The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Christ works as a macrocosmic Power and is not a teacher like the other teachers of humanity. He has united Himself with the Earth, as a reality, as power, as very life.

The loftiest teachers of the successive epochs are the Bodhisattvas who already in the pre-Christian era pointed to Christ in His full reality of being; again in the post-Christian era they point to Him as a Power Who is now united with the Earth. Thus the Bodhisattvas work both before and after Christ's physical life on Earth. He who was born as the son of a King in India, 550 years before Christ, lived and taught for twenty nine years as a Bodhisattva, and then ascended to the rank of Buddha; thereafter he was never again to appear on the Earth in a body of flesh but from then onwards he worked from the spiritual world. When this Bodhisattva had become Buddha, he was succeeded by the new Bodhisattva whose mission it is to lead mankind to an understanding of the Christ Impulse. All these things had come to pass before the appearance of Christ on the Earth. About the year 105 B.C. there was living in Palestine a man greatly defamed in rabbinical literature. His name was Jeshu ben Pandira and he was an incarnation of this new Bodhisattva. Jesus of Nazareth is an essentially different being, in that when he (Jesus of Nazareth) reached the age of 30, he became the bearer of Christ, at the Baptism by John in the Jordan. It was Jeshu ben Pandira from whom the Essene teachings were mainly derived. One of his pupils bore the name of Matthew, and he too pointed to the Mystery of Golgotha. Jeshu ben Pandira was stoned by his enemies and his corpse was hung on a cross as a further mark of contempt. His existence can be established without the help of occult research for plenty is said about him in rabbinical literature, although the information is either misleading or deliberately falsified. He bore within him the Individuality of the new Bodhisattva and was the successor of Gautama Buddha. The name of his pupil Matthew passed over to later pupils. The content of the Gospel known by that name had already been in existence since the time of the first Matthew, in the form of a description of the rituals contained in the ancient Mystery-scripts. In the life of Christ Jesus, the essential content of these Mysteries became reality on the physical plane. What were previously only pictures from the Mysteries, seeds as it were of subsequent happenings, now became reality. Thus the Christ Mystery had already been known prophetically, had indeed been enacted in the ceremonies of the ancient Mysteries, before it became, once and once only, an actual event on the physical plane.

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

About 3,000 years after our present time, this Bodhisattva will become the Maitreya Buddha. And then his influence from the spiritual world will flow into the hearts of men as a magic, moral power. The stream going forth from the Maitreya Buddha will unite with the stream of Western spiritual life connected with Christian Rosenkreutz.

The Bodhisattva who once lived as Jeshu ben Pandira comes down to the Earth again and again in a human body and will continue to do so in order to fulfil the rest of his task and particular mission which cannot, as yet, be completed. Although its consummation can already be foreseen by clairvoyance, there exists no larynx capable of producing the sounds of the speech that will be uttered when this Bodhisattva rises to the rank of Buddha. In agreement with oriental occultism, therefore, it can be said: 5,000 years after Gautama Buddha, that is to say, towards the end of the next 3,000 years, the Bodhisattva who is his successor will become Buddha. But as it is his mission to prepare human beings for the epoch connected paramountly with the development of true morality, when, in the future, he becomes Buddha, the words of his speech will contain the magic power of the Good. For thousands of years, therefore, oriental tradition has predicted: Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha who is to come, will be a Bringer of the Good by way of the word. He will then be able to teach men of the real nature of the Christ Impulse and in that age the Buddha stream and the Christ stream will flow into one. Only so can the Christ Mystery be truly understood. So mighty and all-pervading was the Impulse poured into the evolution of mankind that its waves surge onwards into future epochs. In the fourth epoch of post-Atlantean civilisation this Impulse was made manifest in the incarnation of Christ in a human, physical body. And we are now going forward to an epoch when the Impulse will manifest in such a way that human beings will behold the Christ on the astral plane as an Ether Form.

Yesterday we heard that in still later epochs men will be able to behold Him in even higher forms in the aesthetic and moral spheres. But when we speak in this way of the Christ Impulse we are concerned with ideas which will be resolutely opposed above all by the Churches of Christendom. Great and incisive measures have been and are necessary in the onward progress of human evolution in order to promote increasing understanding of the Christ Impulse. Hitherto, indeed, such understanding has been lacking. And anyone who casts an eye at modern theology will perceive not only the futility of the attitude maintained by the opponents of Christianity, but also by those who claim to be steadfast adherents. The theosophical Movement in the West should have become that stream of spiritual life which out of true and genuine sources awakens understanding for Christianity in the modern age, but such endeavours met with strong opposition.

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

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

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

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

The choice may, for example, happen in the following way.—A man embarks upon some undertaking; he spares no effort to make it successful and forges straight ahead towards his goal. While he is ruthlessly making his way in the world (he may be a thorough materialist), suddenly he hears a voice saying: “Stop what you propose to do!” ... And he will be aware that this was no physical voice. But now suppose that he does abstain from his project. If he has actually done this he may realise that if he had continued ruthlessly towards his goal, he would certainly have been led to his death. These are the two fundamentals: that he knows with certainty, firstly, that the warning came from the spiritual world, and secondly, that death would have come to him had he persisted in his undertaking. It is therefore revealed to one who is to become a pupil: You have actually been saved, moreover by a warning proceeding from a world of which, to begin with, you know nothing! So far as circumstances of the earthly world are concerned, death has already come to you and your further life is to be regarded as a gift ... And when the man in question realises this he will be led to the resolve to work in a spiritual movement. If the resolve is taken, this means that he has actually been chosen. This is how Christian Rosenkreutz begins to gather his pupils around him, and many human beings, if they were sufficiently alert, would be conscious of such an event in their inner life.

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

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

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

The second subject on which we have said occult teachers instruct their pupils is Imagination. With this, the individual does not go through life in the ordinary everyday way but in accord with Goethe s words ‘All things corruptible are but a parable’. Pupils will see something else in every animal and every plant. Thus the autumn crocus will be the image of a melancholy mind, the violet an image of being quietly in harmony with God, the sunflower an image of life bursting with energy, independence, ambition. Living in this way, pupils rise to imaginative perception. They’ll see something like a cold flame rise from a plant, a colour image that takes them to the astral plane. The pupils are thus guided to see things that are shown to them by spiritual entities from other worlds. It had to be said, however, that the pupils must strictly follow their occult teacher, who alone can tell them what is subjective and what is objective. The occult teachers are able to give their pupils the necessary security. The world of the senses gives this of its own accord by continually correcting our errors. The situation is different in the astral world. There one is easily deluded; there someone with greater experience has to be at one s side.

The teachers give their pupils who want to follow the Rosicrucian way a number of instructions. In the first place they give them a particular instruction once they have begun to reach the level of imaginative development. A teacher will then say: ‘Endeavour first of all to love not just individual animals, to develop a particular relationship to individual animals, to learn one thing or another from one animal or another, but try to develop a living inner feeling for whole groups of animals; you will then gain an idea of the nature of the group soul. The individual soul of man is on the physical plane, the individual souls of animals are on the astral plane. An animal cannot say 'I' to itself here on the physical plane.’

A question that is often asked is if animals do not have the kind of soul that human beings have. They do have such a soul, but the animal soul is up above on the astral plane. The individual animal relates to the animal soul the way individual organs relate to the soul in human beings. If your finger hurts, it is the soul which feels it. All the sensations of individual organs go to the soul. The same is the case for a group of animals. Everything an individual animal feels inwardly is felt inside it by the group soul. Let us take all the different lions, for example. The sensations felt by the lions all go to a soul they have in common. All lions have a common group soul on the astral plane. If you cause an individual lion pain, or if it feels inner gratification at something, this goes all the way to the astral plane, just as the pain in a human finger goes all the way to the human soul. Man is able to gain insight into the group soul if he is able to create a form for himself that contains all individual lions, just as a general concept contains all the individual forms belonging to it.

Plants have their soul in the rupa part of the devachan plane.⁶⁷ By gaining an overview of group of plants and developing a particular relationship to the plant’s group soul, human beings learn to penetrate to the group souls of plants on the rupa plane. When it is no longer the individual lily, the individual tulip that is special to them, but when the individual plants merge for them in living, concentrated Imaginations that become images, human beings experience something completely new. It is important to have a very real image, individually created in one’s powers of imagination. One will then find that the earth’s plant cover, a flower-bedecked meadow, for instance, becomes something completely new and that the flowers become a genuine revelation of the earth’s spirit. That is the revelation of these different plant group souls. Just as human tears become a reflection of sadness felt in the soul, and the physiognomy comes to reflect the soul of a person, so does the occultist come to see the green of the plant cover as a reflection of inner processes, of the earth’s true life in the spirit. Some plants will then be like the earth’s tears for him, with the earth’s inner sadness welling forth. As in the case of someone who shares in the tremors and sorrow of others, so does a new, imaginative content enter into the pupil’s soul.

These are the moods a person must go through. If you go through the mood relating to the animal world, you find your way up to the astral plane. If you enter into the mood I have described for the plant world, you find your way up to the lower part of the devachan plane. You will observe the flame forms rising from the plants. The earth's plant cover will then be covered with a sum of configurations, the incarnations of light rays, that come down upon the plants.

We can also approach a dead stone in the the same way. There is a basic inner feeling relating to the mineral world. Let us take a rock crystal with the light shining through it. Looking at it we can say to ourselves that in a way this is an ideal picture of the human being himself. Just as the human physical body is physical matter, so a stone, too, is physical matter. But there is a future prospect, and the occult teacher guides his pupils towards this. Today human beings are still full of drives, passions and appetites. This fills our physical nature. But the occultist has an ideal before him. He will say to himself: ‘Our animal nature is gradually cleansed and purified until a level is reached where this human body can stand before us as chaste and free from desire as the mineral which desires nothing, with no wishes stirring in it when something comes near it. The inner material nature of the mineral is chaste and pure.’ This chastity and purity is the inner feeling pupils should have on looking at the world of rocks and minerals. These inner feelings are differentiated according to the different shapes and colours in which that world shows itself, but the basic inner feeling present in the mineral world is one of chastity.

Our earth has a quite specific configuration, a quite specific form today. Let us go back to earlier stages of its evolution. It once had a completely different form. Let us go back to Atlantis and earlier. There we come to increasingly higher temperatures, with the metals running about the way water runs on earth today. All metals have turned into those veins in the earth today because they were originally running streams. Just as lead is solid today and mercury liquid, so lead was liquid once, and mercury will one day be a solid metal. The earth is thus changing, and humanity has always been part of the different evolutional stages. The physical human being did not yet exist at the times of which we have been talking. But the ether body and the astral body were there, being able to live at even higher temperatures. As the earth cooled down, the outer bodies gradually developed around the human being.

New things were developing all the time in the human being in the course of evolution, and correspondingly new things also developed in the natural world around him. The beginnings of the human eye developed at the Sun stage of the planet. The ether body developed first, and then in turn created the physical human eye. Our physical organs developed from the more subtle ether body the way a piece of ice develops in water as it freezes. Physical organs developed inside the human being, and out there the earth grew solid. The development of an organ in the human being and the development of specific configurations in the natural world outside always ran parallel. When the potential for the eye developed in man, the chrysolite evolved in the mineral world. We can thus think of the same creative powers putting together chrysolite nature in the world of nature and creating the human eye.

We cannot be satisfied with general phrases in a given case, saying that man is microcosm and the world macrocosm, for occult studies have shown the true relationship between human being and world. When the physical organ for the ability to connect thoughts developed in Atlantean times, lead solidified in the outside world; it changed from the liquid to the solid state. Thus the same powers are active in the solidification of lead and the organism of rational thinking. We will only understand the human being if we are able to see the connections between the human being and the powers of nature. There is a particular group within the socialist movement which thinks differently from the other social democrats, being extremely moderate. This group within the socialist movement are the printers. And the reason is that printers work with lead. The tariff community between workers and employers developed first among the printers.⁶⁸ Lead taken in small quantities creates such an inner mood.

Another example taken from experience also shows how the nature of a metal influences a person. A gentleman had noticed that he found it easy to see analogies between all kinds of things. It was possible to conclude from this that he had frequent contact with copper. And that was indeed the case. He played the French horn in an orchestra, an instrument that contains a great deal of copper.

Once you study the relationship between the inanimate world outside and the human organism you find that the relationship between human beings and the world that surrounds them takes many different forms. An example is the relationship between the senses and precious stones. We have already seen the relationship between the eye and the chrysolite. In the same way a relationship exists between the organ of hearing and the onyx. This stone has a peculiar relationship to the movements of the I-life in man. Occultists have always made this connection. The stone represents life arising from death, for instance. Thus in Goethe’s Tale, the dead dog is changed into an onyx by the old man’s lamp. Goethe had an intuition here that came from occult knowledge. The relationship between the onyx and the organ of hearing is connected with this. Occult relationships also exist between the organ of taste and topaz, the sense of smell and jasper, the skin sense as man’s sense of temperature, and carnelian, the power of productive thought and carbuncle. The latter was used as a symbol of the productive powers of thought which arose in man at the time when the carbuncle developed in the natural world.

The occult symbols come from the depths of profound and real wisdom. Wherever you consider occult symbolism, you find genuine insight. Knowing the significance of a mineral you gain access to the upper parts of the devachan plane. Seeing a precious stone and gaining a real feeling of what this precious stone can tell us, we gain access to the arupa parts of the devachan plane. The occult student's horizons thus widen, with more and more worlds opening up to him.

He must not make do with general suggestions, but must gain access to the world-whole—bit by bit.

Looking at German literature we can also see that writers who know about mining have an instinctive intuition concerning the powers of minerals. Thus Novalis had studied mining science.⁶⁹ Körner⁷⁰often made miners the people with occult knowledge in his works. As to Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann,⁷¹ that strange individual who sometimes went deep into the secrets of nature in his art, especially in his short story The Mines at Falun, you can often sense echoes of occult relationships between the mineral world and the human being. This also shows the strange way in which great occult powers influence the artist’s imagination.

The true birth place of art were the mysteries. They were real and alive in astral space, where you had a synthesis of truth, beauty and godliness. This was very much the case in the mysteries of ancient Egypt and those of Asia, and also the mysteries of ancient Greece, especially in Eleusis. There the pupils would truly see spiritual powers coming down into the different forms that exist on earth. There was no other knowledge at that time than knowledge which was seen in this way. There was no other godliness than the harmony with God felt in the visions gained in the mysteries. Nor was there any other beauty than the beauty seen when the gods descended.

We live in a barbaric age, a chaotic age, an age lacking in style. In all the great periods in the arts creativeness came from most profound depths of the spirit. Looking at the images of Greek gods, you see exactly three types. Firstly there is the Zeus type, with Pallas Athene and Apollo also belonging to it. The Greeks were characterizing their own race in this. It was a specific shape given to the oval of the eye, to the nose, the mouth. Secondly you see the group that may be called the Mercury type. The ears are positioned quite differently, the nose differently, and the hair is woolly and crinkly. Thirdly there is the Satyr type, where we see quite a different shape to the angles of the mouth, a different nose, eyes and so on. These three types are clearly evident in Greek sculpture. The Satyr type is meant to represent a very ancient race, the Mercury type the race that followed it, and the Zeus type the fifth race.

Spiritual views of the world were part of everything in earlier times. During the Middle Ages this still showed itself in the work of craftsmen, with every door lock something of a work of art. Outer culture still showed us something that had been created by the soul. Our modern times are very different. The present time has only produced one style, and that is the style of the mercantile store. The large store will be just as characteristic of our age as Gothic edifices such as Cologne Cathedral are of 13th and 14th century medieval times. The new life comes to expression in these forms. As the knowledge given through the science of the spirit spreads, the world will have spiritual content again. And when this life of the spirit later comes to expression in outer forms we shall have a style that reflects this life of the spirit. The things that live in the science of the spirit must later come to expression in outer forms. We thus have to see the mission of spiritual science to be a cultural mission.

• 67. Rupa lokas (worlds) on the devachan = lower spheres in the world of the spirit, where forms still exist.
• 68. Tariff community, general labour contract.
• 69. In Novalis' novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen.
• 70. Körner, Karl Theodor (1791–1813), German lyric poet. In his poems Bergmannsleben (miner's life) and Berglied (mountain song) and his play Der Kampf der Geister mit den Bergknappen (struggle between the spirits and the pitmen). Notes taken of the lecture give the name as 'Kernig', clearly misheard. See Picht C. S. 'Theodor Körner and seine Beziehungen zum Reich der Steine', Das Goetheanum 1940; 19: Nr. 21.
• 71. Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm (or Amadeus) (1776–1822), German writer, music critic and caricaturist. Reference here to 'Die Bergwerke von Falun' in his anthology Die Serapionsbrüder, 1. Teil, 1819.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Answers to questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does the term ‘downward development’ mean?

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

Why has man been incarnated in his physical body?

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

What is the situation with the Flood?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The lodge is closed in three ways:

Master: Hammer blow (three times):
Wisdom guides our building (extinguishing the light)

2nd overseer (south):
Hammer blow (three times):
Beauty may grace him (extinguishing the light)

1st overseer (west):
Hammer blow (three times):
Strength may guide him (extinguishing the light)

Master: Brother (Sister) 2nd overseer, is this your usual place in the lodge?

Answer: In the south.

Master: Why are you placed there?

Answer: To be the sun in the meridian, and to call the sisters and brothers to labor, that the temple may be built.

Master: Brother (sister) 1st overseer, your permanent place in the lodge?

Answer: In the west.

Master: Why are you placed there?

Answer: To be the setting sun and to give the sisters and brothers back to profane life after work is done, after they have received strength and power in the lodge for their outer work.

Master: Where is the Master's place in the lodge?

Administrator: In the east.

Teacher: Why is the teacher there?

Administrator: Just as the sun rises in the east to illuminate and enliven the day, so the venerable teacher fills the work inside the lodge with light and life.

Speaking to the others:

The venerable master will say the prayer that puts the meaning of brotherhood into your hearts. Rise and listen to it in the sign... of the 3rd degree:

Master: Brothers of the past, let your work become our wisdom; we take the compass and standard from your hands. May your work done be the strength of our soul, may it be the strength of our hands.

Brothers of the present, if you are wiser than we, let your wisdom shine in our souls, so that we may become revealers of your thoughts of God.

Brothers of the future, if you carry the plan of construction in your will, let your strength flow into our limbs, so that we may become the body of the great souls.

Master: Hammer blow

The one on the left (administrant): It is my duty, in the order of the service of Misraim, to draw your attention, my sisters and brothers, to the blow of the holy T (Tau) sign. At a significant hour, you received its sacred meaning, with the bandage over your eyes. From this you know that it tells you how the exalted name of God sounds in the innermost part of your being. The sound of the T encompasses the great mystery of the world. The Master who teaches you from the East will implant the power of the T in your inner being. What is given to you as a spiritual word in the T is to become the essence of your own being.

The path of the holy T from the altar of the East has been laid upon your hearts: inscribe the word that has been spoken to you.

Master: T-stroke

2nd overseer (South): It is my task, my sisters and brothers, to call you to work in the service of Misraim. May that which the worker in the temple building of humanity calls “beauty” inspire my commission. You are to work on the building that beholds its stones in the heart, its connecting links in well-measured thoughts, and its cement in the power of the will. Look into the world that quickens your hearts; whose wisdom trains your thoughts; whose seed-forces nourish your will. All this is a beautiful expression of hidden spiritual beings. Absorb into your inner being the forces of these beings and it will flow outwards as “beauty”, which lives within you.

The path to this beauty was laid out for you from the altar of the East: inscribe the word that has been spoken to you.

Master: T-strike

1. Overseer (West): It is my duty in the order of the service of Misraim to dismiss you, my sisters and brothers, from work. What the laborer in the building of the temple of humanity calls “strength” may inspire my commission. Let the work you have learned take effect when you leave the gates of this temple to face the outside world; let what can shape hearts into building blocks for the great temple flow from your hearts; let what can create connecting links for this structure take effect in your thoughts; let what can be putty for the stones of this temple pour forth from your will. Do only what comes from the authenticity of your heart, to which the care of your thoughts leads you, to which the strength of your will has steeled you. In this way you yourselves become an image of your archetype; and the strength will come from you, which shapes the world.

The path to this strength from the altar of the east has been laid out for you. Write down the word that has been spoken to you.

Administrator (East): Learn to be silent and you will have power.

2. Overseer (South): Give up power and you will have the will.

1. Overseer (West): Give up the will and you will have feeling.

Master: Renounce feeling and you will have knowledge.

The magical conclusion

According to Rudolf Steiner's original manuscript. The designations in parentheses were added according to the participants' notes.

(Salt)

In isto sale sit sapientia et ab omni corruptione servet mentes nostras et corpora nostra, per Hochmael et in virtute Ruach-Hochmael, recedant ab isto fantasmata hylae, ut sit sal coelestis, sal terrae et terra salis, ut nutrietur bos triturans et addat spei nostrae cornua tauri volantis. Amen.

(Ashes)

Revertatur cinis ad fontem aquarum viventium et fiat terra fructificans, et germinet arborem vitae per tria nomine, quae sunt Nezah, Hod et Jesod in principio et in fine per Alpha et Omega, qui sunt in spiritu Azoth! Amen.

(Mixing water, salt and ashes)

In sale sapientiae aeternae et in aqua regenerationis et in cinere germinante terram novam, omnia fiant per Elohim Gabriel, Raphael et Uriel in saecula et aeones. Amen.

(Ex Deo nascimur. In Christo morimur. Per Spiritum sanctum reviviscimus)

(Exorcism of the water)

Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters above from the waters below, and let the dry land arise, that the miracle may be performed. The sun is his father, the moon is his mother, and the wind has blown him into his mother's womb. He ascended from earth to heaven and descended again from heaven to earth. I exorcise you, creature of water, that you may be a mirror of God for me and live in his works and be a source of life and an ablution of sinners. Amen.

The magical conclusion, German wording ²

Of the various German translations available, the one in Marie Steiner's manuscript is reproduced here, since it can be assumed that it goes back to Rudolf Steiner.

Salt

There is wisdom in this salt, and it protects our spirits and our bodies from all corruption through Hochmael and through the power of Ruach-Hochmael; may all illusions of matter disappear and there be the salt of heaven, the salt of the earth and the earth of salt, so that the work bull may form and the horns of the willing ram may join it. Amen.

Ashes

Let the ashes return to the source of the water of life, and let the fruit-bearing earth come into being and the trees of life germinate through the three names Nezah, Hod and Jesod, in the beginning and at the end, through Alpha and Omega, who are in the spirit of Azoth. Amen.

Mixing

In the salt of eternal wisdom and in the water of rebirths and in the ashes of the resurrected new earth, “everything” is formed by Elohim Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel, in centuries and millennia. Amen.

Exorcism of water

Let firmament be formed in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the water from the water; let the upper be like the lower; and let the lower be like the upper; and may the wonders of the One come into being. The sun is its father, the moon its mother, who carries it in his womb, and may it rise from the earth to heaven, and again descend from heaven to earth. I conjure thee, creature of the waters, to be unto me the mirror of the living God in his works, and the source of life and the purifier in all obstacles. Amen.

The Rose Cross conclusion ³

Text according to the original manuscript by Rudolf Steiner
Note sheet archive number 6978

The stones are mute; I have placed and hidden within them the eternal creative word; chaste and modest, they hold it in the depths.

M.Pr. [Materia prima]

Plants live and grow; I have let the eternal creative word of the power of the sun flow into them, they carry it down into the depths.

M.S. [Materia secunda]

Animals feel and want; I have shaped the eternal creative word in them; they form it in the depths.

M.T. [Materia tertia]

Man thinks and acts; I let the eternal creative word suffer and rejoice in him; he shall carry it to the heights.⁴

S.T. [Spiritus tertius]

The soul recognizes and surrenders; I allow the eternal creative word of the power of the sun to rise within her in a flowing stream; she guides its flight to the heights of wisdom and devotion.

S.S. [Spiritus secundus]

The spirit loves dissolving the universe; I speak my eternal word of creation in the spirit, awakening and redeeming the world in purity; it flows calmly in the heights of eternal light.

S.P. [Spiritus primus]

K.A.P.[Konx Aum Pax] ⁵

The Rose Cross Conclusion, old version

Note sheet archive number 6977

The stones are mute – I have placed and hidden the eternal creative word in them; chaste and modest, they conceal it.

anaramaya

The plants are alive – I have let the eternal creative word of solar power flow in them; they carry it down.

pranamaya

The animals feel - and want - I have shaped the eternal creative word within them so that it is alive; they shape it in the depths.

Man thinks and acts - I let the eternal creative word within him rejoice and suffer as it springs forth; he gives it life in the depths.

manomaya

The soul recognizes and surrenders – I allow the eternal creative word to arise in her, streaming; she guides its flight to the heights of wisdom and devotion.

vijnanamaya

The spirit loves, detaching itself from everything – I speak my eternal word of creation in the spirit, awakening and redeeming the world in purity; it flows calmly in the heights of eternal light.

anandamaya

Atman

Regarding the Sanskrit terms:
anaramaya [probably annarasamaya] literally: made of solid and liquid food
pranamaya literally made of life force
manomaya literally made of mind
vijnanamaya literally made of consciousness
anandamaya literally made of bliss

The Rose Cross conclusion, draft.

Note sheet archive number 6976

Muteness becomes speech – I let my eternal word of creation whisper in the silence – I take it, keeping it chaste and modest in my heart.

Life and growth fall silent – I let my eternal creative word flow soundlessly through them; they carry it upwards in a chaste way.

Feeling and willing grow without desire – I let my eternal creative word dwell in them; it shall shine through their transparent cover.

Thinking and acting, feeling and willing – I let my eternal creative word shine in them; they are to shape it into spirit substance.

Recognizing and surrender, thinking and acting – I let my eternal creative word become divine in them – they are to lead me into life.

I am – I – The creative Word rests in me;

the insubstantiality creates itself as a boundary.

Aum

The version of the words spoken at the three altars that has been in use since 1913.

According to the transcript of a participant

East

In the service of Michael, it behooves me to remind you, my sisters and brothers, to pay attention to his holy sign. In a meaningful time on earth, you received its sacred meaning. From this you know that it tells you how the exalted name of God sounds in the innermost part of your being. The sound of the sacred sign encompasses the exalted mysteries of the worlds.

What has become your teaching from the East will strengthen Michael's power within you.

What has been given to you as a spiritual word in the holy sign shall become the essence of your own being.

The path of the holy sign from the altar of the East has been laid upon your heart; inscribe the word that will then be spoken to you...

South

In the service of Michael, it is my duty to call you, my sisters and brothers, to work. What the laborer building the temple of humanity calls beauty may inspire my mission. You are to do work on the building that sees its building blocks in your hearts, its connecting links in well-measured thoughts, and its putty in the power of will. Look at the world around you, whose life moves your hearts, whose wisdom trains your thoughts, whose solar powers nourish your will. All this is a beautiful expression of hidden spirit beings. Absorb within yourself the forces of these beings and it will flow outwards as beauty, which lives within you.

The path to this beauty was laid out for you by our great master of the altar of the east; inscribe the word that will then be spoken to you.

West

In the service of Michael, it is my duty to dismiss you, my sisters and brothers, from work. May the strength of the laborer in the building of the temple of humanity inspire my commission. Let the work you have learned take effect when you leave the gates of this temple for the outer life.

Let what flows from your hearts into humanity shape hearts into building blocks for the great temple. Let your thoughts bring forth connecting links for this structure. And out of your will shall flow that which can cement the stones of this building. Do only that which comes from the authenticity of your heart, to which the care of your thoughts has led you, to which the strength of your will has steeled you.

You yourselves will become an image of your archetype through this, and the strength will come from you that shapes the world.

The path to this strength was laid out for you by our great Master of the Altar of the East; inscribe yourselves in the word that will then be spoken to you...

• 1. Applies equally to the first, second and third degrees.
• 2. Whether the German wording was also spoken has not been handed down. Ruach = Spirit.
• 3. See also the manuscript from 1923 on p. 4691.
• 4. At that moment, the black curtains were changed to red.
• 5. According to a participant's record.

Translated by Diane Tatum, revised

Among the various instructions which the teacher gives the pupil, Imagination was the second named. This consists in man's not passing through life as happens everyday, but in the sense of Goethe's saying: “All that is transitory is but a likeness;” behind every animal and every plant something that lies behind should arise for him. In the meadow saffron, for example, he will discover a picture of the melancholy soul, in the violet a picture of calm piety, in the sunflower a picture of strong, vigorous life, of self-reliance, of ambition. When a man lives in this sense, he raises himself to imaginative knowledge. He then sees something like a cold flame ascend out of a plant, a color picture, which leads him into the astral plane. Thus the pupil is guided to see things which present to him spiritual beings from other worlds. It has already been said, however, that the pupil must strictly follow the occult teacher, for this alone can tell him what is subjective and what objective. And the occult teacher can give the pupil the necessary steadiness which is given of itself by the sense-world, as it continuously corrects errors. It is different, however, in the astral world; there one is easily subject to deceptions; there one must be supported by one who has experience. The teacher gives a series of instructions to a pupil who wishes to follow the Rosicrucian path. In the first place, he gives him precise instruction when he has begun to reach the stage of imaginative development. He tells him: strive first of all to love not merely a single animal, nor form a particular relationship with a single animal, or to experience this or that with one or another animal. Seek rather to have a living feeling for whole animal groups. Then you will receive through this an idea of what the group-soul is. The individual soul which with men is on the physical plane is with the animals on the astral plane. The animal cannot say “I” to itself here on the physical plane.

The question is often asked: “Has the animal no such soul as man?” It has such a soul, but the animal-soul is above on the astral plane. The single animal is to the animal-soul as the single organs are to the human soul. If a finger is painful, it is the soul that experiences it. All the sensations of the single organs pass to the soul. This is also the case with a group of animals. Everything that the single animal experiences is experienced in it by the group-soul. Let us take, for instance, all the various lions: the experiences of the lion all lead to a common soul. All lions have a common group-soul on the astral plane, and so have all animals their group-soul on the astral plane. If one inflicts a pain on a single lion or if it experiences enjoyment, this continues up to the astral plane, as the pain of a finger continues to the human soul. Man can raise himself to a comprehension of the group-soul if he is able to fashion a form that contains all individual lions, just as a general concept contains the individual images belonging to it.

The plants have their soul in the Rupa region of the Devachanic plane. By learning to survey a group of plants and gaining a definite relationship to their group-soul, a man learns to penetrate to plant group-souls on the Rupa plane. When the single lily, the single tulip is no longer something special for him, but when the individuals grow together for him into living, densified imaginations, which become pictures, then the pupil experiences something quite new. What matters is that this is a quite concrete picture individually formed in the imagination. Then man experiences that the plant-covering of the earth, that some meadow strewn with flowers, becomes something completely new to him, that the flowers become for him an actual manifestation of the spirit of the earth. That is the manifestation of these different plant group-souls. Just as the human tears become the expression of the inner sadness of the soul, as a man's physiognomy becomes an expression of the human soul, so the occultist learns to look on the green of the plant covering as the expression of inner processes, of the actual spiritual life of the earth. Thus certain plants become for him like the earth's tears, out of which wells forth the earth's inner grief. There pours a new imaginative content into the soul of the pupil just as someone may tremble and feel moved at the tears of a companion.

A person must go through these moods. If he endures such a mood vis-à-vis the animal world then he raises himself to the astral plane. When he immerses himself in the mood of the plant world he raises himself to the lower region of the Devachanic plane. Then he observes the flame-forms that ascend from the plants; the plant-covering of the earth is then veiled by a sum of images, the incarnations of the rays of light which set upon the plants.

One can also approach- the dead stone in this way. There is a fundamental experience in the mineral world. Let us take the mountain crystal, glittering with light. When one looks at this, one will say to oneself: In a certain way this represents physical material, so too is the stone physical material. But there is a future perspective to which the occult teacher leads the pupil. The man of today is still penetrated by instincts and desires, by passions. This saturates the physical nature, but an ideal stands before the occultist. He says to himself: Man's animal nature will gradually be refilled and purified to a stage where the human body can stand before us just as inwardly chaste and free of desire as the mineral that craves nothing, in which no wish is stirred by what comes near it. Chaste and pure is the inner material nature of the mineral. This chastity and purity is the experience that must permeate the pupil on gazing at the mineral world. These feelings vary as the mineral world shows itself in different forms and colors, but the fundamental experience which permeates the mineral kingdom is chastity.

Our earth today has a quite particular configuration and form. Let us go back in the evolution of the earth. It once had a completely different form. Let us immerse ourselves in Atlantis and still further back: we come there to ever higher temperatures, in which metals were able to flow all around as water runs along today. All the metals have become these veins in the earth because they first flowed along in streams. Just as lead is hard today and quicksilver is fluid, so lead was at one time fluid and quicksilver will one day become a solid metal. Thus the earth is changeable, but man has always participated in these various evolutions. In the ages of which we have spoken, physical man as yet was not in existence. But the etheric body and astral body were there; they could live in the higher temperatures of that time. The sheaths gradually began to form with the cooling process, enveloping man.

While something new was always being formed in man during the earth's evolution, something correspondingly new had also been formed outside in nature. The rudiments of the human eye had first arisen in the Sun evolution. First the etheric body formed itself and this again formed the human physical eye. As a piece of ice freezes out of water, so are the physical organs formed out of the finer etheric body. The physical organs were formed within man while outside the earth became solid. In every age the formation of a human organ took place parallel with the formation of a particular configuration outside in nature. While in the human being the eye was called for, in the mineral kingdom the chrysolite was formed. One can therefore think that the same forces which outside articulated the nature of the chrysolite in man formed the eye.

We cannot be satisfied in the particular case with the general saying that man is the microcosm and the world is the macrocosm; occultism has demonstrated the actual relationship between man and the world. When the physical organ for the reasoning faculties was formed in the Atlantean age, outside lead solidified; it passed from the fluid to the solid state. It is the same forces which hold sway in the solidifying of lead and in the organ of intelligence. One only understands man when one can recognize the connections between the human being and the forces of nature. There is a particular group within the socialist movement, a group that has distinguished itself by its moderation from the socialists. It is the temperate ones who have always retained a good deal of the reasoning faculties. This special group in the socialist movement consists of the printers, and this is so because printers have to do with lead. The tariff-union between workers and employer was first worked out among the printers. Lead brings about this frame of mind if it is taken in small quantities.

Another case can be cited from the experience where, in a similar way, one could observe the influence of the nature of a metal upon a man. It had become noticeable to a man how easily he discovered analogies in every possible thing. One could conclude that he had much to do with copper, and that was the case. He blew the bugle in an orchestra and therefore had to with an instrument that contains much copper.

When someday the relationship of the external lifeless world to the human organism is studied, it will be found that a relationship exists between man and the surrounding world in the most varied ways: for instance, the relationship of the senses to the precious stones. There exist certain relationships of the senses to precious stones based on the evolution of the senses. We have already found a relationship between the eye and the chrysolite. There is also a relationship between the onyx and the organ of hearing. The onyx stands in a remarkable relation to the oscillations of man's ego-life, and occultists have always recognized this. It represents, for instance, the life that goes forth from death. Thus in Goethe's “Fairy-tale,” the dead dog is changed into onyx through the old man's lamp. In this intuition of Goethe's lies the outcome of an occult knowledge. Therein lies the relationship of the onyx to the organ of hearing. An occult relationship exists further between the organ of taste and the topaz, the sense of smell and jasper, the skin-sense as man's sense of warmth and the cornelian, the productive power of imagination and the carbuncle. This was used as the symbol for a productive power of imagination, which arose in man at the same time as the carbuncle in nature.

Occult symbols are drawn deep out of real wisdom and if one only penetrates into occult symbolism one finds genuine knowledge there. He who knows the significance of a mineral finds entry to the upper region of the Devachanic plane. When one sees a precious stone and is permeated by the feeling of what the precious stone has to say to us, then one finds entry to the Arupa regions of Devachan. Thus the gaze of the student widens and more and more worlds dawn for him. He must not be satisfied with the general indication, but little by little he must find entry into the whole world.

One finds also in German literature how an instinctive intuition regarding the mineral forces is shown by poets who were miners, for example by Novalis, who had studied mining engineering. Kerning has chosen many miners as types for his occult personalities. There is also the poet, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman, that remarkable spirit who from time to time immersed himself artistically in the secrets of nature, particularly in his tale, “The Mines of Falun.” One will feel many echoes here of the occult relationships between the mineral kingdom and man, and much too that indicates how occult powers take hold in a remarkable way of artistic imagination.

The mystery-center is the essential birthplace of art. In the astral realm the mysteries were actual and living. There one had a synthesis of truth, beauty, and goodness. This was so to a high degree in the Egyptian mysteries and those in Asia, as well as in the Greek mysteries, especially the Eleusinian. The pupils there actually beheld how the spiritual powers submerged themselves in the various forms of existence. At that time there was no other science than what one thus beheld. There was no other goodness than that which arose in the soul as one gazed into the mysteries. Nor was there any other beauty than that which one beheld as the gods descended.

We live in a barbaric age, in a chaotic age, in an age devoid of style. All great epochs of art were working out of the deepest life of spirit. If one observes the images of the Greek gods one plainly sees three distinct types: first there is the Zeus type, to which Pallas Athena and Apollo also belong. In this type the Greeks characterized their own race. There was a definite modeling of the oval of the eye, the nose, the mouth. Secondly, one can observe the circle that may be called the Mercury type. There the ears are completely different, the nose is completely different, the hair is woolly and curly. And thirdly there is the Satyr type, in which we find a completely different form of the mouth, a different nose, eyes, and so on. These three types are clearly formed in the Greek sculpture. The Satyr type is to represent an ancient race, the Mercury type the race following, and the Zeus type the fifth race.

In the earlier times, the spiritual world view permeated and saturated everything. In the Middle Ages it was still a time when this came to expression in handicraft, when every door-lock was a kind of work of art. In external culture we were still met by what the soul had created. The modern age is entirely different; it has brought forward only one style, namely, the warehouse. The warehouse will be as characteristic for our time as the Gothic buildings—for instance, Cologne Cathedral—were for the Middle Ages of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The cultural history of the future will have to reckon with the warehouse as we have to with the Gothic buildings of the Middle Ages. New life comes to its expression in these forms. The world will be filled again with a spiritual content through the diffusion of the teachings of spiritual science. Then later, when spiritual life comes to expression in external forms, we shall have a style which expresses this spiritual life. What lives in spiritual science must stamp itself later in external forms. Thus we must look on the mission of spiritual science as a cultural mission.

We will now throw yet more light on the hidden working of Karma and consider the Karmic relationships between peoples and individuals. Those who take earnestly the principle of not looking at the world materialistically, but who seek for explanations out of the spirit will understand this.

We have learned from history that illnesses which previously did not exist make their appearance in the course of evolution. So today, to begin with, we shall hear something about the origin of such illnesses as are connected with epochs and peoples.

We shall understand this from out of the spirit. The explanation the doctor gives is that this or that illness is caused by bacilli. We must however ask: where do the bacilli come from? They are just as much incarnated living beings as man. Of those beings too which act as disturbers of human life we must ask: Where do they come from? What has brought them into their present material existence? What were they before they incarnated?

Let us suppose, for example, that some nation or race is in its decline, is moving towards its downfall. It puts up a resistance. This resistance to its downfall is a spiritual expression of something that lives in the astral body of the nation in question. Were such a decline to concern only that which was to come to an end, then the feeling engendered would have no special effect upon others in the world. Let us assume however that it comes in conflict with another nation, plunging it into fear and anxiety and thus sets up a reaction in this other nation. Then we have a two-fold situation: the nation suffering decline, and what arises out of the confluence of the disturbance of the one people fighting against their own decline, and the fear and alarm of the other people. This is something lasting.

Let us take a particular case: the Mongolian onslaughts of the Middle Ages, when the Mongols came into conflict with the Europeans, spreading among them fear and alarm. Such fear and such alarm are then present in the peoples in question. When one looks at these attacking hordes, of which the Mongolians are the last, placing oneself in the mood of all these mediaeval peoples, one sees how the desperation of the last branches of the Fourth Root-Race and the fear and alarm engendered in the Europeans created spiritual forms. If such an onslaught were to be met with courage and love, then the putrefying substance would be dissolved. But fear, hate and alarm conserve such decaying forms and these provide a source of nourishment for beings such as bacilli. Later they incarnate in those material forms suitable for such an incarnation. Thus the decaying substances embedded themselves in the fear and alarm of the European peoples as seeds of decay. These are minute living beings. In this way arose the mediaeval disease, leprosy. It arose out of the decaying substance of the declining Mongolian peoples.

What then is the origin of those disturbers of human physical nature? They come from earlier spiritual causes, from sinfulness. This is Karma as it manifests in national communities. From this you can estimate how the moral life of a nation conditions the external life of the future. It lies in the power of a nation to care for its physical future through a corresponding moral life in the present.

All the European esoteric schools say that all the bacterial illnesses of modern times have a similar origin. The illnesses caused by bacilli are traced back to their spiritual origin. This is an esoteric tradition among the Rosicrucians and in other esoteric schools where these things are taught. A fundamental teaching exists in small circles of esoteric schools, the content of which is that in the seventies quite definite battles took place in the astral world which caused things to take a better turn, even though ... [Gap in text ...]. These events are called the battle between the hosts of the archangel known to Christian esotericism as Michael and the hosts of the god Mammon.⁷⁶ Mammon is, on the one hand, the god of hindrances, who places destructive, hindering things in the path of progress. On the other hand one sees in this god Mammon the creator of quite definite forms which work disturbingly in human life just in the sphere of infectious illnesses. Certain infectious illnesses, unknown in earlier times, are brought about by the god Mammon.

We can estimate to what degree the esoteric schools must rouse a progressive thinking in the inmost depths of the human being when one realises that the actual source of these modern illnesses is nothing other than a retrogression, the longstanding conservatism of the so-called upper classes as opposed to the poverty-striken lower classes who are striving towards a new ... [Gap in text ...]. They are hindered, held back by what the god Mammon brings about. We find two forces confronting one another: the sentimental world of the declining upper classes, who like to preserve antiquated conditions, and the feeling of hatred in the lower classes—an astral life projected against the others by the masses. In this opposition esotericism again sees decaying substance and therein the cause of modern infectious illnesses. Whoever sees into these things will of course not take them as a reason for opposing modern medicine with its external remedies. But a real improvement will never come about through these external methods.

What will come about later always reveals itself in advance through esoteric knowledge. This consists of rightly perceiving how the morality of the present day can lead to better health in the future. One can judge from this how profound was the perception of those who introduced the Theosophical Movement into the world. It arose out of the knowledge of such relationships. It was foreseen that the threat of the War of All against All would take on ever more menacing forms. The things that must come about fulfil themselves with an inner necessity, just as events in the East develop like a fire there where there is especially inflammable material.⁷⁷ It would be senseless to wish to arrest such things. The appropriate and serviceable means to avert the War of All against All was sought by the Theosophical Movement through the spreading of the axiom of brotherhood. For brotherhood dissolves what streams into the world as means of decay, as hate. For as regards races we find ourselves on a downward path. If one were to believe that this downfall could be delayed and contained by hatred, not resolved by love, then naturally the very worst would follow. The Theosophical Movement would overcome this decline by love. Its founders know that the Theosophical Society is not only a remedy, but the source of the development of humanity as it goes into the future.

So one sees how the physical is a result of what preceded it spiritually and how in particular circumstances people have it in their power, through knowledge of certain relationships, to connect the physical with its spiritual origin. For example, if one knows how a particular illness is connected with particular feelings and emotions, he knows that by calling up these feelings he can also call up the illness. The black magician can make use of this knowledge to destroy the people. The deep occult truths can therefore not be taught to everyone without due consideration, for it would immediately bring about a sharp demarcation between good and evil. This is the danger inherent in the spreading of occult teachings, for no-one can be taught how to make people well, without at the same time learning how to make people ill. Where occult teachings have penetrated more into certain peoples such things have happened. There are districts in the East where one can hear true reports that there are sects who make it their task to produce definite illnesses. Thus we penetrate to an ever greater degree into the understanding of the ways in which the material arises out of the spiritual.

Now we will try to survey somewhat longer periods of time. We know that today there is a beautiful complementary interaction between everything that exists as animal life and the plant world. The plant makes use of carbon for itself and breathes out oxygen, thereby creating the source of life for all creatures in its surroundings who need to breathe. This source arises from the plant world. All that breathes today is there through the action of this mysterious workshop of the plant world. From this we can form a concept of how Worlds go under, how the World which preceded our Earth passed away. On the Old Moon breathing did not exist as it does now in human beings and animals. A quite different process took the place of the breathing process on the Old Moon. We can form a picture of the earlier process when we look at something remaining over from this time: the varying warmth of animals which develop the same temperature as their surroundings. On the Moon there was warmth or fire breathing. The inhaling and exhaling of fire or warmth corresponded at that time to the present day inhaling and exhaling of the air. In the middle of the Lemurian Age the breathing process began to take on the form it has today.

The spiritual process of the embedding of the Monad in the lower man finds its material reflection in breathing. Breathing signifies the inhaling of the Monad. In Hatha Yoga therefore the pupil goes through a breathing process. He regulates rhythmically what man has today as a natural process in order to bring breathing under his control. Just as before man advanced to this process of breathing, he inhaled and exhaled warmth, transforming this into the circulation of the warm blood, so the pupil of Hatha Yoga seeks to form the breathing process into something inward, to bring it inwardly under his control. The Hatha Yoga rules signify the transformation of the breath into a process that does not go from within outwards, but is inwardly regulated, just as today the circulation of the blood is also inwardly regulated. In the case of animals with variable temperature the process of blood circulation has the same relationship to that of human beings as the breathing process of the Hatha Yoga pupil. Behind all these things lie deep thoughts concerning evolution which ought to be the foundation of real processes.

What today is usually not understood is that in the air there is something spiritual. When there was still a consciousness of this, spirit was called: Air, Wind = Pneuma. Pneuma means a current of air and also the soul-spiritual. This terminology stems from times in which one still had a consciousness of the true connections. Let us now take the fact that on the predecessor of our Earth (the Old Moon) certain beings had evolved beyond the stage of the human evolution of that time. These were the Luciferic beings. When one considers these beings one must say: They did not live in an environment such as the Earth has today. They could not breathe air, thus they could not take in the spirit, for the taking in of spirit corresponds to the breathing of air. They were obliged to carry out in the warmth-principle what today takes place in the air. We differentiate on the Earth seven conditions of the physical: Firstly Life-ether, Secondly Chemical-ether, Thirdly Light-ether, Fourthly Warmth-ether, Fifthly Air, Sixthly Water, Seventhly Solid. Thus the Luciferic Beings had to carry out in warmth what man today carries out in air. Now you can understand that owing to this, these Beings who gave man his separate consciousness, his independence, are in a certain sense connected with fire. For this reason, when they make their appearance, it is connected with a certain craving for everything that manifests in man as heat, as fire. The craving attaches itself to man's individual warmth. So the donors of knowledge and freedom are bound up with something which seeks to incarnate in the element of warmth in man in a similar way to how this happened on the Old Moon. This is the connection between knowledge and birth and death, illness and so on in the world. With knowledge, birth, death and illness came into the world. This was the price man paid for knowledge. We see therefore also the connection between certain heat phenomena and illness, namely fever. This is the origin of fever. Traditions of this lingered on into the 19th century.

In the earlier Planetary conditions, the forerunners of our Earth, we had not to do as yet with human beings, animals, plants and minerals as they are today. At that time beings existed who had not yet descended so deeply as present-day animals, nor yet ascended so high as present-day man. At that time plants did not exhale oxygen. Oxygen, this breath of life, did not as yet exist. Only with the coming into being of our plant kingdom did nitrogen become mingled with oxygen. The Moon was surrounded by an atmosphere of nitrogen. In the second half of this previous Planet the beings did certainly already strive towards such forms as could breathe, which were endowed with lungs and so on; but only in our present Earth-Cycle did the plant kingdom evolve as it is now. The animal beings then developed the organs of breathing. They pushed the plant kingdom a stage lower, in order that it should provide oxygen for breathing.

These processes on the predecessor of our Earth had to be followed by a condition where life in the same form was no longer possible. The form had developed into something else and needed a new Planet. The preceding Planet had to meet its end; everything living suffocated. Thus do the Planets with their life perish, and from what has been prepared a new life evolves in the body of the Mother Planet. This is how the decline and uprising of Planetary evolution is to be understood.

Just as man previously had the other kingdoms within himself, so today he still has the evil in his Karma within him. This he is now working out of himself. In the future good and evil will be there in external forms, a race of the good and a kingdom of the evil side by side. At that future time the human countenance will appear in transfigured form out of the separated, downward-thrust evil of animality. Let us think of the transfigured human countenance that today slumbers like a riddle in animal matter, separated from the animal evil and represented symbolically. You can represent it to yourselves in no better way than in the great intuition of the Egyptian Sphinx. This not only points back to the past, but it also points towards the future. Not for nothing did the old Egyptians place the Sphinx in front of the Temple of Initiation. Initiation is the implanting of the secret of the future into human souls. At the entrance to the Temple it was through the Sphinx that the milieu for initiation was already created.

What outwardly is the body of oxygen is inwardly the Monad. As soon as oxygen appeared on the Earth the Monad had the possibility of incarnating. It is an attempt to possess the Monad when the pupil breathes in much oxygen and endeavours to retain it. Oxygen is not only something externally material. One must examine oxygen in the light of its spirit. Thus outwardly we have oxygen and inwardly the Monad. Oxygen therefore in the Lemurian Age formed the body for the descending sons of Manas.

• 76. See later and more detailed presentations in for instance The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness. October 1917. (Typescript)
• 77. Refers probably to the outbreak of the Russian revolution of 1905 following the end of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904/05. See lecture 12.10.1905 The Present Situation of the World. War, Peace and the Science of the Spirit (Anthroposophic News Sheet Volume 1 3, Nos. 35 – 40).

The glimpse into the development of individualities such as those whom we were able, in the lecture yesterday, to follow through two incarnations allows us to discern something of the mysterious inflow and activity of the cosmic Spirits during the evolution and history of mankind. For when we keep before our minds the pictures which, in brief outline at least, came before us yesterday, the pictures of Julian the Apostate and of a later expression of this individuality in history as Tycho Brahe, the great astronomer, one thing may strike us particularly. Precisely in the case of personalities who signify something in history we can observe that the special qualities of the individuality work over from one incarnation into another; but that what spiritual Beings of the higher Hierarchies desire to accomplish in history, using single individuals as their instrument, asserts itself in the straightforward course of reincarnation as a modifying factor.

For we shall realise that in the 4th century A.D. it was the function of the individuality who appeared as Julian the Apostate to give as it were a last impetus for the final flaring up of the spiritual wisdom belonging to earlier epochs, and thus to preserve it from the fate that might easily have befallen it if struggling Christianity alone had been left to handle such treasures. And on the other hand we shall realise that an individuality incarnated in a man whose good fortune it was to be initiated into the Elusinian Mysteries had opportunities, on reincarnating, for receiving in endless abundance the impulses of the time and the influences of beings working in the way destined for the 16th century. We shall find entirely understandable the greatness and power of the personality of Tycho Brahe, as outlined yesterday, if we realise that precisely because he had been an Initiate in an earlier incarnation he was able to bring to light an untold fund of macrocosmic science in its application to the microcosm. Such studies of occult history make us aware that it is men themselves who make history, but that history in the last resort becomes comprehensible only when we find the connection between the single personalities who appear and pass away and the individual threads which run through the whole course of human evolution, reincarnating in personalities. But if we are to understand the historical life of mankind on our earth, we must always associate with it that which streams in from other worlds, super-sensible worlds, through the Powers of other Hierarchies.

In the course of these lectures we have heard how certain high-ranking Powers of the Hierarchies have worked, through human beings, into all the civilisation-epochs since the Atlantean catastrophe. This was most strongly evident in the ancient Indian soul which may be said to have been simply an arena for the inflowing of higher spiritual Beings. In the soul of the ancient Persian it was not so to the Same extent. And then we heard how in Egypto-Chaldean civilisation it was even then the mission of the human soul—noticeable particularly in the Babylonian people—to bring the super-personal down into the personal, the spiritual down to the physical plane. The significance of personality constantly increases the nearer we come to the Greek epoch, when the ego works and weaves in the ego. In the strong and forceful figures of the Greek epoch the stamp of personality is complete. It is with the Greeks, and later with the Romans, that what can at first be bestowed on the individuality only from higher worlds withdraws to the greatest extent, while what a man expresses in his personality as his proper humanity comes to the forefront.

The question may arise: Which particular Spirits, from which Hierarchies, worked through the ancient Indians, the ancient Persians, the Babylonians, Chaldeans and Egyptians respectively It is the answer to this question that alone can give us deeper insight into the occult course of history.²⁶ The investigations made possible from occult sources enable us, in a certain sense at any rate, to say which particular Beings of the higher Hierarchies worked through men as their instruments in each of these periods. Into the ancient Indian soul, which created the civilisation immediately following the Atlantean catastrophe, the Beings we call the Angeloi, the Angels, poured their forces. And in a certain connection it is true to say that when a man of ancient India spoke, when he gave expression to what was active in his soul, it was not his own egohood speaking directly, but an Angelos, an Angel. Ranking only one stage higher than man, the Angel is the hierarchical Being most closely related to him and therefore able, as it were, to speak more directly. It is in the ancient Indian mode of speech that an element foreign to the human comes most strongly into evidence, because the Angel, as the Being most closely related to man, is able to speak with the greatest directness.

This direct expression was less possible for the Beings of the higher Hierarchies who spoke through the souls of the ancient Persian people, for they were Beings of the next higher rank—the Archangels. And because these Beings stand two stages higher than man, what they were able to express by means of human instruments was farther away from their own inherent nature than what the Angels could express through the ancient Indians. Thus, stage by stage, everything becomes more human. Nevertheless this downflow from the higher Hierarchies is continuous, unbroken. Through the souls of the Babylonian, Chaldean, Egyptian peoples, the Spirits of Personality (the Archai) express themselves. Hence it is in this period that the emergence of personality is most prominent, and what man is still able to give out from the forces streaming down to him is therefore the farthest removed from its origin, bearing the essential stamp of the human-personal. And so, as evolution advances to the Egypto-Babylonian epoch, there is a continuing manifestation of the Angels, the Archangels and the Spirits of Personality.

In the ancient Persians, especially, we can see very exactly how they had an awareness that the Archangels—the Spirits of paramount importance in that epoch—were working into the human organism, the human organism in its totality. We must not, to be sure, take an average Persian when considering the downflowing of forces from the Hierarchies. The forces streamed down, too, upon the average Persian, but only those who were the immediate pupils of the inspirer of the ancient Persian culture, of Zarathustra himself, were capable of knowing how this happened, of seeing through to the reality. And they did indeed possess this knowledge. For you will remember from many descriptions I have given of the teachings of Zarathustra, or from exoteric traditions, that according to the view of the ancient Persians the primal Divinity, Zervana Akarana, reveals himself through the two opposing powers, Ormuzd and Ahriman. The ancient Persians were clearly aware that whatever comes to manifestation in the human being derives from the macrocosm, and that the phenomena of the macrocosm—especially, therefore, the movements and positions of the stars—are mysteriously connected with the microcosm, with man. Hence the pupils of Zarathustra saw in the Zodiac the external expression, the image, of Zervana Akarana, of the primal reality of Being living and weaving through eternity. Even the very word “Zodiac” is reminiscent of the word Zervana Akarana. The pupils of Zarathustra saw twelve powers proceeding from the twelve directions of the Zodiac, six directed towards the light side of the Zodiac traversed by the sun by day; the other six towards the dark side—turned, as they said, towards Ahriman. Thus the Persian conceived of the macrocosmic forces coming from the twelve directions of the universe and penetrating into, working into humanity, so that they are immediately present in man. Consequently, what unfolds through the working of the twelve forces must reveal itself also in its microcosmic form, in human intelligence; that is to say, it must come to expression in the microcosm, too, through the twelve Amshaspands²⁷ (Archangels), and indeed as a final manifestation, so to say, of these twelve spiritual, macrocosmic Beings who had already worked in former ages, preparing that which merely reached a last stage of development during the epoch of Persian civilisation.

It should not be beyond the scope of modern physiology to know where the microcosmic counterparts of the twelve Amshaspands are to be found. They are the twelve main nerves proceeding from the head; these are nothing else than material densifications of what arose in the human belong through the instreaming of the twelve macrocosmic powers. The ancient Persians pictured the twelve Archangel-Beings working from the twelve directions of the Zodiac, working into the human head in twelve rays, in order gradually to produce what is now our intelligence. Naturally they did not work into man for the first time in the ancient Persian epoch, but finally they worked in such a way that we can speak of twelve cosmic radiations, twelve Archangel-radiations, which then densified in the human head into twelve main cerebral nerves. And just as knowledge in a later age includes what was already known in an earlier one, so could the Persians also know that Spirits of a lower rank than the Archangels had been at work previously, in the Indian epoch. The Persians called the Beings of the rank below the Amshaspands, “Izads,” and of these they enumerated 28 to 31. The Izads, therefore, are Beings who give rise to a less lofty activity; to soul-activity in man. They send in their rays, which correspond to the 28, 30 to 31 spinal nerves. And so in Zarathustrianism you have our modern physiology translated into terms of the spiritual, the macrocosmic, in the twelve Amshaspands and in the 28 to 31 Izads of the next lower Hierarchy.

A true fact of historical evolution is that what was originally seen spiritually is now presented to us through anatomical dissection; things that were formerly accessible to clairvoyant vision appear in later epochs in materialistic form. A wonderful bridge is disclosed here between Zarathustrianism, with its spirituality, and modern physiology, with its materialism. Of course, the destiny of the great majority of mankind makes it inevitable that such an idea as that of the connection between the Persian Amshaspands and Izads and our nerves is regarded as lunacy, especially by those who study the materialistic physiology of to-day. But after all, we have plenty of time, for the Persian epoch will be fully recapitulated only in the Sixth epoch which follows our own. Then, for the first time, the conditions prevailing will enable such things to be intelligible to a large part of humanity. Therefore we have to content ourselves with the fact that indications of them can be given to-day as part of the spiritual-scientific outlook. And such indications must be given if a spiritual-scientific conception of the world is to be spoken of in the true sense, and attention called, not merely in general phrases, to the fact that man is a microcosmic replica of the macrocosm.

In other regions, too, it has been known that what comes to manifestation in the human being flows in from outside. For example, in certain periods of Germanic mythology mention is made of twelve streams flowing from Niflheim to Muspelheim. The twelve streams are not meant in the physical-material sense, but they are that which, seen by clairvoyance, flows as a kind of reflection from the macrocosm into the human microcosm, the human being who moves over the earth and whose evolution is to be brought about through macrocosmic forces.

It must however be emphasised that these streams are to be regarded to-day as astral streams, whereas in the Atlantean epoch, which immediately followed that of Lemuria, and in Lemuria itself, they could be seen as etheric streams. So a planet which is related to the earth, but represents an earlier stage of development, must reveal some similar phenomenon. And as from a distance things can often be observed which in proximity escape our observation, because what we see is then broken up into details, so in the case of a planet resembling the earth, when it is sufficiently distant and passing through earlier stages of development such as those undergone by our earth, it might be possible, even to-day, to observe these twelve streams.

To be sure, they will not look quite the Same as once they appeared when seen an the earth. Distance is an essential factor, for if, to take an example, you are standing in the midst of a swarm of gnats, you do not see the swarm with its different shades of density; these are perceived only when you see the swarm from some way off. What I have just said lies at the root of the observations of so-called “canals” an Mars. It is there a matter of certain streams of force which correspond to an earlier stage of the earth²⁸ and are described in the old Germanic myths as streams flowing from Niflheim to Muspelheim. Naturally this is rank heresy from the point of view of modern academic physiology and astronomy, but these sciences will have to submit to a great deal of revision in the course of the next few thousand years.²⁹

All these things show us what profound wisdom is to be divined in the simple saying: The human microcosm is a kind of image of the macrocosm. Such sayings themselves bear witness that the words touch directly upon the deepest treasures of wisdom. The saying that man is a microcosm in relation to the macrocosm can be just a trivial phrase, but rightly understood it epitomises an untold multitude of concrete truths. All this has been said in order to indicate to you the configuration of soul in the man of ancient Persian civilisation; especially in the leading personalities there was a living feeling of man's connection with the macrocosm.

After the Beings whom we have named in their sequence as Angels, Archangels and Spirits of Personality had worked until the age of the Babylonian-Egyptian civilisation, there followed that remarkable Greco-Latin civilisation which brought the personality as such, the weaving of the ego in the ego, particularly to expression. There, too, certain Beings made themselves manifest—the Spirits of Form, who are one stage higher than the Spirits of Personality. But the manifestation of these Spirits of Form was different from that of the Spirits of Personality, the Archangels and the Angels. How do the Spirits of Personality, the Archangels and the Angels manifest in the Post-Atlantean epoch? They work into man's inner nature. The Angels worked as inspirers of the ancient Indians; the Archangels similarly in the ancient Persians, but here the influence of the human element already asserted itself to a somewhat greater degree. The Spirits of Personality stood as it were behind the souls of the Egyptians, urging them to project the spiritual on to the physical plane. The Spirits of Form manifest in a different way. They manifest from below upwards as far more powerful Spirits who are not dependent upon using man merely as an instrument; they manifest in the kingdoms of Nature around us, in the configuration of the beings of the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms. And if man would recognise the Spirits of Form in their manifestation, he must direct his gaze outwards, he must observe Nature and investigate what has been woven into her by the Spirits of Form. Consequently in the Greek epoch, when the paramount manifestation is that of the Spirits of Form, man does not receive any direct influence as an inspiration. The influence of the Spirits of Form works far rather in such a way that man is allured by the outer world of sense; his senses are directed with joy and delight towards everything spread out around him, and he tries to elaborate and perfect it. Thus the Spirits of Form attract him from without. And one of the chief Spirits of Form is the Being designated as Jahve or Jehovah. Although there are seven Spirits of Form and they work in the different kingdoms of Nature, men of the present age have a faculty of perception only for the one Spirit, Jehovah.—If we reflect on all this, it will be intelligible to us that with the approach of the fourth epoch, man is more or less forsaken by these inner Guiding-Powers, by the Angels, Archangels and Spirits of Personality, and that he turn his gaze entirely to the external world, to the physical horizon where the Spirits of Form are in manifestation. They were of course already present behind the physical world in earlier times, but they had not as it were yielded themselves to human recognition. In the period immediately following the Atlantean catastrophe, the Spirits of Form had been at work; they had been at work in the kingdoms of Nature, in the laws governing wind and weather, in the laws of the plants, animals and minerals. They had also worked in times more ancient still. But man did not direct his gaze to what then came to meet him externally, for he was inwardly inspired by the other Spirits. His attention was diverted from the outer world.

How is this to be explained? In what sense are we to understand the fact that these other Hierarchies, who are of a lower rank than the Spirits of Form, asserted their influence so dominantly over against the already existing activity of the Spirits of Form? This is connected with a definite period in the evolution of the earth as a whole. To the clairvoyant vision which with the help of the Akasha Chronicle looks back into the past, these things present an appearance entirely different from the speculative pictures based on the geological data of the present day. When we go back before the activity of the Spirits of Personality in the Chaldean epoch, before that of the Archangels in the ancient Persian and of the Angels in the ancient Indian epoch, we come to the period when the Atlantean cataclysm was at the height of its fury. We find our way gradually into the conditions then prevailing. This is the time to which the legends of the Deluge existing among the different peoples refer, but their picture of it was very different from that drawn by the hypotheses of modern geology. In still earlier Atlantean times, the picture was again quite different. Man was a being capable of transformation. Before this catastrophe the whole face of the earth was different from anything that can be imagined to-day. You can well conceive that at that time Spiritual Hierarchies worked into the earth still more strongly.

Between the old influences in the Atlantean epoch and those in the Post-Atlantean, there was a boundary-period filled by the Atlantean catastrophe—by those events whereby the face of the earth was totally changed in regard to the distribution of water and land. Such periods and changes consequent upon them are connected with mighty processes in the constellation, position and movement of the cosmic bodies connected with the sun. In fact, such periods in the earth's evolution are determined and directed from macrocosmic space. It would lead too far if I were to attempt to describe to you how these successive periods are directed and regulated by what is called in modern astronomy the precession of the equinoxes. This is connected with the position of the earth's axis in relation to the axis of the ecliptic, with mighty processes in the constellation of neighbouring celestial bodies; and there are definite times when, on account of the particular position of the earth's axis in relation to these other bodies of the cosmic system, the distribution of warmth and cold on our earth is radically changed. This position of the earth's axis in relation to the neighbouring stars causes the climatic conditions to change. In the course of something over 25,000 years, the axis of the earth describes a kind of conical or spherical movement, so that conditions undergone by the earth at a certain time are undergone again, in a different form and indeed at a higher stage, after 25,000 to 26,000 years. But between these great periods of time there are always shorter periods. The process does not go forward in absolute, unvarying continuity, but in such a way that certain years are crucial points, deeply incisive times in which momentous happenings take place. And here, because it is of essential significance in the whole historical development of earthly humanity, we may point particularly to the fact that in the seventh millennium before Christ there was a very specially important astronomical epoch—important because, on account of the constellation brought about by the relative position of the earth's axis to the neighbouring stars, the climatic conditions on earth culminated in the Atlantean cataclysm. This happened six to eight thousand years before our era, and the effects of it continued for long ages. Here we can only emphasise what is correct, as opposed to the fantastic periods of time that are mentioned, for these happenings lie much less far behind us than is generally believed. During this period the macrocosmic conditions worked into the physical in such a way as to bring about the mighty physical upheavals of the Atlantean cataclysm, which completely changed the face of the earth. This was the greatest physical transformation of all, the most drastic action of the macrocosm upon the physical earth. Hence the influence from the macrocosm upon the spirit of man at that time was at its lowest; this epoch therefore provided an opportunity for the less powerful Beings of the Hierarchies to begin to exercise on man a potent influence, which then ebbed gradually away.

Thus when the Spirits of Form were working powerfully to revolutionise the physical, they had less time to work also upon the spirit of man, with the result that the physical vanished as it were from under man's feet. But an the other hand it was precisely during the time of the Atlantean catastrophe that men were transported most completely into spiritual realms and only gradually found their way again into the physical world in the Post-Atlantean epoch. Now when you picture that at this time—six to eight thousand years before the Christian era—the least influence was exercised upon the human spirit and the strongest influence on the physical conditions of the earth, it will not be difficult for you to conceive that there may be another point of time when the opposite situation comes about: when those who are cognisant of such a matter experience the reverse of these conditions—namely, the least influence upon the physical and the greatest influence, precisely of the Spirits of Form, upon the human spirit. Hypothetically you can conceive that there may he a point in history where the reverse of the great Atlantean catastrophe applies. Of course it will not be so easily noticeable, for the Atlantean catastrophe, when parts of the very earth were blotted out, is bound to be a very striking event for people of our Post-Atlantean epoch, with their strong leanings to the physical. When the Spirits of Form are exercising a powerful influence on the human personality and have only a little influence upon what is taking place in the external world, the impression will be less vivid. The point of time when this condition—in the nature of things, less perceptible to men—set in, was the year A.D. 1250 This year 1250 is of momentous importance in history.³⁰ It fell in a period that can be characterised briefly as follows.

The spirits of men felt as though impelled to express with the greatest possible precision how the mind and heart can look upwards to the Divine Beings above the other Hierarchies, how man seeks to come into relation with these Beings, conceived primarily as a unity, first through Jehovah, then through Christ, and how all human knowledge is to be applied to the unveiling of the mystery of Christ Jesus. That was a point of time especially adapted for conveying to mankind the mysteries which come to direct expression in the connection of the Spiritual with the working of Nature. Hence we see that this year 1250 was the starting-point of great and detailed elaborations of what was formerly only believed, only divined: it was the starting-point of Scholasticism, which is greatly undervalued to-day.³¹ It was also the starting-point of revelations which found expression in spirits such as Agrippa of Nettesheim, and which took effect most deeply in Rosicrucianism. This shows that if we want to search for the deeper forces of historical development, we must take stock of conditions quite other than those outwardly in evidence. In point of fact, behind the things of which I have just been speaking there are also hidden the forces working, for example, in the waves and subsequent ebbing of the Crusades. The whole of European history, especially the flow of happenings between East and West is attributable solely to the fact that forces are at work behind the events, as I have now elucidated.

We may therefore say: There are two points of time, one of them marked by a great upheaval an the outer physical plane and the other by a change in character of all that had once resounded in the secrecy of the Mysteries. But we must keep well in mind that in all such matters there are again other laws which cut across the main laws. Hence we can understand that in this period there lies the starting-point for great revelations; that this period is entirely in keeping with the appearance of a man such as Julian the Apostate, who had once been inspired in the Eleusinian Mysteries. At that time he had opened his soul to the revelations coming from the Spirits of Form. But the initial onset of a powerful influence always works for a period of about four hundred years, then it begins to ebb and the streams as it were to separate. Hence the eventual effect of what had been perceived at that time as spiritual reality behind the manifestations of Nature was that men forgot the Spiritual and paid attention only to the manifestations of Nature. That is the modern mentality. Tycho Brahe is one of the last of those who still grasped the reality of the Spiritual behind the data constituting the sciences of external Nature. Tycho Brahe was a truly wonderful personality, because with. his supreme mastery of external astronomy he discovered thousands of stars, and at the same time he had such deep inner knowledge of the sway of the spiritual Powers that he could astonish all Europe by boldly predicting the death of the Sultan Soliman. We see how out of the spiritual nature-knowledge, which begins to appear in 1250 and is exemplified in Spirits such as Agrippa of Nettesheim, there gradually emerges what later on amounts merely to perception of the manifestations of external Nature; while the inner, the Spiritual, remains in that mysterious stream known to us as Rosicrucianism. Then the two streams flow on.

It is indeed remarkable how this process shows itself in actual personalities. Once, near the beginning of our German Movement, I drew your attention to how in a personality of the 15th century there appears the continuance of a spiritual movement still connected with a certain knowledge of Nature, and how the Spiritual is then cast aside and the further course is a purely external one. We can follow this in the case of a single individuality: Nicolaus Cusanus (1401-1464). The mere reading of his works—and one can do much more than read—shows clearly that he combined a most penetrating spiritual vision with knowledge of outer Nature, especially where this knowledge is clothed in mathematical forms. And because he perceived how difficult this was, in an age moving more and more towards external learning, he entitled his work, with epoch-making humility, Docta Ignorantia, “Learned Ignorante.” He did not of course mean to imply that he was himself an utter dunce, but that what he had to say was above the level of what was going to develop as mere external learning. To use a prefix much in vogue nowadays, we may say: this “Learned Ignorance” is a “super”-learnedness. Then, as you know, he was born again—it was a case of a very quick reincarnation—as Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)³² The same being who had lived in Nicolaus Cusanus continued to work in Nicolaus Copernicus. But you can see how far human mentality had moved by that time towards the physical, for the depth of knowledge possessed by Nicolaus Cusanus could work in Copernicus only in such a way as to produce the plan of the outer, physical cosmos. The knowledge that had lived in Nicolaus Cusanus was as it were filtered; the Spiritual was ignored and re-cast in terms of external science. There we have a tangible illustration of how that mighty impulse was to work within a short period from the year 1250, which was its central point in time. What streamed into our earth at this point of time worked on its own way. It worked an in there two streams, one of which is materialistic and will become ever more so, while the other strives for the Spiritual, manifesting particularly in what we know as the Rosicrucian revelation, which flowed in greatest intensity from this very starting-point, although there had of course been previous preparation.

So you see that there is a certain epoch, lasting for about six to eight thousand years, during which earth-evolution passes through an important cycle in regard to the historical facts with which man's development is interwoven. Such cycles are again intersected by others, for periodic forces of the most diverse kinds work into our earth-evolution. Only when we analyse, when we investigate the particular forces and their configurations—only then can we really fathom how things come to pass on the earth. Through all such forces and laws mankind is brought forward and human progress effected. You know, too, that in our century, but proceeding from a different stream, there is an important point of time indicated in the Rosicrucian Mystery Play, The Portal of Initiation: vision once again into the etheric world and the revelation of Christ in that world.³³ But that belongs to a different stream—I am speaking now more of forces that work into the broad basis of historical happenings.

If we want to understand there happenings fully, we must also take into consideration that such crucial points in evolution are always connected with certain positions of the stars, and that in the year 1250 the earth's axis lay in a definite position and was therefore related in a particular way to the so-called minor axis of the ecliptic. When we take account of the fact that what happens on the earth is brought about by great celestial conditions, even external climates show us that further specialisation and differentiation take place in the sphere of the earth itself. Because the forces work in a certain way from the cosmos, the earth is girdled by the torrid zone, then the temperate zone, then the arctic zone. This can be taken as a kind of example of how what is brought about by spiritual happenings, through the sun and other factors, takes effect on the physical plane. But there is again differentiation an the earth itself; in the torrid zone the climate of low-lying land is not the same as on heights, where it can be extremely cold. Hence in the same latitude there is a quite different distribution of climatic conditions to be observed in Africa, say, as compared with America. There is also something in spiritual evolution which allows of comparison with this kind of differentiation; for it is really true that in epochs during which a definite character due to the stellar constellations is widely predominant over the earth, modifications, special conditions, come about in the activities of the spiritual Beings and in the souls of men.

This is of great importance, for from time to time provision has obviously to be made for the distant future. Just imagine—naturally this is said hypothetically—that the wise leadership of the world was obliged, thousands of years ago, to say: There is a group of souls who must be prepared in order to accomplish this or that task in their next incarnations.—In such a case, connections have to be created so that perhaps a small group of men who have undergone some quite definite happening, who are incarnated together an a little corner of the earth, can pass through an experience which, at that particular time, may seem unimportant. But when we perceive how such men, having been crowded together in a small area, are scattered abroad in their next incarnations, and make effective for humanity as a whole what they received when they were living in this narrow compass—then the matter takes an a very different aspect. And so we can understand that in times when the general character of mankind has a certain definite quality, something very surprising may make its appearance in separate sections of civilisation, something that is entirely distinct from the prevailing character. I will give you an example of this, because it lies fairly near our own time.

In Steinthal, near Strassburg, Oberlin lived.³⁴ The deep-thinking German psychologist and researcher, G. H. von Schubert, has repeatedly referred to him This Oberlin was an unusual personality and he had a strange effect upon people. He was clairvoyant—I can allude to this only briefly—and after he had lost his wife comparatively early, he was able to live with her individuality in a communion as real as with a living person. Day by day he made notes of what was happening in the world where his wife now dwelt; he also marked this an a map of the heavens and showed it to the people who gathered around him, so that actually a whole community shared in the life Oberlin was leading with his deceased wife. Such a thing is strangely out of place at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries; but if you take what I have said into consideration, you will grasp what it portends. Things such as were revealed to Oberlin are among the most significant in this domain in modern times. I may perhaps remind you that we now have a very fine literary and historical work dealing with Oberlin and these affairs: it is the novel by Fritz Lienhard.³⁵ You will find it extraordinarily stimulating reading, with regard not only to the character of this priest but also to the cultural conditions of those days. Such things, which can easily be underestimated and regarded as chance, are able to show us how an occurrence of this kind strikes into evolution, how it can take effect in the whole process of the evolution of mankind. For the human beings who are thrown together in such circumstances, who gather round a personality as the central figure, are destined to undertake certain tasks in later incarnations.

So you see—and this is what I wanted to bring before you today—how the great macrocosmic penetration from the vast universe into the souls of men is connected with what may take place in a minute arena. But these things become especially interesting if we connect them with another law, with such points of intersection in evolution as was the year 1250. At that time there was the strongest possible penetration into the souls of men—and that is not so readily noticed as the upheavals of continents. During the Atlantean catastrophe the Spirits of Form worked so little into the souls of men that the younger hierarchies held the field, as it were, at that time. Thus the activities of the different ranks of hierarchical Beings are distributed. And it is important to know that again in these cyclic movements certain laws of ascent and decline prevail. I indicated something of this when I said that in the year 1250 there was an impetus and then an ebbing away which manifested in the current of materialism. Such things are often to be perceived. And it is interesting to notice how cycles of ascent and of decline alternate in the history of mankind.

• 26. See Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind. Lectures II and III.
• 27. See Rudolf Steiner, Turning-Points in Spiritual History. Lecture I.
• 28. See Rudolf Steiner, Spiritual Hierarchies. Lecture 8. “Mars is a repetition of the ancient Moon and stands in the Same orbit to which the ancient Moon extended. ...” See also, Arenson's Index to Rudolf Steiner's Lecture-Courses, Vol. II, p. 181: “The Mars of to-day arose when the Earth was repeating the ancient Moon existence. What separated off and remained behind at this stage of repetition is the Mars of to-day.”
• 29. See Rudolf Steiner, The Whitsuntide Festival: its place in the study of Karma. (Lecture given at Dornach, 4th June, 1924.) “ ... The physical science of to-day looks to find also in the Universe everything which is on the Earth. But the physical organisation is not there in the Universe at all. Man begins with his physical organisation: then he has the etheric and the astral. The Universe an the other hand begins with the Etheric. Out there in the Cosmos the Physical is nowhere to be found. The Physical is only on the Earth and it is but empty fancy and imagination to speak of anything physical in the far Universe. ...”
• 30. See Rudolf Steiner, The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind. Lecture II.
• 31. See Rudolf Steiner, The Redemption of Thinking: a Study in the Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. With an Introduction, Epilogue and Appendices by A. P. Shepherd and Mildred Robertson Nicoll. (Hodder and Stoughton, 1956.)
• 32. See Rudolf Steiner, The Life between Death and Rebirth in relation to Cosmic Facts. Lecture 5.
• 33. See Rudolf Steiner, The Portal of Initiation, Scene I. Four Mystery Plays, Vol. I, p. 28. The following is the English version of words spoken by Theodora, a seeress:
  
  “... Once, long ago, Christ lived upon the earth,
  And from this life ensured the consequence
  That in soul-substance clad He hovers o'er
  The evolution of Humanity,
  In union with the earth's own spirit-sphere;
  And though as yet invisible to men,
  When in such form He manifests Himself,
  Since now their being Lacks that spirit-sight
  Which first will show itself in future times;
  Yet even now this future draweth nigh
  When that new sight shall come to men an earth.
  What once the senses saw, when Christ did live
  Upon the earth: this shall be seen by souls
  When soon the time shall reach its fullness due.”
  
  See also, Rudolf Steiner, The Vision of Christ's Advent in the Etheric World.
• 34. Johann Freidrich Oberlin. Protestant priest in Steinthal.
• 35. Oberlin. A novel by Fritz Lienhard. (Stuttgart, 84th ed., 1920.)

I would like to discuss some more characteristic symbols and signs today, so that we can become clearer and clearer about the actual basic theme of our lectures, which should consist of showing how signs and symbols relate to the astral and spiritual worlds, also called the devachanic world.

We have seen that the symbols and pictures and the numerical and formal relationships really taken from the nature and essence of the higher worlds, when absorbed by the soul, evoke in it real soul forces in the form of perceptions, thoughts, ideas and feelings, which have a formative effect. Yes, we could even see that Noah's Ark was formative for the present physical body of man, and that the Temple of Solomon, when it works in its forms on the people of the present, will have a great significance for the shaping of man in the sixth race. From these statements you can already see that the path taken by the guides of humanity, who are constantly working on the course of human development, is actually similar to that taken by the individual in the elementary secret schools. There, too, we are dealing with a concentration of sensations, thoughts, images, and so on - many other things are added - that are effective and formative for the human being.

In many cases, the various occult currents of the present day are of the opinion that in our time there may be an ascent into the higher worlds by other means than through the application of imaginative and symbolic ideas. And for people of the present day, ascending into the astral world with the help of symbolic signs or other occult means of education is associated with a certain fear, even aversion. If you raise the question: Are such states of fear justified?, then you can say: Yes and no. In a certain respect they are justified; in another respect they are completely out of place, because no one can really go up into the higher worlds without passing through the astral world. It is a mistaken assumption if someone thinks that he can pass through the astral world blindfolded. You must realize, however, that the spiritual world as such has different regions. Man has descended from the spiritual world into the physical world, and he must ascend from the spiritual world back into the spiritual world. What must be avoided is that man, in his development, falls back into earlier states. Man must never fall back into earlier states. Every mediumistic state is a falling back into an earlier state, whereas true secret schooling is an ascent into higher states. Man must ascend through the astral world with full, bright day-consciousness in order to reach the higher regions of the spiritual world. Whatever longings, passions, instincts today's man carries within himself is anchored in the astral body, of which the astral body is the carrier. If a person wants to ascend to higher worlds, he must work with feelings and sensations; there is no other way. But the point is that he should never try to ascend to the higher worlds other than by fully maintaining the achievements of our physical world, that is, never with a damping of consciousness. When we look at mediums, we always find that they are thrown back into an earlier state of consciousness. Their bright day consciousness is dampened down, weakened, and an earlier state of consciousness, which the person has already overcome, is evoked. Anyone who wants to become a clairvoyant in the modern sense must retain their present bright day consciousness and take it with them. He can only do this by passing through the point of “sensuality-free thinking”, and nothing can ever happen when a person passes through sensuality-free thinking. Let us be quite clear about what this means.

Sensual thinking and imagining is anything that starts from the sensual perception of the objects around us. If you form your ideas in such a way that you first look at an object, perceive it, and then keep it in your memory, and your thoughts are such that you are stimulated by such ideas, then you have sensual thinking. This thinking fills by far the greatest part of the soul experiences of the present human being. And when a person examines himself to see how much remains to him when he throws out of his soul all ideas that are caused by sensory perception, then he will first become aware of what content is still there in the soul. When the ideas that were stimulated by external impressions have been removed, then he will grasp what the Greek philosopher Plato meant when he wrote over the entrance to his school, “No one unfamiliar with geometry shall enter.” This means that no one should enter who has not been able to rise to thinking free of sensuality. He did not demand ordinary geometry. Nor is it required today by those who want to ascend to higher worlds. Nor would it be necessary today for intrinsic, objective reasons. But from geometric representations one can form an idea of what thinking is that is free of sensuality. If you put three beans here, add three more beans, and another three beans, then you can learn from this sensual impression that 3 times 3 = 9. The child or primitive man learns it by the fingers. This is sensual thinking. When you no longer need the fingers or the beans, but when you learn the same thing through pure mental contemplation, then it is sensual-free thinking. The child starts learning from a bridge [beans or fingers] and only later rises to sensual-free thinking. If we draw a circle on the blackboard, it is not really a circle; what we draw there is a collection of little chalk mountains. You will not be able to grasp what a real circle is with sensory perception alone. Only the spiritually viewed, inwardly constructed circle is free of sensuality.

The best means for a larger circle of people to arrive at a thinking free of sensuality is today Theosophy, if Theosophy is understood in the sense that the human being learns to detach the images from sensuality. Particularly in those areas that go a little beyond the most elementary, man is led by theosophy to thinking that is free of sensuality. If, for example, you want to understand what the etheric body or the astral body is, you cannot see them externally. That is precisely what theosophy gives you: it describes things that you cannot see externally. Or when we describe the old moon in Theosophy, we create a picture of it, a very drastic one, in fact, in which we combine sensual and supersensible ideas, so that a materialistically minded person would say: He is painting something that is not possible. Yes, in Theosophy one must teach something that is almost impossible for today's conditions and describe the old moon in such a way that there were no such rocks, minerals and stones on it as there are on our earth today. The entire old moon consisted of a living substance that could be compared in density to a kind of spinach puree or cooked salad, a body halfway between minerals and plants, half plant, half mineral. We find something like a semi-vegetable life on the old moon. Minerals as they are today did not yet exist at that time. If you look at today's peat bogs, where there is also a kind of semi-vegetable substance, you would get an outwardly similar picture to the substance of the old moon. Instead of rocks and mountains, you would have found at most something on the old moon that is like the bark of our trees today. Now every naturalist will object that something like that could not exist as a planet. But it is precisely this that is needed, and it is a necessity in order to understand other epochs of development, for the human being to tear his thinking away from what today adheres to the conceptions of ordinary sensory thinking and feeling, and to arrive at a thinking that is free of the senses. Thinking that is free of the senses is not abstract thinking, but very, very real thinking. If we think of the old moon as a kind of large salad with its bark and so on included, then this is “sensual-supersensual” thinking, as Goethe says. By detaching color and form from sensuality and projecting them freely into space, you have gained imaginations through sensual-free thinking. Anyone who regards this as a firm foundation will never be able to stumble when ascending to higher worlds.

Let us make a schematic drawing for ourselves. Some things become unclear due to incorrect symbolic drawing. So, although it is sufficient for understanding certain relationships if the physical plane, the astral plane and the devachan plane are drawn on top of each other, it is more correct to imagine the physical world as a self-contained sphere, where the astral is all around, and the devachanic is around that again. Instead of drawing horizontal layers, it is good to draw it this way (see drawing), because this provides a way to distinguish two areas of the astral plane from each other. If we look into two very specific areas of the astral plane, which we indicate here with arrow 1, we see that in the astral world, what we call the male and the female here on earth are the two opposites of “form” and “life”. Form and life are opposites on the astral plane. Now, if we want to encounter form and life on the astral plane, we will only encounter them if we go in that direction (from the center upwards, see arrow 2). If we go in the other direction (center downwards, see arrow 3), we will by no means encounter the beneficial contrast of form and life, but rather the contrast of “decay” and “disease”. So if we start from the physical world, we encounter the opposite of form and life on the astral plane above; this corresponds to the opposite of decay and disease in the astral world below, i.e. going down below the physical plane. Whenever we go to one side, where we see beneficial properties for the physical world, these correspond on the other side to destructive, harmful influences for the physical world. We now have an opportunity to distinguish between the parts of the astral plane. There are actually two quite different areas of the astral plane that affect the human soul. If we want to form an idea of how these two very different areas affect the soul, we have to imagine that in a human being we have: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body; and depending on their development, which has been described many times: manas or spirit self, budhi or life spirit, and atma or spiritual man; and in between we have, filled by the I, the soul. So that we can distinguish in a certain respect: body - which actually includes the three bodies -, soul and spirit. Now the three lower members, astral body, ether body and physical body, are reflected in the soul. Insofar as the physical body, ether body and astral body are reflected in their original nature, they introduce lower, downward-pulling qualities into the human soul. But that which is higher is also reflected in man: manas, buddhi, atma, and thus we also have uplifting, purifying elements in the soul. In strict Christianity, people also knew about this twofold way of being reflected in the human soul. One saw that the higher human nature was reflected in the soul, or the lower nature was reflected in the soul. Many sensed this, even if they were not esotericists. That is why it was said: When a person dies, he perceives the reflection of the spiritual world as the collection of laws of Moses; and when the lower nature is reflected in the soul, the devil reads the record of sins to the soul in death.

This means that the soul is presented with all the qualities that adhere to it: That which is reflected from above is held up to it as the tablets of the law of Moses; and that which is reflected from below is described by saying: the devil reads the soul's record of sins to it. If the soul does not take the right path, it can indeed sink into its lower passions; that can happen. But this must not be presented to man as a deterrent.

All imagistic, pictorial representations educate the human being in order to gradually bring him to that point in the development of life where he learns to look more and more into the higher worlds. Pictorial representations, such as the image of the old moon, are a powerful educational tool in this direction. Through such images, the idea of development is introduced to the human being in the right esoteric way. If one only presents dry, abstract concepts to the human being, he remains on the physical plane with his thinking, because ordinary thinking as such never comes from the physical plane. It is indeed a reflection of the Devachan plan; but the thought that the human being entertains is something that belongs to the physical plan, it is only a shadow image of the higher processes. No matter how fine your conceptions may be regarding the process of development, how a being on the first step of existence differentiates itself, descends and envelops itself, these are all only conceptions that give you ideas of the physical plan, but do not help you in your development. Only concepts and ideas that are both sensual and supersensible can gradually help you to really advance one step. First, you have to transform the concepts into images, into imaginations, and then repeat this process over and over again.

If one were to express this process, which was taught, for example, in the Rosicrucian schools, in a dialogue between teacher and student, one could put it like this: - In reality, such a dialogue never took place in this way, but we can present it in this way to show what the student had to go through step by step in long, drawn-out experiences. The teacher said to the student: “Look at the plant and see how it directs its root into the earth, how it grows towards the sun with its stem and blossom, and how it develops its fruit organs. And now imagine the human being in contrast. The human being is poorly compared to the plant when one compares his head with the flower and his reproductive organs with the root of the plant. Even Darwin, the great naturalist, used this comparison correctly by comparing the head of the human being with the root of the plant, so that even for Darwin, the plant is the human being turned upside down. What the plant holds up chastely to the sunbeam, its reproductive organs, man directs to the center of the earth. Thus, in man we have to think of an inversion of the plant, in that he freely directs all the forces that in the plant are directed toward the center of the earth to the sun-filled cosmos, and shamefully directs those organs that the plant holds up chastely to the sunbeam toward the earth. The animal stands in the midst of it.

If we therefore want to draw the real directions of power that exist in the world, we can do so as follows: the true esoteric meaning of the sign of the cross is a sum of forces. One direction of force goes downwards: the plant being is directed by this force. In the human being, it is directed in the opposite direction. The animal has a horizontally aligned spine, and in it this force is manifested as orbiting the earth horizontally. The soul principle ascends from plant existence to animal existence to human existence. And Plato, who so often expressed things that originated in the mysteries, spoke the beautiful sentence: The world soul is crucified on the world body. That is, the world soul passes through the plant, animal and human; it is crucified in the forces of the three realms: plant, animal and human. And if we thus inscribe the cross into the three natural realms, then the cross becomes for us the sign of the direction of development.

Now the teacher said to the student: You have to imagine how the plant stretches its calyx towards the sunbeam, how the fruit organs reach maturity when the plant is kissed by the sunbeam. - The development into a human being happens through the fact that the pure, chaste plant substance is permeated by desires, instincts and passions. In this way man conquers his consciousness, in this way he becomes human by passing through his animal nature. By interweaving the lower nature of desire into the pure plant nature, man has ascended from the dull plant consciousness to the bright consciousness of day.

From this level of present-day man, the teacher pointed the student to a higher level. Just as man has developed from a state similar to that of a plant, so too will he purify his instincts and desires to a higher, chaste level. The teacher showed the student the structures in the physical body of man through which the higher levels of consciousness can be attained and human substance can in turn become a substance similar to that of plants. Every being must use a physical body if it wants to appear on earth. But the body of man will change more and more in the future. We distinguish between a descending and an ascending development with regard to the human organs. Some human organs are in a state of descending development; in the course of time, which admittedly counts in millennia, the human being will discard them. Other organs are in the process of becoming; in the future they will undergo an upward development, for example the human larynx; it is only at the beginning of its development. The human heart will undergo a further upward development, becoming a completely different organ in the future. While other organs have already passed their zenith, becoming detached from human nature and withering away, we have an organ in the heart that is only at the beginning of its development.

We can distinguish between striated and longitudinally striated muscles in the human body; these are voluntary and involuntary muscles. The voluntary muscles of the hand, for example, are striated. The muscles of the intestines, on the other hand, which involuntarily push food forward, are longitudinally striped. The heart is an exception here, and this is a crux for today's physiological and anatomical scientists. The heart belongs to the involuntary muscles, but it has striated musculature. Therefore, our anatomists cannot understand the heart either. They consider all organs to be the same. If we consider the organs spiritually, they may well consist chemically of the same components, but one may be in a descending development and the other in an ascending one. The heart is on the way to becoming a voluntary muscle in the future; its anatomical structure already bears the characteristic features for this. Today, however, it contributes to the effect of emotional experiences on the blood. You can see how, when you feel fear, the blood mass withdraws from the periphery of the body and moves inward, or how, when you feel shame, the blood is driven from the center of the body to the periphery. In the future, in addition to the transformation of the heart, there will also be a transformation of our larynx. Today, the larynx serves to translate my thoughts into words by making the air vibrate. You can pick up and hear my words with your ears; this is caused by the vibrations of the air. The present human larynx is capable of transforming into air vibrations what is going on in the soul. The human body of the future will transform its larynx into a fertilizing organ, and the word, which today only creates in the air, will in the future become creative in our environment. Reproduction will then take place through the larynx, which will create the race of the future.

Just as the teacher pointed out to the student the chaste chalice of the plant, and how he pointed out to the human being who, in descending, has permeated his plant substance with the lower nature of passions, desires and instincts, but But in exchange for this, has acquired his present clear day-consciousness, the teacher showed how the present human being will ascend to higher states of consciousness, and how the future human being will transform the substance, filled with desires, back into pure and chaste organs. The pupil's attention was drawn to the past, present and future. Just as the chalice of the plant extends chastely towards the sun and its fruit organs grow towards the sun, this will be there again on a higher level, where man will offer his larynx as a chalice to the spiritual sunbeam. This spiritual chalice, the transformed organ of speech, was called the Holy Grail. This is a real ideal. The beginning, middle and end of human development: here you see the idea of human development transformed into a picture.

Through the feelings that we develop from these pictures, the forces flow to us that truly open up the higher worlds for us. All this takes place without magic. The images stimulate the feelings that lead the human being into the higher worlds. Feelings and sensations lead the human being into the astral world, just as the will leads him into the devachanic or spiritual world. Thinking corresponds to the physical world, feeling to the astral world, and the purified will to the devachanic world.

If we look at the plant in its original chaste substance, we find green as the color in the life of the plant. The plant is permeated by chlorophyll, by what is called chlorophyll, in those parts where the etheric body is actively alive. The etheric body has a basic law, which is the law of repetition. If only the etheric body were active in the plant, then one and the same form would be repeated again and again; leaf by leaf it sets in. But when the astral body of the earth begins to affect the plant, it completes growth and sets in the flowering. The effect of the etheric body is revealed in the repetition. This principle also applies to human growth. The etheric body shows its influence in the formation of the spinal vertebrae, but this only goes as far as the arching of the cranial vault, where the astral body begins to take effect. We can therefore only influence the etheric body through the principle of repetition. When you think and comprehend, you only affect the astral body. But when you pray or meditate, for example, and repeat the same prayer or meditation every day, you have an effect that extends into the etheric body. The way it is in the cosmos is that the principle of repetition first manifests itself in the deeds of the etheric body, then the principle of closure through the astral body. Where the astral body withdraws, the principle of repetition naturally reappears. This is how your hair and nails grow, because the astral body has withdrawn there. It doesn't hurt when you cut your hair, because pain is an expression of the astral body.

We initially have the pure, chaste plant substance, where the plant, subject only to the law of the ether body, adds leaf after leaf. Now this pure, chaste plant substance is increasingly permeated by what is called kama in theosophy, the realm of instincts and feelings, the realm of desires, right up to the images. And now, in man, that which has developed in him since he had a plant nature is to be overcome again. As man developed, he took in the red blood. The red blood brings about in the human being that which makes him self-conscious. The chlorophyll of the plant, permeated by astral substance and the I, has been transformed into the red blood. If you could permeate the green plant substance with the I and the astral substance, you would get the red blood. Now think of the image of the cross. In the image of the cross you also have something that points to the future of man. Where does man's future lie? He is to regain his plant nature, but connected with the higher level of consciousness that today's man has already gained. The red roses of the Rose Cross signify what has been gained through blood, but also what he had as plant nature and is to have again. This is prefigured in the rose. It has a plant nature, and it also has the red color of blood. The etheric body is active in the green leaves, and the astral body is active in the red blossom, where the closure is; the rose blossom owes its red to the most intense effects of the astral body of the earth.

In the future, the human being's astral body will become free and consciously active from the outside, from outside the physical body, just as the earth's astral body now acts on the rose. Then what is now present as a plant rose at a lower level will appear at a higher level as the human rose. Thus, in the wreath of roses surrounding the black wood of the cross, we actually have a sign of the development of the human being. In the black wood we see what dies; it is an image of what will also die in man. And in the red rose we see what will continue to develop until it becomes that chalice which, like the chalice of a plant towards the sun, holds out towards the spiritual sun-rays. And the rose cross, where the red roses surround the black cross, presents this process to us in an image.

The important thing about the symbols is that we do not merely think them, but that we feel and sense them. For only when we feel that the red rose is saying: that is what you will become one day, that is what the goal of human development represents to us – and when our hearts open and our feelings become pure, then the forces within us are released that lead us up into a higher world. Thus these symbols are workers at our soul. They permeate and interweave our soul; they are the greatest and most effective educators of our human race.

Just as we place images and imaginations before our soul here, so in still higher spheres the inner forces of numbers are placed before man. Man must learn to feel the inner relationships of numbers like spiritual music. One can describe the relationships of the physical body, ether body, astral body and I to one another by attempting to provide images of the relationship between these four aspects of human nature. In doing so, one experiences a kind of imagination. Thus, one can describe the relationship between the physical body and the etheric body by saying: the physical body comes into being because all the forces and substances that are spread out in the mineral kingdom are connected by the etheric body; it would disintegrate if the etheric body did not permeate it; the etheric body is an inner fighter against the disintegration of the physical body. In this way we work our way up to an image of the etheric body.

And if we try to gain a pictorial representation of the astral body, we imagine how it moves out at night and works on the etheric and physical bodies from the outside, by removing the fatigue substances. Let us make this clear to ourselves pictorially. But there is an even higher way of imagining this relationship; here one has to imagine the inner value of certain numbers. You have to recognize that the ratio of 1:3 is something quite different than the ratio of 1:7. This is not irrelevant. With the ratio of 1:3, you have to imagine that the 3 is differentiated within itself, and you have to imagine the interrelations of the individual quantities to the others.

But what is important is the ratio of 1:3:7:12. If you understand the relationship between these numbers as a tone ratio, in that you imagine that a tone makes three vibrations in a certain time, another seven vibrations in the same time, and yet another twelve vibrations, then you have expressed in these numbers the ratio that indicates the ratio of the I, the astral body, the etheric body and the physical body in spiritual music.

I = 1
astral body = 3
etheric body = 7
physical body = 12

There is good reason for this in the existence of the world. If we were to follow the development from the oldest Saturn existence to the present earthly existence, we would soon be able to find how this is rooted in the human existence. The Earth, in its first, in the Saturn embodiment, was surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac. They provided the first germinal formation of the physical body. Through the influence of the corresponding signs on the body, this relationship of the number twelve to the individual limbs of the physical body came into being. The seven planets influenced the etheric body. When the Earth was a sun, the other planets were around it, and so the number seven influenced the etheric body. When the Earth was in its lunar embodiment, it was first affected by the Sun. But then, as a result of the Sun and then the Moon separating from the Earth, three bodies emerged from one body, and so the number three was effective in the formation of the astral body. And when the I came down from the higher worlds, this was expressed in the number one. The ratio of 1:3 gives you the ratio of the I to the astral body, to 7 the ratio to the etheric body, and to 12 the ratio to the physical body.

1:3:7:12 thus denotes the ratio of the four elements of human nature, which you must feel inwardly. It is not easy to awaken the sensations that one has to imagine the physical body as the most perfect of the four parts, the etheric body as the less perfect, the astral body even less perfect, and the I as the “baby” among the four members of human nature. We must think of the physical body as being twelve times more perfect than the I, the etheric body as being seven times more perfect, and the astral body as being three times more perfect. These numbers indicate the degrees of perfection for the four aspects of human nature. These numbers are therefore profound symbols for the real conditions.

Occult schools provided instructions for gradually becoming familiar with the numerical values. For example, the significance of the number three was taught by saying: “Let us consider the development of a plant and pay attention to three things.” Let us start with the plant germ. You have an inconspicuous, small plant germ, from which the plant gradually develops. We can depict this in a drawing by letting the plant germ diverge in a radiating manner, up to the leaves, flowers and fruit. Now the germ has become a plant and then the plant germ has become a plant again. What has diverged in the plant to become leaves, flowers and fruit is all wrapped up together in the germ; it has, as it were, slipped into the germ. In a developed plant, everything is revealed in the senses. Then the senses enter into a completely different realm, into the germ. There we have in the germ the senses as small as possible and the spiritual as large as possible.

But a third thing also takes place. While the germ is forming out of the plant and the new plant is developing out of this germ, elemental forces from the environment are continually acting on the plant from the outside. The germ is there, which developed from the plant, and out of it the new plant develops again; but the third comes from the whole surrounding world; and it is this third that changes each plant again a little. The higher a being stands, the more the influence of the third changes it.

Let us now turn again to the human soul and consider how it lives between birth and death. There it spreads out what it has brought with it as the fruits of a previous embodiment. Just as external influences affect unconscious plant life, so man consciously experiences the most diverse influences from outside in the life between birth and death. And everything he experiences there was not yet present in the seed; it is something entirely new, an enrichment, the fruits of which the person takes with him into a later life, into a following incarnation. What was present in the old plant continues to work in the new plant; but in the development of the new plant something else appears that was not present in the old plant.

Thus, in all development, we have three aspects to consider: first, the unfolding from a, as it were, wrapped-up state; we call this development or evolution. Then, what lies in the germ must come into being through the reverse process, the wrapping or involution. These two processes alone, however, do not yet give progress. Only when a being is able to take in influences from outside and process them into inner experiences can something new and progressive come into the world. That is the third thing; it is called creation out of nothing. You are constantly developing what is predisposed in you from the past, constantly taking in something from your environment that you transform into experiences, and then you carry that into a new embodiment. In all life, the trinity of evolution, involution and creation out of nothing is at work. In the case of human beings, we have this creation out of nothing in the work of their consciousness. They experience the processes in their environment and process them into ideas, thoughts and concepts. Dispositions come from previous embodiments, but all progress in life is based on the production of new thoughts and new ideas. The circumstances of the environment are “consumed”, and the inner experiences lead to new thoughts and ideas. Therefore, three is the number of life, it is called the number of creation or of action.

On the other hand, another number is called the number of revelation. You can easily imagine which number is called the number of revelation. If you look at anything in the world, it must always reveal itself in a duality. As we cannot perceive light without darkness, so we always encounter an attenuated or opposite aspect of every real concept. Light and darkness, good and evil, and so on. Duality reigns in all that is revealed. Therefore, the number two is the number of revelation. Opposites are only united in the realm of the occult, which lies beneath the revealed. Therefore, the number one is the number of unity. Evolution and involution are not contradictions, because they would always unfold in the same way without the third - from germ to plant and from plant to germ. Only in connection with the third, creation out of nothing, does the new arise, which is expressed by the number three.

Thus, in the first three numbers you have important symbols of the spiritual world. It should be indicated to you by individual examples how that which is called symbols relates to the higher worlds, and how, for example, symbols such as the Holy Grail or the Rosicrucian in the picture express higher development.

Another beautiful symbol is the image of the mirror. We often call that which surrounds us a mirror of the spiritual, because in truth nothing external shows us anything other than the reflection of spiritual beings. You can observe this yourself in physical life. When you perceive a physical object, what does your eye see? Your eye would not see the object at all if the sun's rays did not fall on it and reflect off the object into your eye. In truth, your eye does not see ordinary objects, but the sunlight reflected from the objects, and that is how an object appears to you in a certain form. In truth, you do not see yourself when you look in the mirror either, because your spiritual part is outside of your physical being. What you see in the mirror is the reflection of the rays that fall on you from the spiritual world. What you see reflects the light of the spirit just as ordinary objects reflect sunlight. The outer body of man is actually the mirror in which his true being is reflected.

In the Atlantean period, man did not see objects outside at all. He knew that he was in a spiritual substance and therefore could see spiritually inwardly. Only in the last third of the Atlantean period did the spiritual light go out, and man only saw the reflected rays of the spiritual light. Imagine looking into a glass pane and being aware of your own spiritual qualities. Now someone applies a mirror substance to the back of the glass pane; as a result, you no longer see your own being in the glass pane, but only the image reflected by the mirror. Man now sees his image; and now the illusion arises for him that what he sees there is his ego. This illusion is wonderfully expressed in the Bible. Man lost Paradise when he became so absorbed in sensuality that he saw himself. Before that Adam and Eve had not “seen”; now “the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked.” And because here an illusion actually occurred, legend attributes the fact of the externalization of objects to the Luciferic principle.

In Eastern Europe there is a folk tale that tells of a monk who wanted to test whether the biblical saying was based on truth: Those who seek will find, and to those who ask, it will be given. He wanted to test whether this was really true, so he prayed for what he wanted to beg for. He wanted nothing more nor less than the king's daughter herself. He proposed to the king's daughter. She told him that she would be his on one condition: he had to bring her an instrument in which she could see herself from top to bottom. This was at a time when there were no mirrors. So he went off searching, and met the devil, who told him the secret of the mirror principle. When he returned with this, he received the princess's hand in marriage; however, he later renounced her. So in order to obtain the mirror, he had to resort to the devil.

In the manifold signs and symbols that have come to us in these lectures, we have been able to see the real meaning of these images. Sensory perception is the content of the physical world. Images and imaginations are the expression of the astral world. Harmony of the spheres, sound of the spheres is the expression of the spiritual world. Those who ascend to this spiritual world perceive its inner spiritual sonority, it penetrates into them. Inspiration is the vital element of the spiritual world, just as imagination is the vital element of the astral world. A truly inspired world is created out of the spirit. IV

This is presumably a transcription by Rudolf Steiner, but there is no original for it. The text is based on a handwritten template with the note “F.M.”

Man is born of the Godhead. Sublime spiritual entities were active in his construction, cosmic forces were at work, and so he was built out of the cosmos, he emerged from the cosmos.

The first state of evolution, in which the influence of those cosmic forces can be indicated, was that which is called the ancient Saturn state. Then these forces began to work in space and in time, so that ancient Saturn came into being in space and the evolution of ancient Saturn took place in time. At that time there was no solar system with planets, there was only a body of warmth, surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac, which poured their forces into this body of warmth, as if from the circumference into a common center. From this center other forces counteracted them, but the forces acting into it were stronger, and thus the tendency towards the centripetal arose in this development. When the present-day minerals on our earth are observed from the spiritual point of view, the same effect can be found in them, only that here one has to do with solid earthly matter. Coming from different sides, far away from the world, spiritual forces have an effect on a common point in space, and the stone or mineral arises in this center. From this point, forces come to meet this effect, but the incoming forces are strongest. Thus, through the influence of the twelve constellations from the surrounding area on a point in space, the first embodiment of the present earth as a ball of heat, as the old Saturn, arose at that time. Because these forces were superior to those acting towards the center, further condensation and a kind of fragmentation occurred. During the further development, several points formed in the one center, and so finally the whole planet consisted of nothing but such points of force, which were formed by the action of cosmic forces or spiritual beings in the cosmos. In these centers themselves spiritual beings were again active, they animated them and formed them so that they could become the basis for what later became man. Then man was already endowed with the powers which, continuing to work in the future, could give him the physical body that he now inhabits as a self-aware earthly human being. Then he also received the disposition for what he, as a spiritual being, will later develop through his own efforts. The germ for life in the physical and in the spiritual was laid on old Saturn; a physical and a spiritual center was predisposed for the human being. When this development had progressed to a certain point, the spiritual forces withdrew their effect, a kind of planetary night, a state of rest, occurred, and when the next day arrived, the earth emerged in its new embodiment as the old sun.

The process of evolution continued. Taking up the preceding Saturn condition, everything repeated itself under different conditions, and then something new was added. The centers that had arisen on the old Saturn emerged again in the old sun condition. Due to the still-operating centripetal forces, the old sun was more compressed as a heavenly body than the old Saturn. It had become more condensed and was also less extended in space. As a physical center it did not need to pour out its forces into space; it could gather itself more and keep something for itself as its own inner strength of its nature. This it could reveal in such a way that it could send something towards the influence of the zodiac that came out of itself in the light that it radiated into its surroundings. It was precisely through the condensation in relation to the physical that the possibility arose to give something of oneself that worked spiritually. It was the same with the individual centers on the old sun. Through their own power they could radiate something of themselves, it became possible to spread their being into the surroundings, which can be described as growth in the light. In our present-day development on earth, a similar force is at work in the plant kingdom, only that it takes place in dense earthly matter. Just as today's plants grow out of their seeds towards the sunlight, so on the old sun there arose a growth, a spreading out and a coming forth into the light from the centers into the environment. Not only did the forces of the twelve constellations act on the old sun from the surrounding area, but it itself sent something in return to these forces in the radiating light. And out of it, in the form of a germ, grew those planets that we know today under different conditions in our physical solar system. Just as the seven colors can reveal themselves out of the white light through a refraction of rays, so too, in those days, these planets were forming in the sun itself as radiant points of light.

In turn, spiritual beings were active at the centers and formed them in such a way that they became the basis for what man today knows as his life body or etheric body. Man was also given the basis for what he will later acquire as the spirit of life. The principle of growth and expansion was developed in both the physical and spiritual centers of the human being during the ancient solar evolution, because just as the etheric body provides the possibility of growth for the physical body, so the life spirit is what can be called the environment, the surroundings of the spiritual center of the spiritual man, in which he reveals himself.

The centripetal force that was active in the Saturn development continued to operate in the old solar state. This resulted in condensation, so that the ball of heat had become a ball of gas. Through this force, the living beings also divided and became different from each other. Through the centrifugal force, however, the sun radiated and the living beings were also able to step out of their particular form and grow.

After this development had been going on for some time, there was another period of rest, during which the cosmic forces withdrew their activity. Then the earth emerged from the cosmic night in its new embodiment as the old moon, and what had existed in the two previous stages of development was repeated under different conditions. The solidification, the contraction of the world body and of the individual centers or bodies of the living beings continued, and thus a stronger manifestation of inner forces became possible. The centripetal and the centrifugal forces both worked and sought to come to a settlement. This created powerful vibrations. On the one hand, the effect of the centripetal force was evident in the compaction of the old moon and in the individual centers, which became more and more separated from their environment. On the other hand, the centrifugal force found expression in the possibility of revealing more and more spiritual forces from the centers into the environment. These two forces worked together in such a way that they led to a crisis during the evolution of the old moon. A kind of split occurred in the world body. One part of the old moon, in which the centrifugal forces exerted their influence in particular, separated from the other part, in which the centripetal forces remained active in particular. This resulted in one cosmic body sending its forces outwards in particular and revealing itself in its environment, radiating its spiritual power as light, as the sun, and another cosmic body that was subjected to further condensation and on which the further development of those living beings took place that later became earth humans, as the old moon.

Through this contraction, the bodies of the living beings became more and more dense and more dependent on themselves, and the possibility arose for stronger inner forces to reveal themselves. This enabled the living beings to resonate with what was acting on them from the outside, so that they could respond in a certain way. A sound then arose that emerged from the beings' inner selves and was a repetition of the sound that came to them from their environment. The old moon had become a watery ball due to further compression and the bodies of the living beings had also compressed. From the sun, light radiated continuously to the moon, and those forces that strove for spiritualization and refinement of matter were contained in it. In the finer part of the old moon, which had separated out as the sun, spiritual [forces] had gone along with it, leaving the coarser part behind. From the outside, this spiritual essence acted on the part striving for condensation, radiating light and life into it. The coarser part revolved around this source of light as the old moon. It was the same with the individual centers on the old moon. During the separation, the part that was to become more spiritual and in particular developed the centrifugal force within itself went with the sun, and the part that was to become more dense and developed the centripetal force within itself remained with the old moon and condensed into a watery state. The bodies of the living creatures were on the old moon, while the spiritual that animated them was outside these bodies on the sun, radiating its light from there into these bodies. In the animal kingdom, as it is revealed today in the evolution of the earth, something can be found that corresponds to this effect, only it is adapted to the earth conditions. In the animal, the actual spiritual that animates the animal's physical body cannot be found in the animal itself. There is a spiritual center outside of the animal forms, from which life is radiated into the animals. On today's Earth it is the case that a whole animal species is animated by a common spiritual essence, in such a way that one can think of this spiritual essence as a center and the animal species as a periphery that surrounds this point and receives life from it. Thus the old moon orbited its sun and was animated from this spiritual center. Through the fact that these spiritual powers had separated from the moon and worked in from the outside, as the moon revolved around the sun, movement arose during the development of the moon and this also asserted itself for the individual centers. Spiritual beings in turn formed these in such a way that they became capable of being, in potential, that which man today knows as his astral body. In the human astral body, the sensations and feelings that are stimulated in him by the environment are in constant motion. With these feelings and perceptions, he answers the sound that comes to him from the outside world. During the development of the moon, the spiritual link was also established in him that makes spiritual understanding possible, resonating in spirit with world wisdom, so that the human being feels connected to it. Just as man lets the current of surging sensations flow through his astral body, holds it within himself and sends something in return, so that he can consciously react to it, so the light of world wisdom flows into his spiritual self, and it is possible for him to absorb this light within himself and consciously reflect it back. Through the fact that the old moon had split as a world body, so that there were two world bodies influencing each other, movement came into being and with it conscious feeling. The influences went from one world body to the other. The effects of the sun on the moon were felt as forces coming from outside, and so it was with the moon's effects, which followed the sun. Where the sun's forces met the moon's forces, a conscious experience was evoked. A kind of congestion occurred, and a boundary arose where the incoming force met the force coming to meet it. For every living being on the moon there was a limit to the field in which it could consciously experience something; there the possibility ceased to reveal its powers further outwards, and it met the incoming forces with its own power. The living beings that later became human beings on earth had consciousness during the early development of the moon; they did not yet have self-consciousness, because they were still completely absorbed in their environment. They had no experiences of their own and could only let what was revealed to them from the outside world resonate within them.

When the development of the moon had reached a certain degree of maturity, the spiritual powers that had brought it about withdrew. The powers of the sun and the moon neutralized each other, and the sun and the moon gradually reunited and entered into a state of rest. Then the earth emerged from this planetary night as a new world body. At first the earlier developmental stages were repeated under new conditions. The earth went through a period when, in physical terms, it was a body of heat like the old Saturn was back then. The individual centers gradually formed again under the effect of the centripetal force. Then came a time when the Earth became a ball of gas and the centrifugal force exerted influence, as it did at that time on the old Sun. The centers began to radiate again; that was the solar condition on Earth. After that, there was a repetition of the moon condition on earth. Then the sun separated from the other part of the world body, leaving behind the earth, in which the moon forces had remained. Those forces that strove for spiritualization had gone with the sun. From there they radiated light and life into the world body, which now condensed further. The planets also went with the sun, and only the lunar forces remained connected to the earth. In the individual centers, it was also the case that a part striving for spiritualization had gone with the sun and from there radiated its power, while the coarser part remained on earth. A state then occurred in which what had taken place on the old moon was repeated. The earth and the bodies of the living beings became more and more dense. The centripetal forces were predominant. But then a new phase occurred, which arose from the fact that in this earth development not only the old moon had remained, as it was during the old moon development, but that a new force, the actual earth force, had been added. This earth power worked in such a way that it revealed itself as a connecting power between the sun and moon forces, which it could bring into harmony and balance. When the condensation continued, because only the lunar forces were still connected to the earth, this earth force brought about a kind of balance by separating from the lunar forces. With these forces, the earth left the moon behind and remained so for itself between the two forces of the sun and the moon, the impulses striving for spiritualization and those for condensation. It is influenced by both, carries both within itself, and maintains its own equilibrium through its own power. A similar power can be demonstrated in the I of the present-day human being, for just as the earth is the mediator between the forces of the sun and the moon, so the I in man is the connecting link between the spiritual and the material, through which both can unite in him. The earth is also placed in space in such a way that the moon, with its freezing influence, and the sun, from which the spiritual light flows to it, move around it. As if enclosed in a shell, the earth is surrounded by the moon's forces; the sun's forces come to it from a more distant center, far above this shell. In the same way, the human ego is embedded in its sheaths, but from outside the spiritual light radiates to it from the realms of the cosmos.

In the two forces that interacted during the development of the moon, a third force had become active, which revealed itself by interacting with the other two in a perpendicular direction. This caused a new movement in general, which can be called proper motion. In the evolution of the earth, the physical expression of this can be found in the rotation of the earth around its own axis. On the old moon, the two forces, where they met, created a kind of consciousness through the accumulation. Now, through their meeting with this third force, a double congestion arose and thus the general consciousness was limited and closed off, so that it became dependent on itself. This allows it to deepen into self-awareness, in that it can grasp itself, so that the germ of ego consciousness is laid. The same forces were at work on the bodies of living beings, and each of these bodies then became more dependent on itself. They acquired a movement of their own, like the earth had, and it was precisely through this movement that further solidification occurred. The bodies became more self-contained, so that an inner life of their own became possible within these bodies. The further condensation of the bodies was no longer caused merely by the forces of the moon, as it had been before, but by their own motion, by the forces of the earth itself. These earthly forces were the sum total of all that had gone before in the three earlier stages of development and had transformed itself into the fourth, the actual state of the earth.

Again, it was spiritual entities that made this self-awareness possible for man by working during the evolution of the earth in such a way that they could give him the disposition for self-awareness, so that man could learn to say “I” to himself. Man himself inhabited the physical center (or body) on earth, and under the guidance of the higher beings, it was gradually developed into the physical human body as it appears today. The inner power, which was the predisposition for self-awareness, could only come to fruition in a physical body that was independent and separate from the environment. The physical human body gradually developed in this way; but the predisposition for the ego was already imprinted on the human being earlier. Just as the sphere of heat of the old Saturn condensed to become a ball of gas as the old sun, but then was able to radiate its own spiritual power as light into the universe, and how then in the old moon development further condensation occurred to the watery, on the other hand also the revelation of the more inner forces became possible in the sounding and in the movement, so in the earth development occurred a further condensation up to the earthy state and thereby was possible a further revelation of inner forces, which showed themselves as life, inner own life in the earthy. On ancient Saturn everything was contained in the dark ocean of heat; on the ancient Sun everything radiated in the light; on the ancient Moon everything vibrated with sound; and on the Earth everything lives its own inner life.

When the repetition of the earlier planetary developmental states occurred, the earth was initially in a fiery state; man lived in the element of fire and his physical body also consisted of this element. At that time, man mainly developed his will and through this he was able to influence that element. Even then, the disposition for self-awareness was imprinted on him. Later he walked the earth in the element of air, and his body was also in a gaseous state. And there came a time when he lived in watery vapor, and his body was also suited to this element of water. At that time he mainly developed feelings and was thus able to influence the elements. During this time, the human ego did not yet live in the physical body. It was outside of this body, although it was connected to it. It was only in the period called the post-Atlantean period that the physical body was further condensed into the actual earthly element and it became possible for the human ego to dwell in the physical body. Only then did man actually live on earth. Then he was able to develop thinking and thereby influence the earthly itself.

Thus man has developed into what he is today. He is born of the Godhead, he is woven into the great web of the world, and all the powers work together so that he may be built out of the great cosmos. For his sake the whole solar system was formed, it was transformed into the four phases that we call embodiments of the earth: as old Saturn, old sun, old moon and as the earth itself. Numerous beings had to sacrifice themselves so that he could become. Man sees some of these beings around him embodied in the lower natural kingdoms on earth, others he feels as forces working within him. There had to be beings that, through the three previous embodiments of the earth and on the earth itself, still repeated the Saturn level; there had to be other beings that, during the development of the earth, repeated the sun level, and others that repeated the moon level, so that they could live and work in the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms on earth. Thus there are beings that work within the human being as they did on the old moon, the old sun and the old Saturn. Just as little as man could live and be physically on earth without the three lower natural realms, he can develop as a self-aware being without these retarded forces or beings within him. Man perceives the effect of those beings that remained on the lunar level as inhibiting forces in his astral body, which express themselves in desires and affects that are of a lower nature and that also operate in the animal kingdom. The beings that remained on the solar level operate in his etheric body as inhibiting forces that bind him to habits and acquired ways of thinking. This effect contains something of the plant-like nature. For just as the plant, in its growth, always puts forth new leaves, always repeating the same process until, through the astral body, a change is brought about in the flower, so the habits and adopted ways of thinking, in a continuous repetition, continue to have an effect in man, and something new must also be brought about there through the forces of the astral body, through feelings and sensations. The beings that remained at the Saturn level and work within the human being pour their forces into the physical body as inhibiting forces, causing separation from the environment and a feeling of standing for and on one's own. This causes the person to feel like a personal center and to be stimulated to want, think and feel only for himself, using his environment as an end to this. There is a similarity here with the power that works in the mineral kingdom towards the centre, where the physical mineral is then formed through solidification, for this power also creates a solidification and enclosure in man, by hurling him back on himself. Just as these forces once worked on the old Saturn, the old sun and the old moon, they now work within man and he carries them within him as inhibiting and at the same time promoting forces, as the earth also carries them within itself.

When man in the post-Atlantean era begins to live on earth in his physical body with his sense of self, then from that point on until our time he goes through different cultural periods and in each of these cultural periods he undergoes a certain development. Thus, in the first culture, the ancient Indian culture, the etheric body is particularly worked on, in the second, the ancient Persian culture, the sentient or astral body, in the third, the Egyptian-Chaldean culture, the sentient soul, and in the fourth, the Greek-Latin culture, the intellectual soul of man. During this fourth cultural period, when man had sunk deepest into matter, so that his view of the spiritual world was completely closed, something very special occurred that must be described as the greatest, most important event in the evolution of the earth.

When the sun separated from the earth and the moon, the forces striving for spiritualization went with it and radiated light and life into the earth from there. But something was taken from the earth that was initially connected to it. The evolution of the earth could proceed to a certain point without these forces and precisely because these radiated light and life into it from outside. It was the same with the beings that lived on earth as human beings. They were able to develop their own inner life to a certain degree, but they too had lost a spiritual element when the sun separated. When man had developed to become what he could become as an earthly human being, when he had built up his physical body with the help of the higher beings so that he could become a temple for a divine spiritual being, then God also descended and inhabited this temple. The spiritual powers of the Sun united with the Earth again and through this, mankind was also given the opportunity for further development in the spirit. Numerous divine spiritual beings had sacrificed themselves so that man could come into being and develop; many cosmic powers had been built up in him. Now the time had come when the greatest sacrifice was to be made for humanity, when the highest spiritual being, God Himself, who reflected His spiritual life in the powers of the sun, descended to Earth to live in a human body and let His powers flow into the Earth. Then the powers of the sun were given to Earth and a spiritual imprint was made on everything that lived on Earth. From being a self-conscious earthly human being, the human being could now rise to become a self-aware spiritual being. His mortal ego became an immortal core that lives in the spiritual sunlight.

Something similar happens in the development of the individual and of all humanity as a whole as in the development of the earth. After the physical birth, the human being goes through a birth of his ether body and his astral body, only then is he independent of his environment and can he further develop the I within himself. He then develops his sentient soul, his mind soul, in which the I is particularly expressed, and his consciousness soul, in which the I rises above itself to develop the spirit self. Just at the time when humanity was developing the mind soul, in the Greco-Latin cultural period, that link in which the I can particularly express itself, the I of humanity receives a new spiritual impulse as God descends to earth and lives in the midst of humanity. Only then could humanity rise to the higher spiritual life. Mankind on earth was able to rise above itself, and the human ego was given the opportunity to develop into a divine ego.

Just as the individual human being is first born in relation to his physical body, later in relation to its etheric body and astral body, and only then does the I come into its own in him, so the earth was first born out of the cosmos in relation to the physical as old Saturn, then ethereally as old Sun, then astral as old Moon, and only in the state of the earth could the development of the I take place. Thus it can be thought of: ancient Saturn as an expression of the birth of the cosmic human being, the macrocosm on the physical plane; the evolution of the sun as the period during which the etheric body is formed in the macrocosm; the evolution of the moon as the formation of the astral body; and the earth as the developmental period of the mighty, powerful world-I. In the midst of this development, the cosmic higher I descends from spiritual spheres and connects with the further development of the earth. The spirit of the macrocosm descends into the world I.

In this way, cosmic development is mirrored in man and finds its expression in him. It is only on earth that he is born out of the cosmos as a self-aware being, and it is part of his further development that he learn to understand the spiritual impulse given to him, so that he may relive within himself what the world spirit has exemplified to humanity on earth.

Like a blossom opening on the plant of the human race, a human individuality opened itself to the spiritual sunlight, long before these solar forces had united with the earth again. Thus it knew what a great event in the evolution of the earth was about to take place and how it was to be brought about through a mediator who, having grown out of humanity, would surrender his whole being to the sunlight so that it could take complete hold of him. He was to sacrifice his own nature so that the exalted being of the sun might reveal itself in him on earth. As a seed, that individuality held this knowledge within itself. And when the time had come, a human being grew out of humanity, towards the spirit of the sun, like a living flower. It was able to absorb the spiritual powers of the sun by sacrificing its three bodily veils to the great spirit, so that it could descend and live in a human body on earth. Just as a plant begins to die after fertilization, so this body was dedicated to death when this event took place. And when the blood flowed from the wounds of this body on Golgotha, the seed of that flower sank into the earth as a new impulse for spiritual life, which was to develop further in humanity. Thus this impulse was placed in every human being like a spiritual germ, which continues to unfold within him when the human soul is stimulated to allow a flower to grow out of itself through new sensations and feelings, which can be fertilized by the spiritual sunlight. The same process takes place spiritually in the soul as occurs in the physical plant form when, in a kind of sense of shame, the plant withdraws into itself and begins to wither. In the same way, the human soul, when the light of the spirit has descended upon it, feels a deep sense of shame at its own imperfection, and this feeling causes it to turn inward. Once man has felt this spiritual light in his soul, it shines into his inner being and he learns to see himself as he really is. Then he takes the path he would otherwise have to take when he leaves his physical body at death. He descends into these veils, as a personal human being he begins to die. Man dies as an individual personality and gradually lives into the great cosmic being. Thus he can say: “In Christ I die”. With the new spiritual impulse, the human being first descends into his astral body. There, those beings who work as beings remaining on the lunar level come to meet him. They show themselves in all feelings, impulses and sensations that are of a lower nature. They are one step below the development of the I, in that they belong to the development of the moon. Therefore, they are not imbued with the conscious power of the ego and are of an animalistic nature. Everything that works in the human astral body as subconscious, unbridled feelings and sensations, finds there a world that presents itself to him as an external world. By consciously confronting his own inner world, he acquires the power to overcome these beings, to release them from his inner being and gradually transform them. Deeper still, man descends into his inner being, into the etheric body. There he finds a world that he has formed through his way of thinking in relation to what he has acquired from his environment in terms of traditions and habits. Beings that remained on the stage of the sun are active in the etheric body; they hinder his development in terms of conscious, free and independent thinking. These too will gradually be released and transformed by the spiritual impulse that he has received, to become beings of light and wisdom. If the human being then descends further into his physical body, he finds a whole world of forces at work in his will, as if he were a being left behind on the level of Saturn. They solidify his will in relation to the personal and direct it towards the personal center. He can also redeem these beings through the light of the spirit, which flows into his inner being from a center that lies outside his personality and with which he nevertheless feels intimately connected. Thus, the human being in his bodily sheaths initially experiences himself as the being to which he has developed so far. A new center has emerged for him, from which he can observe himself. He knows that the evolution of the three bodily sheaths into which he has had to descend belongs to earlier evolutionary states of the earth, and that he must therefore find in his soul the power that is to be developed in particular during the evolution of the earth and has been deposited in the soul. It is this power that makes him a self-conscious ego-being, so that he can consciously descend into himself. The plant seed gradually develops into the plant form and matures into an independent being within this form. The human being passes through the gate of death with his body still alive, by making himself independent of his bodily coverings. Then he finds within himself the spiritual germ that was placed in his soul through the Christ impulse. The Christ light shines out from his own being, and just as the ripe seed sinks into the earth after the plant has died, so this spiritual germ falls out of the narrow personality and sinks into the great light of the world. Then the light that has united itself with the earth since the event at Golgotha will shine out of the earth towards man. Then he can say to himself: In Christ I die, but reborn I will come to a fuller existence. And he feels and experiences within himself the meaning of the words: He who will lose his life for my sake shall keep it.

Just as man is born out of the macrocosm as a microcosm, as a self-aware I-being, he in turn goes back the way by gradually living himself back into the macrocosm with his I-consciousness. The spiritual powers have gradually withdrawn from man, after they had brought him all their offerings, so that he may now find his own way to spiritual ascent, so that he may consciously and voluntarily re-enter the spiritual realm.

Man first experiences these spiritual beings by feeling a close connection with the great Earth Mother, from whom he was born as an individual human being, but to whom he belongs and with whom he was much more intimately connected during his earlier stages of development. He experiences these states as the evolution of the old Saturn, the old sun and the old moon. Man descends into his own inner being and experiences the beings there that work in his three sheaths: in his astral body, etheric body and physical body. Then he finds the actual center of his own being, and the light of Christ radiates towards him. Then it also enters those stages of the evolution of the earth in which the three covers, the astral body, the etheric body and the physical body of the earth, were formed and experiences the spiritual beings that are connected with this evolution and pour their powers into it. Then the human soul progresses further and experiences the spiritual power that has sunk into the earth during its evolution as the light of Christ.

The entire cosmic evolution, in which man is interwoven, presents itself as a mighty tableau. It all takes place around him, this entire evolution lives and moves within him. He feels like a focal point where the beings and forces that are active in that evolution meet. The forces flow in and out of him; he himself is the product of those forces. In these effects he finds a firm center, like an inner center around which everything is grouped, and this center is the Christ-being, the center of macrocosmic and microcosmic development. Like a new center, from which everything flows out, to which everything flows, the source of all life, of all development, radiates towards him as the divine spirit, which stands behind all things, which worked before the things were. And just as he feels embedded in earthly evolution as an earthly man, so he recognizes himself as a spiritual being in this divine source of all life. In the soul lives the power of Christ, in the self-conscious spiritual core lives the power of the I. Beyond the veils of the body lives the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of all things, as a higher power of the I, which is the true, imperishable center of all being.

When man recognizes himself as a spiritual being in this All-Spirit, he can feel the meaning of the words from the Rosicrucian saying: “In the Holy Spirit I shall be reborn,” for as a new being he stands face to face with his earlier self, a being that must first acquire the qualities and abilities it needs in this spiritual life, just as a child must learn to use its bodily organs in the physical world. And again, this spiritual being must experience within itself the three spiritual powers that reveal themselves in the cosmic evolution as feeling, thinking, and willing, as love, wisdom, and power. Just as the child first learns to stand and then to walk, so must man learn to find direction and path in the spiritual world. This can only be acquired through feeling, by lovingly confronting everything. Then he must learn to recognize the truth by learning to understand the world wisdom that resounds in him, by allowing the sounds from the spiritual world to resound within him and intuiting their meaning, just as a child learns to understand language. Then he gradually learns to recognize true life in the spirit by experiencing within himself a center from which his own impulses of will and life emanate, so that he can reveal himself in speech and in his being. Therefore, Christ Jesus speaks the words: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” No one can penetrate to the true spiritual source of all being, to the Father, if he has not developed these three powers in his spirit and combines them in the right way.

The development of man is represented in the symbol that belongs to the deeply significant Rosicrucian motto, in the black cross with the red roses. Man feels this symbol as something living, in which live and weave the spiritual forces that have built it up just as he is born out of the Godhead. But then he knows that further development of his soul is possible through the exertion of his own powers. He knows that not only must his blood become pure like the red sap of the roses, but that the black cross must also be transformed by purifying his nature of the veil and growing beyond the merely personal when he surrenders himself to something infinitely greater. Then he dies in Christ, and before his soul the dark, black cross is transformed into a luminous, radiant cross. The red roses expand into an infinite circle as the soul becomes more and more at home in the macrocosm until it perceives itself as this circle. In the all-embracing macrocosm, the human being then experiences himself in a new existence.

Then, in a mysterious way, the colors of the symbolum change, the roses turn green, the cross turns white. The soul can only sense the full significance by feeling the power that streams towards it. As if from higher spiritual spheres, the soul beholds and recognizes this holy symbol. It appears strict and powerful, as an invitation to constant work, so that the great ideal may one day be attained, which every single person can realize when they are reborn in the Holy Spirit.

Address by Rudolf Steiner at the General Assembly of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, Berlin, December 15, 1911 (morning)

Foreword by Marie Steiner to the private reproduction published by her in 1947 and entitled “A Future Impulse Given by Rudolf Steiner and What Came of It Initially”:

In view of the gravity of the times and the little that remains of our lives, it seems an urgent duty to salvage what can still be saved from Dr. Steiner's impulses and words. This includes some of the things he only spoke about in intimate circles in serious conversation at certain turning points in events about the further tasks and work goals of the movement he inaugurated. Transcripts are available, but not complete and comprehensive. Even if they contain gaps and perhaps some finer nuances are not captured in them, one can still well feel how varied the language is, corresponding to the assigned task, in each case vividly contoured and firm, or dissolving, letting a light shine through the language, which still has to be half-veiled because words are not enough. It covers it like a soft shroud, but through which the impulses can work that point to the future. He repeatedly placed in our souls the guiding forces for later action, seeds of the future that could unfold after surviving the sleep of the soul; all too often they were buried by the hustle and bustle of everyday life or swept away by the whirlwind of events. Among the souls that had been blessed with such seeds of the future, there were certainly some from which they would one day arise to new life and struggle; but there were also some that would be like the stony ground of the gospel parable, offering no nourishment to them at first. Not only nature, but also souls are subject to organic laws. Some of the spiritual influences that fall on them harden or corrupt them, while others prove to be full of germinating power and transform themselves into new forms of existence. The passage through death and the submergence into chaos, with its whirling, churning forces, guarantees the later resurrection of the spiritual impact through metamorphoses to higher levels of existence. In microcosm as in macrocosm, in earthly as in planetary existence, the law of transformation to new forms of existence prevails. By following this path and, depending on race and nationality, picturing and explaining it, religions have always climbed higher levels of knowledge, spanning the globe and, in keeping with the times, shining a light into the hidden depths. When a certain high point of this development had been reached and at the same time the danger of philosophical abstraction had arisen, when the old images and signs were no longer sufficient to capture the newly pulsating life, the Christian impact occurred, bringing the great turning point. But when it emerged from the darkness of the catacombs into the outer world, the danger of its consolidation into dogmas also began, and the driving living forces sought new paths. They found them in the secret societies that did not want to bow to the authority of the princes of the church and the decisions of the councils; now they were persecuted as heretics themselves. Their content, veiled from the outside world, was expressed in signs and symbols. They gave art a new slant, which first appeared in Gothic architecture; organic growth of the plant - to which stones were added. The new life also flowed into the names; these contained what the soul was to absorb as guiding forces in order to develop healthily before it achieved independence. But the education of humanity to independence, into which the newly awakened ego power had to pour, first demanded the passage through abstract intellectualism, which separated the souls from their spiritual source for a time, so that, passing through the cold of isolation, grasping the higher ego, they would be able to find themselves in the spirit. Knowledge of nature, divorced from spirit, no longer gives the soul the power to rise up. In order for this to be experienced and recognized, spirits had to break worlds. We now stand in the midst of shattered worlds; a new search for the solution to the riddle of fate has begun. Rudolf Steiner's life's work can provide answers to this searching and questioning. He mastered the scope of today's exact science; he can also reveal to us the spirit that is hidden behind it and was once shrouded in the old names. Through him we are able to divine the impelling forces that lie behind the names. Lifelines had been handed to us for the inevitably approaching shipwreck, but we were not mature enough to grasp and use them. The souls were not awake enough, were still caught up in the old ideas. The attempts made in social terms met with the strongest resistance from the outside world. We can be seized by a tremendous pain when we see how little we were able to make the teaching fruitful and be suitable instruments for the fire spirit of the helper sent in times of need. Standing on the ruins of shattered worlds, we must now try to bring the preserved and insufficiently fiery word to consciousness through the remaining traces of writing; by individual work, raising it to the human ego. Rudolf Steiner tried to lead us to freedom not only through the paths of philosophy and science, but also through education within the esoteric life, which would gradually transform the old relationship of dependency on the teacher into the impulse of freedom and responsibility before the spirit. Souls that feel anchored in the spirit must be tested. Such a self-sought test always precipitates karma; what would still prefer to remain hidden from itself must also come to light. Such tests often caused the failure of experiments by spiritual powers, brought about for profound cosmic reasons, which aimed to raise human development to a higher level. This was the case with the French Revolution, and also before the world wars of our century.

Rudolf Steiner first spoke of such future tasks to a very small circle of his students and tried to direct their souls to the significance of those distant tasks that must arise from human will freed from selfishness. He repeated these words before a larger circle at the General Assembly on December 15, 1911. This did not take place during the proceedings of the General Assembly itself; he declared that it was happening outside of its program. He began this address in a particularly solemn and impressive manner. This is perhaps the reason why the first part of the address is only noted down and not reproduced in his words. He emphasized that the content of this lecture was completely independent of everything that had been given before. It was, so to speak, a direct communication from the spiritual world. It is like a call that is brought to humanity, and then they wait to see what echo comes back to them. As a rule, such a call is made three times. If the call goes unheard the third time, it is taken back to the spiritual world for a long time. This call has already been made to humanity once, but unfortunately it found no echo. This is the second time. These are purely spiritual matters. With each unsuccessful time, the conditions and circumstances become more difficult. Continuing with what is preserved as a set of keywords in the postscript, he said:

My dear friends!

It is my duty at this moment to carry an intention from the inner circle of those who already know about it out into your wider circle. And before that happens, let me say a few words in advance. It should be emphasized, however, that what is said now has no connection with what has preceded in this General Assembly, or what otherwise somehow relates to the previous negotiations - which does not preclude, if there is a tendency to do so, to take it into account in later negotiations.

If we look around the world today, we will have to say: The present world is actually full of ideals. And if we ask ourselves, “Is the representation of these ideals on the part of those who believe in them and place themselves at the service of these ideals sincere and honest?” we will have to answer “Yes, that is the case!” in very many cases. It is the case precisely with that faith and devotion of which individuals are capable. If we now ask: “How much is usually demanded when such a representation of ideals is brought into being by someone or something, be it an individual or a society?” then, based on our observations of life, we will have to answer: “In most cases, everything is demanded, so to speak; but above all, it is demanded that the ideal that has been set up receive absolute, unconditional recognition.” And it is almost always the case that the very basis for the creation of such an ideal is the demand for the most absolute assent. And usually the failure of such assent is expressed in some disparaging criticism of the non-assenter.

These words are intended to characterize how the principle of the integration of people has emerged in a completely natural way in the course of human development, and no doubt is to be cast on the justification of such a principle at this moment. But here an opportunity is to be presented to you to add something to all that has been striven for in the world within the framework of the organization of people, societies, associations and so on, something that actually cannot be expressed in words, since what can be said can never be decisive for the correctness of such a thing. According to what a person is able to think, he can, at the moment when he expresses what he has thought, be forced by the very act of expression to fall into contradiction with reality. At this very moment, many things must be said that do not agree with much of what is valid in the world. So it must be said: It is possible that the confession of a thing can no longer be true when this confession is uttered. I would like to give a simple example from which you can see that there may be a danger of simply becoming untrue by uttering a thing. And I would like the simple, straightforward example I give to be understood in accordance with the Rosicrucian principles since the 13th century.

Let us assume that someone expresses their state of the immediate present by saying, “I am silent.” This is something that absolutely cannot be true, that they are not speaking the truth. But then, my dear friends, I ask you to realize that there is the possibility of negating this thing itself by literally confessing it. For from what is expressed here by the simple example of “I am silent”, you can conclude that it is applicable to countless things in the world and can happen again and again.

But what follows from such a fact? It follows that when people want to join together in any way to represent this or that, they are in an extraordinarily difficult position, that people cannot join together with the most precious thing they have, except when the reasons why they join together are such that they do not belong to the world of the senses but to the supersensible world. And when we understand what we have been able to assimilate over time from all that has been brought forth from modern occultism, we will realize that it is an absolute necessity for the near future to advocate certain things of this occultism, to carry them before the world. Therefore, in contrast to all the principles of societies and all the organizations that have been possible up to now, an attempt must be made with something completely new, with something that is born entirely out of the spirit of the occultism that is so often spoken of in our circle. But this can only be done by turning our attention for a change to something positive, something that already exists in the world as a reality and can be cultivated as such. But in our sense, realities are only those things that primarily belong to the supersensible world. For the whole sensual world presents itself to us as an image of the supersensible world. Therefore, an attempt will be made that is such as it must be made from the supersensible world: the attempt not to found a community of people, but to endow it.

I have emphasized the difference between founding and establishing on another occasion; it was many years ago. It was not understood at the time and since then hardly anyone has thought about this difference. Therefore, those spiritual powers that are represented by the symbol of the Rose Cross have so far ignored the fact that this difference has been carried out into the world.

But recently, and this time in an energetic way, an attempt must be made to see if it is possible to achieve success even with a community that is not founded but established. If this success is not achieved, well, then it has failed again for a while. Therefore, it shall be proclaimed to you at this moment that among those people who will find each other in the appropriate way, a way of working is to be founded that, through the manner of the foundation, has as its direct starting point the individuality that we have been designating as Christian Rosenkreutz since ancient times in the West. What can be said about this foundation today remains preliminary. For what has been founded so far relates only to one part of this foundation, which is to enter the world in a comprehensive sense when the opportunities arise. What has been founded so far relates to one department, to one branch of this foundation, namely to the artistic representation of Rosicrucian occultism.

The first point I have to communicate to you is that under the direct patronage of that individuality, whom we refer to by the name he gave to the outer world during his two incarnations, that under the patronage of this individuality, a working method is to be brought into being as a foundation. This method will initially be characterized by the fact that for some time, for the time being, it will bear the provisional name: “Society for Theosophical Art and Art”. This name is not the final one; a definitive name will take its place when the first preparations for launching this foundation into the world can be made in an appropriate manner. However, that which is to comprise the “theosophical art” is still completely in its infancy, because it is only now that the preparations for it are being made that could lead to an understanding of what is meant by it. But what can be grasped by the concept of the theosophical art has already begun in many ways through our attempts at the performances in Munich, and above all has made a significant start through the attempt at our site in Stuttgart and a further significant start in relation to the understanding of such a thing precisely through the establishment of the Johannes-Bauverein. All this is something that has been started. In this respect there is something that, having been tried out to a certain extent, may be sanctioned.

It is a matter of awakening a purely spiritual task within the working group, a task that will be exhausted in a spiritual way of working and in what results from such a spiritual way of working. And it is a matter of no one being able to become a member of this working group from any other point of view than solely through the fact that he has any will to use his powers for the positive side of the matter. You may say: I am speaking in many words that may not be fully understood. That must be the case with something like what it is about here, because the matter must be grasped in its direct life.

Now, what has already been achieved within this foundation is actually the fact that, according to purely occult principles, an initially very small, tiny circle has been created, which should see its obligation as being to contribute to what this is all about. This tiny group is initially designed to make a start on this foundation, in order to, in a sense, separate what our spiritual movement is from myself and give it its own, self-established existence, a self-established existence!

So that initially this small group comes before you with the sanction that it has received its task as such, by virtue of its own recognition of our spiritual current, and that it sees in a certain sense the principle of the sovereignty of spiritual striving, the principle of federalism and the independence of all spiritual striving as an absolute necessity for the spiritual future, and to carry it into humanity in the way he considers appropriate. Therefore, within the foundation itself, I will only be considered the interpreter, first of all, of the principles that, as such, only exist in the spiritual world, and of what is to be said in this way about the intentions that underlie the matter.

In contrast, a curator is initially appointed for the external care of this foundation. And since the offices that will be created first are associated with nothing more than duties, no honors, no dignities, it is impossible that any rivalries or other misunderstandings can arise immediately with the correct understanding of the matter. It will therefore be a matter of the foundation itself initially recognizing Fräulein von Sivers as curator. This recognition is no

different from that which is interpreted from within the foundation itself; there are no appointments, only interpretations: Fräulein von Sivers is interpreted as curator of the foundation. And it will be her task in the near future to do whatever can be done in the spirit of this foundation to recruit a corresponding circle of members for it - not in an external sense, but only in such a way that she will attract to herself those who have the sincere will to participate in this way of working.

In a broader sense, a number of side branches will be created within this one branch of our foundation. And individual personalities who have proven themselves within our spiritual movement will be appointed as leading personalities of these side branches, insofar as they already exist. This too is an interpretation for the time being, in the sense that the office of leadership of such an individual side branch is transferred to a personality. It is interpreted that there will be an archdeacon for each of these individual sub-branches. We will have a sub-branch for general art. It has been publicly announced that Fräulein von Eckardtstein has been appointed archdeacon for general art in a small circle – and this was done in express recognition of what this personality has done for this general theosophical art over the last few years. Furthermore, it was provisionally announced that the curator Fräulein von Sivers would be archdeacon for literature. It was also announced that our friend Dr. Felix Peipers would be archdeacon for architectural art; our friend Mr. Adolf Arenson would be archdeacon for musical art; and our friend Mr. Hermann Linde would be archdeacon for painting.

The work in question is essentially inward-looking, and for the first time what is to be presented to the world is work done in absolute freedom, particularly by these individual personalities. It will be necessary for those who belong to this way of working to come together in a certain way; this coming together will have to take place in a very different way than has been the case so far with any kind of organization. And we will need a supervisor of this union. To supervise this union, the position of conservator is created, which is initially given to Miss Sophie Stinde. The way in which the union is to take place will be linked to this union itself. All this still requires work in the near future; it will still have to be done. But in order for the type of union, in other words the principle of the organization, to take place, to be able to enter the world, we necessarily have a seal curator. Miss Sprengel has been appointed as the seal curator, while Dr. Carl Unger will be the secretary.

This is, for the time being, the small, tiny circle involved. Do not regard it as something that immodestly wants to step into the world and say, “There I am,” but regard it as something that wants to be nothing more than a germ around which the matter itself can organize itself. It will initially organize itself in such a way that by the coming Epiphany a number of members of this community will have been identified; that is, by then a number of members will have received the message that they are initially being asked to get their connection ready. So that for the very beginning the greatest possible freedom in this respect is to be secured by the fact that the will to become a member can come from no one other than the person concerned who wants to become a member. And the fact that he is a member is brought about by the fact that he is first recognized as such a member. This only applies to the very near future, only for the time until the next Epiphany, January 6, 1912.

So in this matter we have something before us that, through its very nature, betrays itself as something that flows out of the spiritual world. It will continue to present itself as flowing out of the spiritual world in that membership will always be based solely on the representation and recognition of spiritual interests and on the exclusion of everything, absolutely everything personal.

There is a deviation here from older occult principles, which is made in this proclamation, and this deviation consists precisely in the fact of this proclamation. Therefore, no use will be made of that claim, which might exist with a person if he were to say, by referring this to the present: “I am silent.” The matter is indeed proclaimed; and in full awareness that it is proclaimed, this should happen. But the moment someone shows that they do not understand today's proclamation in any way, it goes without saying that it cannot be suggested to them in any way to belong to such a way of working - I am not saying to a society or the like. Because there can be nothing other than the absolutely free will to belong to such a circle, to such a way of working. But you will see that if such a thing should come about - if, that is, our time, with its peculiarities, should allow such a thing to come about - then work can really be done in the sense of recognizing the spiritual principle; the principle that not only all nature and all history, but also all human activity entering the world, is based on the spiritual, supersensible world. And you will see that it will be impossible for any decent person to belong to such a community if he does not agree with this community as such. If you think that what has been said is rather strange, then please accept it as having been said with full

is that everything that belongs to the laws, to the eternal laws of existence, is observed. And it is also part of the eternal laws of existence that the principles of becoming are taken into account. My dear friends, you can sin against the spirit of what is supposed to happen here if you now go out into the

go out into the outside world and say, “This or that has been established.” Not only has nothing been established at all, but the fact is that it will not be possible to give a definition of what is to be done at any given hour, because everything is supposed to be in a state of continuous becoming. And what is actually to happen as a result of what has been said today cannot be described now, no definition or description can be given now, and anything that would be said about it would be untrue at this moment. For what is to happen is based not on words, but on people, and not even on people, but on what these people will do. It will be in a living river, a living becoming. And so today, too, nothing more is established as a principle than the one principle that consists of: recognition of the spiritual world as the fundamental reality.

All further principles are to be created in the process of development. Just as a tree in the next moment is no longer what it was before, but has begun to grow anew, so this matter is to be like a living tree. Never should that which this matter is to become be in any way compromised by that which it is. If someone were to define what has been designated as a beginning, as this or that reason, this or that thing out there in the world, then he would immediately succumb to the same untruth that lies in the expression “I am silent” when it refers to the state in which he is and uses the words “I am silent”. So anyone who uses these or those words in any way to characterize the matter is saying something that is not right in all circumstances. So first of all it is only important - because everything will be in the process of becoming - that the personalities who want something like this come together. It is only important that those personalities who want something like this come together. Then the matter will continue! From all that has been said, you can see that the matter will then continue. It will differ in its deepest principle from that of the Theosophical Society. For not a single one of the characteristics that have been expressed today can apply to the Theosophical Society.

I had to speak about this matter for the simple reason that those things which are organically connected with this foundation have already come before the public of our Theosophical Society, and because through this foundation – in the sense of intentions which truly do not lie in the physical world and which truly have nothing to do with Ahriman - an ideal-spiritual counterweight must be created against everything that is connected with a foundation in the outer world. Only in this respect can a relationship be seen with what is already there, so that this branch of our foundation, the branch for theosophical art, should achieve something that is a counterweight to what is linked to Ahriman on the physical plane.

It is hoped that an excellent example will be set by the existence of this branch of our foundation - and the other branch will serve in a corresponding way - because what is to figure as art within the theosophical movement, if we use that expression today, must actually flow into our culture from spiritual worlds. It must be the case that spiritual life is the basis of everything we do. It will be impossible to confuse this spiritual movement with any movements that come from the outside world and also call themselves a “theosophical movement” and want to participate. It is essential that the spiritual is the basis of everything we do. This was indeed attempted at the festival in Munich, in the building of the Lodge in Stuttgart – within the limits of what is possible under present conditions – but everywhere it was attempted in such a way that the spiritual moment was the determining factor. That is the conditio sine qua non, the condition without which nothing should happen (gap in the transcripts).

Those who have already gained some insight into what is at stake will understand me in this regard. These words are said less because of the content than because of the guidelines that were to be given.

Postscript by Marie Steiner to the reproduction she edited:

When no further nominations were announced after the end of the year and the next Epiphany, a member of the audience asked Rudolf Steiner when this would happen. He replied: “The fact that this has not happened would also be an answer.

The year 1912/13 was overburdened by the disputes with Annie Besant, her proclamation of the new Messiah and her “Star of the East” now also active in Germany.

The followers of the Western spiritual movement inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner demanded that the president make a precise statement in the disputes that were taking place, in accordance with the agreements reached in Munich and Budapest, instead of her evasion, her hiding and acting behind her back. This demand was taken up by the “Bund”, which was founded around 1912 with members from many countries, and in 1913 the Anthroposophical Society was founded after the expulsion of the German section by the president of the Theosophical Society.

Meanwhile, the nomination of the intimate circle had led to further work in some areas: in the Johannesbau Association, in the completion of the Stuttgart Society House, and in the so-called Art and People's Rooms in Munich and Berlin, an initiative started by Miss Sophie Stinde. The most outstanding spiritual publication was the Soul Calendar, the result of a collaboration between Dr. Steiner and Fräulein von Eckardtstein; the wonderfully transparent nuances of the language here really do allow spirit and soul to flow into each other and become one with nature. Many other things sought a quiet unfolding into the future. But the world war came, and with it the associated upheavals, which deeply affected the external circumstances of life and the mutual relationships of the members belonging to the most diverse nations in Dornach.

They tried to overcome the surging of the blood as best they could, but every now and then there were shocks and derailments.

The most exciting crisis for Dornach was that of the summer of 1915. Dr. Gösch, a typical pathologist and representative of psychoanalysis, came to the fore. He persuaded himself that the Seal-keeper had opened his eyes to promises that Dr. Steiner made and did not keep. He set this out in a brochure using psychoanalytical methods. At the same time, he wrote a letter to Dr. Steiner in which he developed his theories on the basis of the “revelations” made to him by the Keeper of the Seal. The Keeper of the Seal could not have understood the task assigned to her by this name other than in a very personal sense. She felt that she was the inspirer of the spiritual teaching given by Dr. Steiner to humanity. Since she had also played the role of Theodora in Rudolf Steiner's mystery dramas in Munich, she drew from this the conclusion that the marriage vows given to her were symbolically given and that she had been waiting for their fulfillment for “seven years”. Her many accusatory letters, revolving around this point, gave Dr. Gösch the opportunity to compile a psychoanalytical treatise in the Freudian sense to elucidate her case. He himself had been given Freudian treatment for a long time due to his morbid nervous condition, which had deeply infected his being. His open letter of accusation has now given rise to numerous, strictly and precisely conducted negotiations within the Society, through which the membership should gain clarity about this case. Transcripts of these are available and also provided the basis for the book published as a special edition of the journal “Anthroposophie” in Stuttgart: “Anthroposophie und Psychoanalyse”.

We shall mention here only what relates to the case of Sprengel – alias Proserpina – alias Theodora – alias Siegelbewahrer (Keeper of the Seals), and which in her case took on such a mystically personal form as megalomania. Of course, even before the war she had already shown symptoms of self-arrogance. This unfortunate megalomania put paid to the possibility of further nominations to the circle of eight personalities. One stone had been lost through egoistic arrogance and a descent into mysticism.

The Keeper of the Seal broke the seal in the most ordinary human sense. The necessity of involving women as active collaborators in the cultural tasks of the future is undeniable and will have to be achieved despite the failure of these efforts in individual cases. This is what happened to us with the Keeper of the Seal.

Dr. Steiner expressed himself about this case in a speech during the so-called crisis of 1915 in the following way:

The circle of nominees, as an inner esoteric matter, was shattered; outside the world war raged; in Dornach, despite the external circumstances, the practical work continued no less intensively. With the conscription of so many artists and helpers, the burden of the work fell heavily on the women. Only a few men had been able to stay behind, including Hermann Linde. But the women stood their ground. From early morning, the hammering and chiseling could be heard in the construction of the precious wood, which grew out of the concrete substructure, up to the vaulting domes. The organically moving forms grew out of the outer and inner walls, warmed and undulated by the human hand that furrowed them. In the interior, the columns rose with their bases and capitals, their architraves, at the end of which the two domes joined together, thus separating and connecting the symbolism of the soul's experience from that of the cosmos at the same time.

The painters and their helpers were grouped around Hermann Linde. Dr. Steiner had designed the motifs for the painting of the domes, and we have these images in the reproductions by Alinari. With diligence and zeal, new grounding possibilities were tried out, through which the effect of the plant colors could unfold into radiant luminosity; a group of helpers eagerly ground the plants from which the new colors for the dome painting were to be created. The programs designed for the weekly eurythmy performances provided an opportunity to develop personal imagination and to train in the templates designed by Dr. Steiner for this purpose.

In Germany, the field of work assigned to the circle-bursting seal keeper had very soon found a more than adequate replacement in the person of Miss Bertha Meyer. During the months we spent in Germany during the war, she was often able to come from Bremen to Berlin to perfect her knowledge of the art of jewelry, in which she had a technical command, through the advice of Dr. Steiner. The extensive gem collection of a member who had returned from the Orient provided a happy opportunity for new inspiration. Stones were selected from it whose luminosity and inner substance were to be particularly emphasized by a setting corresponding to their nature and material. It was a strange experience to let your hand glide through their abundance and to feel the penetration of their powers into your own etheric body through the cool trickling of the stones. This grasp into the coolness of the stone kingdom and the almost exciting glow of the metal melting in the fire, especially of gold, brought the elementary nature of the forces of nature forcefully to consciousness.

The seals sketched by Dr. Steiner for the mystery plays provided the basis for the spiritual study of this predestined keeper of the seals, who left us so many exemplary works of art. Death snatched her from us at the moment when a place for her work, a 'Kleinodienschule', could have been established in Dornach. The formative forces of eurythmy, which is carried and moved by the etheric impulses, and of the musical art that seeks new paths in connection with it, also tested themselves through these seals. They now wanted to go beyond the inner experience of major and minor, beyond the fifth, to catch a glimpse of the original forces in the tone to which they owe their existence, thus feeling their way towards the lost word.

The new architectural style created by Dr. Steiner, which had absorbed the movement of the plant kingdom and did not close itself off from the outside world but opened itself wide to it, had to remain true to this principle in the treatment of his glass windows as well. A flood of colors had to stream into the room; their basic tone, differentiated according to the rainbow but each kept uniform, brought the floating and weaving of the intersecting light colors into the room. The delicacy of the nuances was intensified by the different densities of the glass that resulted from the grinding and etching of the motifs into the glass material; their spiritual content related to the path of initiation of the human being into the future. While the motifs of the large and small dome traced the macrocosmic and microcosmic path of human development to its self-fulfillment.

The art of black and white in a newly defined line by Dr. Steiner developed alongside that of penetrating into the world of creative colors. And all these artistic possibilities, arising from the most diverse elements, came to life in the art of the spoken word, of speech formation, which allowed the original forces of the lost “word” to be sensed and grasped to a certain extent. Through the little that has been achieved in this way, through rigorous work, something of what Dr. Steiner had described as the task of the spiritual movement he had inaugurated could be realized: to allow the forgotten spiritual current surrounding Goethe and Schiller to flow again into culture in a new and living way.

We have lived in the abundance of the impulses we have received. He himself was snatched from us by death in 1925. With death, he had to pay for the immeasurable wealth of his gifts. We have been invigorated and sustained by his inspiring spiritual power. Through suffering and trial, through stupefaction and moral obscurity, we must now seek the paths to inner freedom and independence, for which he wanted to awaken an understanding in us. May we be granted to find it.