that of his own body, which is very different from our physical body. Furthermore, while we identify ourselves with our physical vehicle on the physical plane, in Devachan we clearly perceive the difference between our ego and its vehicle. We see the form of the latter like a drawing and understand that we have left it, risen above it and left it behind to form part of the earthly element of Devachan. The basic feeling is therefore this: 'I am I' and 'You are I', whereas before we also said 'I' about our body.

Around us we perceive pink currents of spiritual fluid, and we realize that there is a unified life in everything. This life gives us a more powerful conviction of the unity of all life than even the greatest religious feeling can give, and fills us with joy.

Then we become aware of the air: everything, love, hate, joy and sorrow, is visible there in its true form. Everything that lives hidden in the souls here on earth can be seen. What is down here hides everything behind a mask; seen from there, everything is visible and every soul is unveiled. A sensation similar to warmth or cold is produced in Devachan by perceiving the real form of the world of thoughts. Here on earth, thought is not a reality, especially not for the materialist. Only the spiritualist has an inkling of its reality. So what we understand here by thoughts is only a shadow in relation to the real essence of thoughts, which are true entities. There we move between real figures that are interwoven with our thought material. We have already said that man is like a germ there; this develops like a plant on earth and acquires limbs and organs. What kind of organs? Spiritual organs, that is, spiritual eyes and ears. The first sense to open is sight. Hearing follows. When the sense of hearing is developed, the person, who was previously in absolute silence, will begin to hear the harmonies of the spheres, as Pythagoras spoke of them. Music, the spiritual Word, or as the church calls them: the choirs of angels.

Just as a plant bears fruit when its cycle has run its course, so too does a person in devachan reach a point of maturity. On the whole, the stay in devachan lasts a long time. Once that person has reached the point of maturity, he returns to earth with what he had brought with him in his astral and etheric bodies as a result of his own experiences.

The teaching of reincarnation can be found in all religions; nevertheless, it has been little emphasized in Christianity for two thousand years. But the Christ talked about it with his apostles. He took three of them with him to the mountain and made them clairvoyant for the moment. The past appeared to them as the present, and they saw Jesus between Moses and Elijah. Then they said: How is it [possible] that Elijah is here, while he is yet to come? But Christ answered: Elijah has already come, but you have not recognized him; John the Baptist was Elijah, but say it to no one until the Christ shall be lifted up by men. - We shall see later why they should keep it secret.

If we follow the development of man from birth, we see that his physical body is formed from the physical world and changes with each embodiment, while the actual essence of man always remains the same for all embodiments, including the life in heaven between two embodiments. What happens to the connections we make during this life, which is so short compared to the one we spend in the spiritual world? Do we find our loved ones in devachan? The answer of spiritual science is a definite “Yes!”

Yes, we find them again, and in a much more intimate way because the physical obstacles are removed. Take, for example, a mother with her child: In the beginning, the relationship was simply physical, bodily; later it becomes more and more spiritual, and it is this spiritual and soul bond that lasts. Nothing of what has been spiritually bound is lost, and we can find the loved one again, even in the last incarnations. The incomprehensible affection people feel for each other, the strangest encounters point to previous connections.

Let us now return to what we have called the history of the soul's states after death. We already mentioned the Mystery of Golgotha and its real and great significance in the realm of the dead as well. Before the appearance of Christ on earth, the soul went through the fire of purification in Kamaloka after death, and when it came to the threshold of the spiritual world, a guide met it. In ancient times this guide was one of their ancestors, followed by an even older one, and so on until the most ancient was reached, the progenitor of the race or people. This fact explains the expression in the Old Testament: to unite in Abraham.

In Egyptian mythology, these guides were called the 'Forty-two judges of the dead' and their mission was to lead the dead to the gates of paradise. From there on, the soul was considered mature enough to continue on its own. In every era and among every people, we find a particular type of such guides. In addition to the ancestors, the great teachers of humanity appear as guides, such as the Rishis, Krishna among the Indians, Zarathustra among the Persians, Hermes in the Egypt of Moses, Buddha, Lao-Tse among the peoples concerned. They are the great initiates who shortened the path for people so that they did not have to go up the entire succession of ancestors step by step.

Through the appearance of Christ, His light has become the guide of the soul. He comes to meet them and accompanies them. In pre-Christian oriental wisdom, there are two paths. Those who were not ready for the teachings of Buddha, Lao-Tzu and so on, had to go up the entire path of the ancestors, the so-called “Pitriyana”. The others, who had entered into a living relationship with a “master” in their lives, were guided by him on the path of the gods, the so-called “Devayana”. But Christ gave a single, common divine path for all those who enter into a living relationship with him, and this path will one day unite them in a great brotherhood. All other paths will merge into this one Christian path through ever-increasing realization.

Let us now compare the path of Buddha with the Christian one. Buddha saw above all the suffering, misery, pain and so on in life and preached that one should quench the thirst for existence. Six hundred years later, Christ Jesus came, and through the Christ impulse, humanity recognized its task on earth. The more the Christ principle penetrates into us, the more we recognize that growing old means “growing” and that the illnesses are “trials”. The Christ principle even overcomes the illnesses because it rules over matter. This property will be recognized more and more by people, and they will be able to use it to eradicate the illnesses. Death brings us closer to the Christ, and through its attraction the Christ principle in us will grow more and more in the following incarnations until we can see the mighty Christ of the Revelation, who redeems everything.

The power of Christ unites souls and destroys the expression that says separation is suffering, because through it no more separation is possible. Even that which we did not love before, we will feel as one with us, without the slightest nuance of opposition or antipathy. Furthermore, it will not be a cause for “longing”, not only because the Christ principle teaches renunciation, but also because in the end there is the feeling of complete satisfaction, which excludes all longing. Christ said, “I am the Way.”

This evening we will speak of sin, original sin, disease, and so on. First, let us look back at the past and then let us envision the future. Before our time, we have the time of Rome and of Athens, which was preceded by the Egyptian-Chaldean time; further back, the actual historical documents are missing. For the even older epochs, we have two sources from which we can draw information: the old religious teachings, if one knows how to decipher them, and the retrospective images that the clairvoyant consciousness can see. We want to talk about the latter. Everything on earth is subject to the laws of evolution, and this applies in a very special way to the human soul life. In ancient times, the life of the soul was different from the present soul life. In the prehistoric age, people in Europe, Asia and Africa had a soul life that was quite different from today's human soul. When we look back thousands of years, we find that the ancestors of today's humanity had a much broader spiritual outlook than we have now. They did not have the intellect that enables us to read and calculate, but they did have a primitive clairvoyance and, in addition, an enormous memory, of which ours cannot even give a pale idea. We will see how this was possible. To give you an idea of how the world appeared to them, I will say, for example, that when they woke up in their day-consciousness, they saw everything as if surrounded by an aura. A flower, for example, appeared to them surrounded by a circle of light similar to the one we see around lanterns in the evening mist. During sleep, however, these people could perceive spiritual entities in reality. Gradually man learned to see the outlines of things more distinctly. At the same time, however, the conscious intercourse with the spiritual world and the entities in it became less and less, until it finally ceased altogether when the ego individualized itself in each individual being. Before this individualization, people were not separate from each other.

The earth also had a completely different configuration in those times than it does now. Humanity lived in different areas - continents - and our ancestors lived on a continent that is now occupied by the Atlantic Ocean. Tradition calls this continent Atlantis. The disappearance of this part of the world is told in the myths of all peoples, and the legend of the universal flood refers to this. The Atlantean civilization was magnificent, and with its demise, humanity lost many important insights that it must now laboriously regain. Just as we know how to use the forces hidden in fossil plants - coals - for trade and industry, so the Atlanteans knew how to use the driving forces in seeds, for example, to move their airships, which moved a little above the ground, in that air, which was much denser than ours.

Let us now look at the physical organism of the Atlanteans. It showed a significant peculiarity, namely that the etheric body was not completely similar to the physical body and that the etheric head protruded beyond the physical head. This peculiarity is precisely connected with the clairvoyant abilities of the Atlanteans, with their extraordinary memory and their magical powers. The etheric head had a special point of perception [...]. In the course of evolution, this etheric head retreated more and more into the physical head, thereby changing the profile. Now, at the point in question, we have the organ whose development will give humanity back its clairvoyance: the pineal gland. Thus, the clairvoyant power of the Atlanteans gradually disappeared, along with their tremendous memory and magical powers, and our ability to think and count developed.

If we go back even further, we find other catastrophes. Entire continents were destroyed by fire. Our present-day volcanoes are the last remnants from that era. The continent that perished at that time is called “Lemuria” and was the area that is now mostly occupied by the great ocean and the Indian Ocean. The inhabitants of that continent had a form that was very different from ours, which would even seem grotesque to us. Their physical and astral bodies were different. The crown was open, and the rays of light penetrated into this opening, so that the head was surrounded by a radiant aura and the people looked as if they had a lantern on top.

The body was huge and formed by a fine, almost gelatinous substance. We see the last hint of the Lemurian crown on the head of a newly born child, namely the small opening at the top, which remains open until about a year old. or something:maehr.

At that time, man was not independent at all; he could only do what was inspired by the spiritual powers in the midst of which he was, so to speak, embedded. He received everything from them, and he acted as if driven by a psychic instinct. This revealed the power of spiritual beings who had not descended to physical incarnation. These beings were not well-disposed towards humanity and influenced it in such a way that it gained the independence it lacked. According to the divine plan, humanity was to achieve this independence securely at some point, but these beings brought it about earlier. Together with the other forces, they slipped into the astral body of the person who had not yet entered into a close relationship with his or her essence, and gave the person a kind of willpower that, because it was only astral and not guided by reason, enabled him or her to do evil. These forces are called the luciferic forces. As we can see, the influence of these forces has a good and an evil side, because on the one hand they seduced humanity, but on the other hand they gave it freedom.

Our present consciousness comes from the clairvoyant consciousness, and we find the latter more and more developed the further we go back in human evolution. The Lemurians could only perceive spiritually. For example, they perceived neither the shape nor the color nor the external characteristics of a flower. They saw a luminous astral form that they perceived with a kind of inner organ. According to the divine plan, human beings were not supposed to have begun to perceive with the external sensory organs until the middle of the Atlantean period. But the luciferic forces caused this fact to occur earlier, while human instincts were still pure. This is what the “fall of man” consists of. The religious records say that the serpent opened the eyes of man. Without the interference of the luciferic influence, the human body would not have become as solid as it is now, and the Atlantean humanity would have seen the spiritual side of all things. Instead, man fell prey to sin, illusion and error. To make matters worse, towards the middle of the Atlantean period, the influence of Ahrimanic forces was added. The Luciferic forces had worked on the astral body, whereas the Ahrimanic forces worked on the etheric body, especially on the etheric head. As a result, people fell into the error of regarding the outer physical world as the true world. “Ahrimanic” comes from Ahriman, the name given to this principle by the Persians. Zoroaster spoke of him to his people and said that they should beware of him and strive for union with Ahura Mazdao - Ormuzd. Ahriman is the same as Mephistopheles and has nothing to do with Lucifer. Mephistopheles comes from the Hebrew word: Me-phis-to-phel, which means “the liar,” “the deceiver.” Satan in the Bible is also Ahriman and not Lucifer. The ancient Atlantis was gradually destroyed by floods over the course of centuries, and the remaining inhabitants retreated to areas that were spared from the catastrophe, in Asia, Africa and America. The first area in which Atlantean culture developed further was what was later called “India”. There, people retained a clear memory of their former clairvoyance and of their vision of the spiritual world. It was not difficult for their teachers, the Rishis, to draw their attention to the spiritual side of the world, and initiation was an easy matter. Clairvoyance was never completely lost, and until Christ there were always clairvoyants. We see a remnant of this primitive clairvoyance in mythology, the core of which refers to beings who really lived, such as Apollo, Zeus and so on. Although, as we have said, the Ahrimanic influence had its beginning in the Atlantean epoch, it did not assert itself fully in Humanity until later. The ancient Indians were sufficiently protected against him, and the physical world was never anything but Maya, illusion, to them. It was only in the epoch of Zarathustra, the original Persian, that the physical world began to have a value for people, who thereby fell prey to the power of Ahriman. In this way, Zarathustra's admonition, of which we have already spoken, becomes clear to us.

Thus the evolution of humanity continued until Greek times. Then another power approached man, which began to drive him up again to the spiritual world from which he had been driven out, so to speak, since the Lemurian time. The new power was the Christ principle, which entered into Jesus of Nazareth, permeating his three bodies - physical, etheric and astral. When the human soul is completely filled with the Christ principle, the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic forces are conquered, and through this principle a reversal in evolution takes place. But the Christ could not have influenced people if his appearance had not been proclaimed to them long beforehand. But he has always guided them inwardly; we see this in the magnificent images in which people were prophesied that he would come. Otherwise, who would have given them the strength to form such powerful imaginations?

A great change takes place in the physical, etheric and astral bodies of humanity through the incarnation of the Christ, just after the Mystery of Golgotha has been accomplished, when the blood flows from the five wounds and the Christ penetrates into the lowest realms. His etheric and astral bodies multiplied like a seed, and the spiritual world was filled with these images. So that, for example, in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, those people who had reached a sufficient degree of development were incorporated at birth with such an image of the Christ-incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth. The person in whom this participation in the etheric body of Christ is most clearly evident is St. Augustine. The great significance of his life can be attributed to this fact. From the tenth century until approximately the sixteenth century, the astral body of Christ was embodied. We have to thank this for the appearance of people like Saint Francis of Assisi and the great Dominicans, full of humility and virtue, who reflect the great astral qualities of Christ. That is why they had such a clear image of the great truths within them, which they practiced in their lives, in contrast to Augustine, who was never free of doubt and always argued between theory and practice. Among the great Dominicans, special mention should be made of Saint Thomas, in whom the influence of the astral body of Christ was highly developed, as we shall see later. In the sixteenth century, the time began when the images of the Christ-I began to weave themselves into the ego of individual individuals. One of these was precisely Christian Rosenkreutz, the first Rosicrucian.

It is thanks to this fact that a more intimate connection with Christ has become possible, as revealed to us by esoteric teaching. The power of Christ will make man ever more perfect, will spiritualize him and lead him back into the spiritual world. Humanity developed its reason at the expense of clairvoyance; the power of Christ will enable people to learn and ascend here on earth with what they have acquired. Man comes from the Father and the power of Christ leads him back to the Father.

Yesterday we described the path of Christian initiation and saw how tremendously difficult it is, so difficult that from the first steps it requires a separation from daily life. Therefore, in our time, life is not compatible with that path. Because of this, the occultists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw the need to create the possibility of making the path of initiation more accessible. Already in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the concepts of humanity had changed, as was particularly evident in the time of Copernicus and Galileo. The path therefore had to be in line with the new ways of thinking, especially with the natural science that was developing at the time. The Rosicrucian path accommodated this necessity. It leaves no question unanswered, be it in the field of religion or in that of science. This initiation reveals to us the deepest depths of biblical wisdom and empowers us to meet all the demands of modern life. This path is named after the founder of the Rosicrucian school, Christian Rosenkreutz, whose true name, however, is known only to the initiated.

The Rosicrucian path is different from the Christian one, although it has the same goal. Let's take a look at what it consists of. It consists of deeds and actions in the innermost part of the soul, so inward that other people need not notice them and they can easily be accomplished between all the ordinary pursuits of life. These are purification exercises that help a great deal, and they are:

1. concentration of thought,

2. initiative of action,

3. balance in joy and in suffering, 4. positivity in spiritual life,

5. impartiality of judgment,

6. carrying out all the above together in harmony.

The main condition is the constant repetition of such exercises. The result is the transformation of the etheric body, which is the carrier in which all our habits, which we owe to repetition, are, so to speak, registered. The plant, for example, which already has an etheric body, shows us this law of repetition by constantly producing new leaves; whereas where the plant's astral body is, this law fails.

The necessity for repetition also applies to human beings in relation to their higher development. Mere intellectual comprehension is not enough to transform the etheric body. This is the basis of the effect of religious exercises, in which repetition is always considered for the esoteric life. That is why, for example, the Lord's Prayer is repeated several times; and it is not enough just to understand it.

[First exercise:] Let us now describe the first exercise, that of concentration. We choose a time and place when our mind is at its calmest and begin to think about some random object. The object must be chosen by ourselves and should preferably be without suggestive properties, that is, be uninteresting, for example, a pin. Our thought must remain fixed on the pin, even when all possible concrete forms of the pin are considered, as are all the concepts that relate to it. Only the image of the pin should be held. This exercise must last five minutes, and the most important thing about it is not the object that is thought of, but the strength with which it is thought. The object of concentration can therefore be different every day, and can even be changed several times in one day.

Second exercise: initiative of action. You decide to perform some action at a certain time of the day; the more insignificant, the better, when you are sure not to be disturbed. For example, you say to yourself: “This time tomorrow, you will put a chair in that corner, and nothing will stop you from doing it.” Repeating such small actions develops a strong will in a short time.

Third exercise: balance and impartiality. The esoteric disciple must be able to control desire and suffering, suppressing the involuntary automatic laughter and crying, and being as little as possible elated or saddened to death. Of course, this does not make one insensitive. On the contrary, the student must become more and more sensitive and understand all levels of suffering and joy, but in everything he must always remain master of himself.

Fourth exercise: The positivity of the soul, that is, the nature of thinking and feeling, to seek in all things that which is good, beautiful and useful, even if it appears to be the opposite. Even in a madman, one can still find the divine spark of reason. To seek the truth in a world of error does not mean to become uncritical, but to take criticism so far as to discover what other people usually miss. In a Persian legend, we have an example of such positivity as understood by Christ. As he was traveling with his disciples, they saw the carcass of a dog in advanced decomposition. The apostles turned away in disgust, talking among themselves about the hideous sight. Christ, on the other hand, stopped in front of the carcass and pointed out to his disciples how beautiful the dog's teeth were.

Fifth exercise: Impartiality of judgment. This means giving up the absolute in personal opinion and always being prepared to change it when it is reasonable to do so. We must always be willing to learn something new, whether it comes from a child or a blade of grass.

[Sixth exercise:] Once you have practiced each of these exercises for a month, you should try to perform all five in harmony during the sixth month. This harmonization, by the way, must already begin gradually in the second month if the performance of the second exercise is not to detract from that of the first. In the third month, one should also do the first two exercises and continue in this way as far as one's daily duties permit. These exercises must act on the astral body; the impression made on it must be so strong that it retains it until the state of sleep when it is separated from the physical body. The training of the Rosicrucian must enable him to think without external stimulus. He must be able to draw the stimulus to think from within himself, so that the thought depends more and more on his will and is not simply produced by circumstances. These exercises gradually enable us to direct our attention to the facts of the supersensible world, the knowledge of which is the main thing in occult teachings. Many regret that Theosophy always speaks of worlds that are not accessible to ordinary perception, while science, on the other hand, proves everything it teaches. However, elementary Theosophy has always had this transcendental character in all occult schools.

Anyone who has understood the theory and tests it in life will see how everything fits together. Incidentally, there is an even higher stage, which is described in my “Philosophy of Freedom”. I apologize for quoting myself. But this book contains a sequence of thoughts, each of which follows from the one before in such a way that you could neither put one in the place of the other nor remove one from it.

The second stage is that you achieve the so-called “imagination” through a very special contemplation of yourself. One imagines pictures in the mind's eye, to which one devotes one's full attention, thereby awakening the imagination or imaginative consciousness. Again, at this point, a conversation takes place between the master and his student. The master says: See how the plant has its root in the earth, how it unfolds leaves and flowers; feel how it grows and how it has its juices within, and then look at the human being and learn to understand the difference. The plant is unconscious; but in man everything is reflected back as pleasure and suffering in varying degrees. In man, the red blood flows as the carrier of passions and instincts, while in the plant the chaste green sap moves, the passionless chlorophyll. Experience this! Then look to the real ideal of the future, when man will have transformed himself and his blood will have become as pure and chaste as the sap of the plant. The rose can serve as a symbol of this transformation, in which that which is green below turns red above without losing its purity and chastity. Feel this development towards ever higher levels! Feel further what is meant by the words: “Die and Become!” All passions must be overcome, and the red blood must become pure again. You see all this in the Rosicrucian symbol: in the black cross the death and in the seven roses the signs of the higher becoming.

In Jesus, the blood had become so pure that, according to legend, when the blood flowed from the five wounds, bees settled on the wound on the side and absorbed the blood, because it had become so pure that honey could be made from it, as from the pure blood of the plant. The main thing is to immerse yourself imaginatively in the imagined image, not just to imagine an image. The same applies to all symbols, for example the Key of Solomon: above is a white flying dragon, below is a black one that dies.

Through conscientious practice, one comes to wake up in the morning with the awareness that one has spent the night in a world of symbols. It is like emerging from the depths of the sea into the light, and the darkness brightens.

Then comes the third stage, the “reading of occult writing”. The images present themselves to the imagination, and it is no longer possible to think of deception. These images are the language of the higher beings: angels, archangels, seraphim, thrones and so on. Thus we experience the world of spiritual beings. From the real image, we learn to distinguish imagination through the effect it has on us. For example, the image of a glowing iron will never burn us like the glowing iron itself; and even though the image of a lemonade makes our mouths water, it will never quench our thirst. Through the imagination exercises, we learn to read the occult writing, and that is a significant step forward.

Then comes the fourth stage: the “preparation of the philosopher's stone”. This term might make you laugh when you think of the many ancient prescriptions that refer to it; but we know what it is about. Let us look at the plant again. Man inhales oxygen, accumulates carbon, and exhales carbonic acid. The plant, on the other hand, inhales carbonic acid, retains the carbon, and releases the oxygen, which man can use again. The breathing process of the plant, although considered unimportant as described in science, is of great importance in occultism. Because everything in the world is determined and ordered according to a law of harmony, the Master prescribes a rhythmic breathing method for the disciple, which we can only hint at because it belongs to the realm of esoteric teaching. The breathing process is arranged in such a way that the person processes carbon, as the plant does, so that here we actually have the purification and transformation of the blood, which is thereby made more plant-like. Carbon is the philosopher's stone. And here we have its preparation in broad strokes: the human being is the retort, learning to become a plant in the higher sense. But only those who can understand it in this higher sense learn it, and not those who would only seek a new source of material benefit in it.

Let us now turn to the fifth step. The Master says to the disciple: “Learn the connection between the microcosm and the macrocosm!” Everything that surrounds the human being in the outer world is contained within him. We can, for example, mention the connection between the eye and the sun. If you abstract from everything external and concentrate solely on one point of the eye or the heart, then you understand the effect of the sun in the cosmos, because the solar substance is found in the eye and in the heart. Thus the disciple learns that the sun gave him the eye and the heart, just as he has different parts of the brain from the moon. In this way, the disciple gradually penetrates into his surroundings.

Now we come to the sixth stage: the disciple no longer thinks, let us say, of the heart, but of the forces that gave it to him, and so he does with all things. In this way one penetrates into the soul of things and experiences their unique life. For example, one would think that if one tore a leaf from a plant, it must feel pain like a body from which a finger is torn. But no, it is not. The plant enjoys being picked or burned or cut with a scythe. Nothing is more beautiful to see with the clairvoyant eye than at harvest time, when plants and flowers voluptuously enjoy the cut of the scythe. On the other hand, the plant suffers when it is pulled out of the earth by its roots. On the other hand, it is a pleasure for a stone to be split apart instead of being walled up with other stones to form a building. For salt, for example, being dissolved in water is a pleasure, whereas the crystallization process is suffering. In ancient times, the whole earth was embedded in water. Gradually it solidified, and it was born as if from the pains of the soul of the stones. We walk on fossilized suffering, as on the other hand, from their spiritualization, their bliss will arise. Paul said: Every created thing must pay for its birth with pain.

We have now reached the seventh stage, that of “bliss, which is inexpressible in human words. It provides the solution to the mystery of Christ.

As we can see, for this upward Rosicrucian path, one need only enter into oneself and at the same time remain in one's everyday life.