The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[ 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

It is always stressed that in order to progress in occult matters one should be as positive as possible and as little as possible negative; that one should speak less about what is not, than about what is. When this is practised in ordinary life it is a preparation for work in the sphere of the occult. The occultist must not ask: Has the stone life? but: Where is the life of the stone? Where is the consciousness of the mineral kingdom to be found? That is the highest form of non-criticism. Particularly in regard to the highest questions this is the attitude of mind that must be cultivated.

In ordinary life we differentiate three bodily conditions: the solid, the fluid and the gaseous or airy. The solid must be distinguished from the mineral. Air and water are also mineral. Theosophical writings add to these, four other finer conditions of matter. The first element which is finer than the air is the one which causes it to expand, which always increases its spatial content. What expands the air in this way is warmth; it is really a fine etheric substance, the first grade of ether, the Warmth Ether. Now follows the second kind of ether, the Light Ether. Bodies which shine send out a form of matter which is described in Theosophy as Light Ether. The third kind of ether is the bearer of everything which gives form to the finest matter, the formative ether, which is also called the Chemical Ether. It is this ether which brings about the union of oxygen and hydrogen. And the finest of all the ethers is that which constitutes life: Prana, or Life Ether.

Science throws together all four kinds of ether. Nevertheless it will gradually distinguish them in this way. Our description tallies with that of the Rosicrucians, while Indian literature speaks of four different grades of ether.

To begin with, let us take everything that is solid. What is solid has apparently no life. When one transposes oneself into the life of the solid, which becomes possible through living in waking consciousness in the condition described as the dream world, and when one then seeks to discover the solid, for instance by entering into a rocky mountain landscape, then one feels in oneself that one's own life is altered, one feels life rippling through one. One is not there with consciousness, but with one's own life, the etheric body; one is then at a place, in a condition which is called the Maha-para-nirvana plane. On this Maha-para-nirvana plane the life of the solid is to be found. This plane is the other pole of the solid. Through life on the Maha-para-nirvana plane one acquired another means of perception. When one returns one has experienced the activity of beings in the Maha-para-nirvana plane. It is there that the solid stone has its life.

Secondly there follows what is fluid, water. When in the dream condition one transposes oneself into the sea, then one becomes imbued with the life of the fluid, on the Para-nirvana plane. Through this procedure one learns to know something of the different planes.

Thirdly, when one transposes oneself in dream into the air-forming element, one finds oneself on the Nirvana plane. Nirvana means literally, ‘to be extinguished’, as one extinguishes a fire. When one seeks for life in it, one is with one's own life on the Nirvana plane. Man breathes in the air. When he experiences in himself the life of the air, then that is the way to reach the Nirvana plane. This is the reason for the breathing exercises of the Yogis. No one can attain to the Nirvana plane if he does not actually practise breathing exercises. They are only Hatha-Yoga exercises when they are carried out on the wrong level. Otherwise they are Raja-Yoga exercises. One actually inhales life: the Nirvana plane.

Fourthly, below the Nirvana plane is the Buddhi or Shushupti plane. There warmth has its life. When Buddhi is developed in man, all Kama is transformed into selflessness, into love. Those animals which develop no warmth are also without passion. At higher levels man must again achieve this passionless condition, because he has his life on the Shushupti plane.

Fifthly comes the Devachan or Mental plane; hence the inner connection between wisdom and light. When in dream consciousness one experiences the light, one experiences wisdom within it. This was always the case when God revealed himself in the light. In the burning thorn bush, that is to say, in the light, Jehovah appeared to Moses in order to reveal wisdom.

The sixth is the astral plane. On this plane the chemical ether has its life. A somnambulist perceives on the astral plane the qualities of the chemicals, the chemical characteristics, because here the chemical ether actually has its life.

The seventh is the physical plane. There the life ether lives in its own element. With the life ether one perceives life. This ether is also called the atomic ether, because on this plane it has its own life, its own central point. What lives on a particular plane has on this same plane its central point.

As an actual fact everything we have around us contains the seven planes. We must only ask: Where has each element, the solid, the gaseous, etc., its life?

We have now heard that warmth has its own life on the Buddhi or the Shushupti plane. Thus between all things definite relationships exist. Very striking is the relationship between the ear and speech. In evolution the ear was present much earlier than speech. The ear is the receptive organ; speech is the organ which produces sound. These two, ear and speech, essentially belong together. Sound as it manifests is the result of vibrations in the air, and each single sound arises from a particular vibration. When you study what exists outside, outside yourself, as sound, then you are studying the arithmetic of the air.

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Undifferentiated space would be soundless. Space which is arithmetically organised produces sound. Here we have an example of how one can look into the Akashic Record. If one can rise to the perception of the inner arithmetic which is preserved from sound in space, then at any time one can hear again a sound which someone has spoken. For instance one can hear what was spoken by Caesar at the crossing of the Rubicon. The inner arithmetic of sound is still present in the Akashic Record. Sound corresponds to something we call Manas. What the ear experiences as sound is the wisdom of the world. In the perception of sound one hears the wisdom of the world. In the act of speaking one brings forth the wisdom of the world. What is arithmetical in our speech remains in the Akashic Record. When he hears or speaks man expresses himself directly in wisdom. At the present time thinking is the form in which man can bring his will to expression in speech. Today it is only in thinking that we can unfold the will. Only later will it be possible for man, rising above the level of thought, to unfold the will in speech.

The next step is connected with warmth. Man's activity is to be sought in what streams out from him as inner warmth. Out of what proceeds from warmth: passions, impulses, instincts, desires, wishes and so on, Karma arises. Just as the parallel organ to the ear is the organ of speech, so the parallel organ to the warmth of the heart is the pituitary gland, the Hypophysis. The heart takes up the warmth from outside, as the ear does sound. Thereby it perceives world warmth. The corresponding organ which we must have, in order to be able to produce warmth consciously, is the pituitary gland in the head, which at the present time is only at the beginning of its development. Just as one perceives with the ear and produces with the larynx, so one takes up the warmth of the world in the heart and lets it stream forth again through the pituitary gland in the brain. Once this capacity has been achieved, the heart will have become the organ it was intended to be. There is a reference to this in words from ‘Light on the Path’:²² ‘Before the soul can stand in the presence of the Masters, its feet must be washed in the blood of the heart.’ Then our heart's blood streams out as today our words stream out into the world. In the future, warmth of soul will flood over mankind.

Somewhat deeper in evolution than the warmth organ stands the organ of sight. In the course of evolution the organs of hearing, warmth and sight, follow in sequence; the organ of sight is only at the stage of receiving, but the ear already perceives, for instance in the sound of a bell, its innermost being. Warmth must flow from the being itself. The eye has only an image, the ear has the perception of innermost reality. The perception of warmth is the receiving of something that rays outwards. There is an organ which will also become the active organ of vision. This is today germinally present in the pineal gland, the Epiphysis, the organ which will give reality to the images which today are produced by the eye. These two organs, the pineal gland and the pituitary gland as active organs, must develop into the organ of vision (eye) and the organ of warmth (heart). Today fantasy is the preliminary stage leading to a later power of creation. Now man has at most imagination. Later he will have magical power. This is the Kriya-shakti power. It develops in proportion to the physical development of the pineal gland.

In the reciprocal relationship between ear and larynx we have a prophetic model (Vorbild). Thinking will later be interpenetrated with warmth, and still later man himself will learn to create. First he learns to create a picture; then to create and send forth radiations; then to create beings. Freemasonry calls these three forces wisdom, semblance (beauty) and power. (See Goethe's Fairy Tale.)²³

Warmth has its life on the Shushupti plane. To make conscious use of this is possible for one who understands and controls the life of warmth, as in a certain sense man today controls the life of the air. In his development man must now approach the forces of the Shushupti plane (Buddhi-Manas). The Fifth Sub-Race has mainly the task of developing Kama-Manas. One finds Manas in everything which is placed in the service of the human spirit. Our age has placed its highest powers at the service of these needs, whereas the animal is satisfied without such achievements.

Now however Buddhi-Manas must also begin its development. Man must learn something beyond speech. Another force must be united with speech, such as we find in the writings of Tolstoi. It is not so much a matter of what he says, but that behind what he says stands an elemental force that has in it something of Buddhi-Manas, which must now enter into our civilisation. Tolstoi's writings work so powerfully because they are consciously opposed to West[ern] European culture and contain something new and elemental. A certain barbarism which is still contained in them will later be brought into balance. Tolstoi is just a small instrument of a higher spiritual power which also stood behind the Gothic initiate Ulfilas. This spiritual power uses Tolstoi as its instrument.

• 22. Light on the Path by Mabel Collins.
• 23. was first published in 1795. See: Rudolf Steiner's ‘Goethe's Standard of the Soul’.

Dear attendees! At the kind instigation of Baron Rosenkrantz, a number of questions have been put by our friends, which are now to be answered within the framework of this event.

Before that, however, since the request has been expressed so frequently and I have also asked some friends personally, I would like to ask those artists present here and a few others who have never seen the wooden group, which is still in progress, to come to the studio tomorrow at 9 a.m. This group will then be shown. But I ask you to take this matter very seriously and I really ask only those to come who have never seen the group before.

Now a number of questions have been handed to me.

Question: If the content of a work of art is the most important thing, why can't we express it in accordance with the Greek ideal?

Dr. Steiner: The question is not quite clear. I would like to think that it alludes to what I have often said about Goethe's view of art, which was expressed when Goethe, upon arriving in Italy, wrote to his friends in Weimar: When I look at these Greek works of art, I believe that the Greeks, in creating their works of art, proceeded according to the same laws by which nature itself proceeds, and which I am trying to grasp. I would just like to note that if it is possible for a person to truly find a way to experience and relive the creative forces of nature, as I have indicated on various occasions when discussing this building, then we do not actually become imitators of nature, but we do create with our materials in the same way that nature creates. We need only remember that, in the full perception of man, the aim should not be to imitate nature, because whatever we encounter in nature, whether in the form of landscape or anything else, is always done more perfectly by nature than even the most accomplished artist can achieve. Art is only justified if, in the Goethean sense, it does not imitate nature, but continues nature's work from the same forces that nature uses to create. And then, if we create in this way, we can recreate nature just as the Greeks did. We must only be clear about the fact that humanity does not go through various stages of development in vain, just as the individual human being does not either, but that our present humanity has different developmental impulses from those of the people of the Greek age. What the Greeks had in common with nature in their art is there for us in a different form, and if we accept and understand this metamorphosis of the whole coexistence of man with nature, then we can definitely say that what we create is just as “recreated according to the laws of nature” as the Greek works of art are.

Question: If we take beautiful colors from nature, why shouldn't we be able to take beautiful forms from nature?

Dr. Steiner: I would not be able to see that either. But I ask you to consider again how I repeatedly spoke about colors in connection with this building and how I spoke about forms in my lecture on art. It is not a matter of imitating the inartistic, which is characteristic of an inartistic present time, but of not imitating nature's colors, but of experiencing them. We do, after all, inwardly experience color and then create from the world of color. Likewise, we can, of course, also experience form from within, and then we will create forms for ourselves as they also appear in nature. But we must bear in mind that when we draw, we are actually demanding not to imitate nature's forms, but to counterfeit them. We have to draw the surfaces.

It is indeed the case in nature itself that the horizontal line, when we draw it, is a fake – I said a lie a few days ago. What can be seen is the blue sky, the green sea, and the form is the result of the color. This is already in nature, and when we work artistically out of color, the form arises just as the form arises in nature itself.

Question: Should color be used in painting from a moral point of view?

Dr. Steiner: If I understand the question correctly, it is asked whether one should try to translate a moral intention into colour or even into colour harmony if one has a moral intention.

I believe that anyone who tries to embody human and moral thoughts in colour in this way actually creates in an unartistic way. Only that which can be experienced as spiritual in the world of color can be embodied in color. To the same extent that one has the moral intention of artistically forming what has been morally conceived, one falls back on symbolizing, and allegorizing is always inartistic.

To illustrate what I actually mean, I will say the following: I was once obliged to reconstruct the forms of the Kabirs, the Samothracean gods, the Samothracean mysteries, for the purpose of a Faust performance here. They had to be shown while the Goethean text was being spoken. I believe that I was able to construct these Kabirs out of spiritual contemplation. Then – and I say this not out of immodesty but because it is a fact that should be communicated – then it occurred to one of our members to have these Kabirs, who fell, as well and they should be photographed. Now, the thought of photographing a three-dimensional work is so repulsive to me that I actually want to run away from every photograph of a sculpture, because what is really artistically created is created out of the spiritually experienced feeling for material, and because it is impossible to directly experience what is conceived in spatial forms in the form of a surface. Therefore, at the time, I preferred to do it again in black and white, because I wanted to take this wish into account, and then you could photograph it.

Anyone who thinks that moral intentions can be realized in painting is thinking that you can take any content, I mean a novella, and then pour it into any material. That is not true. It is artistically untrue. In a material, any artistic thing can only be formed in one way.

Question: Does this mean that in the future sculpture should express inner feeling and painting inner wisdom?

Dr. Steiner: I will allow myself to answer this question now because it belongs together with another question, in connection with the other question.

Question: Would art under the influence of anthroposophical teachings not tend to become monotonous, which would not be interesting? Is there not a danger that art would bear an anthroposophical stamp, as if from a particular school of painting? Dr. Steiner: If one grasps what can really arise out of anthroposophical thinking as art, grasps it correctly, then I think the question will not arise at all, and one will not be led to believe that anthroposophy could ever aspire to influence art through anthroposophical teachings. To think in any other way than that the artistic can arise out of the experience of the spirit flowing in the material, out of living together with the material, cannot actually be assumed from an anthroposophical attitude.

In a somewhat primitive way, many anthroposophists understand this to mean, for example, that they somehow paint what they have been given in the teaching of the Rosicrucians on a blackboard, and then one encounters these images in all the individual branches. There is inner feeling, inwardly intended, outwardly recorded. I usually help myself with regard to such “artistic attempts” by not looking at them in the respective branches, because these are admittedly primitive and not very far-reaching, but they are precisely wrong attempts to transfer what can be represented in the spirit, which now becomes word, which becomes teaching, into some artistic aspect. That is nonsense. You cannot carry what is teaching into the work of art.

But what real anthroposophy is, whether you approach it through the teachings or through art, leads to the inner experience of something far more original than anthroposophical teaching and anthroposophical art is, of something that lies further back in human life. If, on the one hand, artistic forms are created that have nothing at all to do with the anthroposophical teachings, and if, on the other hand, one focuses on the word, on the thought, then, from the same foundations, one creates contexts of ideas. Both are branches that come from the same root. But you cannot take one branch and stick it into the other.

In any case, I cannot understand how a life that has developed out of such art could possibly become monotonous, because – and I am speaking only illustratively now – I can assure you that if I had to build another one after this one is finished, it would be completely different, it would look completely different. I would never be able to build this structure again in a monotonous way; and I would build a third one differently again – it will certainly not come to that in this incarnation. But I feel, especially in what underlies the anthroposophical as the living, that in art, beyond everything monotonous, it comes to life. I can tell you, one always only wishes to comply with what one can do, with what presents itself to the soul, and not at all in a monotonous way, but to show in great variety what one would like to show.

The questions that were asked in English have now been answered, and since Mrs. Mackenzie has promised to tell us about some of her intentions, I believe that we may use the time we still have left to listen to Mrs. Mackenzie about her intentions.

Mrs. Mackenzie: (remarks in English not written down)

Dr. Steiner: I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Mrs. Mackenzie and ask Baron Walleen to translate her words into German.

Baron Walleen: (translation:) Dr. Steiner has given his consent to hold a seminar for teachers here around Christmas time. Mrs. Mackenzie has taken on the responsibility of finding suitable individuals in England and America who could be accepted as students in these seminars, and Mrs. Mackenzie hopes that if such a beginning is made, it will be possible to gradually develop a teacher training seminar for the whole world here. The matter is being handled quite informally in order to gain time, so that when she returns to England, Mrs. Mackenzie will immediately try to make contact with such personalities as she finds suitable to attend this course. It would be important to know early on, in October, which personalities and how many can and will come here. Of course, Dr. Steiner himself will lead the course.

Dr. Steiner: I would just like to say this very briefly in response to Mrs. Mackenzie's words: if this extraordinarily satisfying plan can be realized, everything should be done here to bring satisfaction to those who are making such efforts to expand the effectiveness of the Goetheanum in this important area. Thank you very much on behalf of our cause and the promise that all efforts will be made here to implement your intentions in a dignified manner!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes by Ida Knoch with additions by Lidia Gentilli-Arenson-Baratto and memories by Karl Rittersbacher

Father on a chair wreathed with roses and greenery; Gretchen, Paula and I beside him.

One to seven hammer blows at the beginning and end, otherwise always seven instead of the usual three. Prayer and so on as usual.

I know that I speak from the heart and feelings of all when I first address these words to our dear brother Günther Wagner. (Reading of the mantric lines):

The soul's pilgrimage on earth
leads to steep mountain peaks
where the sharp stones of life
They are her words, nothing else
But riddles and questions,
Which awaken longing mightily:
Only when in the soul's mountain huts
Where a calm spirit reigns
The solution to the riddles beckons
And calm the forces of desire:
Then spiritual fruits ripen
Into seeds for the eternities.

In your pilgrimage of life
Directing the spiritual eye
These words appear to me
As a sign of your being.

Many weeks ago I was already quite certain that such an intimate ceremony would take place today, but I did not know what I would say until this morning, when I opened my heart to the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings to ask for their blessing for our dear brother Günther Wagner. Before what was seen there is related, I know that I am one with you, my dear sisters and brothers, in the expression of the love and loyalty we feel for our dear and loyal brother Günther Wagner.

Dr. Steiner emphasizes how Father advised and helped everyone who approached him seeking comfort, strength and courage, how he worked everywhere in harmony, seeking harmony, with the same love and faithfulness as his soul, how he radiated all that he had gained through a long, hard, truth-seeking life as love; how he consecrated his strength to our Theosophical Society. Dr. Steiner fondly remembers many moments when he was able to be close to Father — and so on, and so on.

It was not so much words that came to Dr. Steiner from the wise masters of the East when he opened his heart to them in meditation this morning, but more images, indirect images, so to speak. In a community like the one gathered here, he could tell something like what he would say now.

First, images appeared, from which others emerged. There Dr. Steiner saw a member of the Order of St. Benedict, surrounded by other members of the same order; these were the abbot - Sinibald - and the elders of this monastic order. They were sitting together, as rarely happens, not absorbed in exercises or other prescriptions, but exchanging more personal thoughts. And the abbot, who became abbot of this order in 1227, told his elders about his father, how much he had clung to him, that this father had gone to Palestine with the leader of the Third Crusade, how the father had told of the many hardships, how he had gone through privations and suffering, how he had fought; but the father also told of life in the Orient, and for example how glass was made there, how the color purple was produced. And these stories of life in the Orient and its peculiarities made a great impression on the listening boy, even more than the stories of the battles.

The father of the abbot also spoke of the fact that he and his fellow fighters had a strong feeling that what Frederick Barbarossa did in the crusade meant more than just the outward events would suggest. The father, who was a knight of St. John of Jerusalem, stood by as the body of the red-bearded emperor was pulled out of the Saleph River, and he knew that even though three distinct parts of the body were buried near Tyre, near Antioch, and near Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, his soul had nevertheless flown back to Europe. The father had been a knight of St. John of Jerusalem, and the abbot always had a great affection for them, as well as for the Teutonic knights, although his uncle, his father's brother (?), was opposed to the order.

During his theological studies, the abbot often wondered whether the idea was behind things, about this Aristotelian idea, or whether the idea existed before things, as Plato says. — He entered the Order of St. Benedict, prompted by long-standing family connections, and was also destined from the outset for a leading position in it.

During the exercises, which lasted from four o'clock in the morning until sunset, it was very rare for the abbot and the elders of his order to come together for such a personal exchange of ideas, and everyone left, reflecting on what they had heard. The abbot sat alone for a long time, pondering what had been said. And when he then walked back along the path, the meditation path, with a look of kindness and love, he met an eight-year-old boy who also wore the robe of St. Benedict. Perhaps the boy was inspired by the mild gaze he saw in the abbot's eyes to ask a question that we can only describe as impertinent. — The image is strongly emotional at this point. — This eight-year-old boy in the robes of St. Benedict said to the abbot: “Reverend Father, I cannot form a mental image of God.” The abbot looked kindly at the boy after this bold speech; he did not answer, but walked away in silence. And only when he was so far away that the boy could no longer hear him did the abbot say, as if to himself: “It will take a long time before one can form a correct mental image of God.”

My dear sisters and brothers, this is what occurred to me when I turned to the wise masters of the East, asking for blessings for our dear brother Günther Wagner. Everyone can now think of what they believe to be right according to their disposition.

When the Rosicrucian conclusion was reached, Dr. Steiner placed three red roses next to the box with the blessed water and so on, and at the end he waved the censer over them several times extra. Then he said: “Now our dear Sister Helene Lehmann will take these three roses to our dear brother Günther Wagner as a token of our love and loyalty.”

When Dr. Steiner had finally carried the box away and then passed by father again, he kissed him on each cheek.

In a transcription of Ida Knoch's notes by Lidia Gentilli-Arenson-Baratto, the following additional personal comment can be found at the end:

The red book from which Dr. Steiner read was a red book that Paula Hübbe-Schleiden had given him (said Gretchen Wagner). She then asked me who the boy would have become, which she never knew. I asked her in return whether she believed or had heard who the boy would be in this life. She replied very firmly that everyone knew at the time, and it was generally said that it was Dr. Steiner himself, only she would like to know who the boy had become, she didn't know, and no one told her at the time. That concluded our conversation, which took place today. - February 27, 1960.

In addition, the following personal memories of Karl Rittersbacher of conversations with Günther Wagner are available, which he added to his typewritten transcription of Ida Knoch's notes of this hour by Nelly von Lichtenberg:

I had several personal encounters with Mr. Günther Wagner through Miss Mathilde Hoyer, who founded the first class of the Freie Waldorfschule Hannover (1926) at Easter 1926 (I have written a report about this in the newsletter of the General Anthroposophical Society “What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society”, No. 43 and 44 of October 21 and 28, 1928, following a suggestion by Mrs. Marie Steiner).

Mr. Wagner had founded a paint factory in Hannover. During a visit to his home in the fall of 1927, he told me that the colors were still rubbed by hand and that he had 20 employees. I also learned that at the age of 50, he handed over the factory, which had grown to around 200 workers, to his son-in-law, who had been his senior traveler: Fritz Beindorff, who later became a senator in Hannover. This grand master of a freemason association had no time for the newly founded Free Waldorf School. I learned this drastically during a personal visit to his office.

Mr. Günther Wagner, as he told me, lived on a pension he received in Berlin and Lugano. In Berlin, he worked as a librarian for the Theosophical Society, translating literature from Indian into German. He and some friends became aware of Dr. Rudolf Steiner and reported how he was instrumental in helping the Theosophical Society in Germany come into being. To do so, seven branches had to exist, each with at least seven members. This was achieved by recruiting in Leipzig. Then Dr. Rudolf Steiner was appointed as Secretary General. When Günther Wagner and his nurse, Paula Hübbe-Schleiden, née Stryczek, separated in 1912/13, it was clear to them that they could only go with Rudolf Steiner (literally to me!).

After the above conversation – as Günther Wagner said during a visit – Rudolf Steiner asked him into the next room and said: “You were the abbot and I was the boy, your student. And so we meet again. And I then went from Monte Cassino, where this happened, to Cologne later.

Günther Wagner added: “I went to Monte Cassino, but I had no memories whatsoever. I told Emil Bock all this. He said to me: But Mr. Wagner, you should have put on a Benedictine robe and climbed up the old serpentine paths to remember something.”

Mr. Wagner had a calm, bright look in his eyes that radiated kindness and bore witness to a deep inner peace. Even in old age, he still enjoyed playing the piano (Schubert, Impromptu by heart). He had a package of letters from Rudolf Steiner.

In a late lecture on karma, Rudolf Steiner called him the “doyen of the Anthroposophical Society” (literally: “... and perhaps the oldest member of the Anthroposophical Society, who is here today to our great joy – Mr. Günther Wagner, whom I would like to warmly welcome [like a kind of senior of the Anthroposophical Society here] – will remember how strong the resistance was at the time for much of what I incorporated into the Anthroposophical Society from the beginning. —- It was particularly about “practical karma exercises”. - See the karma lecture of September 5, 1924, beginning, volume IV, esoteric considerations, complete edition!).

Rudolf Steiner is said to have given several members karmic hints earlier on the 70th birthday.

Günther Wagner regretted that he could not financially support the newly founded school, since he only had the pension granted to him by his son-in-law. He also lived in the Black Forest in Frauenalb, where Fräulein Hoyer and I also visited him.

When Mrs. Marie Steiner visited the then small school (two classes) in September 1927, Günther Wagner and Paula Hübbe-Schleiden were present. (See report in the newsletter!)

Marie Steiner invited the small college to lunch at the hotel.

A personal word: the content shared here, especially regarding karmic facts, meant for us at the time a concretization of our thinking about destiny and the laws of destiny. It sounded simple and seemed unmythically realistic.

It has often been emphasized that one must distinguish between progress in esoteric development and noticing the progress. Every esoteric gets ahead if he does his esoteric exercises faithfully and regularly, even if he's dissatisfied with the success of the same. Honest endeavour is the important thing. We actually become different men through these exercises. This definitely happens even if we don't notice it. For the forces that loosen the etheric body and pull it out of the physical body are in all of these exercises, whether they're given orally or in books. But it's another matter to also notice these changes. A soul may actually have organs already, but it makes a difference whether it's sleeping or waking in its spiritual surroundings. It requires a strong force and preparation to wake up and become conscious. That's why descriptions are given in these lectures of what a soul experiences on waking up in the spiritual world. Many make it difficult for themselves to become conscious because they keep on thinking that the spirit land is like a second physical world, only finer and more diffuse. This is a big hindrance, because then they don't notice the fine symptoms of awaking. Such prejudices must be eliminated. One who still has them is like a man who goes up in a balloon and thinks that he can get out up there at any time and rest on a mountain top. But one who takes in esoteric explanations rightly can understand how the spiritual world is experienced when the soul awakens. To get to this point one has to ask oneself the question: What is thinking really? What thinks in me? A materialist who denies the existence of the spiritual world says: The body, the brain thinks. But one should ask him: Have you ever perceived thinking with your senses? Of course he hasn't. No one has ever heard or seen or felt thinking as warmth or the like. Therefore it's not corporeal. For what belongs to the body is sense perceptible. And so thinking is super-sensible. So the materialist would either have to accept the spiritual world or he should give up thinking because it's an absurdity—which might even be good. So we're always in the super-sensible world with our thinking, but in such a way that we don't experience it. With man's thinking it's as if someone went out to sea but didn't see himself and his boat. We don't experience it directly, for the thoughts we experience are reflections of thinking in the body. Just as someone facing a mirror sees his reflection, so a thinking soul sees the mirror image of its thinking. The brain is a mirror.

Through esoteric training a man is supposed to experience thinking and not just thoughts. Just as someone standing before a mirror sees the mirror's reflecting surface when he steps to one side, so the soul must learn to look upon the body as a reflecting apparatus. Then the man knows how thoughts come into being, and he experiences himself in the world from which thinking projects into the sense world as thought. All of this can be understood by every healthy intellect. And it's important for a theosophist to make it quite clear to himself to be armed against the objection that theosophy is based on belief, that one must believe in the existence of the super-sensible world. That's not true. Everyone can understand this existence if he uses his thinking properly. One who can't understand it is foolish, even if he's a philosopher. But it's still a big step from this possibility of experiencing thinking and the super-sensible world to a knowing of the latter. This can only be attained if the soul works on itself for a long time, but it is attained.

The first sign of an awakening in the spiritual world is a feeling of expansion, as if one were spreading and flowing out. In the sense world I'm here, the object is over there and it makes an impression on me. Consciousness comes about when we bump into objects through the organs of touching, hearing, seeing. However in the spiritual world the condition of being closed off in oneself ceases. One feels as if one were spread out in other beings. In the physical world we experience everything inside our skin, as for instance the prick of a needle. Not so in the spiritual world. There thinking and feeling flow out. One experiences pleasure and pain in others. For instance if one runs into a deceased person who's in pain, one has to experience the pain with him as long as one is in spiritual contact with him. One's relation to the sense world also becomes quite different through this change. The way in which we ordinarily experience the physical world is conditioned by the fact that the body through which we experience things is sensorial. If we hit our head against a hard object we feel it because the head doesn't yield, that is, because it's hard or similar to the object. But no impression is made if one confronts the sense world with super-sensible experience. Spiritual organs are too soft and flexible, as it were. That's why all physical things seem like empty spaces. A comparison can give one a perception of this. The water in a glass is invisible. The gas pearls in soda water are visible even though the bubbles are much more rarefied than water; they're nothing in comparison with the denser fluid. So the nothing is visible and the something is invisible. For a spiritual gaze that's the way things really are with the physical world. Like these pearls in water, all atoms are holes or empty bubbles in the spiritual world. All physical things are composed of countless numbers of such holes. When we touch things we bump into these holes, this nothing. That's the way things are with man's body also. Seen spiritually, for instance, the brain is a spiritual form. There are countless empty pearls or holes in it, and they make up what a scientist investigates with his instruments. Another thing is that a man feels that all the good, right and true things that he thinks stream out from him. He feels as if they're growing into the future, that they're germ-forming for the future. But the wrong, bad, ugly things that he thinks and feels also grow out like this. He really feels them streaming out of him, and he knows that the bad thoughts streaming from him will later serve as food for the good ones. So they're also necessary. Then he begins to understand why so many bad, wrong and ugly thoughts and feelings assail him during meditation. When he knows that they're necessary forces and food for the future he'll also assess them correctly. He won't have to complain about them if he's strong enough to not let them flow into his willing and action. There is a big secret connected with this. The same forces that underlie our bad thoughts were rayed out by hierarchical beings on old Moon, from angels up to Spirits of Form. Thereby they brought about Moon existence. But Lucifer and Ahriman remained behind and are only raying out these forces now. They now work into physical things that have condensed further, right into man's physical blood, and that's how evil arises. They're not evil in themselves; an esoteric must let them work on him but not let them become physically condensed. Then they remain of value for future good thoughts.

The following formulas are given to promote an experience of these first steps into the spiritual world. Budding esoterics should do the first one in the AM, the second after the day's retrospect and the third once every few days. More advanced esoterics should only do them occasionally, the first and second together and the third maybe only on Sundays.

The 7-line form of the verses arose by itself, that is, the spiritual material reveals itself in such a way that it presses into this form. (The verse in the lesson from March 5th 1914 in Stuttgart, is included here for reference.)

Lines one and two of the third formula give one much to think about. They were revealed like that, although it seems to be grammatically incorrect, since it says floats instead of float. Later it became clear that this is intended. “Shining I and luminous soul” should be thought of as a single entity. Likewise “what was thought, what was known” are treated as one. Thinking and knowing are not one in the physical world, but in the spiritual one they flow together. Something that's thought is either wrong—then it destroys itself—or it's right—then it's also something that's revealed: knowledge.

Formulas like these or the ones in Occult Science, for instance, are not made up or fabricated. The intellect isn't involved in this at all to begin with. A seer gets things revealed to him. They stand there. Only then does he elaborate them with his intellect. The first formula describes the experience where physical things seem to consist of nothing, like bubbles in water. The soul sees that ordinary sensory existence is an illusion, and it tries to gain knowledge of what is truly real.

The second formula describes the experience of the raying out of good and bad thoughts.

The third formula should be used as a test of the progress one has made. When one meditates it one must speak the words inwardly so that everything resounds meaningfully. With these lines one tries to see how far one has gotten; whether for instance one already experiences something from:

What was thought, what was known

Now becomes dense spirit existence.

Of course this must be continued patiently and without flagging week after week. One can also look upon these formulas as a different form of what's always said at the end of these classes. The first one describes how sensorial things become non-existent when one grows into the spiritual world, and spiritual reality is seen to be what we come from: Ex Deo nascimur.

The second formula describes the experience of good and bad thoughts as forces that'll work in the future. This is only possible if the soul is embraced and illumined by spiritual light—Christ—after it has released itself from the physical world: In Christo morimur.

And the third formula describes how real knowledge becomes revealed to the soul that's waking up in the spirit: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

[ 1 ] At the time during which the Spiritual Soul was making its way into Man's evolution earth, the beings of the spirit-world nearest to earth-life had difficulty in approaching mankind. Events on earth take place in a form which shows that quite peculiar conditions are needed in order to make the way possible from the spirit into the physical life of Man. The very form they take shows on the other hand still, and often in a most illuminating manner, with what energy—where Powers of the Past are active and Powers of the Future beginning to act—one spiritual force strives against another spiritual force, to find entry into mankind's earthly life.

[ 2 ] There begins a war between France and England, which lasts from 1339 to 1453, and for over a hundred years throws everything into confusion. This general confusion, proceeding from a particular spiritual current unfavourable to Man's development, puts hindrances in the way of certain events which would have brought the Spiritual Soul much more rapidly into mankind, had these hindrances not been there. Chaucer (who died 1400 D.C.) founded English literature. If one thinks of all that the founding of this literature has led to, in spiritual consequences for Europe, one cannot but find it significant that such an event could not develop in freedom along its own lines, but must happen amid all the troubles of a war. In addition comes the fact that already before this, namely in 1215 A.D., that tendency of political thought had begun in England, which is to receive its right stamp from the Spiritual Soul. The further developments of this event too lie amid the embarrassment of war.

[ 3 ] We have here to do with a time when those spiritual Powers, who aim at developing Man along the lines on which he was first designed by their superiors in the divine spiritual hierarchy, come face to face with their adversaries of the other side. These adversaries are bent upon diverting Man into other lines than those appointed him from the first. We would then be unable to employ the forces of his origin for his later evolution; his cosmic childhood would bear him no fruits; it would be a part of his being that ever more and more withered away. The result would be that Man might fall a prey to the Luciferic or the Ahrimanic Powers, and his own special and peculiar evolution would be taken from him. Had the adversaries of mankind been able not only to put hindrances in the way, but to carry their efforts to complete success, the entrance of the Spiritual Soul might have been precluded.

[ 4 ] An event which displays with remarkable brightness the intervention of spiritual agencies in earthly affairs, is the part played by Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid of Orleans, and her fate (1412 to 1431). What she does, has its impulses—for herself—deep down in the subconscious underlying grounds of her soul. She follows the blind promptings of the spiritual world. On earth reigns harassing confusion, with the aim of preventing the Age of Consciousness from coming in. Michael must prepare the way from the spiritual world for his later mission. He can do so where he finds human souls to receive his impulses. The Maid is one such soul. He works too—though it be only possible in a lesser degree and less obviously for external historic life—through many other souls besides. In events such as the war between England and France he is matched against his opponent on the Ahrimanic side.

[ 5 ] The opposition that he meets with from the Luciferic adversary during this period, was spoken of in the last contemplation. But this opponent may be seen quite peculiarly at work in the whole course of the events which followed the Maid's appearance on the scene. All that here went on plainly shows that people were at a loss, and no longer knew how to deal with such an intervention of the spiritual world in human affairs—an intervention which could well have been grasped by men's minds and taken up too into their wills during the earlier times when imaginative understanding still existed among them. The earlier attitude towards such interventions had become impossible, since the Intellectual or Mind-Soul had ceased to be active. The attitude befitting the Spiritual Soul had not at that time yet been reached; even to-day it is not yet achieved.

[ 6 ] It came to pass, therefore, that the shaping of Europe at that time was carried out by the spiritual world, without men having any understanding of what was taking place, and without anything which they endeavoured to do having any influence worth mentioning in the process.

[ 7 ] One only need draw a mental picture of what would have happened in the fifteenth century had there been no Maid of Orleans, to recognize at once the importance of this event, in which the spiritual world was the ruling agent. There are people indeed, who try to explain such a phenomenon materialistically. With such people, what makes it impossible to come to any reasonable understanding is that they willfully twist round what is obviously spiritual and give it a materialistic aspect.

[ 8 ] It is plain to see from certain spiritual struggles also, in which men's minds are engaged, that mankind can no longer find their way without much difficulty to the realm of divine spirit, however intently they may seek it. These are difficulties which did not exist in the times when insight could still be procured through Imaginations. Rightly to appreciate what is here meant, one has only to look in a clear light at the persons who stand out as philosophic thinkers. A philosopher cannot be regarded solely with a view to the effect which he has upon his age, and the number of people who have adopted his ideas. He is much rather the expression, the manifestation in person, of his age. What the greater part of mankind carry within them unconsciously as a disposition of soul, as unconscious feelings and life-promptings, the philosopher puts into his ideas. As the thermometer registers the temperature of its surroundings, so he registers the mental condition of his age. The philosophers are as little the cause of the psychology of their age, as the thermometer is of the temperature of its surroundings.

[ 9 ] With this as a premise, let us look at the philosopher René Descartes, whose work lay in the time when the Age of Consciousness was already well begun. (He lived from 1596 to 1650.) The one slender support on which he rests his connection with the spiritual world, is the inner realization: I think: therefore, I am. In the consciousness of Self, the central I, he tries to find Reality—and only so much of it as the Consciousness-Soul (the Spiritual Soul) can tell him. [ 10 ] And on all the other problems of the spirit, he seeks to gain light by the intellectual method, by examining what guarantee the certainty of his own Self-consciousness affords of the certainty of other things. He enquires in every case, in respect of the truths historically transmitted to him: Are they as evident as this ‘I think: therefore, I am.’ If he can affirm this, then he accepts them.

[ 11 ] With such a form of thinking in the human mind, is not the spirit expelled from every kind of view that bears any actual relation to the things of the world? The revelation of the spirit has retired to the one pin-point of support in the consciousness of Self. No other thing, in the immediate form of its appearance, reveals the spirit. Upon what lies outside the consciousness of Self, no light of spirit-revelation can be thrown, save mediately, by the intellect working in the Spiritual Soul.

[ 12 ] The man of this age pours forth, as it were, the still almost empty contents of his Spiritual Soul in intense longing towards the spiritual world: one thin ray of light travels thither.

[ 13 ] The beings of the spirit-world on the immediate borders of the earthly one, and the souls of men upon earth, find it hard to come together. Michael's supersensible preparations for his coming mission are only communicated under the greatest difficulties to the soul of Man.

[ 14 ] We shall better comprehend the peculiar character of the tone of soul that finds its expression in Descartes, if we compare this philosopher with Augustine, who, so far as external formulation, employs the same point of support for his realization of the spiritual world as Descartes does. Only, with Augustine, it is done out of the full imaginative force of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul. (He lived from 354 to 430 A.D.) People find, and rightly, an affinity between Augustine and Descartes. Only the intellect of Augustine is the last remains of the cosmic one, whilst that of Descartes is the intellect that has already begun to make its entry into the individual human soul. Precisely by the road which the human mind has traveled in its searchings from Augustine to Descartes, it may be seen how the cosmic character of the Thought-forces disappears, and how the same thing reappears anew in the soul of Man. Yet at the same time it can be seen, under what difficulties Michael and the soul of Man are able so to meet together that Michael can direct in Man what he once directed in the Cosmos.

[ 15 ] The Luciferic and the Ahrimanic forces are both busily at work to prevent their meeting. The Luciferic forces would only allow those things to come to expansion in Man, which were his in his cosmic childhood. The Ahrimanic forces—as their opponents, but yet in cooperation with them—want to develop those powers only, which are acquired in the later ages of the world, and to let the cosmic childhood wither away.

[ 16 ] Under such circumstances of aggravated difficulty, the souls of men in Europe continued to digest those spiritual impulses which had made their way through the Crusades in the form of old ideas and world-conceptions, from the East into the West. In these ideas the forces of Michael lived with peculiar strength. These world-conceptions were dominated by the cosmic Intelligence, of which Michael was by old spiritual heritage the regent.

[ 17 ] How could these ideas and world-conceptions be taken up by human souls, since between these souls and the forces of the spiritual world there lay a gulf? They fell amidst the first faint beginnings of the Spiritual Soul. On the one hand, they met with the hindrance presented by the still feeble development of the Spiritual Soul; they drowned the voice of the Spiritual Soul—lamed its force. And on the other hand, they no longer met with a consciousness that drew strength from Imagination. The human soul could no longer unite with them in full insight. People took them either quite superficially, or else superstitiously.

[ 18 ] This state of men's minds must be clearly perceived, in order to understand those movements in thought which are associated on the one hand with the names of Wycliffe, Huss etc. and with the designation ‘Rosicrucian’ on the other.

Leading Thoughts

[ 19 ] At the beginning of the Age of Consciousness, the human soul develops her intellectual forces only as yet to a very small extent. There arises a lack of connection between what the soul yearns for in her unconscious, underlying depths, and what can be given her by the forces from the region where Michael is.

[ 20 ] This lack of connection affords the Luciferic Powers an enhanced possibility of detaining Man within the forces of his cosmic childhood, so as to cause his further evolution to take place, not along the paths of those divine, spiritual Powers with whom he was united from the first, but along the paths of Lucifer.

[ 21 ] It further affords an enhanced possibility for the Ahrimanic Powers to cut Man off from the forces of his cosmic childhood, and draw him over into their own realm, for further evolution there.

[ 22 ] Both of these things failed to take place, because the Michael-Forces were nevertheless at work; but the spiritual evolution of mankind had to go on amidst the obstacles arising from these two possibilities, and it thereby became what it has hitherto become.

[ 1 ] Anyone attempting an exposition of the results of spiritual science as recorded in this book must, above all, take into account the fact that at present these results are universally looked upon as something quite impossible. For things are said in the following exposition that the supposedly exact thinking of our age affirms to be “probably entirely indeterminable by human intelligence.” He who knows and appreciates the reasons why so many earnest persons are lead to maintain this impossibility will wish to make ever new attempts to show the misconceptions upon which is based the belief that entrance into supersensible worlds is denied to human knowledge.

[ 2 ] For two things offer themselves for consideration. First, any human soul, by reflecting deeply, will in the long run be unable to disregard the fact that its most important questions concerning the meaning and significance of life must remain unanswered if there be no access to supersensible worlds. We may theoretically deceive ourselves about this fact, but the depths of the soul-life will not tolerate this self-delusion.—If we do not wish to listen to these depths of the soul, we shall naturally reject any statement about supersensible worlds. Yet there are human beings—really not few in number—who find it impossible to remain deaf to the demands coming from these soul depths. Such people must always knock at the door that conceals, according to the opinion of others, the “inconceivable.”

[ 3 ] Second, the statements resulting from “exact thinking” are not at all to be underrated. He who occupies himself with them will certainly appreciate their seriousness where they are to be taken seriously. The writer of this book would not like to be looked upon as one who lightheartedly passes over the tremendous thought activity that has been employed in determining the limits of the human intellect. This thought activity cannot be disposed of by a few phrases about “academic wisdom” and the like. In many cases its source rests in true striving for knowledge and in genuine acumen.—Indeed, even more may be admitted: reasons have been brought forward to show that the knowledge considered scientific today cannot penetrate into the spirit world, and these reasons are in a certain sense irrefutable.

[ 4 ] Since this is admitted without hesitation by the writer of this book himself, it may appear to many quite strange that he, nevertheless, undertakes to make statements about supersensible worlds. It appears, indeed, to be almost impossible that someone in a certain sense admits the reasons for the inapprehensibility of the supersensible worlds and yet at the same time continues to speak about them.

[ 5 ] It is possible, nevertheless, to have this attitude, and it is possible, at the same time, to understand that it will appear contradictory. For not everyone concerns himself with the experiences one has if one approaches the supersensible realm with the human intellect. There it becomes evident that the proofs of this intellect may well be irrefutable, and that, in spite of their irrefutability, they need not be decisive for reality. Instead of all theoretical arguments, the attempt shall be made here to bring about an understanding by means of a comparison. The fact that comparisons themselves are not proof is readily conceded; yet this does not prevent their making comprehensible what is to be expressed.

[ 6 ] Human cognition, as it acts in everyday life and in ordinary science, is really so constituted that it cannot penetrate into supersensible worlds. This can be irrefutably proved, but this proof can have no more value for a certain kind of soul-life than the proof that is undertaken to show that the natural human eye with its power of perception cannot penetrate into the smallest cells of a living body, or into the constitution of distant celestial bodies. Just as the declaration is true and demonstrable that the ordinary power of sight does not penetrate as far as the cells, so also is the other statement correct and provable that ordinary cognition is unable to penetrate into supersensible worlds. Yet the proof that the ordinary power of sight must stop short of the cells does not decide anything against research into the cells. Why should the proof that the ordinary power of cognition must halt before supersensible worlds decide anything against the possibility of research into these worlds?

[ 7 ] We can appreciate the feeling aroused in many a person by this comparison. We are even able to sympathize with those who doubt whether somebody who confronts the thought activity mentioned with such a comparison has even the slightest idea of the seriousness of this activity. Nevertheless, the author of this book is not only imbued with this seriousness, but he is of the opinion that this thought activity is to be counted among the noblest achievements of mankind. To prove that the human power of sight cannot penetrate to the cell structure without the aid of instruments would be, to be sure, an unnecessary undertaking; to become conscious, through exact thinking, of the nature of this thinking is a necessary spiritual activity. It is only too understandable that those who give themselves up to such thought activity do not notice that reality can refute them. The present preface of this book cannot be the place to go into the various “refutations” of the first editions on the part of persons who lack all understanding of what this book strives for, or who direct their false attacks at the person of the author. It must, however, be strongly emphasized that only those can suspect in this book any underrating of serious scientific thought activity who wish to close their eyes to the real character of the expositions.

[ 8 ] The human power of cognition can be strengthened and enhanced, just as the faculty of eyesight can be strengthened. The means, however, for strengthening cognition are of an entirely spiritual nature; they are purely inner soul functions. They consist in what is described in this book as meditation and concentration (contemplation). Ordinary soul-life is bound to the instruments of the body, the strengthened soul-life frees itself from them. To certain modern schools of thought such a declaration must appear quite senseless and based only upon self-delusion. From their point of view, it will be found easy to prove that “all soul-life” is bound up with the nervous system. A person holding the point of view out of which this book is written will completely understand such proofs. He understands the people who say that only the superficial can maintain that there may be some sort of soul-life independent of the body, and who are entirely convinced that for such soul experiences a connection with the life of the nerves exists that “spiritual scientific amateurishness” fails to perceive.

[ 9 ] Here certain entirely comprehensible habits of thought confront what is described in this book so sharply that they preclude at present any prospect of coming to an understanding. We are here at a point where the wish must make itself felt that in the present age it should no longer be in keeping with spiritual life to decry a direction of research as fantastic and visionary because it diverges abruptly from our own.—On the other hand, however, we have the fact that there are a number of human beings who have an understanding for the supersensible mode of research presented in this book. They are individuals who realize that the meaning of life does not reveal itself in general terms about soul, self, and so forth, but only through the real entering upon the results of supersensible research. It is not from lack of modesty, but with joyful satisfaction that the author of this book feels deeply the necessity of this fourth edition after a relatively brief time since the last edition appeared.

[ 10 ] The author does not accentuate this from lack of modesty, because he feels only too clearly how little even the new edition corresponds to what it really ought to be as an “outline of a supersensible world conception.” In preparing this new edition, the whole subject matter has been re-studied and re-worked with considerable amplification at important points. Clarification was also striven for. Nevertheless, in numerous places the author became conscious of how inadequate the means of presentation available to him prove to be in comparison with what supersensible research shows. Hence, scarcely more than a way could be indicated for acquiring the concepts that in this book are given for the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions. An important point of view, also in this domain, has been briefly treated anew in this edition. But the experiences in regard to such things diverge so greatly from all the experiences in the domain of the senses that the exposition must of necessity struggle continually for expressions that appear sufficiently adequate for the purpose. Anyone who is willing to go into the exposition attempted here will perhaps notice that much that is impossible to say in dry words is striven for by the manner of the description. This manner is, for example, one thing for the Saturn evolution, but quite another for the Sun evolution, and so forth.

[ 11 ] The second part of this book, which deals with knowledge of the higher worlds, was greatly supplemented and amplified by its author. He endeavored to present clearly the character of the inner soul processes through which knowledge frees itself from its limits present in the sense world and fits itself for experiencing the supersensible world. The author attempted to show that this experiencing of the supersensible, although acquired entirely through inner ways and means, does not have a merely subjective significance for the individual who acquires it. The presentation was to show that, within the soul, its singularity and personal peculiarity are stripped off and an experience is reached which is similar in every human being who effects his development in the right manner out of his subjective experiences. Only when the knowledge of supersensible worlds is conceived of as possessing this character is it possible to distinguish it from all experiences of mere subjective mysticism and the like. Of such mysticism it may well be said that it is, more or less, a subjective concern of the mystic. The spiritual scientific training of the soul that is meant here, however, strives for objective experiences, the truth of which is indeed recognized entirely inwardly, the universal validity of which, however, is discernible for that reason.—Here again is a point where it is quite difficult to come to an understanding with many a thought habit of our age.

[ 12 ] In conclusion, the author of this book should like to observe that also the well-intended reader should accept these expositions as they offer themselves by virtue of their own content. Today numerous attempts have been made to give to this or that spiritual movement this or that ancient historical name. To many, only then does it appear of value. The question, however, may be asked: What have the expositions of this book to gain by designating them “Rosicrucian” or the like? The important point is that here, with the means that are possible and adequate for the soul in this present period of evolution, an insight is attempted into supersensible worlds, and that from this point of view the riddles of human destiny and of human existence beyond the limits of birth and death are observed. It is not the question of a striving bearing this or that ancient name, but of a striving for truth.

[ 13 ] On the other hand, opponents have also employed terms for the world conception presented in this book. Apart from the fact that the terms used in order to deal the author the heaviest possible blow and to discredit him are absurd and objectively false, such terms characterize themselves in their unworthiness by the fact that they attempt to discredit a completely independent striving for truth by failing to judge it on its own merits, and by endeavoring to impose their dependence upon ideas derived from this or that trend of thought as judgment upon others. Although these words are necessary in the face of many attacks against the author, nevertheless, he is loath here to go further into this matter.

RUDOLF STEINER
June 1913.

Today we want to start from the question: Do only the beings of the physical plane that are close to human beings have consciousness? Or how does the consciousness of human beings relate to the other beings on the physical plane, to the consciousness of animals, of plants, and of so-called dead stone? Can we also speak of a consciousness of the other kingdoms of nature?

Imagine a small creature that could only see something of a person, for example, a finger moving. [That is all this little creature would see; but it cannot] form a concept of what underlies this movement. This little creature would also have no idea of the human soul and would only see and describe the expressions of his strength. But it could also be the same for a person in relation to other entities. The materialist sees the things, but does not speak of the actual soul of the earth. Could it not be the same for him as for the little creature, which walks around the human being and only sees and describes the details? The little creature itself has no soul consciousness and therefore cannot speak of the soul of the human being. Just like that little creature, the materialist also lacks the soul, therefore he does not recognize the soul of the earth.

The soul of the earth is higher than the human soul. All beings of the physical plane have consciousness. But the consciousness of man differs from that of the other beings in that he lives here on the physical plane with his consciousness.

But during sleep, the human consciousness is also on other planes. In so-called dreamless sleep, the human consciousness lives on the devachan plane, where plant consciousness is always at home. The animal's consciousness lies somewhere between humans and plants on the astral plane. The human being is the being that has its consciousness on the physical plane.

The animal has its consciousness on the astral plane. The plant has its consciousness on the devachan plane. Consciousness on the astral and devachan planes differs significantly from consciousness on the physical plane. For consciousness on the physical plane can only receive ideas and thoughts through the physical organs. Consciousness on the devachan and astral planes only perceives through images and imagination, as was the case with people in prehistoric times.

The conscious astral being has yet another peculiarity: It is not separate from other beings in the same way as the being that has consciousness on the physical plane is separate, but it lives much more behind and within other beings. For the being that has consciousness on the physical plane, it is necessary that everything be conveyed to it through the senses. If its consciousness of an object were astral, the eye would not convey the things; one would perceive nothing at all of an object. On the other hand, an image would arise from which one could deduce from its colors and configuration whether the object is pleasant or unpleasant. The images that previously arose from the objects and hovered in the soul are now completely obscured in today's people, because the physical consciousness is drawn over the objects directly. This is how sense consciousness arises.

Consciousness on the physical plane is a strictly defined circle, something solid that the other beings cannot enter. Consciousness on the astral plane is a cloudy, spiritual thing. Just as liquid, like water, differs from solid, so on the astral plane there is a flowing together of the different contents of consciousness.

Man has formed his physical body himself. Before that, an ancient animal kingdom existed. If one were to see these creatures, they would appear to today's humans like caricatures. The original astral body was able to transform those animals, to refine and develop them into humans. This earlier human being first had an astral consciousness. This first formed and shaped the physical body.

What was the purpose of this next evolution in the physical? Without passing through the physical, that earth creature with the dull consciousness would never have learned to say “I” to itself. The God who dwells in man today, the divine germ, could not enter the astral body other than by condensing it into the physical human body. Before that, the spirit of God was still completely outside the astral body; the “I” was the spirit of the deity. The astral consciousness was similar to water: “The spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters”. The “I” spirit hovered over the original waters of consciousness, over the astral bodies.

The nature kingdoms differ in the occult sense in the way the outer physical body relates to consciousness. Man has brought down consciousness to the physical plane, the animal to the astral plane and the plant to the devachan plane.

The plant becomes an animal when it has brought down consciousness to the astral plane, the animal becomes a human being when it carries consciousness down to the physical plane. The consciousness of the rock is on the higher parts of the devachan plan, namely on the fourth level. The Akashic Records are also located there on the border. The beyond is the plane of silence, a completely different form of existence than the Arupa region of devachan. In this realm lies the consciousness of the entire mineral world. In order to engage with the occult truths in a way that is not only constructive, it is necessary to get a sense of what the mineral actually is. The mineral is essentially different from all other creatures around man. And with mere manasic knowledge, one cannot come to a deeper understanding of the mineral world.

One must gain a moral relationship to the mineral world. To this end, the Rosicrucian schools drew people's attention to the chastity of the mineral world. Through its chastity, the mineral world is a model for man. Man is still flooded with desires and passions.

But imagine a human being so purified that his inner nature is as chaste, as unassuming and as self-contained as the mineral. One cannot say that the mineral kingdom is on a lower level than man. Man here on the physical plane only knows the skin of the mineral kingdom, which is related to the real mineral as the skin of man is to man himself. The mineral is a human being who lives only on the higher parts of the devachanic plane.

One cannot deny consciousness to the series of physical beings, but one must ascribe different forms of consciousness to them: there is a consciousness

— which manifests itself in form three levels lower down: today mineral,

— a consciousness that manifests itself in its forms two levels lower: today plants,

— a consciousness that manifests itself in its forms one level lower: today animals,

— a consciousness that manifests itself at the same level as the being [: today man].

This is the descending line of evolution. In ancient times, man once stood at the level where he is at the level of today's mineral. At that time, he had to be guided by other beings. The purpose of man's development is to emancipate himself from all such entities on the higher planes and to become such an entity on the higher planes himself.

The first stage of consciousness that man has undergone can be called “deepest trance consciousness”. The second stage of consciousness that man has undergone is still found in plants, the “deep sleep consciousness”. The third stage of consciousness that man has undergone is the “dream-filled sleep consciousness”. This “dream-filled sleep consciousness” is still found today in the animal kingdom, but actually only in those animals that have not developed warm blood. The animals that came into being later already have a slightly different consciousness; for example, the apes have a consciousness similar to that of humans. From the consciousness of dream-filled sleep, from the images of this consciousness, a higher animal kingdom develops. The fourth stage of consciousness, which man has reached today, is “object or subject consciousness”.

Today, man has hardly any connection with the first stage of consciousness. But he experiences the second stage, the deep sleep consciousness, during the night; it is an atavistic remnant from the time when he was completely in the sleep consciousness. The third consciousness has remained atavistically present in the chaotic world of dreams. The fourth stage, the normal consciousness, is today's everyday consciousness. The further course of human development consists in the fact that he develops himself up to an even higher consciousness. The fifth stage, which every human being will reach in the future, is where the astral consciousness joins the object consciousness again, where the human being will move fully consciously between the images.

A being with only astral consciousness cannot see the human form, but it can see what is going on inside the human being, every pain, every suffering and so on, it perceives all this, expressed in colors and forms. If object consciousness were to develop in this being, the images would gradually take on fixed boundaries and be superimposed over an object; this would emerge and everything that previously appeared as pleasure and pain would disappear.

Then [in addition to mere astral consciousness] there would come an even higher stage, [something would be added that goes beyond everything that happens in pleasure and pain in the human being]. The medium must extinguish the consciousness of the day and thereby loses the certainty of control. The clairvoyant, however, does not extinguish the physical consciousness, he retains the physical mind and all his physical abilities and in addition develops the consciousness of images. Thus the fifth stage is the conscious consciousness, which in reality encompasses approximately that part of the world that extends to the boundary of the devachan world.

The sixth stage is the state where sleep consciousness becomes a conscious state and delivers not images but sounds. This consciousness occurs in the higher degree of clairvoyance; it is the “otherworldly sound consciousness”. The reality of this is the Pythagorean music of the spheres. This otherworldly sound consciousness arises when sleep becomes not only dreamless but consciously aware in sounds. The awakening of the inner word corresponds to this. This is not a symbol, but true inner reality, the moment when things express themselves as they are. Man lives on the physical plane because he has the power to express his being himself in the I. But at this level of clairvoyance, all beings tell him their name. The whole world takes on the character of flowing sound, and each being in the world of flowing sound is a note that is different from all other beings.

About the even higher seventh state of consciousness, one can only say that it is there. To understand this, a region of the soul must be separable from the physical consciousness.

A human being goes through these seven states of consciousness in his evolution and is now in the middle of the development, at the fourth state. If we were at the fifth, we would also be in the middle again, if we were at a previous level of consciousness, one of the later ones would have disappeared and on the other hand another one would have appeared. So there are always seven levels that can be observed.

In the past, people went through a completely different state of life. Every state of consciousness must pass through seven states of life and every state of life through seven states of form. Seven states of form thus always form a state of life, and seven states of life make up an entire planetary development.

In the first life state, consciousness is three levels higher. In the second life state, consciousness is two levels higher. In the third life state, consciousness is one level higher.

The seven life states are called the “seven realms”. These are the three elemental realms: the mineral, animal and plant kingdoms. The three elemental realms precede the present state of life; human beings had to pass through them before they could emerge from the mineral realm into the fourth state of life, in which they now find themselves.

The process of passing through such a state of life has been called a “round” so far, and this includes seven form metamorphoses. So, in each state of consciousness, one passes through seven states of life and in each state of life, seven states of form. A total of seven times seven times seven metamorphoses of form. In occultism, it is written: 343. A great deal depends on the ability to read this number 7x 7x7 =343. All form states are what is understood by the third logos. The forty-nine life states are the second logos. The seven states of consciousness are the first logos.

After I said a few esoteric words last Friday, what I have to say today will not seem so strange to you. I would like to discuss a piece of history from the last few centuries from the Akashic Records. You know that all events that have happened are recorded in a certain way in an eternal chronicle, in the Akasha substance, which is a much finer substance than the substances we know. You know that all events of history and prehistory are recorded in this substance. What is usually called the Akashic Records in theosophical language, however, are not the original records, but reflections of the actual records in the astral realm. In order to be able to read these, certain preconditions are necessary, of which I will at least give you one.

To be able to read the Akashic Records, it is necessary to make one's own thoughts available to the forces and beings that we call the “Masters” in theosophical language. The Masters must give us the necessary instructions to be able to read in the Akashic Records, which is written in symbols and signs, not in words of any existing language or one that existed in the past. As long as you are still using the power that a person uses in ordinary thinking – and every person who has not explicitly learned to consciously switch off their ego uses this power – you cannot read in the Akashic Records. If you ask yourself, “Who is thinking?” you will have to say to yourself, “I am thinking.” You connect subject and predicate when you form a sentence. As long as you yourself connect the individual concepts, you are unable to read in the Akashic Records because you connect your thoughts with your own ego. But you have to switch off your ego; you have to renounce all self-will. You must merely present the ideas and let the connection of the individual ideas be established by forces outside of yourself, through the spirit. It is therefore necessary to renounce - not thinking - but to connect the individual thoughts on your own. Then the master can come and teach you to let the spirit from outside connect your thoughts to what the universal world spirit is able to show about events and facts that have taken place in history. When you no longer judge the facts, then the universal world spirit itself speaks to you, and you provide it with your thought material.

Now I have to talk about something that may perhaps create prejudices. I have to say something that is a good preparation for learning to read in the Akashic Records by eliminating the self-willed ego. You know how today what the monks cultivated in the Middle Ages is despised: they made the sacrifice of the intellect. The monk did not think like today's researchers. The monk had a certain sacred science, the revealed sacred theology, the content of which was given and about which one had no say. The theologian of the Middle Ages used his reason to explain and defend the given revelations. That was - however one may feel about it today - a strict training: the sacrifice of the intellect to a given content. Whether this was something admirable or reprehensible according to modern concepts is not our concern here. The sacrifice of intellect that the monk made, the elimination of judgment based on the personal ego, led him to learn how to put thought at the service of something higher. In a later incarnation, what was brought forth through this sacrifice comes to fruition and enables the person to think selflessly, making him a genius of insight. When higher insight, intuition, is added, then he can apply these abilities to reading the facts in the Akashic Records.

It is particularly interesting to look again at the period in Europe's spiritual development that we considered eight days ago from this point of view, I mean the period from the 9th to the 13th, 14th, 15th century. When one has achieved this selflessness in relation to the content of thoughts and, united with it, the right sense of reverence, of devotion, as the mystic must also have had it, then the time when great spirits appear in world history often appears quite differently than in profane historiography. When we look at this period in the Akashic Records, our gaze is drawn to a great figure who can teach us an enormous amount about that time, a figure who presents himself to the observer as great and who presents himself to the occultist even more powerfully than to the ordinary researcher: Wolfram von Eschenbach.

Wolfram von Eschenbach adapted German, Romance and Spanish legends. He is one of the great inspired poets who were selfless enough to work with great material that had already been given to them, and who did not believe that they had to invent material themselves. Great poets such as Homer, Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus never had to search for material. Wolfram von Eschenbach also belongs to these great poets. In his works he presents us with the inner spiritual history of the period from the 9th to the 15th century, which presents itself externally as the preparatory period of our new time, in which, as we have seen, everything that belongs to the external world of the senses is preferably studied. This begins with Copernicus. People began to take the physical plan seriously, not as a symbol for the higher planes as in the past. The world view of the ancients was not a false one, but a world view that started from a different point of view: it regarded the phenomena of the external world as symbols for devachanic states. Copernicus said, “We no longer want to regard the physical world as a symbol, but we want to look at the physical world itself.” Of course, this changed the entire world view of mankind. During this time, the focus was on the practical, physical and material. The earlier cultures, in which our physical life was dependent on traditions and authorities, changed into one in which personal ability was important. In the past, a farmer's son was respected because he was the son of a farmer; the son of a knight inherited the rights of his fathers. This changed during this period. It is the time of the founding of cities. Everywhere the people flocked together from the countryside and founded cities; the bourgeoisie came up, practical inventions emerged: the pocket watch, the art of printing were invented. But that is only the external aspect of the matter. The souls were directed towards the practical side of science, as can be seen from Copernicus, which was further developed in the Age of Enlightenment and politically in the French Revolution. The commercial class looked after practical interests, personal efficiency was necessary. It was no longer so important whether one descended from this or that man. For those who follow events in the Akashic Records, the situation is such that what happens on the physical plane is directed from the higher planes. The leading spirits are influenced by initiates working on the higher planes. Genius personalities lead up to entities working behind the scenes, right up to the White Lodge. The physical aspect is only the outside. The inside is the work of the highest initiates of the White Lodge and their emissaries who go out into the world.

I would like to briefly characterize this occult hierarchy. We have such beings who never show themselves: the masters. For people on the physical plane, they are not perceptible at first. Below them are chelas, secret disciples who take on the great tasks of the masters on the physical plane. The first to teach there are called “hamsas”, which means “swans”. Those chelas who are called “homeless people” are so called because they do not have their home in this world, but are rooted on higher planes. They give the people the lessons that they themselves have enjoyed from the hamsas. They are the messengers for the geniuses of world history. For example, it can be shown that the leaders of the French Revolution were connected with this spiritual side of world history.

The Great White Lodge had to send its emissaries to prepare and teach people so that they could become the organs on the physical plane to carry out the will of the Masters. So it was with Wolfram von Eschenbach. In the Middle Ages it was known that there was a White Lodge, at that time it was called the “Castle of the Holy Grail”. In it was the White Brotherhood. He who was sent out at that time to spread the founding of the city to the physical world was called Lohengrin; he was directly instructed by a Hamsa, and he taught Henry I, who is referred to as the founder of the city. This means that the time-souls were to receive a new impact from the “homeless people”.

In the occult language, the soul is always symbolized by a female personality. Elsa of Brabant represents the soul of the time. She is to be married to a knight who belongs to the old tradition, to Telramund. But an envoy of the Grail comes and woos the soul of the time, Elsa of Brabant. This period is characterized by Wolfram von Eschenbach in such a way that Henry is led to Rome, where the inner, esoteric Christianity fights the enemies of Christianity, the Saracens. Lohengrin is a “homeless person” whom one dare not ask where he comes from. To ask him would be against his monastic vows. He is afflicted with a kind of Janus face; on the one hand he must look towards the occult brotherhood and on the other hand towards the people he must lead in the physical world. Richard Wagner often found poignant words, for example when he has Lohengrin sing: “Now thanks be given, my dear swan.” That is the moment when the swan leaves him and he becomes dependent on physical conditions. He is transported into a world that is not quite appropriate for him; it is not his true world. His world is the world of the other side, so that he must be regarded as a homeless person. When his mission is fulfilled, the homeless man disappears again to where he came from. When his origin is discovered, he must disappear again. This is difficult for him who has entered into relationship with the physical plane. Therefore Elsa of Brabant must ask three times whence he came.

Thus we see that this time is characterized by the initiate Wolfram von Eschenbach in its connection with the higher planes. Lohengrin is the envoy, the messenger of the Grail knights. The Grail knights are the White Lodge on Montsalvatsch. It was the task of the Grail's emissaries, the Grail knights, to renew the old traditions of genuine, true Christianity again and again. This was also the meaning when they spoke about the Grail Castle and the Holy Grail itself. They imagined the Grail Knights as the guardians of that which had come into the world through true Christianity. This is also hinted at in the Gospel of John: “The Word was made flesh.” What has been transfigured by the Christ is physical existence itself; He has entered into the physical world. The other great personalities were teachers of humanity: Buddha, Zarathustra, Pythagoras, Moses - they were all teachers. They are the “Way and the Truth”; the “Life” in the occult sense is only Christ; hence it is said: No one comes to the Father except through me. - Life could only find its sanctification when the Word moved directly into the human body. This descent of the Divine into the physical plane was to be renewed again and again by the White Lodge. Therefore, the Grail Cup is depicted as the same cup from which Jesus dispensed the Holy Communion and in which Joseph of Arimathea caught the blood at Golgotha. Thus the principle of Christianity is to be preserved and live on, and new strength is to be given to it by the fact that, in continuation of the apostles, twelve knights of the Grail are sent out as messengers to take on new tasks.

That was the view of the entire Middle Ages, that when an important stage of civilization is to be reached, a chela, a “swan” should teach people. In this way, Wolfram von Eschenbach viewed and presented history. Those who are able to read between the lines in Richard Wagner's Lohengrin will find that Wagner felt, if not intellectually, then intuitively, that something great was at hand. Therefore, he believed in a renewal of art by connecting to the superhuman. In the Middle Ages this was depicted in such a way that when Elsa of Brabant wanted to banish Lohengrin from this world, he withdrew, and as Wolfram von Eschenbach says, to India. Finally, the castle of the Holy Grail is also imagined as being in India. It is also said of the Rosicrucians that when they withdrew at the end of the 18th century, they went to Asia, to the Orient. That is the story of the founding of cities in the Middle Ages, according to the records in the Akashic Records. Details might perhaps be presented somewhat differently by others, but on the whole they will always agree with it.