The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The above heading was the title of a lecture given by Dr. Rudolf Steiner in Amsterdam on Thursday evening in the “Van het Nut” building.

The speaker, introduced to his audience as the General Secretary (Chairman) of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, began by describing the term “Theosophy”. Theosophy wants to be a movement to deepen our spiritual life. And it is fair to say that Theosophy in our time represents what we perceive as a great movement in the whole cultural world.

The speaker then points out the growing internationalism and the fact that more and more over the centuries the walls between people and people, between nations and nations, are continually falling away. In the material field, we see the banker, the industrialist, the merchant playing an important role here. But all of this as material phenomena are consequences of the existence of common ideas, the internationalization of ideas.

What we saw in earlier centuries (and even now) in the religious sphere, dividing one person from another and one people from another, is magnificently bridged by Theosophy. And this is only possible because the theosophical spiritual current extends to the deepest foundations of spiritual life.

It is not the theosophical attitude that says, “How is it possible that we have come so wonderfully far?” and looks back with a certain pity at the old “childlike belief.” We in Theosophy have completely turned away from the delusion that we can look down on what humanity has achieved in earlier times. In order to show the relationship between Goethe, the poet, and Hegel, the philosopher, and the theosophical view of life, the speaker wants to present the latter in a few basic lines:

A first principle is that this visible world is based on an invisible world; secondly, that man can get to know a supersensible world behind the sensual world. But the supersensible world cannot be reached by ordinary sensory perception. Theosophy is not concerned with magic, superstition or a regression into old fantasies. Those who perceive not only the facts of the material world, but also the spiritual causes of everything, become aware of a higher faculty within themselves.

Dr. Steiner then brings his favorite example of a person who was born blind and has been operated on. A world of perception opens up for him. An infinity of light and colors flows into his eye, which now sees, of which the person previously had no concept and could not form an idea.

As a citizen of the lower natural kingdoms through his lower nature, man, on the other hand, belongs through his higher nature to the realm of the higher worlds, from which his being is built. And so man stands with his inner being between two realms.

Now we see the life of the individual human being playing out externally between birth and death, and we see how he becomes richer and richer in experience through the perception of the external world. And we ask ourselves: What is it and where is it that the human being has taken in during all this time? What we have absorbed is transformed by death into a seed for a different development. The sum of our life experiences has been acquired by our soul, and at the moment of death the fruit of life emerges as a seed. In a new life, in a new embodiment, the seed unfolds. We can perceive this in the development of a person from the moment of birth.

What we perceive cannot be explained by this one life alone. Just as the plant germ leads us to an earlier plant, so this spiritual soul germ leads us to an earlier spiritual life. This is what is usually called 'reincarnation'.

Each life enriches the soul with the fruits of that life, and each life the person enters richer: everything we have within us we have acquired in previous lives. And we also know that the thoughts living in this world are the fruit of earlier human development. But we see that both the old fairy tales and myths and what we currently call our science are only forms of human development - and that we will later achieve other and higher forms of this development.

When we survey all this, we are able to build a bridge to the poet Goethe and to the philosopher Hegel. From the very beginning, we find a basis of theosophical feelings in the whole being of Goethe. The young Goethe tried to find his own divine spiritual nature through his spiritual experiences.

The seven-year-old boy cannot recognize the external religious forms of his time as his own; he builds himself an altar out of a lectern, and on it he lays stones and plants from his father's geological collection. Natural products that he perceives as expressions of divine life. And then he wants to light a sacrificial fire, and he lets the first rays of the rising sun fall through a burning glass, and he lets the sacrificial candle ignite on the altar he has built himself.

As an artist, too, he seeks - for example, on his Italian travels - nothing but the great life of the supersensible world. He even says that art is the most worthy interpreter of the spiritual world. One should also look at his letters to Winckelmann, in which he describes his view that everything that exists in nature in terms of order, harmony and measure is reflected in man, where it exults to the highest peak of perfection.

Schiller writes to Goethe:

"For a long time now, although from a considerable distance, I have been watching the course of your mind and have noted the path you have set out on with ever-renewed admiration. You seek what is necessary in nature, but you seek it by the most difficult route, which any weaker force would be well advised to avoid. You take all of nature together to get light on the individual; in the totality of its manifestations, you seek the explanation for the individual. From the simple organization, you ascend step by step to the more complicated, in order to finally build the most complicated of all, the human being, genetically from the materials of the entire natural structure. By recreating it in nature, as it were, you seek to penetrate its hidden technology. A great and truly heroic idea, which shows sufficiently how much your mind holds the rich totality of its ideas together in a beautiful unity."

From the very beginning, Goethe feels that he was born out of spiritual-cosmic nature.

That Goethe has recognized the spiritual in man is shown not only by a poem from the 1780s, “The Mysteries,” in which he speaks about the Rosicrucian symbol: the black cross with the red roses; he gives his creed even more beautifully in the “Fairytale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” and in his Faust poem.

The speaker refers to Goethe's comment to Eckermann, in which he says that his Faust can be viewed from two perspectives: firstly, it is something for people in the theater, but then there is also something in it for the initiate who sees the spiritual life behind the sensual life of man. “He who does not have this, the dying and becoming, remains only a gloomy guest on this dark earth."

Then the speaker points out other things that are so well known to most people, but understood by so few, and certainly not by most commentators on Goethe: the prologue, in which Goethe speaks of the ‘harmony of the spheres’ and the heavenly choirs ; on the reappearance of the figure of Helen in the second part, Helen who had already died; and finally on the homunculus, by which he means nothing other than that which passes from person to person: the soul. It was only too happy to be embodied.

The speaker is briefer with regard to Hegel, namely because of the advanced time of the meeting. Hegel is a contemporary and in many respects the student of Goethe. He understood everything about Goethe, except for the theosophical basis. Hegel shows how far one can get who does not know the above-mentioned foundations of theosophy.

Take a glass of water: you can only draw water from it if it is in it. And man can only draw wisdom from a world that is itself built of wisdom. Hegel strove to prove this.

Hegel recognizes the world of ideas as a coherent spiritual world, independent of nature, and he calls this world pure logic. For Hegel, “logos” means the great original plan of the world, the sum of the ideas that underlie this world.

The speaker then points out the well-known systematic of Hegel and follows how he speaks of the three sides of the ideas: the idea in itself; the idea in nature, spread out in space and time, where it will become self-aware, descending into different forms, to the people and further; then the idea, returning to its own pure essence, having become self-aware.

But, says the speaker, Hegel carries within himself all the limitations of his time. We must not see the philosophical lines alone, not regard the world of ideas as something absolute. (The speaker seemed to mean: not as a concrete thing.

For Hegel, the scientific view of the world had become an absolute, and one always has the feeling that Hegel means that when man has grasped the world of ideas, humanity has come to its end.

Hegel knew nothing of the infinity of forms, whereby the world of ideas gradually becomes conscious in successive lives, and that man must learn the logos of feeling as well as the logos of idea in order to live and experience. A kind of materialism emerged from Hegel's philosophy. After speaking tirelessly and with great intellectual power for almost two hours, this extraordinary speaker concluded his lecture with the apt words of Goethe:

If the eye were not itself solar,
it could never behold the sun.
If the power of God were not in us,
how could we be enraptured by the Divine?]

Berlin W 30, August 15, 1906
Motzstraße 17

Dear Director,

At last I am able to write you the letter I announced a long time ago. But above all, I ask you – I refer to a few sentences in your last letter – never to assume that I could be hurt by anything. Please strike this word out of our correspondence altogether.¹

And now I will go straight to the point. The concerns you have expressed regarding part of my occult activity are based on erroneous assumptions. And the things you have heard from others are also wrong.

Let us speak openly: in my occult activities I was recently obliged to take up something that, according to certain premises, could be described as moving in the direction of occult Freemasonry. I now ask you to take each of my words and turns of phrase very precisely. I do not use certain turns of phrase to conceal something, but to describe the real facts very precisely.

Now there was a so-called “Memphis and Misraim Order” in Germany that purported to work in the direction indicated. This order described itself as a Masonic organization. And it worked on “degrees”, of which the first three corresponded to the recognized Freemasonry.² My occult aspirations have nothing to do with this “recognized” Freemasonry. They do not want to and cannot interfere with it. Freemasonry has not the slightest reason to concern itself in any way with these efforts.

When I now wanted to start working in the indicated direction, it was incumbent upon me to introduce a ritual for certain processes of the higher planes for those who sought such. This ritual can be no other than the mirror image of what is fact of the higher planes. This ritual is no different from that which occultism has recognized for 2300 years, and which was prepared for European conditions by the Masters of the Rosicrucians. If something in this ritual has been carried over into the three St. John degrees, this only proves that these St. John degrees have taken on something from occultism. My sources are only occultism and the “Masters”.³

Now I had two options. Either to ignore the order mentioned altogether, or to deal with it. The former would only have been possible in a single case: if the order had rejected an understanding. In the other case, it would have been disloyal in the sense of certain historical concessions that occultism must make.

What I have now done, I tell you on the assumption of your complete discretion.

The Grand Master General of that order was a certain Theodor Reuss. What he has otherwise done is not part of the discussion. Whatever it may have been, the fact that he was Grand Master General of that order, which purported to operate in the stated direction, was the only thing that mattered. I had to deal with this fact. For this purpose I had to visit the aforementioned Theodor Reuss, whom I had never seen before and about whom I had never learned anything. It would have been easy for me to find out about these circumstances, of course. But they were absolutely none of my business.

I have now told Mr. Reuß what can be formulated in the following sentences: I want nothing, absolutely nothing, from your order. However, I will work in a direction that the order claims as its own. It now only depends on the order acknowledging, not for me but for itself, that I am doing this in the sense of the degrees that the order claims as its own. I make it a condition that the order does not communicate anything of its rituals to me. No one should ever be able to say: I received something from the order. I want my step to be considered only from the standpoint of occult loyalty. And no one may receive the right to interpret it differently.

Reuß said rather briefly: he could not do that, because this would make him impossible in his order. I now left for the time being. What has happened and will happen, will happen whether with or without the mentioned order. After a few days, Reuß requested further negotiations. He now made no further demands, other than that I recognize, purely in a business-like and practical sense, his right to receive a fee – no different than the usual one – for anyone who goes in the direction that the order considers to be its own. All further negotiations now concerned only formalities. I constituted what had to be constituted, without Mr. Reuß ever being present at anything. Mr. Reuß, for his part, recognized everything I did. But I completely ignored the order in factual terms. In order, as he said, not to violate his order's rules, Reuß gave me diplomas and ritual objects. That is, he brought them to my house. To buy all this from him would have been, even if there had been no other reason against it, the greatest foolishness on my part, because there was nothing in all this stuff that could not be bought for very little money from any antiquarian. The fact that Reuss simply receives the fee for each member that he is legally entitled to is merely a loyal recognition of a right to which he is entitled, regardless of what else is going on with him.

Of course, only a member can know what is going on in the “lodges” that have been constituted.⁴ I myself can only say a few things about it. But this is objectively quite sufficient. Firstly, the name Reuß has never been mentioned in these lodges. Secondly, none of those I initiated can show a diploma that originated with Reuß. Thirdly, nothing ever happened that somehow violated loyalty to Freemasonry. Fourthly, everyone has been informed about the relationship between the matter and Freemasonry. Finally, fifthly, only Theosophists are members of our “lodges”. If former members of the said order wanted to join us, they would have to prove that they not only held the degrees by right of their tax returns and diplomas, but that they had them “within”.

So what I have established has nothing to do with what used to be in Germany and purported to be the “Memphis and Misraim degrees”. And none of this concerns me in the slightest, what is going on around Reuss and his comrades' medals. - There have even been naive people coming to the house, busily telling me what they know about Reuss, or even “warning” me. But in truth, none of this concerns me in the slightest. Not even that people who previously allowed von Reuß to give them “degrees” feel duped and are now angry. I understand this anger; but it is not loyal that I am brought into play at all from this side.⁵

As you can see, Director, everything is in order from my side. I have answered you because you asked me in good faith. Only time will tell what can be done about people who would like to accuse me by saying things they couldn't possibly know.

Today I also have something to say about your exercises... ⁶

Kind regards

yours sincerely

Dr. Rudolf Steiner

Addition to the above letter to A. W. Sellin

The above letter was made available to Marie Steiner by the recipient, A. W. Sellin, after Rudolf Steiner's death. In his accompanying lines of April 9, 1925, he wrote:

... I feel compelled to make available to you two letters from the dear departed, which may in the future acquire significance for the history of the Anthroposophical Society. In any case, they are better off with you than with me.⁷

The first letter, addressed to me on August 15, 1906, deals with the genesis of the “Mystica aeterna” and is the answer to my request addressed to the doctor for this reason.⁸

This request was all the more important for me, who was at that time in the middle of German lodge life, because Reuß was so indiscreet as to publish in No. 1, 5th year of his magazine “Oriflamme” the text of his granting of permission for the founding of a chapter and a grand council of the Adoptive Masonry under the name “Mystica aeterna” ⁹ and to name Dr. Steiner as deputy Grand Master and you as Grand Secretary of this new association.¹⁰

This indiscretion of Reuß, who had sent the mentioned number of his magazine to numerous Masonic lodges, later caused me great trouble in the Masonic Federation, which I was only able to overcome gradually on the basis of the clarification provided by the doctor in the enclosed letter.

• 1. Sellin had asked for clarification in the Misraim matter (see his letter to Marie Steiner dated April 9, 1925). The letter from Sellin mentioned by Rudolf Steiner is not available.
• 2. The three degrees of St. John.
• 3. See “On the History and Content of the First Section of the Esoteric School 1904 to 1914”, GA 264.
• 4. Sellin apparently only became a member later.
• 5. See the letters from Emil Adryänij on page 88.
• 6. See the letters of Emil Adryánij on page 88. 2) This part of the letter is contained in the volume “On the History and the Content of the First Section of the Esoteric School 1904 to 1914”, GA 264.
• 7. The second letter is addressed to a different recipient and applies to other contexts.
• 8. Official name of the working group on the cult of knowledge.
• 9. No written request has been made; it could also have been asked orally.
• 10. Cf. page 87.

by Alice Kinkel

Budapest, the beautiful Hungarian capital, so richly endowed by nature with beauty and poetry, and so often chosen as a venue for conferences and conventions, now saw the Theosophists of various nations flock to its hospitable walls from European and overseas sections flocked together from different nations, the Theosophists – about 250 in number – had come to attend the fifth congress of the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society in the festival hall of the Pest Lloyd Society.

It should be noted at the beginning of this report that the Hungarian section has admirably fulfilled the difficult task of organizing a congress, and has done its best to make the stay of the Theosophical brothers and sisters in love and warmth in the magnificent city, which was flooded by the Danube, as pleasant and rich as possible. The program, which offered a wealth of spiritual delights, will best confirm this.

On Saturday evening, the participants already gathered for a casual get-together in the halls of the Hotel Bristol, which offered an opportunity to greet and connect with members and was enhanced by the presence of Mrs. Besant and Dr. Steiner. French, Hungarian, English, Dutch, Italian, Russian and German were the languages of the lively conversations and the celebrations of reunions and the making of acquaintances and spiritual brotherhood. The German branches represented included Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Leipzig and Regensburg. There were particularly large numbers from the Netherlands (about 35), as well as France, Italy and England.

The program of the first day of the congress went as follows: The introduction was made up of musical performances by an excellent Hungarian male choir, followed by the warm welcoming address in French by the vice president of the Hungarian section, Mr. Stark. To the delight of all of us, Mrs. Besant was elected president of the congress, and the general secretaries of the various sections alternated as vice presidents.

Mrs. Besant's words of welcome to the attendees of the different nationalities, especially to the Hungarian brothers and sisters, were warm and sincere. After her, the representatives of the individual sections did the same – Miss Shaft for England in English and then each in their own national language, which made an equally pleasant impression and beautifully expressed the idea of Theosophy, the union of people of all nations for a common purpose, in a dignified and beautiful way. Miss Kamensky spoke for Russia, Mr. [Blech] for France, Professor Penzig for Italy, Dr. Steiner for Germany, Mr. Ägoston for Hungary, Mr. [Cnoop Koopmans] for the Netherlands. The Scandinavian, Finnish, Bohemian and Bulgarian representatives also addressed the assembly in their native languages. The Secretary of the Federation, Mr. Wallace, gave his report and read the various congratulatory telegrams, including one from Adyar. The morning concluded with Mrs. Besant's keynote address, in which she used all her brilliant theosophical and rhetorical means to emphasize and express the unity of Theosophy, the theosophical great teachers (especially Dr. Steiner and Mrs. Besant ) and the Masters behind the Theosophical movement, with power, warmth and heartfelt sincerity, repeatedly emphasizing her unity and agreement with Dr. Steiner. As an expression of this unity, she invited her students and those of Dr. Steiner to a joint esoteric session with Mrs. Besant that afternoon.

The main points of her lecture were Theosophy itself, its and therefore our task in society and in the outside world. We should be a light on a hill for humanity that shines for others, and we should practice and cultivate brotherhood and patience in society, not criticism. (Mrs. Besant's lecture will probably be printed.)

At one o'clock, after the spiritual delights, we all gathered in the dining room for a festive meal. In the afternoon, we were invited to attend Mrs. Besant's esoteric lecture at the magnificent villa of Professor Zippernowsky, surrounded by a beautiful park, where Mrs. Besant was staying and where we were warmly welcomed.

Tea at half past six was on the program, and at eight o'clock there was a lecture by Dr. Peipers from Munich on “Occult Anatomy and Medicine”. Here too there is a correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm.

Whit Monday brought the lecture by Dr. Steiner, “From Buddha to Christ”, a lecture so powerful, so magnificent, giving such wide and deep perspectives that we have only been privileged to hear in the most intimate of circles until now.

(My notes on this lecture are available to be read at one of the next branch evenings, where the full impact of this powerful lecture can be best conveyed.

The morning closed with the lecture of the French report, “Quelques notes sur l'application de la photographie à l'étude des phénomenes psychiques”, which contained some interesting material.

After lunch, the Dutch group presented their report on “Theosophy and Apparitions” and discussions were held on “Child Rearing” and “Photography”.

In her very beautiful, poetic and rich presentation on “The Mystery of Love - Tristan and Isolde and their Occult Significance and Relationship”, Ms. Wolfram spoke in her enthralling, pleasantly familiar manner.

In the morning, Mrs. Besant announced that Dr. Steiner had been awarded the Subba-Row Medal in recognition of his services to Theosophical literature.

That evening, the Hungarian Section invited us all to a performance at the National Theatre of the play “The Tragedy of Man” (by Madách), which provided us with a wonderful artistic experience.

The third day of the congress was opened by Dr. Unger's lecture on “Theosophical Life Forces”. The impression of his speech may allow me to say: Let us rejoice that we have such a strong, good, spiritual force as a worker in Stuttgart.

After him, Mrs. Windust from Holland gave a lecture in English on the very interesting topic “The Druids, their Symbolism and Mysteries”; unfortunately the lady's voice and manner of speaking were not clearly understandable.

The speech by the Russian Madame Vunkowsky in French about the meaning and correlation of colors, numbers and sounds was very interesting and inspiring. Her demonstrations, which she also supported with music samples in addition to pictures - the lady is a brilliant violin artist - were continued in the afternoon because they aroused so much interest and offered a lot of educational content.

Thereafter, the founding of a theosophical school for the purpose of training teachers and propagandists was discussed, as well as the founding of a theosophical world newspaper, possibly in Esperanto. No decision was reached.

This was followed by a lecture by Mr. Joseph Migray on “Modern Epistemology and Theosophy”.

The evening brought the public, very well-attended, usual beautiful lecture by Mrs. Besant, the content of which can be summarized as the terms and theos[ophical] ideas she set out in her “Study of Consciousness”. (Miss Völker can perhaps say something about the content of the book).

The last day of the congress also had a wealth of beautiful and uplifting things in store for us.

Firstly: the second lecture by Dr. Peipers on the already mentioned topic.

Second: Lecture by Mrs. Besant: “The Christ - who is he?” In it she developed the aspects of the individuality of Christ and his mission for humanity in the present day (the development of the “I am principle”) that Dr. Steiner had already shared with us, essentially in a wonderful way and expression. Before the last joint midday meal, all the participants in the congress were photographed; and as far as I can tell from looking at the test picture, it turned out very well.

At three o'clock, Mrs. [Sheilds] spoke briefly about the “Gospel of John” from Berlin. After her, Dr. Steiner spoke about the unique pictorial works of the Nordic artist and member Mr. [Heyman], which, in a way that is gratifying for occultists, unconsciously depict what has been seen in higher worlds. It may be worth mentioning here that the festival hall was beautifully and very interestingly decorated with pictures by theosophical artists.

In French, Mrs. Kamensky from St. Petersburg read about “La philosophie russe et la theosophie”.

The official closing act was Mrs. Besant's farewell address to those present and the response to it from the head of the Hungarian section.

It had been a wonderful time for all of us, which hopefully furthered the theosophical cause and its mission for humanity.

We can take with us and share two important impressions: the unity and agreement between Mrs. Besant and Dr. Steiner and the beautiful perception of how warmly and intimately Mrs. Besant has approached the Christ principle and how she strives to represent it with all her strength as a principle of the present time. These two beautiful views, which the memory of what we have experienced and which will remain deep in our hearts, can make these content-rich days doubly worthwhile.

The next conference will take place at Easter 1911 in Turin.

The public lecture by Dr. Steiner was very well attended after the official conclusion in the conference hall. The theme was: “On spiritual science - where do these insights into the spiritual worlds come from and what path leads to them in the present?” A powerful and mighty speech that, with sounds and images, knocked on the hearts and minds of the people, on their emotional and sensory lives, as only Dr. Steiner is able to give with such power, intimacy and enthusiasm for his sacred mission.

After the lecture at half past eight, a moonlight excursion was undertaken on foot or by carriage to Blocksberg, Gellert-hegy, which was also attended by Mrs. Besant and Dr. Steiner, and [which, the drive over the Danube, through the world-famous chain bridge], the view from above down onto the wonderful city, resplendent in the almost southern magic of its illumination and natural beauty, captured hearts with poetic feeling. A moonlit walk to the citadel, from where one has a view of the city, both banks, the countryside, the river, the mountains and the heath, spiced up with accompanying gypsy music, awakened the right beautiful and pure feelings to bid farewell in an appropriate spirit and sentiment to a theosophical congress and its participants.

(Dr. Steiner's cycle on “Theosophy and Occultism of the Rosicrucian” took place from June 3 to 12, 1909. These ten lectures, as well as the congress lecture, were handed over to the archive according to my notes.

Unfortunately, I did not write down the public lecture of June 2, 1909.

Verse for Saturday. My dear sisters and brothers! In ordinary day consciousness we know nothing about what's behind what we sense, imagine, think, feel and will. In our dream life we're in this living weaving that's the background of our day consciousness. One part of this world of which we can otherwise perceive nothing extends into our chaotic dream pictures. If we could awaken out of our dreams half way we would experience a flowing wave around us in which our soul lives from the beginning of sleep. And then if we woke up completely we would bring a memory of living, weaving dream experiences into our day consciousness. However it's physically impossible to wake up half way; we must go into sense consciousness completely right away. That's why we know nothing about that other world. But we're really always dreaming. This living, weaving dream world is always around us and we're in it—we just don't know it. The strange thing about dreams is that it's easy to forget them, much easier than anything we experience with day consciousness. Most people only think about what they experience with their day consciousness, and their dreams reflect this. It's only when one fills one's soul with ideas and feelings that go beyond daily life that one can dream about something that has its origin in the spiritual world. A man who's immersed in his everyday consciousness knows nothing about this spirituality that's behind all of his thinking, feeling and willing. We can become aware of this spirituality from another side. A spiritual stream pours into the physical body at birth or conception as it's getting built up and gradually pulses through the whole organism. The life of the new soul core, the germ for the next life, that which survives death becomes created in the course of a life. But we know nothing of the spirit from the previous life that streams into physical existence or about the soul core that's the seed for the next life. So what do we know?

Our life consists of two parts, one from birth to our earliest memory and another from this moment until death. If one is in one's 31st year and remembers back to that point, one then arrives at the boundary of the spirituality that's streaming in there. One perceives this boundary; one becomes aware of this boundary by bumping into it. Such collisions remain in our memory during our life and form our memories. Our memories collect in there. And that's our consciousness in physical life.

Just as the seed of the new plant develops in a plant, so we work at the forces that shape our new life for the future. Happy are they who have stored up nice memories. The spirituality from the past life that streams and goes through the new body from birth on gradually dissipates during life.

As was often said, a great memory tableau appears after death. On leaving the physical body one first arrives at this boundary where all the memories are stored up; we then see them as a great tableau before us. The memory of some experience can be forgotten all life long until it's suddenly drawn up into consciousness again. It was always there. It's as if one put salt in water and it falls to the bottom. This can be brought up again by stirring. Likewise our memories are a sediment that we can bring up again. If we pour seltzer into a glass we see little bubbles rising. The water, the actually real thing we don't see but only where there is nothing, the carbon dioxide bubbles. We see that, that seems to be reality to us. Likewise we only become aware of the boundary between the new soul core and the old spirituality; we become aware of something where they bump into each other. And this makes up our day consciousness. Consciousness arises through the contact between past and future. We can also make ourselves aware of this spirituality from a third side. It's not only men who think and their memories and thoughts remain as a sediment, but spiritual beings have thought and are still thinking. What high hierarchies thought in times long past, the memories that remained behind of these thoughts are what we perceive around us here as mountains, clouds, streams or in short nature. The physical sun is the remaining memory of the sun leader, of Christ, of the earth spirit who later went into the earth at the event of Golgotha. And the memories of what high beings on Moon thought are plants, animals and men's physical bodies. Spiritual beings there thought errors—which was appropriate there—but then didn't realize them. When we men think good and noble things they continue to exist; we see them in the distance, in the future as imperishable existential values. The errors, lies and dissolute things we think also survive and we see them standing before us in the distance as a waste product that serves as food for the seeds that emerge from well thought things—just as we feed ourselves from the erroneous thoughts of Moon spirits. The waste product in itself is unproductive, but it serves as food for the seeds developing out of good things, just as the mineral kingdom provides soil for plants and just as one thing always feeds on other things. Good feeds on evil like a sprouting seed that consumes corrupt things and perpetuates itself. But we should only think bad and evil things and mustn't let them be realized as deeds, for then they are always luciferic and ahrimanic. Lucifer is about at the stage where the Elohim were on old Moon and he still wants to carry out erroneous thinking in the way that those beings did back then while it was appropriate but is now wrong. But he can only let errors be thought in men. That's why there are errors and deceptions here, and we should become ever more aware of this.

We become aware of something where the “memories” of those high hierarchies are. Through the fact that we bump into a wall that's the “memory” of Gods with our hand that's also a memory, the boundaries of these realities bump into each other, and we thereby become aware of this object. We feel reality, matter in day consciousness where this real thing ceases, and we feel the other thing as nothing. We feel neither our hand nor the wall, but only the boundary in between. A table isn't a reality—it's a hole in the spiritual world that's filled with wood. It's only in our ordinary consciousness that we look upon the table as a reality. If we could make ourselves strong enough through meditation and dampen this day consciousness so that we became completely aware of the nothingness of the surrounding world, then we with our souls would always experience the fact that we're in the spiritual world. Three meditation verses were given to us for this strengthening of our soul. It's a matter of meditating them correctly, of not simply saying the words but of hearing the expression that has to be placed into them if they are to work on our soul in the right way. (The verse in the lesson from March 5th 1914 in Stuttgart, is included here for reference.)

The first two lines in verse one are descriptive, then—resistance. Then descriptive again, and at the end is a request. Beginners can meditate this verse in the evening after the retrospect; those who already have an exercise can do it in their spare time. Special attention should be given to the question in the fourth line of the second verse. There's an entreaty at the end. Beginners should do it in the morning; others can do it at any musing time. A third verse is given us as a test to ask oneself once in a while whether one already feels the spiritual world as a reality.

Everything that's inspired out of the spiritual world is revealed in numbers. The being who let these 7-lined verses flow in thereby helped people to distinguish between real and unreal things. By letting these verses pass through our soul repeatedly we give this being an opportunity to speak to our soul; thereby we get the right effect of the verses.

These verses are expressed briefly in EDN, ICM, PSSR and also in: In the spirit lay the germ of my body ...

The Gospel of Mark was around centuries before Christianity was founded. It is nothing more than an ancient initiation document about how one was initiated in India, Central Asia and the Iranian regions, how one ascended to occult knowledge, acquired the highest knowledge, how one became an initiate, a sun worshipper, where one was initiated up to what is called the ascension. That was written in these initiation documents.

They were not written in this or that language, they were even very rarely written at all. But they were kept in an imperishable language, in the common language of all occultists, in a symbolic language. To understand them, occult studies must be done. These initiation documents were kept top secret through the millennia. They were kept secret by both the priests of Egypt and the Druid priests in Europe. This was also because they could not be of any use to anyone. They could only be of use to those who could understand them.

Now, a historical fact took place on the stage of history that we call the baptism, suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. This outwardly expressed fact is also a mystical fact. It is something that can only be understood as a historical fact if one understands what this particular initiation is, which was in the initiation document I spoke of. In other words, what took place in the years 30 to 33 as the suffering and death of Christ has taken place countless times within the temples. The process became a typical image for all of them after someone had applied the stages of development to an external event.

The first teachers of Christianity therefore approached their students in something like the following manner: “For you and for the sake of you, a great historical process has taken place. But you can only understand this if we tell you about life inside the temples.” And so they preached to them about how one becomes initiated. What had otherwise taken place symbolically inside the temples was now being told so that those who could not see could now believe.

Documents such as the Gospel of Mark are records of this. Now I have explained to you how the Gospel of John relates to all this. John presented himself as the actual executor of Christ's will. The words that Jesus spoke on the cross are not without significance. He hands over to the mother the disciple whom he loves. And the disciple whom Jesus loved was, according to the records of the Akasha Chronicle, Lazarus, who had been initiated by Jesus. Thus the miracle of Lazarus presents itself as an initiation process. This means nothing other than that he was the disciple who had been initiated, who could therefore say the most profound thing that can be said. That is why the Gospel of John is the deepest and why it has also become a message whose explanation can never end. One penetrates deeper and deeper, one finds ever new points, even the scholar.

We find there the transformation of the water of the old covenant into the wine of the new covenant. The “mother” signifies the Jewish people, to whom Jesus transforms the water into the wine of the new Christianity. This is also the reason why the Gospel of John has been regarded as the most occult of the Gospels. From the thirteenth chapter onwards, it is not only intellectually comprehensible, but every sentence that is written is also imbued with occult power.

The Gospel of John has been regarded as an elixir of life, particularly by the disciples of the Rosicrucians. From the washing of the feet onwards, the entire content can be experienced mystically. Anyone who applies it to the whole human being and permeates it with life will experience something within themselves and then understand that much of the Gospel cannot be understood at all without this experience. Every person can mystically go through and live through every single sentence. This is how we should understand the position of the great teacher at the dawn of Christianity. What was new about Christianity was that it revealed what had previously been the wisdom of the mysteries.

A fundamental experience of the theosophist is devotion. The fact that the disciple of Jesus enters the grave to see if he is there or not is not the important thing. What is important is being carried by devotion. There is no path that is not permeated by devotion. And the further one advances on the path of knowledge, the more one will have to acquire devotion. One will become more and more devoted. From this devotion, the power for the highest realizations then flows. Those who manage to refrain from connecting their thoughts will attain the reading of the scriptures in the Akasha Chronicle. But one thing is necessary: to have eliminated the personal ego to such an extent that it no longer claims to connect thoughts itself. It is not so easy to understand this, because man claims the right to connect the predicate with the subject. But as long as he does this, it is impossible for him to really study occult history. If he allows thoughts to arise in selflessness, but also in awareness and clarity, then an event occurs that every occultist knows from a certain point of view, namely the event that the ideas, the thoughts, which he previously formed into sentences and insights from his personal point of view, are now formed by the spiritual world itself, so that he does not judge, but that judgment is made in him. It is then the case that he has sacrificed himself so that a higher self speaks spiritually through his ideas. This is – understood occultly – what was called the sacrifice of the intellect in the Middle Ages. It means giving up my own opinion, my own conviction. As long as I connect my thoughts myself and do not make my thoughts available to higher powers, which then, as it were, write on the tablet of the intellect, I cannot study occult history. It is a contradiction to the higher powers, it is what is usually considered in our time to be particularly remarkable. The theosophist describes what is needed as devotional devotion. This devotion flows from facts such as those related in the Gospel of John.

Questions and Answers

Since a question has been asked here about the brotherhood, I have to say that it is not good to talk about such occult communities because occult powers stand behind them. We are dealing with occult traditions and occult knowledge in more places than we usually realize. There are occult forces and truths in this or that that is really there. And these occult currents have a very specific reason. No one can be drawn into such currents by their own power. It is a matter of how they were introduced, what role they play in it and what and who speaks through them. This is related to the fact that in the whole world it is always ensured that the rivers of divine wisdom never dry up completely. Even if all occultism were to disappear from educated circles, there will always be places where occultism can flow out.

In the fall, I will speak about what are called the apocalypses. First, the Revelation of John; second, the future of thought; third, the future of pneuma; and fourth, the future of harmony.

John, Lazarus, the disciple whom the Lord loved, and the disciple at the cross are one and the same person.

Whether the Christ can only apply to an initiate can be taught by the writing, which can be read in four ways. The first level is where it is read according to the simple naive word, the second level is where one doubts, the third level is where one reads it symbolically, the fourth level is where one recognizes the real meaning of the symbols and thus reaches the real literal meaning of the scriptures.

The descent of the Holy Spirit at the baptism of Jesus in the form of a dove is an important event in the life of Jesus. The parts before and after the baptism can be distinguished as higher and highest. Mark and John therefore tell us only about the highest forms in which the Christ appears to us. The three degrees of discipleship can be distinguished up to the baptism. But then a real transmutation of the being of Jesus takes place through the Christ. This Christ nature is identical with that which is called God in all religions and is often also called the Father Nature. Up to the age of thirty, we have to understand Jesus as every other initiate. But from that point on, the Christ-entity enters into him, and from that point on, the Jesus-Christ personality acquires a cosmological significance. This divine entity was before Abraham was.

If you ask me about the Judas problem, I have to say that Judas was, in a sense, a sacrifice. Someone had to sacrifice themselves so that the main sacrifice could take place. The same person who played the traitor at the time of Jesus of Nazareth was later active in Christianity. It is of great importance to know in which personality Judas has re-embodied himself. But this is a rather complicated and involved problem.

The 'Mother of Jesus' characterizes the Jews as a nation, the Jews who lived in the land and were subject to Jewish law, and those who were scattered throughout the world.

'Galilean' means something like 'heathen mouth'. There was a lot of travel in the place where Jesus was born. A great many foreign people passed through there. You can find the answer to the question regarding Jesus' ascension in the Gospel of John. Jesus' bones were not broken, while the bones of the other robbers were broken. If you understand what the skeletal system is, then you will also understand what it means: resurrection in a glorified body.

Thinking of the tremendous natural events we have heard of—the eruption of Vesuvius and the earthquake in America,¹⁹⁹ it is only to be expected that those who study the science of the spirit ask if there is any connection between the process of cosmic evolution on the one hand and human karma on the other. And it is indeed enormously interesting to investigate and explain these recent events from the occult point of view. To be able to do so, the occultist must not only be schooled in clairvoyance in the usual way, but have gone through initiation in the second degree. It is a known fact in occult circles that the inner earth does not reveal itself to someone with ordinary clairvoyance. It is relatively easy to have clairvoyant awareness at the astral, devachanic level. But it needs another kind of initiation to be able to explore the inner earth.

Let me first of all remind you that present-day people have only managed to penetrate the outer shell of the earth to a very small depth. They have gone scarcely beyond a depth of 2,000 metres. Everything else, everything beyond this, is beyond their limits of penetration. And they would really be utterly surprised, perhaps even confused, if they did succeed in learning more about the deeper layers of this our earth. They would be confused because they would find things there that show only the faintest similarity to those we know on the earth's surface. They would not have words to describe most of them, for the states of matter inside the earth are indeed utterly different from anything we know up here. They would be utterly amazed to find that the metal which corresponds to our silver is liquid like mercury down there. And the same holds true for the other metals and the minerals.

The earth consists of seven distinct layers, and an exploration of those seven layers corresponds to the seven stages of Christian initiation.²⁰⁰ They are 1) the washing of the feet, 2) the scourging, 3) the crowning with thorns, 4) the crucifixion, 5) the mystic death on the cross, 6) the entombment, and 7) the resurrection.

Someone who had passed the first stage of initiation would thus be able to penetrate the outermost layer clairvoyantly and proceed to explore the second, and so on.

In the first place, then, the earth has seven layers. The outermost, on which we live, is called the mineral earth in the language of initiates. This and the other terms I shall give come from a great occult school. The same terms were used by medieval mystics, Rosicrucians, and others.

This mineral earth contains all the minerals we are familiar with. Relatively speaking, it is an extremely thin and delicate layer. Volcanic eruptions bear witness that deeper layers are able to penetrate it.

The mineral earth is followed by what is known as the ‘soft’ earth. It is given that name because here the hardening process has not gone as far as it has in the mineral earth. It also has a quite remarkable property. It has a kind of sentience. It produces symptoms of sentient responses on being touched that are like the dim conscious awareness of some plant species.

The next layer is called the ‘steam’ earth. Just as steam is produced in a boiler, so does this layer come to a form of will-like expression. It is capable of enormous expansion, and the mineral layer is only able to contain it with some effort.

The fourth layer is called the ‘form’ or also the ‘water’ earth. Its special feature is that it has the negative of every form we know of in the mineral layer. Thus a rock crystal would there have the form of its negative, like a plaster cast up here.

The fifth layer is called the ‘fruit’ earth. If it were able to get out into the atmosphere, we would observe form upon form arising from such a piece of fruit earth and disappearing again. It has soul, as it were, the capacities of a soul struggling to gain shape and form.

The sixth layer is the ‘fire’ earth, a most remarkable layer, as we shall see. It is able to feel pleasure and pain, as it were, and is more or less in the condition of a human being who is ‘over the moon’ one moment and ‘down in the dumps’ the next. Human passions have a tremendous effect on it, and as human passions grow, so it gets more and more restless.

The seventh layer is called the ‘earth mirror’, exactly because everything that happens on the outermost layer is reflected here. You have to think of it happening in a different way however. Everything that is passive here is active there and vice versa. So if you were to strike some metal here to make it ring, the metal would ring of its own accord down there.

These seven layers are followed by two others which are of a very peculiar nature. In the School of Pythagoras the eighth layer was called the sphere of numbers because of a particular aspect we shall consider in a moment. Our occult schools call it the shatterer. For if we were to hold a flower against it, trying, as it were, to look at this layer through the flower, we would see the rose multiplied an infinite number of times. If we were to do the same experiment with a stone, there would be no multiplication. It only applies to natural life forms and to things created with artistic feeling. This region is the seat of all that lacks harmony, morals and peace. There everything rushes apart. It is the opposite of love. If a black magician were to succeed in reaching it—and he does have the power to do so—the evil in him would grow tremendously more powerful. It is the particular moral attitude of human beings that has an enormous influence on this level. If humanity gradually succeeds more and more in getting rid of immorality, letting morality take its place, this zone will gradually calm down more and more. And this will in its turn influence the attitudes of human beings.

The ninth and final layer is the dwelling place, as it were, of the spirit of our planet. It has two peculiar features. We might compare it with a human being, for it has an organ resembling a brain. Another organ is similar to a heart. The spirit of our planet is also subject to changes closely connected with human evolution.

Let us now go back to the fire earth. As I said, it has the capacity to feel pleasure and pain, and living people's passions have a powerful influence on it, so that it gets into an even greater state of restlessness and upheaval at times when human beings develop great passions. It then exerts even greater pressure on the fruit earth lying above it. And channels do indeed branch out from this layer to all the layers above it. The mineral earth contains great cavities, though these are at considerable depth. The channels from the fruit earth run to those cavities and force tremendous masses of material into them. These on their part cause earthquakes or seek a way out through the vent of a volcano. Such have also been the causes of those recent disasters.

The Lemurians, the third great root race, still lived on a soft earth. The hardening process in the outer crust had not yet progressed very far and there were just a few harder areas that floated in this soft layer more or less like islands. The last remnants and witness to, that soft earth are the many small islands in the Pacific which rise suddenly above the surface of the ocean and disappear again after a time. The Lemurians, who developed tremendous passions, had such an influence on the fire earth as their evolution progressed and they indulged in their vices, that the fire earth grew rebellious, as it were, came up to the surface with tremendous power and destroyed the race.

We see, therefore, that the Lemurians brought about their own perdition. Realizing this, the occultist reflects that by working on his own perfection he may not only accelerate the process of evolution for his time but also have a considerable influence on earth evolution. This should arouse a feeling of responsibility in both respects, spurring him on to do further work on himself.

Let us now consider two highly important occult facts that are connected with these natural events. On the one hand let us envisage the karma of the people who perished in those disasters. It is only natural for people to wonder about the tremendous karma coming upon countless individuals on such occasions. I can tell you, however, that occult observation has shown these individuals to be the best of spiritualists in their next incarnation. Their violent death came as the final shock, as it were, to strip off the bonds of materialism once and for all.

Another occult observation is that all people born at the time when such an eruption takes place will be materialists in life. This is quite understandable. The disquieting element of the fire earth is influencing them at a time when they seek to reincarnate with all might and gives them materialistic qualities. It does not matter if a soul is born here or in America, for example. Separation in space is without cause in this zone. Many of the readers and writers of materialistic works were born around the year 1822 when Vesuvius erupted again after a long period of quiescence. The fact that Vesuvius remained quiescent for centuries indicates the spiritual nature of the Middle Ages. Since then eruptions have come at relatively short intervals. Evolution has accelerated altogether now. The period from Charlemagne to Frederic the Great corresponds to the period of the 19th century, meaning that all events during the longer period correspond in number and significance to those that now happen within a century. Evolution will go even faster as time goes on.

• 199. In April 1906, the cone at the summit of Vesuvius collapsed. Vapour pressure caused the material, about 100 million cubic metres, to be ejected, with masses of ashes raining down on the surrounding area for days, darkening the skies. Together with the lava flow they caused emormous damage. More than 100 people lost their lives.
  The San Francisco earthquake of 1906, with the fires tliat followed, destroyed almost the whole of the city.
• 200. See the lecture given in Köln (Cologne) on 30 November 1906 (in this volume), and the lecture given on 3 September 1906 in Stuttgart (in At the Gates of Spiritual Science (GA 95). Tr. E. Goddard, C. Davy, London: Rudolf Steiner Press 1986).

[ 1 ] This course of lectures will take us into the high spiritual regions we shall be led from the earth, where we live, not only into the wide physical spaces of our universe, but also be uplifted to those spiritual worlds, from which this whole physical universe has derived its origin.

Such a course will show us, that the fundamental object of all knowledge and all wisdom is to solve the greatest problem of all — the problem of humanity. In order to make the human being understandable, explanatory facts have to be brought from far away. Above all it is necessary that those who wish to follow this course should be acquainted with the fundamental conceptions of Anthroposophy; although it is true that all Anthroposophists are acquainted with them in a general way. In these lectures we may rise in spirit to very exalted spheres, but we shall always endeavour to bring those facts which lie so far afield near to you and make them as comprehensible as possible.

[ 2 ] When we have to speak of what we call the Spiritual Hierarchies, it means that our souls' gaze must rise to those beings who, in the sphere of our earth, have a higher existence than man. In the visible world we can only progress to beings that represent four degrees of one hierarchy, i.e., the mineral world, the plant world, the animal world and the human world. Above man begins a world of invisible beings, through the knowledge of the super-sensible world, and man is able (as far as it is possible for him) to rise a certain distance towards those beings and powers, which are the continuation in the invisible world of the four grades found within the realm of the earth. The knowledge and investigation which lead us into those regions has not, as you all know, come into existence only at our present time in evolution. There is what we may call a primeval world-wisdom; — all that man can fathom, all that he can know and realise, all that he has gained in ideas and conceptions, all that he has attained through clairvoyant imagination, inspiration, and intuition, — all has been lived before, and known before, by those Beings who are higher than he. He only follows so to say, in their track. To make use of a trivial example: the watchmaker has first the idea, then he makes the watch according to the idea. A watch is made after the maker's ideas which preceded the watch; afterwards everyone can study and observe for himself from what ideas the watch was made, he can follow up the thoughts of the watchmaker. At the present point of evolution it is indeed only this kind of connection that man can have with primeval world-wisdom and with the spiritual beings that stand above him. Spiritual beings had first those imaginations, inspirations, intuitions, those ideas and thoughts according to which the world, as we see it, was formed. Man finds these thoughts and ideas in the world again; when he rises to clairvoyant vision, he finds the imaginations, inspirations, and intuitions, by the help of which he can penetrate into the world of those spiritual beings. We can, therefore, say that before our world came into being there already existed the wisdom of which we are going to speak: it is the Plan of the World.

[ 3 ] How far must we go back, while still remaining within the limits of reality, if we want to come into touch with that primeval world-wisdom? Must we go back to some time or other in the historical past, when some great teacher was teaching? We can certainly learn a great deal if we do; but to come into touch with true primeval world-wisdom we must go back to the time when there was no outwardly visible earth, when no world visible to the outer senses was as yet in existence. It was from out [of] that wisdom itself that the world came forth. But this wisdom, out of which spiritual beings formed our world, was imparted to man later. Man with his thoughts could see behind those thoughts, could realise the thoughts according to which spiritual beings have built the world. After this primeval wisdom, this wisdom of the creators of the world had worked through many forms, it appeared in a form known to many of you: after the great Atlantean period it appeared in those ancient, holy Rishis, the great teachers of India, during our first epoch of civilisation. [ 4 ] With these sublime Rishis the primeval wisdom expressed itself in a form which the man of the present day can but little understand. The human capacities of feeling and thinking have greatly changed since the times when the great teachers of India taught man in the first epoch of civilisation after Atlantis; and if the words which came from the Rishis were simply repeated as they were said, there would be hardly one soul in the whole earth who could hear anything more in them nowadays than just words and again words. One has need of other capabilities of feeling than those at present existing, in order to understand the wisdom which was given to humanity in the first epoch after Atlantis. For all that is found in the best books regarding primeval world-wisdom, is but a faint echo of what this really is which in many ways is but a deceptive, obscured wisdom. However grand and sublime the Vedas appear to us, however beautiful the songs of Zarathustra sound, and however magnificent the language in which the ancient wisdom of Egypt speaks, so that we can never sufficiently admire it; still, all that has been written down gives us but a dim, dull reflection of the wisdom of Hermes, of the grand teaching of Zarathustra, or of the sublime knowledge which the Ancient Rishis proclaimed. This sublime wisdom has been preserved and guarded for humanity; it was always to be found in certain very limited circles of people who watched over what is called the knowledge of the Mysteries. In the Mysteries of India, Persia, Chaldea, Egypt, and in the Christian Mysteries, all the primeval wisdom of humanity has been safely preserved up to our times. Up to a short time ago it was only in those narrow circles, that not book-wisdom, but living wisdom, could be found. For certain reasons which will be made clear in this course of lectures, our time has been chosen for extending to larger masses of people that which has been kept alive by those little groups. The original wisdom of the Rishis, for instance, has never lost life. It permeated, like the fountain of youth, the age which we regard as the beginning of our era. The very holy wisdom which the Rishis gave to man was continued through Zarathustra and his pupils, through the Chaldean and Egyptian teachers. It also flowed in the words of Moses, and it came forth again with. an altogether new impulse, as from the fountain of life, with the appearance of the Christ upon earth. It then became so deep, so intrinsically internal, that it could only gradually flow again into humanity. Thus we see that since the outward declaration of Christianity, the primeval world wisdom has penetrated but slowly and gradually into humanity from most elementary beginnings. [ 5 ] Its messages are there, they are to be found in the Gospels and in other Christian writings which include the wisdom of the holy Rishis, in a new form; like a new birth out of a new fountain. But how could these messages be understood at the beginning of the era for whose purification Christianity had been created? Through the Gospels it was least of all understood; they only attained very gradually to further comprehension and in many ways to a still further obscuration, and to-day the Gospels are, in truth, the most sealed of all books for the larger part of humanity — books which will only be first understood by a future age which will have refreshed itself at the source of the original world-wisdom. But the treasures hidden in the Christian revelation have been preserved, treasures no other than those of the Eastern wisdom, but renewed by means of fresh forces They have been guarded in narrow circles which were the continuation of Mystery Societies, like the Brotherhood of the Holy Grail, and finally in the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross. These treasures of truth have been kept well hidden and have been accessible only to those who through severe trials had prepared themselves for the living wisdom. Thus the treasures of the Eastern and Western wisdom, through all the centuries of evolution from the beginning of our era, were made almost inaccessible to the larger mass of humanity.

[ 1 ] Only a little trickled through here and there to the outer world: the most part remained a secret of the new Mysteries. [ 6 ] Then came a time when some of the contents of primeval wisdom, treasured in narrow circles, was allowed to be given out to larger masses of humanity in a language comprehensible to them. Since the last third of the nineteenth century or thereabouts one can speak of this world wisdom in a more or less unveiled form. It is only because certain things have taken place in the spiritual worlds that the Guardians of the Mysteries received permission to allow some of the ancient wisdom to penetrate to the outer world. All of you, my dear friends, know the course of development of the Anthroposophical Society. You know how the ice in which its development was bound was, so to say, broken by those words of wisdom, revealed in a way which I am not going to enter into now — the stanzas of Dzyan. Those stanzas of Dzyan, of the secret teaching, contain in truth some of the deepest and most important wisdom; they have in them much of that which coming from the teaching of the holy Rishis has flowed through the sanctuaries of the East. They contain also much of what has streamed into Western Europe since the Christian rejuvenation. For the stanzas of Dzyan do not include only the wisdom which had to be kept exclusively for the East, but also a great deal of that which streamed as a clear light through the centuries of our time, through the Middle Ages into the Mystery Schools of the West. Much that is to be found in the stanzas of Dzyan will only be gradually understood in all its depth. It may well be said here that the wisdom of the stanzas of Dzyan is of such a kind that it cannot yet be understood in the widest anthroposophical circles, or fathomed with the exoteric capabilities of the present day.

[ 7 ] After the first ice had been broken in this way, the time came when one could speak more openly from the sources of Western occultism, which is no other than the occultism of the East transplanted and continued in a way that has adapted itself to new circumstances and conditions of physical and spiritual life.

The time has come when one can speak from those ever living sources of occultism which have been faithfully treasured in the Mysteries of the Rosy Cross. There is no wisdom of the East which has not streamed into Western occultism and into the teaching and investigations of the Rosy Cross; in them is to be found absolutely all that the great teachers of the East ever had in their keeping. Nothing, nothing whatever of that which is to be found in the Eastern wisdom is lacking in the wisdom of the West. The only difference — if it can be called a difference — is that Western occultism has to include the whole of the Eastern wisdom and teaching and, without losing anything, to blend it with the light which has been kindled in humanity through the Christ Impulse. When one speaks of Western occultism, of that which has its derivation from the hidden Western Rishis (whom certainly no eye hath seen) it is impossible to say that in it is wanting one single iota, one single shred of the Eastern wisdom. Only it had all to be brought forth again fresh and new from the fountain-head of the Christ Impulse. All the great treasures of wisdom which were first revealed by the holy Rishis regarding superhuman worlds and super-sensible existence, resound in the description we have to give of the spiritual hierarchies and their reflection in the physical world. Just as the geometry of Euclid has not become something different from what it used to be, because one teaches and learns it with new human capabilities, just as little has the wisdom of the holy Rishis changed because we learn and teach it with the new capabilities which have been kindled in us by the Christ Impulse. Therefore much of what we have to say about the spiritual worlds can be called Eastern wisdom. There must not be any misunderstanding in these things — and misunderstandings happen so easily. [ 8 ] Those who will not free themselves of a misconception, in order to come to understanding, can very easily misinterpret what, for instance, was said yesterday at the Easter lecture. They might assert about the so-called truths of Buddha, that I had said that the Buddha had taught and revealed the truths about life and life's pain as follows: ‘birth is pain, illness is pain, old age is pain, death is pain; to be separated from those one loves is pain, not to be united with what one loves is pain, not to have what one desires is pain’ and that I said: ‘Let us look at those who, in the times after Christ, really understood the Christ Impulse; for all the holy truths of the Buddha about the pain of life have no more their full importance; something has been created by the Christ Impulse that is like a cure for the pain of life.’ The Buddha taught: ‘Birth is pain’; but those who understood the Christ would answer that through birth we enter into a life shared with the Christ, and through the Christ's share in it the pain of life will be extinguished. Illness will also be extinguished through the healing power of the Christ Impulse, and there is no more pain in illness for one who understands Christ, and death also has no more pain for him who understands Christ. Yet someone might reply to this ‘Yes, but I could point to the Gospels to show that also there you will find it said that illness is pain, life is pain’: and one might superficially come to the conclusion: ‘We have those modern religious documents, but what they contain can also be found in Buddhism, therefore religions are not making progress, there is no evolution in them. All religions say the same things, but you have spoken of a progress, you expounded to us how, with the help of Christianity, the old truths of Buddhism would not be true any more.’ If anyone were to say this he would be guilty of a very serious misunderstanding. For that was not said: everything indeed was said with the exception of the last sentence. It is very important that this very subtle question should be rightly understood. A fanatic can never understand with precision, but a man who is objective can. [ 9 ] No one who speaks with knowledge of Rosicrucian wisdom will ever expound anything that would be against any of the writings of the great Buddha, or say that anything in them is untrue. Every man who speaks from the sources of Rosicrucian wisdom shares the conviction of Buddha, no one denies it. ‘Yes,’ such a man says, ‘what thou, great Buddha, through thy inner illumination, hast seen of the great truths about pain and life is exactly true, it is true to its last iota.’ Nothing, absolutely nothing will be taken away from it. All of it remains as it was. And it is just because all of it remains as it was, because all is true of what the Buddha said about the pain of life, of illness, of old age and of death, just because of this, the Christ Impulse is such a powerful and important saving help to us, for it is just this which lifts the pain, because it is true that pain would be there, if the world could not be lifted beyond and above it through that great Impulse. Why could the Christ work effectively? Because the Buddha had spoken the truth. Humanity had to be brought down out of the spiritual heights where the primeval world wisdom is active in its purest form; man had to be led to independence, through physical existence with which life's pain and illness are bound up, and the great healing help had to oppose those unavoidable facts in the course of further evolution. Does that man deny the reality of facts who, while declaring that these realities exist, holds at the same time that remedy has been given us by which the facts, about which those truths have been said, can be brought to a salutary development; does he who says this deny any existing reality? Oh! in those heights of existence where we must look for the spheres of the spiritual hierarchies — there Buddhism is not opposed to Christianity, nor Christianity to Buddhism; there the Buddha gives his hand to the Christ, and the Christ to the Buddha. But every misconception regarding human evolution, every misconception as to its ascending development, is a misconception also of that spiritual act in our earthly evolution which is the Act of Christ.

Thus nothing is denied. of the wisdom of the East, the wisdom which has brought down to us the teaching of the holy Rishis, and with it the primeval world-wisdom, which through such long epochs of time has ever been streaming into humanity. But, all through those very long epochs, large masses of humanity could not penetrate to the sources of that wisdom, could only understand it with great difficulty; it was precisely the understanding of it which came with such difficulty. [ 10 ] In ancient Atlantean times, before the great catastrophe, when the masses of humanity were still clairvoyant with the thin ancient clairvoyance, they beheld something quite different when they looked upwards to the spaces of heaven, to the spiritual hierarchies, from what they saw in the times after Atlantis when the larger part of humanity had lost its clairvoyance and so could gaze only with its physical eyes into the physical distances of the heavens. Therefore, in the times before the Atlantean catastrophe, it would have been quite senseless to speak to them of the heavenly bodies spread out in space as they are to-day. The clairvoyant human eye gazed into heavenly distance and saw the spiritual worlds. In those times there would have been no sense in speaking of Mercury or of Neptune or of Saturn, etc., as our astronomy speaks. The way astronomy speaks of the spaces of the world and what they contain is merely a reflection of what is seen by our own physical sight when it looks into depths of the sky. This did not exist for the ancient clairvoyant humanity of Atlantis; when they looked upwards, they did not see physically-limited stars, what the physical eye sees to-day is but the outer physical expression of the spiritual realities which people then beheld. When looking to-day with one's physical eye through a telescope at the place where Jupiter is, one perceives a physical globe surrounded by moons. What was seen by the man of Atlantis when he lifted his clairvoyant gaze to that same point which we look at to-day with our physical eyes? The Atlantean's eyes would have seen as little of what our sight sees to-day, as we should if we looked at a light through a thick autumn fog. The eye of the Atlantean would not have seen the physical star Jupiter, but he would have seen that which is also united with Jupiter to-day, which the man of the present day does not see: the aura of Jupiter, a totality of spiritual beings, of which the physical Jupiter is only the external expression. Thus did the gaze of man, before the Atlantean catastrophe, sweep round the spaces of the world seeing everywhere its spiritual content. He could speak only of the spiritual, for it would have had no meaning to speak of physical stars, when the physical eye was not yet opened as it is to-day. Looking into the spaces of the universe man saw spiritual beings — the spiritual hierarchies. He actually saw beings. [ 11 ] We can compare the changes that took place with further evolution in this way: let us suppose that we are going out into a thick fog; we do not see separate lights, everything is surrounded by aura or fog. The fog lifts and disperses, the separate lights are visible, but their aura becomes invisible ... This is only a physical process which must serve for an example. But the ancient eye saw the aura of Jupiter, it saw spiritual beings in that aura which at certain points of their evolution were united to Jupiter. Humanity then developed further, to the attainment of physical sight. The aura remained: men could no longer see it, but the physical body in the centre became ever clearer and clearer, spiritually it was lost to sight as its corporeal part became visible. But the knowledge of the spiritual, the knowledge of the beings surrounding the star was kept and guarded in the holy Mysteries.

All the holy Rishis speak of that knowledge. In the times when men already saw only in a physical way, the Rishis spoke to them of the spiritual atmospheres, of the spiritual inhabitants of those spheres which are spread out in the spaces of the world.

[ 12 ] Consider what the situation then was. In the centres of knowledge, spiritual beings were spoken of which surround the spheres of the universe. Outside where the physical eye was growing always sharper, physical matter was spoken of more and more. When the Ancient Rishis said the word Mercury (they did not use that word, but we take it as an example), did they mean by it the physical orb of that name? No! — even the ancient Greeks did not use it in that sense; what they meant was the totality of spiritual beings belonging to that planet. Spiritual world and spiritual beings were spoken of when, in the centres of secret knowledge for instance, the word Mercury was pronounced. When the disciples of that sacred knowledge spoke of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn pronouncing these words in their different languages, they expressed the gradations of spiritual beings. When those names are used to-day, only the coarsest part is meant of that which was originally understood by Moon, Mercury, Venus. The principal part is just what is omitted to-day; the ancient teacher of wisdom said the word Moon and with that word he evoked the idea of a great spiritual world. When he, pronouncing the word ‘Moon’, pointed to the place in heaven where the moon was, he felt in his consciousness that it was the lowest stage of the spiritual hierarchies, but the man to whom he was showing it, who was getting ever further from that spiritual sight because humanity was growing more and more physical, saw only the physical moon, and called it ‘Moon.’

One single word for two things which, though they certainly belong to each other, call forth quite different ideas in man. It was the same when the sages of the sacred knowledge pointed to Mercury, Sun, or Mars. [ 13 ] Thus we see that the two currents grew always further apart in humanity, the spiritual one describing something quite different from the material current. In the sacred Mysteries these words — which later became the mere names of physical planets — were always understood as descriptions of spiritual worlds and gradations of spiritual realms. The outer world always understood it materially up to the time of modern Mythology — I use the word purposely — which is called Astronomy. And as Anthroposophy has recognised the full worth of all the other Mythologies, it has also, as you will understand, given full value to that Mythology which is called modern Astronomy, which sees only space and in it, the physical world-spheres as physical orbs. But to him who knows, modern Mythology is only a special phase of all Mythologies. What the ancient inhabitants of Europe said in their myths about gods and stars, what the Romans gave in their Mythologies, and what appeared as the obscured Mythology of the Middle Ages, lead up in a straight line to the wonderful and admirable discoveries of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo. A future will come when modern Mythology will be spoken of somewhat in this way: ‘There was a time when people found it right to place a material sun as the middle point of an ellipse and let the planets rotate within it, and spin round themselves on their own axes in different ways; they arranged a world system in that way, as people of earlier times also did. To-day’ — so will that future age think — ‘all that is only legend and fairy tale.’ Yes, that future age will come, although the man of the present who laughs at former Mythologies thinks it impossible that one could ever speak of Copernican Mythology. But this consideration will make clear to us how through the same words something ever more different may be meant. In spite of this the true primeval wisdom has always been cultivated and has always continued; it has however always been less understood exoterically and its spiritual side less seen, the more it has been materially explained.

In the beginning of our era, when there was a rejuvenescence of primeval wisdom, (in order that humanity should not lose all touch with that ancient wisdom), it was said. in sharp, clear words, that when man looks at the outer space of the world and his physical eye sees only what is physical, the space is filled with spirit. It was the most intimate pupil of St. Paul, Dionysius the Areopagite, who said in clear-cut words: ‘There is not only matter out there in space; there is, for the soul which rises consciously into the spaces of universal existence, the spiritual part which stands above man in the evolution of existence.’ And he used words which sounded different from the old ones, for if he had used the old words everybody would have understood them in the material sense. The Rishis spoke of the spiritual hierarchies, they expressed in their language what the Greek and Roman wisdom still described when speaking of the ascending scale of worlds: of the Moon, of Mercury, Mars and Venus, Jupiter and Saturn. Dionysius, the pupil of the Apostle Paul had the same worlds in his mind as the Rishis, he repeated in clear cut words that here one had to do with spiritual realms, and he used words which he could be certain would be understood in their spiritual sense: he spoke of Angels, Archangels, Archai, Powers, Mights, Dominions, Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim. For now humanity had completely forgot what it once knew. Had it still been able to understand the connection between what Dionysius and the Rishis had seen, it would have grasped, while hearing on the one side of the Moon, and on the other side of the Mysteries of the Angels, that these were one and the same thing. It would have heard the word Mercury on the one hand and Archangel on the other, and would have known they were the same. The word ‘Archai’ spoken by the one, and ‘Venus’ by the other, were the same. And men. would have understood that with the words ‘Sun’ and ‘Powers’ the same worlds were meant. With the name ‘Mars’ they would have felt that they had to rise to the Mights (Dynamis). When they heard Jupiter mentioned, they would have known that it was the same as when in the school of Dionysius, Dominions were described. Saturn corresponds to ‘Thrones’; [ 14 ] but in wider circles this was not known any more, it could not be known. Thus there was on the one side a science of matter, which became ever more material, and the old names which once signified spiritual forces, were now used in a material sense. And on the other side, there was a spiritual life which spoke of Angels and Archangels, etc. which had lost its connection with the physical designations of these spiritual beings.

Thus we see how the primeval wisdom enters through Dionysius into the school which Paul had inaugurated, and how this new inauguration had to be penetrated by the ancient spirit. It is the task of modern Spiritual Science, or anthroposophy to form once more the bond which must unite the physical to the spiritual, the bond between the earth and the spiritual hierarchies. It is impossible for those who do not know where their ideas about the outer world of the senses come from, to realise the other, the spiritual side of knowledge. [ 15 ] This will be particularly noticeable when we have to deal with those writings which, although they are but a faint echo of the primeval cosmic wisdom, can still be understood in the light of that wisdom.

Let me show you an example of the difficulty there is in understanding writings which come down to us from that primeval wisdom. It is an example out of the Song Celestial, the Bhagavad Gita, where a sentence throws a very significant light on the connection between human life and the hierarchies. It is the following: (8th Chap. beginning with 23rd verse) ‘I will explain unto thee, oh man seeking for truth’ (it is thus generally translated) ‘under what circumstances those who know the Eternal leave the earth through the gate of death, to be later reborn or not. I will tell thee: Behold the fire, behold the day, behold the time of the waning moon, behold the half year when the sun is high — those who die at that time, who die in fire, in the day, in the time of the waxing moon, those enter through the gates of death into Brahma, but those who die in the sign of the smoke, in the night, when the moon is waning, in the half year when the sun stands low, these when they leave the world and pass through the gates of death enter only into the light of the moon, and return again to the world.’ [ 16 ] Here you have, my dear anthroposophical friends, a sentence from the Bhagavad Gita, in which it says that the condition of man's progress and of his reincarnation depends on whether he dies in the sign of the light, by day, with the waxing moon, during the half year when the sun stands high, or whether he dies in the sign of the smoke, by night, when the moon wanes and when the sun is low. It is said that this refers to the material sun. Of those who die in the sign of the fire by day, with the moon waxing, and during that half of the year when the sun is high, it is said that they do not need to return. Those who die in the sign of the smoke, by night, with the moon waning, and when the sun is low, must return into the world. This sentence out of the divine song of the East presents the greatest difficulty to all those who want to explain it within the limits of exoteric life. It can be explained only when it is illuminated by the light of spiritual knowledge, by the light in which it was received and written, the light which streams out of the Mystery schools, which can be increased. which has known its rejuvenescence through Christianity and which shows us how to find the link which binds the names Moon to Angels, Mercury to Archangels, Venus to the Archai and so on. With its help we shall find the key to such sentences as the one we gave as an example. Our course of studies will start from the explanation of this sentence in the Bhagavad Gita, a thing which is impossible in exoteric life; and after we have found the key to it, we shall pass on to further explanations of the spiritual hierarchies.

Yesterday [Public lecture, Munich 19th November 1911, ‘From Paracelsus to Goethe’. (Not published in English.)⁴³ we heard that in still later epochs men will be able to behold Him in even higher forms in the aesthetic and moral spheres. But when we speak in this way of the Christ Impulse we are concerned with ideas which will be resolutely opposed above all by the churches of Christendom. Great and incisive measures have been and are necessary in the onward progress of human evolution in order to promote increasing understanding of the Christ Impulse. Hitherto, indeed, such understanding has been lacking. And anyone who considers modern theology will realise not only the futility of the attitude maintained by the opponents of Christianity, but also by those who claim to be its steadfast adherents. The theosophical movement in the West should have become that stream of spiritual life which out of true and genuine sources awakens understanding for Christianity in the modern age, but such endeavours met with strong opposition.

It is important to understand the real sources of Christianity, but owing to lack of time they cannot all be mentioned today. We shall speak only of those which have been accessible to mankind since the thirteenth century.

Since the thirteenth century the movement connected with the name of Christian Rosenkreutz has been an integral part of the spiritual life of mankind. Spiritual measures of a very definite kind were necessary in the thirteenth century to enable the influence connected with this name to become part of the spiritual life of the modern age. At the time when the spiritual world was entirely shut off from human vision, a council of twelve wise men came together. All the spiritual knowledge then existing, of the world and its secrets, was gathered from their separate different spheres into this council. By means of certain occult processes, the wisdom that had passed over from Atlantis to the holy Rishis had been transmitted to seven of these twelve men. In four others lived the wisdom of the sacred mysteries of the Indian, Persian, Egyptian and Greco-Roman epochs respectively. And what existed in those days of the kind of culture which was to characterise the fifth post-Atlantean epoch constituted the wisdom of the twelfth. The whole range of spiritual life was accessible to these twelve.

Now it was known at that time that a certain individuality who had been a contemporary of the Mystery of Golgotha was to be born again as a child. Meanwhile, through a number of incarnations, this individuality had unfolded a power of deep and fervent piety, devotion and love. The council of the twelve wise men took this child into their care soon after he was born; shut off from the outside, exoteric world, he came under no influence save theirs; they cared for all his bodily needs and were also his teachers. The manner of the child's development was altogether unique; the profound spirituality he bore within him as the fruit of many incarnations came to expression, too, in his outer, bodily form. He was a weak and sickly child, but his body became marvelously transparent. He grew up and developed in such a way that a radiant, shining spirit indwelt a body that had become transparent. Through the processes of a profoundly wise form of education, all the wisdom from the ages preceding and during post-Atlantean times which the twelve wise men were able to give forth, rayed into his soul. By way of the deeper soul-forces, not by way of the intellect, the treasures of all this wisdom united in the soul of this child. He then fell into a strange condition. For a certain period of time he ceased to take nourishment; all external functions of life were as though paralysed, and the whole of the wisdom received by the child rayed back to the twelve. Each of them received back what he had originally given, but now in a different form. And those twelve wise men felt: Now, for the first time, the twelve great religions and world conceptions have been given to us, united into one interconnected whole. And henceforward what we call rosicrucian Christianity lived in the twelve men.

The child lived only a short time longer. In the external world we give the name Christian Rosenkreutz to this individuality. But it was not until the fourteenth century that he was known by this name. In the fourteenth century he was born again and lived then for more than a hundred years. Even when he was not incarnated in the flesh, he worked through his etheric body, always with the purpose of influencing the development of Christianity in its true form as the synthesis of all the great religions and systems of thought in the world. And he has worked on into our time, either as a human being or from his ether body, inspiring all that was done in the West to establish the synthesis of the great religions. His influence today is increasing all the time. Many a person of whom we do not expect it, is a pupil chosen by Christian Rosenkreutz. Already today it is possible to speak of a sign by means of which Christian Rosenkreutz calls to one whom he has chosen. Many people can discover this sign in their life; it may express itself in a thousand ways, but these different manifestations all lead back to a typical form which may be described as follows.

The selection may, for example, happen in the following way. A man embarks upon some undertaking; he spares no effort to make it successful and forges straight ahead towards his goal. While he is ruthlessly making his way in the world (he may be a thorough materialist), suddenly he hears a voice saying: ‘Stop what you purpose to do!’ And he will be aware that this was no physical voice. But now suppose that he abstains from his project. Then he will be able to realise that if he had continued ruthlessly towards his goal, he would certainly have been led to his death.

These are the two fundamentals: that he knows with certainty, firstly, that the warning came from the spiritual world, and secondly, that death would have come to him had he persisted in his undertaking. This is therefore revealed to one who is to become a pupil: You have actually been saved, moreover by a warning proceeding from a world which, to begin with, you are not within. So far as earthly circumstances are concerned, death has already come to you and your further life is to be regarded as a gift. And when the person in question realises this he will be led to the resolve to work in a spiritual movement. If the resolve is taken, this means that the choice has been accomplished. This is how Christian Rosenkreutz begins to gather his pupils around him, and many human beings, if they were sufficiently alert, would be conscious of such an event in their life.

The human beings of whom it can be said that they were, or will be, united in this way with Christian Rosenkreutz, are those who should be the pioneers of a deeper understanding of esoteric Christianity. This stream of spiritual life connected with Christian Rosenkreutz provides the highest means for enabling the Christ Impulse to be understood in our time. The beginning was already made long, long ago—a hundred years before the Mystery of Golgotha, through Jeshu ben Pandira, whose essential mission it was to make preparation for the coming of Christ. He had a pupil, Matthew, whose name subsequently passed over to his successor who was living at the time of Jesus of Nazareth. The greatest deed wrought by Jeshu ben Pandira was that he was the originator and preparer of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The content of this Gospel derives from a ritual of initiation, and passages such as that concerning the temptation, and others, too, originate from enactments in the ancient mysteries. All these processes in the evolution of humanity were to be enacted on the physical plane too. This was written down in outline by the pupil of Jeshu ben Pandira.

Jeshu ben Pandira was not spared from the hard fate he himself predicted; he was stoned, and his corpse was suspended on a cross. The original chronicle was preserved in the hands of a few of his adherents, in deep secrecy. We can best follow what happened to it later on when the great Church father Jerome⁴⁴ himself says that he had received the document of the Matthew Gospel from a Christian sect. The original record was held at that time in the secret keeping of a small circle and through certain circumstances came into the hands of Jerome. He was charged by his bishop with the task of translating it. Jerome himself narrates this; but he says at the same time that because of the form and manner of the transcription, it should not pass into the hands of the outside world. He wanted to translate it in such a way that its secrets would remain secret—and he says, furthermore, that he himself does not understand it. The nature of what came into existence in this way was such that one man could express it in one way and another in a different way in secular language. And this is how it has come down to posterity. In reality, therefore, the world does not yet possess the Gospels in their true form. There is every reason and justification then for spiritual research today, in shedding new light upon the Gospels, to go back to the Akashic Record, because there and there only are they to be found in their original form.

Let there be no mistake about it. Christianity in its true form has yet to be separated out from the trash. One sign among many others indicates how necessary this is. For example, in the year 1873 in France a count was taken of those who could be said to belong inwardly and genuinely to Catholicism. They amounted to one third; the other two thirds proved no longer to be adherents in the real sense—and these two-thirds were certainly not composed of people who never feel the need of religion! Life is such that the religious longings of men do incline towards the Christ, but the true sources of Christianity must be rediscovered. And it is to this end that the stream of spiritual life going out from Jeshu ben Pandira flows into unity with the other stream which, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, is connected with the name of Christian Rosenkreutz.

It is also necessary for us to know that one of the characteristics of the incarnations of the Bodhisattva is that in his youth he cannot be recognised as such. Between his thirtieth and thirty-third year a great revolution takes place in the soul and the personality is fundamentally transformed. For example a Moses or Abraham individuality can be possessed by the personality of a Bodhisattva at this time of his life.

About 3,000 years after our present time this Bodhisattva will become the Maitreya Buddha. And then his influence from the spiritual world will flow into the hearts of men as a magic, moral power. In this way the two streams work together, the stream of the Maitreya Buddha and the Western stream connected with Christian Rosenkreutz.

• 43. Yesterday we heard: in the public lecture in Munich on 19th November 1911 ‘Von Paracelsus zu Goethe’. There is no transcript of the lecture. See the corresponding lecture given in Berlin on 16th November 1911 in—‘Menschengeschichte im Lichte der Geistesforschung’ (Human History in the Light of Spiritual Research) GA 61 Dornach, 1962.
• 44. when ... Jerome himself says: see Rudolf Steiner ‘From Jesus to Christ’, Carlsruhe, October 1911; Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1973.

The occultist will never dream of imposing dogmas. He is one who tells what he has seen and tested in the astral and spiritual worlds or what has been revealed to him by trustworthy and reliable teachers. He does not desire to convert but to quicken in others the sense that has awakened in him and to enable them to see likewise.

Here we shall consider man as an astral being as he is revealed by clairvoyant vision. The astral being of man includes the whole world of feelings, passions, emotions and impulses of the soul. To inner sight these are changed into forms and colours. The astral body itself is a cloud-like, ovoid form, permeating and enveloping man. We can perceive it from within.

In man as a physical being, we have to consider the substance and form of the body. The astral substance entirely changes in the course of seven years, but the form remains. Behind substance is the constructive, upbuilding principle—the etheric body. We do not, in the ordinary way, perceive it; we only see its accomplished work, in the physical body. The eye of sense only sees what is finished, not what is in the state of becoming.

The contrary is the case when we are able to see the astral body—that is to say, our own astral body. We become aware of it from within through our desires and the various movements of the soul.

Seership consists in learning to see from without that which in ordinary life we feel from within. Feelings, desires and thoughts then become living and visible forms, constituting the aura around the physical sheath.

The etheric body builds and moulds the physical body; the astral body is made up of desires. Every human aura has its own individual shades and predominating colours. There is one fundamental colour in which the others play. The aura of a man with a melancholic temperament, for example, is of a bluish hue. But so many impressions coming from without flow through it that the observer may easily be deceived, above all if he is looking at his own aura. The clairvoyant sees his own aura reversed, as it were, the outer as the inner, the inner as the outer, because he is observing it from outside.

All the great Founders of religions have been possessed of clairvoyant sight. They are the spiritual Guides of mankind, and their precepts are precepts of the moral life based on astral and spiritual truths. This explains the similarities in all the religions. There is a certain similarity, for instance, between the Eight-fold Path of the Buddha and the Eight Beatitudes of Christ. The same underlying truth is that whenever man develops one of the virtues, he unfolds a new faculty of perception. Why are eight stages mentioned? Because the seer knows that the faculties which may be transmuted into organs of perception are eight in number.

The astral organs of perception are called in occultism, the ‘lotus-flowers’ (sacred wheels, chakra). The lotus-flower with sixteen petals lies in the region of the larynx. In very ancient times this lotus-flower turned from right to left—that is to say in the opposite direction to the hands of a clock. In the man of today, this lotus-flower has ceased to turn. In the clairvoyant seer it begins to move in the opposite direction—from left to right. In earlier times, eight of the sixteen petals were visible, the others undeveloped. In future ages they will all be visible, for the first eight are the result of the action of unconscious initiation, the other eight of the conscious initiation attained by dint of personal effort. The eight new petals correspond to the Beatitudes of Christ.

Another lotus-flower (with twelve petals) is situated in the region of the heart. In earlier times, six petals only were visible. The acquisition of six virtues will, in times to come, develop the other six. These six virtues are: control of thought, power of initiative, balance of the faculties, optimism which enables a man always to see the positive side of things, freedom from prejudice, and finally, harmony in the life of soul. When these virtues have been acquired, the twelve petals begin to move. They express the sacred quality of the number twelve which we have in the twelve Apostles, the twelve knights of King Arthur, and again in all creation, in all action. Everything in the world develops according to twelve different aspects. We have another example in Goethe's poem, Die Geheimnisse, which expresses the ideal of the Rosicrucians. According to the explanation given by Goethe to certain students, each of the twelve Companions of the Rose Cross represents a religious creed.

We find these virtues expressed again in signs and symbols, for symbols are not arbitrary inventions—they are realities. The symbol of the Cross, for instance, as well as that of the Swastika, represents the four-petalled chakram in man. The twelve-petalled flower is expressed in the symbol of the Rose Cross and the twelve Companions. The thirteenth among them, the invisible Companion who unites them all, represents the truth that unites all religions.

This truth underlies the rites and ceremonies of the various religions. Divine wisdom speaks through the rites and cults which have been founded by seers. The astral world expresses itself through them in the physical world. As in a reflection, the rite represents what is happening in higher worlds. This fact appears again in masonic ritual and in certain Asiatic religions. At the birth of a new religion, an Initiate gives the foundations upon which the ritual of the outer cult is built. As evolution proceeds, the rite—a living picture of the spiritual world—tends towards the domain of Art. Art, too, comes from the astral world; the rite becomes beauty. This came to pass notably at the time of Greek civilisation. Art is an astral event of which the cause has been forgotten.

We have an example in the Mysteries and Gods of Greece. In the Mysteries, the hierophant retraced the development of man in its three stages: man the animal, man the human, man the God (the true Superman, not the false Superman of Nietzsche). The hierophant projected these three super-sensible types as living images into the astral light, where they were visible to those who had been initiated into the Mysteries. At the same time they were expressed in poetry and sculpture by three symbols: (1) the Satyr, or bestial type; (2) the human type: Hermes, or Mercury; (3) the divine type: Zeus, or Jupiter. Each of these figures, together with everything around them, represents a cycle of human evolution. That is the way in which the disciples of the Mysteries carried over into Art what they had seen in the astral light.

The zenith of the earthly life of man is reached at about the age of thirty-five. Why is this so? Why does Dante begin his journey at the age of thirty-five, the middle point of human life? Before this moment, man's activity has been concentrated on the development of the physical body but he can now begin his ascent to the spiritual worlds and apply his forces for the unfolding of seership. Dante became a seer at the age of thirty-five. It is the age when the physical forces cease to forestall the influx of Spirit; liberated from the body, these same forces can be transformed into clairvoyant faculties. Here we are touching upon a deep mystery: the law of the transformation of organs. Transformation of the organs constitutes man's evolution. The highest in him is the product of what once was the lowest and which has been transfigured.

At the time of the separation of the sexes, the astral body of man divided: the lower part producing the sexual (physical) organism and the higher part giving rise to thought, imagination, speech.

In days of yore, the sexual organs (the procreative forces) and the organ of the voice (the word creative) were united. Two poles have appeared in man's being, where formerly there was but one single organ. The negative pole (animal) and the positive pole (divine) were once united and have separated.

The third aspect of the Logos is the creative power of the word (as expressed at the beginning of the Gospel of St. John), of which the words of human speech are the reflection. In the old myths and legends this truth was represented in the figure of Vulcan, the cripple. His mission was to guard the sacred fire. He is crippled because, in initiation, man must lose something of his lower, physical forces; the lower part of the body is a product of the past. Raised to the heights of initiation, the lower nature must fall away, to rise thereafter to a yet higher stage. Thus in the course of his evolution man has divided into a lower and higher nature.

In certain mediaeval pictures, the human body is divided into two parts by a straight line; the head and left upper part of the body are above, the right upper part and the lower part of the body are below the line. This division is an indication of the past and the future of the human body.

The two-petalled lotus-flower lies beneath the forehead, at the root of the nose. As yet it is an undeveloped astral organ which will one day unfold into two antennae or wings. The symbol of them can already be seen in the horns traditionally represented on the head of Moses.

Viewed from above downwards, head and sexual organ, man is synthetic and one. All this is the product of the past. Left and right he is symmetrical, representing the present and the future. These two symmetrical parts, however, have not the same value. Why is man usually right-handed? The right hand which is the more active of the two today, is destined subsequently to atrophy. The left hand will survive when the two ‘wings’ on the forehead have developed. The heart will be the brain of the chest—an organ of knowledge.

Before man assumed the upright posture there was a time when he moved on all fours. Such is the origin of the riddle of the Sphinx: ‘Who is the being who in infancy walks on four legs, in middle age on two, in old age on three?’ Oedipus answers that this being is man, who when, a baby crawls on all fours, and in old age leans on a stick. In reality, riddle and answer refer to the whole evolution of humanity, past, present and future, as it was known in the ancient Mysteries. Quadruped in a previous epoch of development, man walks today on two feet; in the future he will ‘fly’ and will indeed make use of three auxiliary organs, namely the two wings developed from the two-petalled lotus which will be the motive organ of his will, and for the rest, the organ arising by a metamorphosis of the left half of the chest, and the left hand. Such will be the organs of movement in the future.

The present organs of reproduction will atrophy as well as the right side and the right hand. Man will give birth to his like by the force of the word; his word will mould ethereal bodies like his own.

[ 1 ] One who sets out to present results of spiritual science such as this book contains must reckon with the certain fact that in wide circles they will be held to be impossible. For in these pages many things are put forward which in our time—supposedly on good philosophic and scientific grounds—are pronounced inaccessible to man's intelligence.

The author can appreciate the weighty reasons leading so many serious thinkers to this conclusion. Therefore again and again he would renew the attempt to show up the misunderstandings underlying the all-too categorical belief that human cognition can never reach into the supersensible worlds.

[ 2 ] Two things come into question here. The first is this: On deeper reflection no human soul can lastingly ignore the fact that the most vital questions about the purpose and meaning of life must be for ever unanswered if there is really no way of access to supersensible worlds. Theoretically we may deceive ourselves about it, but in our heart of hearts we do not share the deception. Those who refuse to listen to the voice of their inmost soul will naturally reject teachings about the supersensible worlds. But there are people—and not a few—who can no longer turn a deaf ear in this direction. They will forever be knocking at the doors which—as the others say—must remain barred and bolted, denying access to things “beyond human comprehension.”

[ 3 ] But there is also the second aspect. The “good philosophic and scientific grounds” above-mentioned are in no way to be underrated, and those who hold to them in earnest deserve to be taken seriously. The writer would not like to be counted among those who lightly disregard the stupendous mental efforts that have been made to define the boundaries to which the human intellect is subject. These efforts cannot be dismissed with a few derogatory phrases. Seen at their best, they have their source in a real striving for knowledge and are worked out with genuine discernment. Nay, more than this. The reasons which have been adduced to show that the kind of knowledge, accepted nowadays as scientific, cannot reach into the supersensible are genuine and in a sense irrefutable.

[ 4 ] People may think it strange that the author should admit all this and yet venture to put forward statements concerning supersensible worlds. It seems almost absurd that one should make however qualified an admission that there are valid reasons for asserting that supersensible worlds are beyond our ken, and yet go on to speak and write about these worlds.

[ 5 ] Yet it is possible to do this, while understanding full well how contradictory it may appear. Not everyone can realize the experiences one undergoes when drawing near the realm of the supersensible with intellectual reflection. For it emerges then that intellectual proofs however cogent, however irrefutable, are not necessarily decisive as to what is real and what is not. In place of theoretical explanations we may here use a comparison. Comparisons, admittedly, have not the force of proof, but they are helpful in explaining.

[ 6 ] In the form in which it works in everyday life, also in ordinary science, human cognition cannot penetrate into the supersensible worlds. This can be cogently proved, and yet there is a level of experience for which the proof has no more real value than if one set out to prove that the unaided eye cannot see the microscopic cells of living organisms or the detailed appearance of far-off heavenly bodies. That our unaided vision cannot reach to the living cells is true and demonstrable, and so it is that our ordinary faculties of cognition cannot reach into the supersensible worlds. Yet the proof that man's unaided sight falls short of the microscopic cells does not preclude their scientific investigation. Must then the proof that his ordinary faculties of cognition cannot reach into the supersensible worlds of necessity preclude the investigation of these worlds?

[ 7 ] We can imagine the feelings this comparison will arouse in many people. Nay, we can sympathize if doubt is felt, whether the one who has recourse to it has any inkling of all the painstaking and searching thought that has gone into these questions. And yet the present author not only realizes it to the full but counts it among the noblest achievements of mankind. To demonstrate that human vision, unaided by optical instruments, cannot see the microscopic cells would be superfluous; to become aware of the nature and scope of human thought by dint of thought itself is an essential task. It is only too understandable if men who have given their lives to this task fail to perceive that the real facts may yet be contrary to their findings. Whereas this preface is certainly not the place to deal with would-be “refutations” of the first edition by most people void of sympathy or understanding—people who even direct their unfounded attacks against the author personally—it must be emphasized all the more strongly that serious philosophic thought, whatever its conclusions, is nowhere belittled in these pages. Any such tendency can only be imputed by those deliberately blind to the spirit in which the book is written.

[ 8 ] Human cognition can be strengthened and enhanced, just as the range of vision of the eye can be. But the ways and means of strengthening the power of cognition are purely spiritual. Inner activities, entirely within the soul—they are described in this book as Meditation and Concentration, or Contemplation. Man's ordinary life of mind and soul is tied to the bodily organs; when duly strengthened and enhanced it becomes free of them. There are prevailing schools of thought to which the very claim will seem nonsensical—a mere outcome of delusion. From their own point of view, they will prove without difficulty that all our mental and psychological life is bound up with the nervous system. The author from his standpoint can appreciate these proofs. He knows how plausible it is to maintain that it is utterly superficial to speak of any life of soul being independent of the body. Those who maintain this will no doubt be convinced that in the inner experiences, alleged to be free of the body, there is still a connection with the nervous system—a hidden connection which the would-be occultist with his “amateurish” science only fails to discern.

[ 9 ] Such are the prevalent habits of thought for which due allowance must be made. They are so diametrically opposed in the main contents of this book that there is generally little prospect of any mutual understanding. In this respect one cannot help wishing for a change of heart in the intellectual and spiritual life of our time. People are far too ready to stigmatize a scientific quest or school of thought as visionary and fantastic merely because they find it radically different from their own. On the other hand, there are undoubtedly many who in our time appreciate the kind of supersensible research presented in this book. They realize that the deeper meaning of life will be revealed not by vague references to the soul, to the “true self,” or the like, but by a study of the genuine results of supersensible research. With due humility, the author is profoundly glad to find a new edition called for after a relatively short interval of time. [ 10 ] He realizes only too clearly how far this edition, too, will fall short of the essential aim—to be the outline of the a world-conception founded on supersensible knowledge. For this edition the entire contents have been worked through again; further elucidations have been attempted and supplementary passages inserted at important points. Often, however the author has been painfully aware of the inadequacy, the excessive rigidity of the only available means of presenting the revelations of supersensible research. Thus it was hardly possible to do more than suggest a way of reaching some idea, some mental picture of what this book has to relate concerning Saturn Sun and Moon evolutions. One aspect of this chapter has been briefly re-cast in the new edition. The real experience of cosmic evolution differs so widely from all our experiences in the realm of sense-perceptible Nature that the description involves a constant struggle to find passably adequate forms of expression. A sympathetic study of this chapter may reveal that the effort has been made to convey by the quality and style of the description what is impossible to express in mere prosaic words. A different style has been used for the Saturn evolution, a different style for Sun evolution, and so on.

[ 11 ] Amplifications and additions to which the author attaches some importance will be found in the second part, dealing with “Knowledge of Higher Worlds”—the way to its attainment. As clear as possible an account has been attempted of what the human soul must do and undergo so as to liberate the powers of cognition from the confines of the sense-world and fit them or the experience of supersensible worlds.

Acquired though it is and must be by inner ways and means—by the inner activity of each one who gains it—the experience has a more than subjective significance. In our descriptions we have tried to make this clear. He who eliminates in his own soul the personal peculiarities which separate him from the World reaches a common realm of experience—a realm which other men are reaching when they too transform their subjective inner life in the true pathway of spiritual development. Only if thus conceived is the real knowledge of supersensible worlds distinguishable from subjective mysticism and the like. The latter might to some extent be said to be the mystic's merely personal concern. The inner spiritual-scientific training here intended aims at objective experiences, the truth of which has to be recognized, no doubt, in an intimate and inner way by every one who has them; yet in this very process they are seen to be universally valid. Here once again, it is admittedly difficult to come to terms with habits of thought widely prevalent in our time.

[ 12 ] In conclusion, the author ventures to express the wish that friendly readers too should take what is here set forth on its own merits. There is a frequent tendency to give a school of thought some venerable name, failing which, its value is somehow depreciated. But it may surely be asked: As to the real contents of this book, what do they gain by being called “Rosicrucian” or given any other label? The essential thing is that with the means that are possible and proper to the human soul in the present epoch, insight be gained into the spiritual worlds, and that the riddles of man's destiny and of his life beyond the frontiers of birth and death be thereby penetrated. What matters is the quest of truth, rather than a quest that claims some ancient title.

[ 13 ] On the other hand, the world-conception presented in this book has been given names and labels by opponents, and with unfriendly intention. Apart from the fact that some of these descriptions—meant to discredit the author—are manifestly absurd and untrue, surely an independent quest of truth deserves to be judged on its merits. It is unworthy to insinuate that it be set aside for its alleged dependence on whatsoever cult or school of thought. Nor does it matter much whether this dependence is the critic's own surmise or he is carelessly repeating an unfounded rumor. Necessary as these few words were, the author has no wish—in the present context—to answer sundry charges and attacks in detail.

Rudolf Steiner
Written in June, 1913