The Rudolf Steiner Archive

During the first half of the 15th century, Christian Rosenkreuz went to the Orient to find a balance between the initiation of the East and that of the West. One consequence of this was the definitive establishment of the Rosicrucian Order in the West after his return. In this form, Rosicrucianism was to be the top secret school for the preparation of what esotericism would have to take on publicly as a task at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when external natural science would have come to a preliminary solution to certain problems.

As these problems, Christian Rosenkreuz described

1) The discovery of spectral analysis, which revealed the material constitution of the cosmos.

2) The introduction of material evolution into the science of the organic.

3) The realization of the fact of a state of consciousness other than the ordinary one through the recognition of hypnotism and suggestion.

Only when these material insights have matured within science should certain Rosicrucian principles be passed on from the field of secret science to the public.

For the time being, the Christian-mystical initiation was given to the West in the form in which it was given by the Initiator to the “Unknown from the Highlands” in St. Victor, Master Eckhart, Tauler, etc.

The initiation of Manes, who in 1459 initiated Christian Rosenkreuz, is regarded as a “higher degree” within this whole current: it consists in the true knowledge of the function of evil. This initiation and its background must remain hidden from the masses for a long time to come. For wherever even the slightest ray of light from it has found its way into literature, it has caused disaster, as with the noble Guyau, whose disciple Friedrich Nietzsche became.

Notes from the lecture

Yesterday, two methods of initiation were mentioned: the mystical path and the path of ecstasy. However, both were appropriate for the state of development in ancient times. Today, the inner states in man are different and a new kind of initiation is necessary. The Rosicrucian initiation, rightly understood, is the one that fully corresponds to today's conditions. In order to get an approximately correct idea of what takes place in the human soul in this process, it is better to first become acquainted with the processes that are associated with the states of waking and sleeping, of life and death. We will therefore go into these states in more detail in our discussion today.

People usually do not understand the change between waking and sleeping deeply enough. It is such an everyday occurrence that it hardly deserves attention. As a result, the mystery that these processes hold is completely lost on them. When asked what happens to a person when they fall asleep, one would receive the answer: Consciousness extinguishes, the tired brain falls into a state of stupor and no longer absorbs sensory impressions from the outside world. This is correct insofar as it refers to what can be perceived with the physical eye. However, if we ask the clairvoyant what he perceives, he will tell us that something very significant is taking place. He sees how the inner, astral man rises out of the resting physical body and pours into the astral world body, the macrocosm. And in the morning, upon awakening, he sees how that which has flowed into the universe contracts again and is absorbed by the physical body, the microcosm. He beholds the changing life that man leads in the world at large and in the world of small things.

What, then, is the significance of sleep for man? What happens to him? Why does he leave his body? And how can the latter live without him? - The real, inner man, whose material expression and tool is the outer, physical body, notices when he falls asleep, how the whole outside world fades from his perception, how he gradually becomes insensitive to all the sense impressions he has received during the day, and how all mental sensations, joy and pain, completely fade. We must realize that the inner man, who perceives by means of the physical senses, is at the same time the bearer of pleasure and pain, of hate and love, and not the physical body. We might now object: If that is the case, how is it that this inner man, when leaving the body, does not retain the sensations of pain or joy in the astral world? The reason for this is that it must be in the physical body to perceive the facts of its inner life, which, like a mirror, reflects its emotions and brings them to consciousness. When the mirror is left, the image of the impressions fades and the person does not become aware of them again until he has retreated back into the body. There is thus a constant interaction between the inner and outer man.

It is interesting to compare what exact science has to say on this point; it is quite similar. When we fall asleep, we notice how the expenditure of energy during the day results in the fatigue of the whole organism, how the limbs gradually fail to move, how voice, smell, taste and sight cease, and finally hearing, the most spiritual of the senses. When we wake up, we feel that new strength and freshness has been given to all our limbs and senses. But whence come these forces that during the day reflect the inner man to the outer? We draw them at night from our spiritual home, the Macrocosm, and bring them in the morning into the physical world, in which we could not exist without this nightly immersion in the inner life of the world. Sleep is necessary because without it disturbances of the soul life would occur. It is sleep that gives us spiritual strength.

We have seen what we gain in the spiritual realm for the physical, and can now ask the second question: What do we bring over from the state of waking to that of sleeping in the evening? The answer to this is given to us by human life between birth and death. We see how it experiences an increase through the ever-growing sum of external experiences that have to be processed individually. Each of us assimilates individually. Take, for example, a historical event: each person judges it according to the maturity of his soul. Some remain uninfluenced and know no lessons to be learned from it, while another lets it fully affect him and becomes wise. In such a person, the experience has been transformed into spiritual forces.

This process can be illustrated even more clearly by the following example. Let us think of a child learning to write. How many unsuccessful attempts did he have to make before he managed to write his first characters, how much paper and how many pens did he have to use, how many punishments did he have to endure for blots and bad handwriting: and this for years until he was finally able to write well. Everything this child has gone through has, so to speak, been concentrated in him in the ability to write.

In this way, experiences are woven into soul forces, which we take with us into the astral world every evening. Sleep now adds something else and brings about the transformation of these forces. Most of us know from our own experience that a poem learned by heart emerges more firmly after sleep. This truth has almost become a common saying: Bisogna dormirci sopra. - From what has been said, it is clear that we transfer the experiences we have processed during the day into our spiritual home and from there, transformed into spiritual forces, we bring them back into the physical world in the morning. We now understand more clearly the purpose and necessity of the transition between the two planes of existence and the importance of sleep, without which life here would not be possible.

However, there is a limit to this transformation of forces, and every morning when we return to our physical body, we become more and more aware of it. It is the limit that our physical body sets to the abilities we have acquired. We can transform some things into the physical plane, but not everything. Take, for example, a person who has absorbed real knowledge of the external and hidden world for ten years. With what he has acquired externally and scientifically, he has only enriched his intellect and mind, but the secret experiences, the insights that have come to him from joy and suffering, are expressed in his physicality and have changed his physiognomy and gestures.

The following example explains the limit that the body sets to the assimilation of abilities: someone may have been born with an unmusical ear. - To be a performing musician, a fine structure of this organ is necessary, so fine that it escapes scientific observation. If such a person studies a lot in the field of music, what he absorbs during the day is transformed into spiritual musical power at night, but cannot be expressed when it enters the imperfect physical organ. This example shows one of the cases in which the inability to transform the physical organ poses an insurmountable barrier to the utilization of spiritual powers. In such cases man must resign himself and quietly suffer the disharmony between his body and the fettered powers. He who is able to look more deeply knows that everyone has many experiences that would completely transform him if he could incorporate them into the physical man. All these abilities that cannot manifest themselves, all this longing that rebounds from the inflexible body, now accumulates in the course of life and forms a whole that is clearly visible to the clairvoyant gaze.

The seer sees three things: the abilities that a person has brought with them at birth, then the new abilities that they have acquired and incorporated during their life, and finally the sum of those forces that have not been able to penetrate the physical body and are waiting to unfold. These latter forces form something like an opposition to the external physical body and act as a counterforce to it. This is the most important power, and it is not in harmony with our life in the physical body. It gradually dissolves it and causes the body to waste away. It seeks to cast it off like a cumbersome fetter; it seeks to discard it like an instrument that is no longer suitable for fulfilling the growing demands made upon it. It is the cause of our body withering like a flower that loses leaf after leaf and in which nothing remains alive but a new seed. In man, the clairvoyant sees something similar: it is as if, towards the second half of life, everything acquired in the human inner being contracts, unable to unfold, like a seed that holds a small germ for the next spring. Thus the clairvoyant sees a germinating seed in every dying person. In each of us, hidden deep within, the seed of a new life is forming.

With all the power of our feelings, we then have to grasp the meaning of death. With what other feelings will we then approach the deathbed of a loved one? This does not mean that we should suppress our grief at the separation, for the soul would wither away if it no longer felt pain. But we should look at life from the higher point of view that spiritual science presents to us and say to ourselves: Death appears sorrowful and cruel when viewed from below, from our earthly world, but it presents itself quite differently when viewed spiritually from above. In the long years of arduous earthly life, the soul has gained a wealth of abilities that it could not utilize if it had remained bound to the same body. Death makes it possible for it to ascend to a higher level. Just as man, in the short night's sleep, makes the spiritual gain of the day his own, so death enables him to develop and transform the entire gain of the life's work in the spiritual world. However, there is an enormous difference between sleep and death. During sleep, while the body is still alive, the normal person is unconscious because of the body's spell. In death, however, the person awakens because the body is freed from the spell.

In full consciousness, he reaps the fruits of his past life and works out on the spiritual plane what he could not utilize on the physical. And so he then lives into a new incarnation, for which he seeks a suitable body that will enable him to bring his acquired abilities to bear. For example: A person who has acquired musical knowledge will seek out a pair of parents who have a musically favorable ear structure. As a result, his life experiences in the new incarnation increase in a way that could not have taken place in the old body. And so the increase continues from embodiment to embodiment, depending on the extent of the newly acquired abilities, until complete spiritualization. Then the human being will no longer be bound to a physical shell and the chain of incarnations will have come to an end. If we have grasped what has been said in its full significance, we must conclude that, despite all its painfulness, death is a beneficent necessity and that the ego would have to wish for the creation of death if it did not exist. That there is nothing hostile to life in this view, no asceticism and no fear of life, is clearly evident from the fact that we strive to elevate this life and to ennoble and spiritualize both the outer and the inner man more and more. The question: How do we escape from life? - can only arise from an incomplete and false understanding of the doctrine of death and reincarnation. Everything here on the physical plane, and likewise after death on the spiritual plane, is only work and preparation for a new embodiment on earth. We thus see the same interrelations on a large scale as we could observe on a small scale in the life of day and night.

Yesterday two ways were indicated to reach the spiritual worlds: the mystical way and the way of ecstasy. It was emphasized that the old methods of initiation no longer fit into our time and that the present stage of development requires new means, which in the future will have to give way to still other means. From about the twelfth to the fourteenth century, the Rosicrucian method became necessary, and in the near future it will gain even more importance. He who lives in the spiritual life and follows its upward trend from incarnation to incarnation knows that today's spiritual science is adapted to our conditions, and that after thousands of years men will again look back on it as something outdated. One will reckon even more with fully conscious powers than in our days. Today's man, as we have seen, receives the powers during sleep, when he is in an unconscious state. Gradually, in the course of evolution, this process will increasingly enter his consciousness and come under his will.

The old forms of initiation required a descent into one's own inner being, which resulted in a strengthening of all egoistic forces and was a real temptation for the disciple. Everything that was still alive in him and all the instincts he had already overcome were brought up in the process. If, for example, we were to shut out all external impressions and withdraw into ourselves as soon as we woke up, our true inner self would not reveal itself to us at that moment. However, if we remained conscious, our sense of self would intensify into boundless egotism. During ecstasy, on the other hand, as we have seen, when the person consciously dissolves into the macrocosm, his ego becomes weaker and weaker and the disciple needs the help of a guru to prevent him from falling into complete powerlessness.

The Rose Cross initiation unites the two paths and gives the aspirant the right balance, which protects him from the above-mentioned dangers and at the same time gives him so much independence that he no longer needs the supervision of an initiator. It first leads him into the inner world, the access to which it opens for him through the outer world, which the disciple must observe faithfully in all its forms. Everywhere he must learn to discover the symbolic, until he realizes that the whole physical world is a parable. This is not to say that the botanist, the poet, or the painter see wrongly; they too see aright, but it is essential for the Rosicrucian disciple to fix his attention on the symbolism of form, since his purpose lies deeper than that of the other observers.

If he sees a rose, for example, he recognizes in it a symbol of life and says to himself: clear green sap rises in the stem, flowing from leaf to leaf, but at the top, in the flower crowning the plant, it transforms into the red juice of the rose. Then he turns his gaze from the flower to the human being and says to himself: “When I look at the plant next to the human being, it appears to me at first glance to be much lower than he is. It has neither movement nor feelings nor consciousness. Man, too, is permeated by the red nutrient juice, but he moves freely wherever he wants, he sees the outside world and feels its impressions as pleasure and pain and is aware of his existence. However, the plant has one advantage: it cannot err like man; chaste and pure, it does no harm to anyone and lives from one moment to the next. The red blood is the expression of higher spirituality and stands above the green sap of the plant, which is symbolically colored red in the flower. The rose is indeed a subordinate being, but it is like an ideal for man. One day he will become master of himself, and his ego will rise above the everyday ego. He will ennoble and purify himself, and his blood will become chaste and pure like the green sap of plants. And it is this purified blood of the spiritualized man that I see symbolized in the red rose-blood.

The lower nature in us must come under our control. We must master everything that opposes our ascent and transform it into pure forces. In the symbol of the Rose Cross, the dead black wood of the cross, on which the living roses bloom, we see ourselves. The dark wood is our lower nature, which is subject to death and must be overcome; the red roses are our higher nature, dedicated to life, which springs victoriously from the dying dishonesty.

The Rosicrucian should allow such symbols to have their full effect on him; he should seek them out everywhere in nature, imagine them and meditate on them. In this presentation, it is not so much the truth as the correctness, the symbolically correct, that is important. Particularly when meditating on the Rose Cross, the whole feeling, the whole heart's blood should be included; we should live and glow through before the image of the transformation of our nature. The disciple has the impression of increasing to such a strength and then repeating it constantly, so that it no longer fades from him and is taken over into the spiritual world by his astral body in the evening. The Rosicrucian disciple then feels how the unconsciousness into which he used to fall during sleep gradually disappears. It is as if a slow fire of the soul has been kindled within him. He carries it within him like a lamp that shines into the darkness of night and makes visible to him what was previously shrouded in darkness. He has become giving in the beyond. A light-giving, active eye has been opened in him, in contrast to the physical, passive eye, which has no source of light within itself, but only perceives with extraneous light.

The Rosicrucian, when he has trained himself in this way, sees external reality only where he can shape it into symbols that transform his inner abilities and the results of his meditation work into light.

In this way, the student's ego is protected from becoming hardened in selfishness, as well as from powerlessness, and he can enter the higher worlds without danger. He acquires the strength of mysticism in the right measure and uses it in ecstasy. With serious practice, he finally reaches the point of seeing the sun at midnight, as it was called in the old occult schools, that is, he sees behind the physical form and simultaneously sees the spirit.

In our brief discussion, this could only be briefly mentioned in principle. More details can be found in my book “How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds.” This subject cannot be treated in more detail in public, because the majority do not yet have the ability to develop occultly. Also, little is publicly known about the old paths of initiation, and what little there is has not been personally experienced by those who have written about it. Every epoch has to show its corresponding changes, because the guides always had to incorporate something new into human life.

Tomorrow we will see what the work of one of their greatest, Gautama Buddha, was. He was a forerunner of the one for whom humanity has been prepared for thousands of years and from whom it was to receive the greatest impulse: Christ Jesus. We shall also see that only in our time has his mighty impulse begun to make itself felt, and that it will extend more and more to all mankind in the future. And there will be talk of a follower, the Maitreya Buddha, who will take up the Christ impulse in a new form.

Let us now survey what has been said and bear in mind that our life here is fertilized by the spirit in sleep and in death, and that all our striving, all the gain of our earthly existence would be in vain and unused if we always remained bound to this physical body. Only the transitional state of death makes it possible for us to reap the fruits of life and then return to this world richer, one step higher on the path to perfection. Let us allow spiritual science to enter into our lives and we will partake of the treasures of comfort, hope and strength that it contains.

What spiritual science brings to our attention today was already known to the greatest minds of the past. As a poet said:

How on the day you were given to the world
The sun stood to greet the planets,
You have flourished and flourished
According to the law by which you came into being.
You must be like this, you cannot escape yourself!
So said the Sibyls and the prophets,
And no time and no power dismembered
The form that was stamped, which develops itself alive!

Our meditation should stand in the sign: Steady dripping hollows the tone. A study of theosophical works is an effective preparation for exercises. It's better to have read a book 25 times than to read five books five times each, and one who has read a book two or three times shouldn't imagine that he's read it at all. If on a particular day of the year, we have experienced this or that in our meditation, then if we've really studied hard in between, we'll be able to experience much more on the same day a year later. It's good to keep on doing the same exercise for long periods; that's much better than continual changes.

We should develop certain feelings and not just get more thoughts through study. One can find starting points for something much deeper in simple sensations. For instance, we should begin to pay attention to the feeling of grasping an object or of being grasped by the hand.

We can feel a distinct difference if we imagine the sensation that's aroused in us when we grasp a snail or when a snail unexpectedly crosses our hand. If we develop the two feelings well, we can form a concept of the difference between the subsensible and the super-sensible worlds.

The whole physical world and our feelings about it is an illusion or maya. We can picture it as a field or plane with the super-sensible world above and the subsensible world below it. The super-sensible world is one that can be connected with the feeling of being grasped and the subsensible one with the feeling of grasping.

In Rosicrucian teachings the subsensible region was always called the elemental world, the world of the elements fire, air, water and earth.

One presses through to the element of earth if one meditates on triangles, rectangles, pentagons, and geometrical figures in general. One should do this by writing these figures on the palm of one's hand with a finger. Then eliminate all thoughts about the hand and writing and only think about feeling the writing on the palm as if were floating freely in space, and immerse yourself in this feeling. That's how one gradually grasps the earth element.

One grasps the water element by thinking a fixed, material point and another mobile point that moves in a circle around the first one. Then one should write this in one's hand and proceed as with the first figure. One should think of the second point as one that rotates continuously.

For the air element, one thinks of two fixed points that want to fly away from each other after they first describe a kind of a semicircle round each other and then fly apart into endless distances. If we work with this figure exactly as with the preceding ones, we then grasp the air element—we don't just feel air caressing us, we really grasp it.

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For the fire element, one thinks of a closed figure such as a loop or a figure 8. One should especially feel that there's an intersecting point where the curve touches itself.

One should keep on doing these exercises for some time. They're not easy; one must acquire a certain skill in the feeling of sensations in space, without using one's hands, and also in holding on to the figure. But then this exercise leads to a grasping of the elemental world; one learns how to grasp it.

However it's a rule without exceptions that these exercises also make one egotistical. That's why one must never do them without also developing a great sympathy for everything that gives men joy and sorrow.

When we go up into the super-sensible world, we're actually taken hold of by higher beings who use us as their instruments, just as we use our eyes, ears, etc. The danger with this experience is that one loses oneself ever more, in the bad sense of the word. Therefore, it's also necessary to develop courage and fearlessness. Then we can calmly let ourselves be grasped by beings in the spiritual world, so that we feel: now we're being inspired by an angelic being, now by an archangelic beings, and so on. Imaginations lead into the super-sensible world. One sees that these two directions towards above and below are combined on the Rosicrucian path. As a clairvoyant, one must learn to strictly distinguish between the elemental world and the super-sensible beings—between two things that appear to be united in the physical world. Someone who saw a being and its elemental expression in one picture would be making a big mistake and would be mixing everything up. It isn't easy to separate the two regions at first because they can be seen by both astral and Devachanic vision, but when one ascends and sees a being, one gradually learns to descend immediately to find the elemental part of this being below the physical world, just as when one sees an object one can immediately look down and see its reflection in the water.

One couldn't describe the Saturn condition if one couldn't raise oneself up to beings such as the spirits of Will and Spirits of Personality, and also press through to the fire element. Likewise for the Sun condition, one must know Spirits of Wisdom, archangels, and also the air element. Both of these are described together in Occult Science—how the thrones let Saturn warmth stream out, etc. but in observing it, it's necessary to feel it as a duality.

One must be prepared to see and hear things in the spiritual world that one has never seen or heard here below. One who just expects to find things he's familiar with over there will never be able to press into the spiritual world. That's what's expressed in the second line of our Rosicrucian verse: In … morimur. It's only when a dying in Christo takes place in us that we can be reawakened by the Holy Spirit. In a way, this is a commentary on the two-part verse that's given to us by the masters:

In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

One of the fundamental tenets of occultism, founded on the law of analogies, is that Nature can reveal to us what is taking place within our own being.

A striking and typical example of this law, but one which is wholly ignored by orthodox science, is given in the Philosopher's Stone, known to the Rosicrucians. In a German magazine published at the end of the eighteenth century, we find mention of this Philosopher's Stone. It is spoken of as something quite real and the writer says: “Everyone contacts it frequently although he knows it not.” This is literally true. In order to understand this mystery we must penetrate into the laboratory of Nature even more deeply than is the habit of modern science.

All the world knows that man inhales oxygen and exhales carbonic acid. In Yoga this has both a physical and spiritual significance. Man cannot inhale carbonic acid for the purposes of nourishing his being. He would die, whereas the carbonic acid keeps the plants alive. The plants provide man with the oxygen which gives him life; they renew the air and make it fit to breathe. On the other side, man and the animals provide the plants with the carbonic acid by which they, in their turn, are nourished. What does the plant do with the carbonic acid it absorbs? It builds up its own body. We know that the corpse of the plant is coal. Coal is thus crystallised carbonic acid.

The red blood in man must be refreshed and renewed with oxygen, for the carbonic acid cannot be used for the purpose of building up the body. The exercises of Yoga are a training which enables man to make the red blood into a body-builder. In this sense the Yogi works at his body by means of his blood, just as the plant works with the carbonic acid.

Thus we see that the power of transmutation in Nature is represented in coal which is a crystallised plant. The Philosopher's Stone, in its most general sense, signifies this power of transmutation.

The law of regression, as well as the law of ascension, is true for all beings. The minerals are plants which have degenerated; the plants are the remnants of animal life; animals and man (his physical body) have a common ancestor. Man has ascended, the animal has descended. The spiritual part of man proceeds from the Gods. In this sense, man is a God who has degenerated, and Lamartine's words are literally true: “Man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.”

There was an epoch when all life on the Earth was semi-plant and semi-animal. The Earth herself was, as it were, a great animal-being. Her whole surface was one mass of peat-like ‘turf’ with gigantic forest growing from it. This is the epoch when the Earth and the Moon were united in one body. The Moon represents the feminine element of the Earth.

There are beings whose progress is checked, who remain at a lower stage of evolution. The mistletoe, for instance, is a token of this ancient epoch. It is a survival of the parasitic plant-beings which once lived on the Earth as upon a plant. Hence its peculiar, occult properties, known to the Druids who spoke of it as the most sacred of all plants. Mistletoe is a survival from the lunar epoch of the Earth. It is parasitic because it has not learned, like other plants, to live directly upon mineral substance.

Disease is something of an analogy. It is a regression, caused by the parasitic elements in the organism. The Druids and the Skalds knew of the relation between the mistletoe and man. There is an echo of this in the legend of Baldur. The God Baldur is put to death by the mistletoe because the mistletoe is a hostile element from the preceding epoch—an element no longer united with man. The other plants, having adapted themselves to the subsequent epoch, swore friendship to him.

When this plant-earth became mineral, it acquired, through the metals, a new property—that of reflecting the light.

A star is visible in the heavens only when it has become mineral. Thus there are many heavenly bodies imperceptible to the physical eye of man and visible only to clairvoyant vision.

The Earth has been “mineralised,” so also has the physical body of man. But the characteristic feature of man is that a twofold movement takes places in him. As a physical being, man has descended; as a spiritual being he has ascended. St. Paul spoke of this truth when he declared that there is one law for the body and another for the Spirit. Thus man represents both an end and a beginning.

The vital point, the point of intersection and of change in the ascending life of man, lies at the time of the separation of the sexes. There was an age when the two sexes were united in the being of man. Even Darwin recognised this as a probability. As the result of the separation of the sexes, a new, all-embracing element came to birth: the element of love. The attraction of love is so powerful, so mysterious, that tropical butterflies of different sexes, brought to Europe and then released to the air, will fly back again and meet each other half-way.

There is some analogy between the relations established by the world of man with the divine world and by the human kingdom with the animal kingdom. Oxygen and carbonic acid are in-breathed and out-breathed by man. The plant-kingdom breathes out oxygen; man breathes out love—since the separation of the sexes. The Gods are nourished by this effluence of love.

How comes it that the animals and man out-breathe love?

The occultist sees in the man of today a being in the full swing of evolution. Man is at the same time a fallen God and a God in the becoming.

The kingdom of the heavens is nourished by the effluence of human love. Ancient Greek mythology expresses this reality when it speaks of nectar and ambrosia. The Gods are so far above man that their natural tendency would be to subjugate him. But there is a half-way state of being between man and the Gods, just as the mistletoe is half-way between the plant and the animal. It is represented by Lucifer and the Luciferian element.

The interest of the Gods is the element of human love by means of which their life is sustained.

When Lucifer, in the form of the serpent, induces man to seek for knowledge, Jehovah is wrath. Lucifer is here understood as the fallen God who instills into man the desire for personal knowledge. This sets him in opposition to the Divine Will which has created him in its image.

Rosicrucian science explains the rôle of Lucifer in the world. We shall return to this later on. Here we will merely recall the following saying of the Rosicrucian Order: “Know, O man, that through thy being flows a current which ascends and a current which descends.”

by Marie Steiner

The cycle of lectures now appearing in book form was given by Rudolf Steiner in 1908, and the following words of his might well serve as its motto: “The mission of our age is to bring forth not an ancient wisdom, but a new wisdom, one that points not only to the past but that works prophetically into the future.”

The previous year at the memorable congress of the General Theosophical Society at Munich, Doctor Steiner clearly indicated the direction that the revival of the Theosophical movement should take, for the movement was threatening at that time to degenerate into one-sidedness influenced by Oriental ideas which did not accommodate themselves to the mental and soul-life of the people of Europe.

As against the many grievous misunderstandings that had arisen, Rudolf Steiner gave out something positives teaching that was suited to the growth of humanity. He also gave for the first time on that occasion a fitting artistic setting to the spiritual teaching he had to offer. The colours of the walls, and the pictures of the Seals represented the Rosicrucian spiritual aims; the motive of the column-forms portrayed the future, and this was aided by the dramatic reproduction of “The Sacred Drama of Eleusis” by Edouard Schuré, which presented in a living way the Mysteries of ancient Greece. With these Rudolf Steiner connected the Mythology of northern Germany. He had something new to give which hitherto had not been offered to the blind followers of a submissive Anglo-Indian Theosophy.

The courage with which Rudolf Steiner trod new paths stirred up spiritual opposition among the leaders of the Theosophical Society, who sought constantly to hamper and fetter him. This opposition forced him to withdraw from the post he had held in the Society. The conditions under which he had undertaken office were: that he should be free to allow that which threw light on the mystery of Christ to flow into European culture, which since the Event of Christ had become western esotericism. When certain leading theosophical circles recognised the remarkable spiritual capacities and the knowledge that Rudolf Steiner was able to bring to bear on this problem, means were sought to hamper his activity. They considered that the best way to do this was to proclaim the coming of Christ again in the flesh, in the body of a Hindu boy, and the centre from which a few years later Krishnamurti was to appear as a future world teacher was cautiously prepared.

It was whispered that Rudolf Steiner would be compelled—by the appearance of Krishnamurti—to divulge Christian secrets concerning which he would ordinarily have been silent. This interfered with his quiet and steady aim in building up the system and organisation of his teachings. He considered it his task to instruct humanity in the methods of initiation suited to present conditions of consciousness. Beside the reverent pursuit of ancient wisdom, it was necessary to waken an understanding of the changed form in which this wisdom was now to be given, and to show how such forms are subject to a continual up-rising, maturing, and decay, in order that new life may spring ever and again from what is dead. An historical sense had to be aroused in men, not merely a wonder-filled contemplation of ancient manifestations. The mysterious connection of the great cosmic laws uniting one age of civilization with another had to be made known. No one had ever described in so powerful and sublime a fashion the primeval wisdom which streamed down to earth from spiritual heights as Rudolf Steiner had done. No one before him had been able to speak in terms of modern consciousness of the reflection of the great Cosmic Existence in individual man—the microcosm.

All this teaching culminated in the central event of human evolution: the descent of the Sun-Spirit into the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Rudolf Steiner showed how the sun forces were thereby able to penetrate and spiritualize the planet, summoning men to fit themselves for the task that was before them. By the death on Golgotha an incisive mystic fact was consummated; it could endure no repetition, otherwise it would have taken place in vain.

In order that these truths might be brought to humanity, fact by fact had to be introduced in gently balanced stages. The foundations had already been laid before Krishnamurti was presented to Europeans. In this cycle, in the year 1908, the path had already been entered, the logical sequence of events from civilization to civilization had been described, the great central event clearly illuminated. There are occasions when the time in which a truth is to be given out may be hastened; it may be necessary to confront certain challenges with facts which one would rather have allowed to speak for themselves. This does not mean that something was done which otherwise would not have been done; it had to be done because it was rooted in the deepest necessities of present evolution, both cosmic and human; and, with complete self-sacrifice, the responsibility was assumed as the task of a life-time. The Theosophical Society cut itself off from this influx of new wisdom, it rejected what would have infused new life into it, and to the admiring recognition of an ancient honoured wisdom would have given new meaning to historic events.

The Theosophical Society would have been led with ripened wisdom from India by way of Persia, Chaldea, and Egypt deeply into the mystery of the chosen people, and the reason for this choice would have been made intelligible to it; and thence it would have been led to the Mystery places of Asia Minor and southern Europe. Further, the soul-life of the expectant peoples of central and northern Europe would have been touched on, and the whole teaching would have culminated in the Event of Golgotha, by which the hidden mysteries which until now had been veiled stepped forth on to the plane of universal history.

The individual personality evolves within the general evolution of humanity, and must learn to find within itself the central point of its purpose, which is primarily in spiritual experience. The tragedy of the personality lies in its severance from the spiritual world; in its seeking, erring, and striving, through the approaching night of separation from what is spiritual, till finally it perceives in spiritual darkness its tragic fate.

Comprehension of such things is necessary if we are to understand ourselves. Into this night of darkness shines a light, the light of Christian esotericism which was kindled in Palestine and passed thence into Europe. It broke with wonderful clearness over the island of Hibernia, where, notwithstanding the repression of the monastic colonies by a Church, fettered by Roman Imperialism, its radiance endured in secret as a stream of spiritual force.

Through this there arose the spiritual orders of knighthood and the desire for religious communities. German mysticism appeared as a rich blossom of deep religious fervour. In order to keep pace with events, above all with the conquests of science, and in order that faith might stand firm in the darkness of a materialistic age, something further had to emerge. The power of Belief had to yield to the certainty of Science. This new force was the aim of the Rosicrucian schools. They concerned themselves with the newly evolving forces of consciousness in the coming age. Rosicrucian esotericism, with its earnest striving after the new forces of human knowledge, with the tragic fate and spiritual tests laid upon its followers, was yet able here and there, as Rudolf Steiner has shown us, to raise the veil of its mysteries. New forces of spiritual consciousness were born from it that were able to overcome materialism by cognition. In the hard struggle to recover the faculty of spiritual perception, once given to man and now lost, but which must be regained through the power of the ego, through the death and re-birth of the personality, the ego-being of striving humanity grows strong. When man consciously grasps this ego-being he can rise and unite himself once more with the Godhead. That this might come to pass the Divine Ego descended—once—to earth. The unique character of this event must be recognised as the decisive turning point of the earth's destiny. Rosicrucian teaching sums it up in the motto “In Christo Morimur”; in Christ we die to live above, to live upwards to the Spirit. “Per Spiritum Sanctum Reviviscimus”; through striving towards the Christ we gain true life, we become awake in the Spirit out of which we once were born.

The personality had to come into being, it had to comprehend itself, to take itself in hand and recognize itself as a centre, to confront and then overcome itself, to learn to die, that it might realize itself again as a free ego-being whose central point is the Divine Ego.

This is the path of western esotericism; the European cannot avoid it. Formerly his task was to complete the education of the personality, entangled as it was in egoism; his present task is to overcome egoism, to transmute it by liberating the divine-willing, strong ego-nature within him. This he can only do through controlling the forces of his consciousness through knowledge and cognition. He must be willing to recognise the smallest in the greatest. He cannot eliminate whole epochs of time with their tremendous significance for human development. Power will be given to him if today he desires knowledge and cognition of the Universe, Earth, and Man.

This knowledge is now called Anthroposophy. It gives its teaching and declares its creed quite openly; it hides nothing, for it knows the time has come when what was once nurtured in secret must step forth on to the plane of history.

In describing the descent of man from the Divine and his way back again to Divinity, Anthroposophy might have felt secure within genuine Theosophy, they are so far one and the same “Ex Deo Nascimur”—Out of God we are born to the Godhead we return when we have received the Christ unto us.

But men turn names to their own particular ends. Societies arise which no longer express their true nature—they may indeed become the very opposite of what they were at first. If one has such a contradiction before one, as for example the pseudo-Christian statement engineered by the Theosophical Society, one cannot strengthen it by means employed in the advocacy of truth.

From his sense of responsibility to truth Rudolf Steiner declared it impossible, in the lectures which under pressure from the members he was forced to print, to employ the term “Us Theosophists” any more. The Theosophical Society is fast stuck in Oriental dogma, and rejects the intellectual permeation of Christian truths to which a rightly guided Theosophical movement should necessarily have come. That which the Theosophical Society did not accept is now represented by those calling themselves Anthroposophists.

It has been necessary therefore in the publication of any cycles of lectures to employ the word Anthroposophy, or Spiritual Science, instead of Theosophy. The ancient holy name Theosophy has been caricatured and falsified, and especially to the outer world must we make clear the difference, especially in all this confusion between Societies bearing great and honourable names.

It is undoubtedly our duty in memory of Rudolf Steiner to throw light upon the conditions of that conflict which aimed at crippling his world-embracing activity in Christian esotericism. It is our duty to show how necessary his action was in separating from a Society which saw in Thibetism, Hinduism, and Buddhism the sum of all wisdom, but in the Mystery of Golgotha only the karmic fate of a noble personality not yet matured to ultimate perfection. The leaders of the Theosophical Society were determined to get control of the Society and run it in their own way.

With their pseudo-Christ, to whom in various circumstances they ascribed varying names as it appeared to suit, they hope to win adherents of other forms of belief and satisfy the longings of western hearts, and in this way gradually and gently to turn the tide of European thought back into the stream of pre-Christian spirituality.

Let us close these observations with words of Rudolf, Steiner which are directly connected with the above.

“We see a primeval wisdom preserved in the Mysteries of past epochs; but our wisdom must be an apocalyptic wisdom, of which we must plant the seeds. We have need once again of a principle of Initiation wherein the original connection with the Spiritual world can be reestablished.”

This is the task of the Anthroposophical world movement.

Man's striving and searching for the spirit is ancient, as old as the thinking, feeling and sensing of humanity itself. But at the most diverse times in human development, people had to give themselves the most diverse forms of answers to the great riddle questions of existence, which are also precisely the riddle questions about the spirit. In our time, what is called spiritual science or, as it has become accustomed to being called, theosophy, wants to give an answer to these great riddles of existence, and it wants to give an answer that corresponds to the feelings and needs of present-day humanity.

Contemporary humanity wants to know, wants to include in its understanding and knowledge of feelings that which is connected with the higher forms of existence. From the outset, it must be assumed that suspicions and belief in relation to the spirit or, as one can also say, in relation to the supersensible world, will lose nothing when the clarity of knowledge is poured out over what man has to say in relation to these questions.

The fact that behind everything sensual, behind everything physical, there is a supersensible, a superphysical, is basically only denied by a small number of people today. But when we approach these questions, then not only either the admission or the rejection of the spiritual, of the supersensible, mingles in what fills the human heart, but the most diverse feelings mingle in everything that comes into consideration comes into consideration, the most varied feelings mingle, not only in the answers, but already in the questions the most varied feelings mingle: above all, doubt and timidity mingle with what comes into consideration.

There are many people who say: Of course, we have to assume that behind the world that appears to our eyes, that we can perceive with our senses at all, that behind this world there is another one that makes the meaning of this sensual world understandable to us. But we humans cannot penetrate this supersensible world through our own research, through our own science. In recent times, spiritual science or theosophy has emerged as a message to man that shows not only that there is a supersensible world behind the sensory world, but also that man is capable of penetrating into this supersensible world through his own research. In doing so, we have drawn the attention of those present to the question that we shall deal with today: Where and how can we find the spirit at all?

Those who, from the outset, dogmatically doubt the possibility of human knowledge rising up into the spiritual world cannot, in principle, even raise this question properly. Theosophy or spiritual science does not want to bring anything completely new to humanity. If it were to claim to do so, it would be giving a poor account of itself, for who would want to believe that truth and wisdom have been waiting for our present time to be recognized and studied? Therefore, spiritual science or theosophy also shows that throughout all periods of human spiritual development, in the most diverse forms, the one, eternal truth and wisdom has been striven for by people and possessed to a certain degree, that only the perceptions and feelings change in the different ages – and therefore the old truth must approach humanity in ever new forms.

And so, without much preparation, let us approach the question of where and how to find the spirit in this spiritual or theosophical sense. We only need to point out that the search for the spirit depends on man finding the right tool to search for this spirit. You know, my dear audience, that in what is called external science, what is called the science of nature, there are tools, instruments, through which the external riddles of existence are gradually revealed to man. You know how man peers into the life of the smallest creatures through what is called a microscope; you know what wonders of space have been revealed to man by those instruments we call telescopes. These external instruments have indeed brought about something like external wonders in human knowledge for a long time. And you can also appreciate it when you think about the things that man is dependent on to grasp and comprehend the external mysteries of nature through such tools. In terms of the spirit, there are no such external tools; there is only one tool, the one that Goethe refers to in the well-known “Faust” poem with the words:

Mysterious in the bright day
Nature cannot be robbed of her veil,
And what she may not reveal to your mind,
You cannot force from her with levers and screws.

And Goethe points out in this sentence that all those tools and instruments that are composed of external, sensual things – however useful they may be for revealing the outer secrets of the world – cannot reveal the primal secret of existence, they cannot reveal the questions and riddles about the spiritual. But there is an instrument, only this instrument must be prepared. What is this instrument?

This instrument, through which man can penetrate into the spiritual world, is none other than man himself, not as man is in the average life, but as he can make himself when he applies the methods and means of secret science to himself. In this, esoteric science assumes that the magic word that moves so many minds and souls in relation to the outer world today is not taken entirely seriously and honestly. Today, there is much talk of evolution. It is said that the highest of sentient beings, the human being, has gradually developed from imperfect states to its present height. Through the study of natural science, attempts are being made to look back into the distant primeval times of humanity. It is said that in these distant primeval times, man was an imperfect being and gradually developed.

Theosophy or spiritual science in the broadest and therefore most honest sense of the word sees in man not only the powers and abilities that are in this person's normal life today, but it sees in him dormant abilities and powers that can be developed, that can be drawn out of the soul. And so it starts from the premise that this soul of man does not have to remain as it is, but that it can be shaped, and that in this way the abilities and powers that initially lie dormant in the human soul in a normal way can be called out of this soul, and then, when they are called forth, they enable the person to see something completely different in his environment, to perceive something completely different than he can recognize with his sensory eyes, with his sensory organs of perception. And so spiritual science speaks of a possible awakening of the human soul, of an awakening of the forces and abilities slumbering within it, by man applying such means to himself as we will have to cite later. Through this he comes to make such an instrument for the perception of the spiritual world out of himself.

What is an awakening? We can best imagine what an awakening, a development of the abilities lying dormant in the soul, is by first placing an image before our soul. Imagine, ladies and gentlemen, this hall by seeing the colors of the walls, the lights, by perceiving the other objects, these roses here and everything that is around you, what is perceptible, the sound that is recognizable to the ears. We bring a man born blind into this hall. The colors, the perceptions of light, which are evident to you, are hidden from this man born blind. Let us assume that we have the good fortune to operate on this man born blind here in this hall. Gradually, a whole new world would reveal itself to him around him. What he might have been able to deny before is now there for him.

Perhaps, if he had been a doubter, an unbeliever, he could have said before: You tell me about colors, you tell me about lights. There is only darkness around me. I do not believe in the fantastic stuff of light and colors you tell me about. The moment the organs are opened, the world he previously thought was a fantasy is there. It is there in the same space where there was darkness for him before.

Something similar happens to a person when they make themselves an instrument to perceive a higher world. If they apply the methods that will be mentioned below to themselves, then it is not sensory or physical organs of perception that are opened to them, but spiritual and soul ones. And that which was always around them before, which they just could not perceive, becomes perceptible to them. What Goethe called the spiritual eyes and spiritual ears develops from the soul, and a new world opens up before him [the human being]. The great moment of awakening occurs for him, that moment which is described to us in the deeper wisdom of all peoples and all different eras of the various peoples as the one through which the human being could become a messenger from another world.

There have always been people whose soul powers were awakened. In different periods they were called initiates. They were the ones who could tell what is fact in the other worlds, in the supersensible worlds, to the one who was perhaps not exactly in that place. Initiates, awakened ones have existed at all times. They were the seekers, the researchers of the spirit.

Now, one could say, and this objection will always be raised, one could say: Yes, what use is it to other people if there are a few awakened ones who can tell of higher worlds, who bring the message of the supersensible, if not all people can see into these worlds? Now, when today within the theosophical school of thought it is said that this or that is the case in the spiritual worlds, then many a person says: What use is it to me if others can see into the spiritual world but I cannot? I do not concern myself with these spiritual worlds at all, since I would only have to believe what others tell me.

This is not a valid objection. This objection would only apply, my esteemed audience, if supersensible powers of the human soul were just as necessary for understanding and insight as they are for research into the higher worlds. To penetrate into the higher world as a researcher, it is necessary that the person slowly and gradually, with patience and energy and perseverance, makes himself an instrument to look into the other world with spiritual eyes, to listen with spiritual ears. But then, when the one who has looked into the other world comes and tells the secrets of the higher worlds, then everyone is capable, with ordinary human logic, with common sense, if he is only unbiased enough, without being led astray by all kinds of prejudices, of realizing that what is said about the higher world is true. This can be recognized and understood. However, it can only be researched through the development of the human being himself into an instrument of spiritual research. For man, my honored audience, is not designed for error and doubt, but for truth. And when the initiates tell us about what is going on in the higher worlds, and the human being listens and just gives himself to his unbiased soul, then he senses, long before he can see into the spiritual world himself, that what is communicated about these worlds is true.

How can a person now reshape his inner being, his soul, so that these higher worlds become an experience for him, open to observation and direct exploration? If we want to answer this question, we have to delve a little deeper. After all, it is no less a question than this: how does a person develop the ability to see the spiritual world, how does he acquire the abilities that are also called clairvoyant? Let us start with what is an experience for the normal person: the external world of the eyes and the other external organs of perception. You know that a person perceives an object of the ordinary sensory world by directing his sensory organs towards the object, and once he has perceived it, he can retain an idea, an image of this object in his soul.

You are looking at this bouquet of roses. By fixing your eyes on this bouquet, it is a perception for you. You experience its existence, you are with it. You now turn around, and the image of this bouquet of roses remains with you as a mental image. It may be pale compared to the direct perception, but the image remains with you and you may carry this image for a long time until it disappears, so to speak, from your memory. But this is how a person relates to their experiences of the external world in general. We can say: in relation to the external sense world, a person experiences things in such a way that they actually encounter the objects first, and then the image of these external objects forms in their soul.

But precisely the opposite must occur, my dear audience, in relation to the supersensible world and everything that is connected with the great goals of supersensible development, as well as with the dangers that we will point out. All of this ultimately comes down to the fact that man must start by developing a certain kind of inner life, by first bringing about certain changes in his soul, certain experiences that he would otherwise not have in everyday life, in order to see the supersensible world. Then the great moment can come for him when – just as the outer, sensory light comes to the blind-born who have undergone an operation – the spiritual, supersensible world begins to make an impression on him.

The soul is not transformed into such an instrument of higher spiritual experience in an outward tumultuous way, not through outward events, but quietly within itself, in the course of an intimate inner life; and many a person who in life in this or that profession among people, of whom those around him knew nothing but that he had this or that position in life, has led or is leading a second life within himself. This second life consists in the fact that he has transformed his soul into such a characterized instrument of higher perception. When a person has gradually come so far, then he must develop a certain level of knowledge within himself, which external science, external experience, does not know at all. Spiritual science speaks of the fact that all external knowledge is knowledge of objects. It is precisely the kind of knowledge that arises when a person encounters the objects of the world and connects the ideas to them.

The next higher knowledge is called imaginative knowledge in spiritual science, and there is nothing fantastical, as we shall see in a moment, associated with this imaginative knowledge, not even anything that could even approximately be described by the mere word imagination. However, it must be clear that the path is the opposite of that of external experience, of external perception.

There are two means that must be applied intimately to the soul in order to advance it inwardly. These two means consist in man not abandoning himself to the mere outer life, but taking this soul life into his own hands through the inner powers of the soul, and initially directing this soul life through the inner powers of the will.

To fully understand what this is about, let us consider the following: We try to imagine how our soul life would be different if one or other of us had been born not in the year of the nineteenth century and not in the city of Europe, but a hundred years earlier and in a completely different city. We imagine how different objects around the person would affect him, how different ideas, sensations and feelings would then fill his soul. Think for a moment about how much of what fills your soul from morning till evening can be traced back to external impressions of place and time, and then imagine for a moment all the things in your soul that are not somehow connected to some external object in your environment, to some external event of your time. Ask yourself how much remains in the soul of a person, in the soul of many people, if they disregard what affects them in their immediate environment. Everything that affects the soul from the outside, everything that affects us because we were born and develop in a certain time and in a certain place, can contribute nothing, absolutely nothing, to the inner unfolding, to the inner awakening of the soul.

Completely different conceptions must enter into the life of the soul, conceptions that are independent of external impressions; and the most effective conceptions are initially those which are called imaginative or perhaps pictorial-symbolic. Such conceptions were always those which the teachers of supersensible abilities gave to their pupils, and by living in these conceptions, the pupils developed their souls upwards into the higher worlds.

We do not wish to speak in generalities, but to make ourselves understood by means of an example. Let us place before our minds, here and now, a symbol, a picture, which the pupils, under the influence of their spiritual science teachers, have long used to develop their souls higher. This is a picture, of which there are countless numbers, but we wish to make clear, by means of this one picture, how the soul is affected. The picture is simple to describe, and yet it has a magical effect on the soul.

Imagine a black cross. This black cross is adorned at the top, where the beams cross, with roses, with red roses. This is called the Rosicrucian symbol. When the disciple, as it were, becomes blind and deaf to the external environment, when he can, for a while, however short, refrain from all that can make an impression on his eyes, on his ears and on the other senses , when he is completely absorbed in himself and also erases the memory of everyday experiences and now fills himself completely with the one pictorial representation of the Rosicrucian – what happens to the soul?

Let us first answer this question. To do so, we must first understand something that can help us to understand the profound symbol of the Rosicrucian. However, what I am about to say is not what is important for the inner development to clarify this symbol or image, but rather the inner deepening and immersion of the soul. Nevertheless, we must explain the symbol to ourselves.

I will try to present this Rosicrucian symbol to you in the form of a dialogue, as the teacher would have spoken to his student in the field of spiritual science. This conversation, as I relate it, did not take place in the form in which I relate it, because what is implied in it always took place over long periods of time. Nevertheless, by retelling it in this way, we can get a sense of what happened.

Imagine that the teacher says to the student: Take a look at a plant, a plant that takes root in the ground, grows out of the ground, out of the root, with green leaves. And now compare the human being with this plant. Look at the human being in his present form, pervaded by red blood. Look at the plant and see how its life organs, its leaves, are permeated with the green sap, chlorophyll. Compare the two. You find the plant insensitive, immobile; you find the human being mobile, sensitive. You find that the human being has an inner life filled with pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow. You say that the human being stands at a higher level of existence than the plant. How did the human being come to a higher level of existence, how was he able to develop within himself that which could be called self-awareness, his ego? The plant has not developed such self-awareness, such an ego, as it stands before us.

The human being was only able to develop his higher consciousness to the point of self-awareness by accepting something else. In this higher development, the human being accepted the passions, the drives, the instincts, the desires. The plant does not have these. Although the plant does not have an inner life of thoughts and feelings, it stands in a certain respect higher than man in its kind; chaste and pure, without sensual urges and desires, without instincts and passions. And by imagining how the green plant sap flows through it, we say: this green sap is for us at the same time the symbol of the pure, chaste nature of plants. And as the pure, chaste nature of plants develops upward to man, so in man a self-awareness, an inner life, is developed. But this pure chastity is transformed at the same time into the life of desire. Man has partly risen higher, partly sunk lower.

Now the teacher continues to the student: But do not just look at the person as he stands before you in the present; look at a distant, very distant human future, at a human goal! Man has the goal of striving higher and higher, step by step, and overcoming what he had to accept in his development to date: to purify and cleanse the instincts, desires and passions, so that one day, while maintaining his consciousness, his self-aware nature, he is pure and chaste within himself, like the plant being at his level, in his way. What the human being is to achieve again in the future is overcoming, purifying what he had to accept, so to speak, shedding, taking away from himself that through which he has become lower than the chaste plant being, and only in this way can he revive in himself a higher nature, a higher human being, which today slumbers in him. Once again we can refer to Goethe when we want to draw attention to the deepest meaning of this development of humanity. We can say, and we fully capture the meaning of what the spiritual teacher said to his pupil with these words of Goethe's. We can draw attention to the words in Goethe's West-Eastern Divan:

And as long as you do not have this,
this dying and becoming!
If you are only a gloomy guest
on the dark earth.

“Stirb und Werde”: What does that mean? Stirb und Werde is a deeply symbolic word. It expresses approximately that which has now been said in the symbolum, it expresses that man wants to let die that which he has taken on in order to reach a higher level, to bring it to a higher flowering, his lower nature, and a higher nature is to be driven out as a flowering of the supersensible.

If we now look at the plant, it becomes a symbol for us in a certain form, a clear symbol of this human development. We see how the rose plant develops into its red blossom. The green sap of the plant changes before our eyes, so to speak, as it shoots into the blossom, into the red sap of the blossom. If we now imagine, symbolically, that we are always in the conversation between the teacher and the disciple, we think of the human being in terms of the passions and drives that are bound to his red blood, so purified and cleansed that this red blood flows through the veins in chastity and purity, like the red sap through the rose petal. Then we have in the rose itself the symbol of the higher human nature.

This is expressed in the rose cross, the “die and become” of the lower man, the shedding and casting off of what man has taken on in the black cross. The “becoming” at a higher level of development of the innermost spiritual nature of man is also reflected in the pure, chaste plant-juice in the roses that adorn the Rosicrucian cross. Thus we have explained this picture intellectually from one side. Much more could be said about it.

Now someone could, of course, say – and it would be a very easy objection to raise – that everything that has been said about the Rose Cross does not correspond to scientific conceptions. Certainly, my dear audience, it does not correspond to external scientific conceptions, but the Rose Cross is not there to express some outer fact in accordance with truth. What matters is not such a representation of the outer world, but that the person who, precisely because the Rosicrucian cross corresponds to no outer reality, allows this cross to enter his soul, becomes completely absorbed in this Rosicrucian cross and, as if below the threshold of consciousness, feels and experiences everything we have said here. His soul becomes something other than it was before. Such symbols have this effect on the human soul, precisely because they do not correspond to any external reality. They stimulate the soul to so-called imaginative knowledge, to that knowledge which represents the first step in the ascent to the higher worlds.

I have been able to present only the Rosicrucian cross as an example. We could cite a hundred other examples. The disciple must gradually familiarize himself with these symbols, just as someone who wants to learn to read must become acquainted with letters and signs. Only in this way can he attain a higher form of existence, and then such a one, who has the patience and persistence to live himself into the pictorial representations of such symbols, has a special experience.

To get an idea of what kind of experience a person has when they are awakened, we need to gain some insight into human nature. This nature offers man the great riddles of existence, and it is precisely in what he experiences daily, so to speak, and what can present him with the deepest riddles, that he passes by indifferently. These riddles of existence are encapsulated in four words: waking and sleeping, life and death. These four words describe the greatest riddles of life.

Of course, it is not possible in a short hour to discuss in detail how one, in terms of spiritual science, should think about the nature of man in relation to these four words. But what should be mentioned is what the one who is able to explore the spirit in the way described today experiences in man and his changes in everyday life. Is not this everyday life, with its alternation of waking and sleeping, a mystery? We see how, from morning till evening, a person is filled with the impressions of the day, how all his senses are constantly taking in perceptions. We see how the person then processes his external impressions with his mind. But we see how, in the evening, when he falls asleep, the person sees all his impressions of the day and all the experiences of the soul sink away. We see how man sinks, as it were, into the sea of temporary forgetfulness of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, but also of all perceptions of everyday life, of sounds, of warmth and so on, which fill his soul from morning to evening, how he sees all his inner soul experiences fade away and, as it were, unconsciousness surrounds him.

Now it would, of course, be foolishness – an easily understandable foolishness – to say that a person ceases to exist in the evening and is reborn in the morning. What is at issue is rather that man is a complex being, a being not merely consisting of those limbs, the eyes with which we see, the hands with which we can feel, but that in addition to this physical body we have even higher, superphysical perceptual faculties. When a person falls asleep at night – and we will now only consider the transition from waking to dreamless sleep, leaving the intermediate state and the state filled with dreams to one side – when a person falls asleep, part of their being remains in bed and another part, the one that cannot be seen with any external eye, withdraws; the very vehicle of joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure and passion, the vehicle of sensory perceptions, withdraws, and during the night it is outside the physical human body.

In spiritual science, we call that which leaves the physical body when we fall asleep the astral body. Don't be put off by this word; it has nothing to do with the stars, it is simply the supersensible part of the human nature, which withdraws in the evening and leaves the physical body to itself. The human being truly exists from the evening when he falls asleep until the morning when he wakes up. He sleeps and the consciousness of which we shall now speak, which is developed here as clairvoyant consciousness at awakening, emerges like a fine but spiritual luminous form as the astral body itself when the person falls asleep. In the spiritual world, the human being is present in his spiritual essence, which is around him.

Why does man not see these facts and entities when he is in his astral body at night among spiritual facts and entities? For the same reason that a blind person does not see colors and light. Imagine your eyes being closed to your physical body! The world around you is dark and gloomy, colorless. Think away the ears! The world is mute and soundless. And if you think away all the organs, the world gradually becomes a nothing. Only that is there for man, for which he has organs, nothing else! When, let us say, the luminous cloud of the astral body withdraws from the physical body at night, the human being has no organs in his astral body with which to perceive in the spiritual world. The result of this is unconsciousness and darkness around him.

What happens when a person does not live an ordinary, normal life, but allows himself to be affected by what has just been described to you through the one symbol, when he devotes himself to such things in his soul , when he develops his soul with calmness and perseverance in such a way that, while becoming deaf and blind to his external surroundings, he is able to immerse himself completely in his inner life, which is called a life of meditation and concentration? What happens then? This is something that clairvoyant consciousness can observe. An indeterminate astral body becomes a definite one. What happens in the astral body is as if the physical body were to gradually develop eyes within it. In the manner described, spiritual eyes and ears are incorporated into the astral body; an indeterminate cloud becomes a structured astral organism. The consequence of this is that the human being now no longer experiences nothing, but that what enters spiritually for the sensual body when the eyes and ears are incorporated into it. This now occurs for the astral body.

What man achieves through patient meditation and concentration in such pictorial and other representations through the corresponding teaching of spiritual science, that was called the process of purification in circles where people knew something about spiritual science. Why purification or catharsis? For the reason that man from now on in terms of his development was no longer dependent merely on external impressions and then must remain unconscious and has no external impressions, but because he now, when he leaves out all impressions, as it is in sleep, nevertheless has a world around him. Because he can be purified and refined and still have experiences, just spiritual experiences. This is the first step, which is achieved by such means as we have described.

But there must also be a second stage in spiritual development if man is to become a real clairvoyant. We will be able to understand this stage, this higher stage, when we realize that when we fall asleep, not only a physical part remains. Even in this physical body, which remains in bed at night when we fall asleep, we have a superphysical, a supersensory. The easiest way to understand this – and today it can only be mentioned – is to go deeper and deeper into theosophy. You will see that this is being elevated to the level of proof despite all the objections of external science. The easiest way to understand this is to compare the human being as he stands before us with some external physical object.

What is the physical body of man is, has the same forces and materials as the external inanimate so-called mineral bodies. But there is a huge difference between the people and a mere mineral being. You can see a mineral being that has a certain shape. How can the form disappear? By being smashed or destroyed from the outside. From the outside, the form must be destroyed. What is the human physical body – and we are now speaking of the human being, otherwise we would have to say that it is the same for every living being – what is the human physical body, it is also made of physical forces and substances, just like the outer nature, but when these forces and substances are left to themselves, what do they do? They dissolve the form, they disintegrate.

What can be called the dissolution of the form of the physical human body occurs at death. When a person dies, what remains before our eyes, before the external senses, is a physical body; this now disintegrates into the physical and chemical substances that are within it. But it is no longer a human body, it is a corpse; and while a stone retains its form through the forces and substances at work in it, the human body will disintegrate and dissolve the moment it is left to its own physical and chemical substances. Spiritual science shows us that from the moment of its formation until the moment of death, an enduring fighter lives in our body, as it does in every living being. This fighter continually works to prevent the physical body from disintegrating during our lifetime. Just as we see the astral body floating out of what remains in bed when the person falls asleep in the evening, so we see that which remains in the physical body during sleep floating out at death. In this way, death differs from ordinary sleep. That which we find in life as a fighter against the disintegration of our body, we call the etheric or life body in relation to the physical, and the difference between sleep and death now becomes clear to us.

During sleep, not only the physical body but also the etheric or life body remains lying, and from these two the astral body rises with self-awareness. So every night. In the morning, when the person wakes up, his astral body descends again into the physical body and into the etheric or life body and uses the organs, the eyes, the ears and so on. When a person passes through the gate of death, only the physical body remains, which is now a corpse, and the etheric body lifts off with the astral body. Such is the difference between sleep and death.

The fact that the etheric body, with what this etheric body has experienced in the earthly, is raised up, enables the human being to pass over into a spiritual world after his death, in which he continues to live. But this question should not concern us, what the human being takes with him from his life into the other existence, but rather what is connected with the where and how of the spiritual researcher.

The etheric body does not emerge even during sleep, but remains with the physical human body. The astral body, on the other hand, floats out during sleep, and when the person wakes up, it re-enters the physical body. At the moment when the astral body, through the contemplation described to you, through that meditative life, when it acquires imaginative knowledge in symbolic and other representations, for example, at that moment when the astral body receives its spiritual and so forth, he brings these into the etheric body in the morning, and the result of this is that the person does not wake up in the morning with the feeling, “You were unconscious.” Instead, when he awakens, he says, I was in a spiritual world among spiritual things and beings, I was in my true home, in that world from which my soul and spirit come just as my physical body is from the physical world.

The second, higher stage of clairvoyant life contributes to the fact that the astral body, with what it develops at night under the influence of the inner life, illuminates the etheric body. This is called enlightenment. These are the first two stages of clairvoyant life.

At first, there is the realization that the person does not wake up from the sea of unconsciousness, but with the memory that he was among spiritual beings during the night. He knows that there was a spiritual world around him; and then he comes further and further so that during the day, in his physical body, he can see around him that which is around us, which fills space just as much as the physical world, that he can see the spiritual world around him between and through physical things. Thus man does not find the spirit through external perception, but he finds it by awakening his soul through precisely defined methods and means, which could only be explained by an example today. He brings the forces and abilities slumbering in him to a higher level, finds the spirit in himself, and thus can perceive the spiritual world in the spirit that he has awakened in himself.

Thus, through the development of a new consciousness, through purification and enlightenment, the human being lives his way up into the spiritual world. And again, imagination, this immersion in images, is only the preparation for the perceptions of the actual spiritual world. For here we are faced with an important fact of inner experience. Someone might raise the question: Yes, but what a person has in his inner life at first are only unreal images, only pictures, only symbols. — Of course, at first they are. But if he assimilates these symbols in the right way in his life, then the time comes when he can say to himself: Now, now I have arrived at the moment when I no longer have only my real ideas, but now, because I have made something specific out of my life, an objective world flows in on me.

Only experience itself, observation, can teach one to distinguish between how long one lives in mere ideas and when one arrives at the spiritual facts and spiritual entities that come from outside. Just as you can distinguish in the sensual life between mere conception and the perception of reality, so too there comes a moment when you can distinguish through experience the inner life of mere conception in the imagination from outer [supernatural] reality.

One could indeed say: In the physical world, the existence of real things can be proven. No, it can only be experienced; it can never be proved by experience. The mere idea in the sensual world is to be clearly distinguished from perception, and if someone wanted to claim, as a false philosophy does, that our world consists only of ideas, he may consider what a difference there is between the idea of a glowing steel and the perception of a glowing steel. He can clearly see the difference that exists. Imagine being in front of a glowing piece of steel and try to determine such clear and correct concepts from it. The philosophical prejudice that the world is our imagination cannot be proven, only the reality of things can be experienced.

Just as things are outside of us and become our ideas when we face them, so too the inner, intimate life that arises through meditation and concentration in those images and in other ideas, which of course cannot be described here due to the limited time, but can only be illustrated by the example of the Rosicrucian , then man, when he practices the inner life, can see the time approaching when he says: I no longer have a Rosicrucian before me, but I have reached the moment when spiritual beings approach me who are just as real as the external sensual things when I imagine them. This is experienced, and what he does is a preparation. This is indeed how the life of the soul unfolds during awakening.

When ascending into the spiritual world, the opposite of what happens in external reality occurs. In external reality, we first have the objects and the experience; then we form the ideas. In the higher, spiritual, supersensible world, we must first transform our imaginative life and then wait patiently until we are able to allow the truth, the spiritual, the supersensible reality to take effect on our soul. And it will depend entirely on whether the person has practised a corresponding development of character, parallel to meditation and concentration, and has maintained such certainty and stability by that time that he can distinguish between imagination, hallucination and reality at the decisive moment. Ultimately, only life can give this distinction. Just as the fool is a fool who mistakes his imagination of the rose for a real rose, so man can naturally hallucinate and have illusions in the spiritual realm, even more easily, of course, if he does not retain inner security until the decisive point. But if he retains his inner strength and certainty, so that he does not waver for a moment, and says to himself: Only when something comes to meet me in my prepared soul is reality, I speak of spiritual reality; everything else I regard only as preparation; only then will he be able to distinguish spiritual reality from deception just as surely at the decisive moment as the outer man can distinguish between imagination and reality.

So, my honored attendees, today we should deal with the question: Where and how can we find the spirit? It is not by constructing some external instrument that one can find the spirit, but by transforming oneself into an instrument for perceiving the spiritual world. And so it is true that the soul's inner powers are capable of development, that, to speak again in Goethe's sense, spiritual ears can develop out of this soul, just as sensory ears and eyes develop out of the body.

Thus man finds the higher world through his own higher development. Even if today only a few can make themselves spiritual instruments for the exploration of the spiritual world, these few can still tell of the facts of the spiritual world. Since the human soul is not designed for delusion and error, but for truth, the communication of the spiritual world can be received by unbiased thinking in such a way that man first receives a presentiment of the truth of the spiritual world. Then there is the hope that, with appropriate instruction, he can gradually make himself such an instrument of spiritual perception over the course of a long, austere life. The best preparation is to begin with, to absorb and understand, in pure, unbiased thinking, in sound mind, what the spiritual researcher can grasp in the spiritual world.

Then, through such intellectual preparation, the presentiment and hope of higher experience will arise, and the human being will have in his feelings that which solves the riddles of the higher worlds and reveals the secrets of these riddles. And he will feel, experience, the truth of Goethe's words, who stood more than is usually believed in these spiritual worlds and secrets, which Goethe also expresses in his life poem, in “Faust”, at the point where he says that the sage speaks. Yes, it is precisely by living in the facts that each of us can find for ourselves within ourselves the confirmation of the words of this wise Goethe, for spiritual science offers messages about the spiritual world and awakens the hope of one day passing through the gate that currently separates human beings from these worlds. And so it will come true, through what is today called theosophy or spiritual science, when it becomes more familiar with humanity, what Goethe has the wise man say in “Faust”:

The spiritual world is not closed;
Your mind is closed, your heart is dead!
Rise up, bathe, disciple, undeterred
The earthly breast in the morning dawn!

[ 1 ] It is impossible to make real progress in penetrating to the higher worlds without going through the stage of imaginative knowledge. This by no means implies that during occult training the human being is compelled to remain for a certain time at the imaginative stage as though it were something like a class to be attended at school. In certain instances this may be necessary, but by no means as a general rule. It depends entirely upon what the occult student has experienced before entering upon his occult training. It will be shown in the course of this discussion that the spiritual environment of the occult student is important in this regard, and that depending on his orientation to this spiritual environment diverse methods have been instituted for treading the path of knowledge.

[ 2 ] It can be of the utmost importance to know what follows if one is preparing to undergo occult training. Not merely as an interesting theory does this come into consideration, but as something by which manifold practical points of view can be gained if one is to succeed on the “path to higher knowledge.”

[ 3 ] It is often said by those striving toward a higher development: I wish to perfect myself spiritually; I wish to develop the “higher man” within me; but I have no desire for the manifestations of the “astral world.” This is understandable when one takes into consideration the descriptions of the astral world found in books dealing with such things. There, to be sure, appearances and beings are spoken of that bring all sorts of dangers to men. It will be said that under the influence of such beings a man may easily suffer harm to his moral disposition and mental health. It will be brought home to the reader that in these regions the wall dividing “the good from the evil path” is as “a spider's web” in thickness, and that the plunge into immeasurable abysses, the fall into utter depravity, lies all too near.—It is, of course, impossible simply to contradict such assertions. Yet the standpoint taken in many cases as to treading the occult path is in no way a correct one. The only reasonable point of view is the one that says, rather, that no one should be deterred from traveling the way of higher knowledge because of dangers, but that in every case strict care must be taken to weather these dangers. It may happen that one who asks an occult teacher's guidance will be counselled to postpone actual training for a time, and first undergo certain experiences of ordinary life or learn things that can be learned in the physical world. It will then be the task of the occult teacher to give the seeker the right instructions for accumulating such experiences and learning such things. In most cases, by far, the occult teacher will be found to proceed in this way. If then the student now is sufficiently attentive to what happens to him, after he has come into contact with the occult teacher, he will be able to observe many things. He will find that henceforth things happen to him as if “by accident,” and that he can observe things that he would never have been exposed to without this link with the occult teacher. If the student does not notice this and becomes impatient, it is because he has not paid sufficient attention to what has happened to him. It is not to be believed that the influence of the teacher upon the student will show itself in distinctly visible “tricks of magic.” This influence is rather an intimate matter, and he who would explore its nature and essence without having first reached a certain stage of occult training will surely err. The student injures himself in every case in which he becomes impatient over the waiting time prescribed for him. His advance will be none the less rapid on this account. On the contrary, his progress would be slowed down if he were to begin too soon the training he often impatiently awaits.

[ 4 ] If the student allows the waiting time or the other advice and hints given to him by the occult teacher to influence him rightly, he will be actually preparing himself to hold his ground before certain trials and dangers that approach him when he encounters the unavoidable stage of Imagination. This stage is unavoidable for this reason: Everyone who seeks communication with the higher world without having passed through it can only do so unconsciously and is condemned to grope in the dark. One can acquire some dim sense of this higher world without Imagination; one can without it certainly attain to a sense of being united with “one's God” or “one's higher self,” but one cannot in this way come to a true knowledge in full consciousness and bright, luminous clarity. Therefore, all talk about coming to terms with the “inferior spiritual worlds” (the astral and the devachanic) being unnecessary, that the one thing needful is for man to awaken the “God within him,” is no more than illusion.—Whoever is satisfied with this approach should not be interfered with in his strivings, and the occultist would not so interfere. But true occultism has nothing at all to do with such strivings. It makes no demand upon anybody to become a pupil. But in him who seeks its discipline it will awaken no mere dim perception of himself as “godlike,” but will also try to open his spiritual eyes to what actually exists in higher worlds.

[ 5 ] Of course, the “divine self” is contained in every man. It is in every created being. In stone, plant, and animal, the “divine self” is also contained and active. But it does not so much matter to feel and know this in general as to enter into a living connection with the manifestations of this “divine self.” Just as one can mutter over and over again that this world contains the “divine self” veiled within it and know nothing thereby of the physical world, so does he who seeks the “divine kingdom of spirits” only in blurred and indeterminate generalities know nothing of higher worlds. One should open the eyes and behold the revelation of deity in the things of the physical world, in the stone, in the plant, and not merely dream away all these as only “appearances” with the true form of God somehow “concealed” behind them. No, God reveals Himself in His creations and whoever would know God must learn to know the true essence of these creations. Therefore one must also learn to behold what really goes on and is living in the higher worlds, if one would know the “divine.” The consciousness that the “God-man” dwells within one can at most provide a beginning. But this beginning experienced in the right way, rises to an actual lift into the higher worlds. But this is possible only for one in whom the spiritual “senses” have been developed. Any other view arrives only at the standpoint, “I will stay as I am and attain only what is possible for me to attain in this way.” But the aim of the occultist is to become a different human being, in order to behold and experience other things than the customary ones.

[ 6 ] It is precisely for this purpose that passage through imaginative knowledge is necessary. It has already been said that this stage of Imagination need not be conceived of as a school class that must be gone through. It is to be understood that, particularly in present-day life, there are persons who bring with them pre-conditions enabling the occult teacher to call forth in them inspired and intuitive knowledge simultaneously, or nearly so, with the imaginative. But it is not at all to be understood that any person could be spared passage through the imaginative stage.

[ 7 ] The cause of danger inherent in imaginative knowledge has already been pointed out in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment. This cause is that upon entrance into that world the human being in a certain sense loses the ground under his feet. The source of his security in the physical world is for the moment to all appearances entirely lost. Upon perception of something in the physical world it is asked: Whence comes this perception? This is mostly done unconsciously. But it is quite “unconsciously” clear that the causes of the perception are objects “outside in space.” Colours, sounds, odours go out from these objects. Colours would not be seen floating free in space, nor sounds heard, without consciousness arising as to the objects to which these colours pertain as qualities, and from which these tones come. This consciousness that objects and entities cause physical perceptions gives to them, and thereby to man himself, his security and sure hold. Anyone having perceptions without outward causes is spoken of as abnormal and morbid. Such causeless perceptions are called illusions, hallucinations, visions.

[ 8 ] Now first of all, viewed entirely outwardly, the whole imaginative world consists of such hallucinations, visions, and illusions. It has been pointed out [in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds] how, through occult training, such visions, etc., are artificially produced. By focusing the consciousness on a seed or a dying plant, certain forms, which to begin with are nothing but hallucinations, are conjured up before the soul. The “flame formation,” spoken of as appearing in the soul through observation of a plant or the like, and that after a time completely separates itself from the plant, is, outwardly viewed, to be regarded on the same level as an hallucination. It is the same in occult training when the imaginative world is entered. What was customarily regarded as going forth from things “outside in space,” or “clinging to them” as properties—colours, sounds, odors, etc.,—now float free in space. Perceptions break loose from all outer things and swim free in space, or fly around in it. Yet it is known with strict accuracy that the things before us have not brought forth these perceptions, but rather that they are self-induced by the human being. So it is that one thinks one has “lost the ground under one's feet.” In ordinary life in the physical world those inner picturings that do not proceed from things must be guarded against and are without ground or foundation. But to call forth imaginative knowledge, the prime essential is to have colours, sounds, odours, etc., fully torn loose from all things, “floating free in space.”

[ 9 ] The next step towards imaginative knowledge is to find a new “ground and foundation” for the picturings that are thus adrift. This must occur in that other world that is now about to be revealed. New things and entities take possessions of these inner picturings. In the physical world, for instance, the color blue stays on a cornflower. In the imaginative world likewise it must not remain “free floating.” It streams, as it were, towards some being, and whereas it floated unattached at first, it now becomes the expression of a being. Something speaks through it that the observer can only perceive in the imaginative world, and so these “free-floating” picturings gather around definite centers. It becomes clear that beings are speaking to us through them. And, as in the physical world there are corporeal things and beings to which colours, sounds, odors, and so forth, are attached or from which they are derived, so now spiritual beings speak out through them. These “spiritual beings” are, in fact, always there; they hover continually around human beings. But they cannot reveal themselves to them if the occasion is not given them to do so. They are given this opportunity when one calls forth the capacity to let sounds, colours, and so forth, arise before one's soul, even when occasioned by no physical object.

[ 10 ] The “spiritual facts and beings” are entirely different from the objects and entities of the physical world. In ordinary speech it is not easy to find an expression that even remotely describes this difference. Perhaps it can best be approached by saying that in the imaginative world everything speaks to man as if it were directly intelligent, whereas in the physical world intelligence can only reveal itself in a roundabout way through corporeality. Exactly this makes for mobility and freedom in the imaginative world—that the medium of the outer object is missing, and the spiritual lives itself out with full immediacy in the free-floating tones, colours, etc.

[ 11 ] Now the basis of danger threatening the human being in this world lies in the fact that he perceives the manifestations of “spiritual beings”, but not the beings themselves. This is the case as long as he remains only in the imaginative world and rises no higher. Only Inspiration and intuition lead him gradually to the beings themselves.—If, however, the occult teacher should awaken these faculties prematurely, without having thoroughly introduced the pupil to the realm of Imagination, the higher world would have for him only a shadowy and phantasmal existence. The whole glorious fullness of the pictures in which it must reveal itself when one really enters into it, would be lost. Herein lies the reason why the occult student needs a “guide.”

[ 12 ] For the student, the imaginative world is at first only a “picture world” of which mostly he does not know the meaning. But the occult teacher knows to what things and entities these pictures pertain in a still higher world. If the student has confidence in him, he can know that later connections will be revealed to him, which he cannot yet penetrate. In the physical world, the objects in space were themselves his guides. He was in a position to prove the accuracy of his inner picturings of them. The corporeal reality is the “rock” upon which all hallucinations and illusions must be shattered. This rock disappears into an abyss when the imaginative world is entered. Therefore the teacher must serve as another such rock. From what he is able to offer, the student must sense the reality of the new world. From this it can be judged what great confidence in the teacher must exist in any occult training worthy of the name. When he can no longer believe in the teacher, it is exactly the same in this higher world as if in the physical world everything on which his faith in the reality of his perceptions had been built were suddenly taken from him.

[ 13 ] Apart from this fact, there is yet another through which the human being might be thrown into confusion if he were to enter the imaginative world without guidance, for the occult student has in the first place to learn to know himself as distinct from all other spiritual beings. In physical life man has feelings, desires, longings, passions, ideas, and so forth. True, these are all caused by things and beings of the outer world, but the human being knows quite definitely that they form his inner world, and he distinguishes them from the objects of the outer world as what is happening within his soul. But as soon as the imaginative sense is awakened, this ease of differentiation completely ceases. His own feelings, ideas, passions, and so forth, literally step outside him and take on form, color and tone. He stands before them now as before wholly strange objects and beings in the physical world. It will be understood that the confusion can become complete if it is remembered what has been said in the chapter, “Some Results of Initiation,” in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment. The way in which the imaginative world appears to the observer is described there. All appears there reversed as in a reflected image. What streams out from man appears as if it were coming toward him from outside. A wish that he cherishes changes into a shape—for example, into the form of some fantastic looking animal, or again into an entity resembling a human being. This appears to assail him, to make an attack on him, or to cause him to do this or that. So it can happen that the human being appears to himself as surrounded by a wholly fantastic, often charming and seductive, often also horrible, world of fluttering forms. In reality these are nothing other than his thoughts, wishes, and passions, transformed into images.—It would be a great error to believe it easy to distinguish between this self transformed into images on the one hand and the real spiritual world on the other. At first it is downright impossible for the student to make this distinction. For the identical picture can come from some spiritual being that speaks to men or from something in the interior of the soul, and if one's development is unduly precipitate at this point, there is danger of never learning to separate the two in an orderly fashion. The greatest caution is to be the rule in this regard.—Now the confusion will be still greater in that the wishes and desires of the soul clothe themselves in images of an exactly opposite character from what they really are. It may be assumed, for instance, that vanity clothes itself in a picture in this way. It may appear as a charming shape promising the most wonderful things if its dictates are carried out. Its pronouncements seem to set goals thoroughly good and worth striving for; if followed, they plunge one into moral and other kinds of ruin. Conversely, a good soul quality can clothe itself in unprepossessing garb. At this point only the real knower can differentiate, and only a personality unsusceptible to weakening in respect to a right aim is steady in face of the seductive artifices of his own soul's imagery.—From these considerations it will be recognised how necessary is the guidance of a teacher who, with a sure sense, makes the pupil attentive to what in this realm is phantasm and what is truth. There is no need to believe that the teacher must always stand just behind the pupil. The presence of the teacher close to the occult student in space is not what matters most. Certainly there is the moment when such spatial presence is desirable, and also when it is absolutely necessary. But on the other hand, the occult teacher finds means of remaining in touch with the pupil even when spatially far removed. Besides, it must be observed that much of what takes place between teacher and pupil in this sphere when they meet can go on working often for months and perhaps for years afterward. But there is one thing that must surely destroy the necessary link between teacher and pupil. This happens if the pupil loses confidence in the teacher.—It is particularly bad if this bond of confidence is broken before the pupil has learned to distinguish the illusory reflections of his own soul from true reality.

[ 14 ] Now it could perhaps at this point be argued that if a connection with the teacher occurs in this way, the occult student loses all freedom and independence. He gives himself, so to speak, wholly into the hands of the teacher. This is in truth, however, not at all the case. The various methods of occult training certainly differ from one another with respect to this dependence upon the teacher. This dependence can be required to be a greater or a lesser one. It is relatively greatest in the method that was followed by the Oriental occultists, and even today is taught by them as their own. This dependence is already proportionately less in the so-called Christian initiation, and, properly speaking, its complete omission comes on the path of knowledge that, since the fourteenth century, has come to be advanced by the so-called Rosicrucian occult schools. On this path the teacher can by no means be disregarded; that is impossible. But all dependence on him ceases. How this is possible will be presented in the continuation of these thoughts hereafter. Therein we shall explain precisely how these three paths of knowledge differ: the oriental, the Christian, and the Rosicrucian. In the Rosicrucian approach there is nothing at all upsetting in any way to a modern man's sense of freedom. It will also be described in this continuation how one person or another as an occult student, even in present-day Europe, may travel, not the Rosicrucian, but the Oriental path, or the old Christian; although today the Rosicrucian is the most natural. This way, as will be seen in due course, is not at all unchristian. A man can go this way without endangering his Christianity, as can also he who supposes himself to stand at the pinnacle of the modern scientific world-conception.

[ 15 ] But perhaps one other explanation is needed. One might feel tempted to ask whether the occult student could not be spared going through the delusions of his own soul. But if this happened, he would never attain to that independent discernment so desirable for him. For by no other means can the singular nature of the imaginative world be so well grasped as by the observation of one's own soul. To begin with, man knows the inner life of his soul from one side. He is immersed in it, and this is just what the occult student has to learn—not only to look at things from outside, but to observe them as if he himself were within all of them. If his own thought world now meets him as something foreign, and he already knows a thing from one side, he can still learn to know it from another. He must himself become to a certain extent the first example of such knowledge. Here in the physical world he is accustomed to something quite different. Here he looks upon all other things only from outside, but he experiences himself only from the inside. As long as he remains in the physical world, he can never see behind the surface of things. He can never go outside himself, “slip out of his skin,” as it were, to observe himself from outside. This objective observation of himself is literally his first obligation in occult training, this helps him learn also to look beneath the surface of outer facts and beings.

I would like to say a few words about the color in which we have held our meetings here. There is good reason for this being red. When we see red on the outside, it forms its counter-image on the inside, because the eye has the tendency to create the greenish-blue from within when it sees red in front of it: this is the inner activity of the eye. With children, a great deal depends on how the body responds to external impressions. I refer here to what I said about the color red when we were discussing education. The eye responds to a red environment with a tendency towards green-blue activity, and this inner work is calming. Therefore, the color red in the environment has a calming effect on excited children. If you remember that later stages of human development always lead back to the childhood stage at a higher level, you will understand why the color was chosen for a place – which, even if it is not a place of initiation, should remind us of it through its symbols – that triggers the color in the child's body that is directed towards the sacred. It is not without reason that the Bible says: Unless you become like little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Our inner being must become as pure as the ether of the cosmos, which meets us in blue. The education for this is expressed in the red color of our environment. If red surrounds us externally, the contrary color lives within us. This explains the red in all esoteric cult sites, while exoteric sites, where the secret teachings are spoken of externally and in symbols, are blue. The Rosicrucian worldview expresses the esoteric in the color red. If the room is fully furnished in the sense of the Rosicrucian worldview, then blue arches should still rise above.

What do the two columns mean to the Rosicrucians? If one wants to explain these two columns standing here before us, one must start from the so-called Golden Legend. This says:

When Seth, the son of Adam – who had taken the place of Abel – was ready, he was allowed to gain an insight into Paradise, allowed to pass the angel with the sword whirling in the fire, into the place from which man had been expelled. There Seth saw something very special. He saw how the two trees, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, entwined each other. Seth got three seeds from these two entwined trees, took them with him and put them in the mouth of his father Adam when he had died. A mighty tree then grew out of Adam's grave. This tree appeared to some who had psychic senses, as if it were glowing with fire, and this fire coiled itself for him who could see into the letters B, the first letters of two words that I am not authorized to pronounce here, but the meaning of which is: “I am who was, I am who is, I am who will be.” This tree divided into three limbs. Seth took wood from it, and it was used in many ways in the evolution of the world. A staff was made from it; the magic wand of Moses, legend says. It was the same wood that was used to form the beams of Solomon's Temple. They remained there as long as people understood the ancient secrets. Then the wood was thrown into a pond in which the lame and the blind were healed at certain times. After it had been taken out again, it formed the bridge over which the Redeemer passed as he made his way to the cross. And finally, so the legend goes, the cross itself, on which the Redeemer hung, was made from the wood of this tree, which had grown out of Adam's mouth after the seeds of the entwined trees of life and knowledge had been placed in his mouth.

This legend has a deep symbolic meaning. Remember the process, the transformation that the disciple must think of when he goes through the fourth stage of the Rosicrucian training: the production of the philosopher's stone. We remember that it has to do with a certain treatment of our red blood. Let us think of the significance of this red blood, not only because Goethe's saying, “Blood is a very special fluid,” points us to it, but because occultism has taught it at all times. The way this red blood appears is a result of breathing oxygen. We can only touch on this briefly. When we are now referred to such an important moment in the legend and in the Bible, to the re-entry of Seth into Paradise, we must remember what caused man to be driven out of Paradise. He was driven out of Paradise, man's ancient state in the bosom of the higher spiritual world, by the following, which is already hinted at in the Bible as the physical process that goes hand in hand with the descent. Those who want to understand the Bible must learn to take it literally. It says: “God breathed into the man the breath of life, and he became a living soul.” This breathing in of the breath was a process that is here expressed figuratively and that extended over millions of years. What does it mean?

In the development of mankind, in the formation of the physical body, there were times when there were no lungs in the human body, so that oxygen could not yet be inhaled. There were times when man more or less floated in liquid elements, when he had an organ, a kind of swim bladder, from which the lungs later developed. This swim bladder of the past has been transformed into the lungs, and we can follow the process of transformation. When we do this, it shows itself as the process that the Bible expresses with the image: “And God breathed into the man the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.” It was only with this breathing of the breath that the production of red blood became possible. Thus the descent of man is connected with the production of the red blood tree in his inner being.

Imagine that the human being stands before you and you can only follow the trickling of the red blood: you would have before you a living red tree. Of this the Christian esoteric says: It is the tree of knowledge. Man has usurped it, he has enjoyed the red blood tree. The erection of the red blood tree, which is the true tree of knowledge: that is sin. And God drove man out of paradise so that he would not also enjoy the tree of life. We have another tree in us, which you can imagine in the same way as the other. But it has red-blue blood. This blood is the stuff of death. The red-blue tree was implanted in man at the same time as the other. When man rested in the bosom of the Godhead, the Godhead in him was able to interweave what his life and his knowledge meant. And in the future lies the point in time when man, through his expanded consciousness will be able to transform the blue blood into the red blood; then he will have within himself the source for the blue blood tree to be a tree of life. Today it is a tree of death. In this image, there is both a retrospective and a prospective view! You see that in man a red blood tree and a red-blue blood tree are entwined. The red blood is the expression of the I, it is the lower part of the knowledge of the I. The blue blood is the expression of death. As a punishment, the blue blood tree was added to the red tree of knowledge as the tree of death. In the distant future, this tree of death will be transformed into the tree of life, just as it was originally a tree of life. When you imagine man as he stands before you, his whole life is based on the interaction of these two trees.

The fact that Seth was allowed to enter Paradise again means that he was an initiate and was allowed to look back on the divine-spiritual state where the two trees were intertwined. And he put three seeds of the entwined trees into Adam's mouth, from which a tree divided into three arose. This means: the tree that grows out of man, Manas, Buddhi, Atma, these three parts that make up the upper part of man, are found in him by nature. The legend thus indicates how the trinity of the divine is already present in the human disposition, even in Adam, how it grows out of him and how it is initially seen only by the initiate. Man must go his course of development. All the things that have taken place in the development of mankind and that lead to initiation are further expressed to us by the legend.

From the realization that the threefold tree rests within us, the tree of the eternal, which expresses itself in the words: “I am that was - I am that is - I am that will be!” we gain the power that moves us forward and gives us the magic wand. Hence Moses' wand. Hence the wood of the tree growing out of the seed is taken to build the temple of wisdom. Hence the cross is hewn out of it, that sign of initiation which signifies the overcoming of the lower limbs in man by the three higher ones.

Thus this legend shows how the initiate looks forward to a future state where the tree of knowledge - the red blood tree - and the tree of life - the blue-red blood tree - will be entwined, where they will intertwine in man himself. Now, the one who wants to develop inscribes in his heart what the two columns – the red column on the one hand, suggesting the red blood column; the blue-red, suggesting the blue blood column – want to tell us. Today, both are separate. Therefore, in the hall, the red column stands on the left and the blue-red column on the right. They want to challenge us to overcome the present state of humanity, to direct our path to the point where, through our expanded consciousness, they will intertwine in a way that is called: J-B. The red column is designated J, the blue-red column B.

The sayings on the pillars will help you to visualize the connection between the individual pillars. The words on the red pillar are:

In pure thought you will find
The Self that can sustain itself.

Transform your thoughts into images,
And you will experience creative wisdom.

Those who meditate on this will, through the power of their thoughts, instill in their red blood column the power that leads to the goal: the wisdom column.

The power needed for the life column is instilled when one devotes oneself to the thought that stands on the other, the blue column:

When you condense feeling into light,
You reveal the forming power.

You objectify the will into being,
Thus you create in the world's being.

Some words relate to knowledge, others to life. The formative power first “reveals” itself in the sense of the first saying; it only becomes “magical” in the sense of the second saying. The transition from mere cognitive power to magical action lies in the transition from the power of the saying on the first column to that of the saying on the second.

Thus you see how what these symbols, the two pillars, mean, is directly related to the ideals and goals of the Rosicrucian student. In some esoteric societies, these two pillars are also erected. The esotericist will always associate the meaning that has been attached to them.

The seven images that adorn the hall are symbolic expressions of very specific ancient wisdoms. They represent the so-called seven seals of ancient and ever-new wisdom. The Apocalypse of John also talks about it, and this apocalypse is also a kind of interpretation of an occult sign language. Those who study it will recognize these very seals in the visions of the writer of the Apocalypse.

Every letter, every color of the images means something. If we look at things in the right way and sense the context, then very specific feelings are triggered that can become the creators of inner strength. The point is that we are not dealing here with leather allegories, but with a living expression of what anyone [initiate] can experience as real facts on the astral plane.

The first picture is the man with the fire sword in his mouth. This sword – and this one move is crucial – is connected with a secret of development. Speech has always been compared to the sword. But this is not just a poetic image. In occultism, everything is to be taken literally. One must only understand it.

There is a certain mysterious connection between what lives in our language, what expresses itself through our larynx in our words, and today's lower human drives of reproduction. The human form is undergoing transformation. Some can already see on the astral plane today what will be physically available in the future. In such a picture, the seer sees a state that man will one day reach, as in the first of the seven. This picture is an astral one today. It expresses a state of evolution of the physical human body in the future.

If we want to imagine this state, we have to think of it in this way: through his present, lower reproductive power, man exercises a production in the involuntary and unconscious. Through the reproductive instinct he can bring forth forms filled with matter. Now there is another power in man that does not yet enable him to produce lasting forms: that is the power of his speech. By speaking here, I also produce something. If you follow what is happening in this room while I speak, you can follow oscillating air waves. These are nothing other than words set in motion: movement. In the distant past, such words set in motion were also what is expressed today in the reproductive life. What is condensed today was, when it was still spirit, a word set in motion. What man today can only do out of his word as movement will later become truly reproductive power. Imagine you were able to freeze my words in a moment, so that the solidified air waves would fall down. You would find a special form for each word: a different one for “and” than for “God” ; a shell shape, for all I care. When I say “God”, other forms would be there than when I say “and”. Occultism shows us that everything around us in the form of physical objects has really come into being in this way. The spirit of the Logos resounded into space and matter took shape; the rest is a process of solidification. What is around us today are formed words, condensed divine word. The forces within us are condensed divine forces. What was once created through the word is now being transformed into natural forms. Thus, in the course of evolution, the human larynx will become a reptile-reproducing organ. We will not only be able to create movements, but the larynx will become the true reproductive organ. What is language today will become the creator of its own kind. The larynx is the future organ of reproduction, elevated to spirituality; hence, in man, the parallel in sexual development and laryngeal development can already be seen. The transformation of the voice at sexual maturity points to the creative power that will one day develop from the human voice. The true power of reproduction will arise from speech, the conscious power of human beings to bring forth. And just as you know that we give the name fire spirits to the spirits who were our ancestors because they were related to fire as we are to air, so we will develop from an air spirit to a fire spirit again as we ascend. Not only will the one power flow from the larynx, but also the power of the fire spirits.

You can see this expressed in the first picture, in the fiery sword of the one who represents the eternal essence of man that continues through all incarnations. This eternal element in man is at the same time the divine creator. It is true that what passes through our incarnations as our eternal essence is of the same nature as that which created the sevenfold planetary series. Therefore, the man in his right hand holds the symbols of the seven planets.

The second picture shows the so-called apocalyptic animals: the lion, eagle, bull and human. We get an idea of them when we remember that the animal today does not have an ego soul like we do. The animal does not have its ego soul on the physical plane; the individual animal relates to the ego of a group like a limb of the human being relates to the whole ego. Therefore, we speak of group souls in animals, and if you investigate these group souls, you will find them on the astral plane. Now everyone will realize that man, in his evolution, has also gone through conditions where that which was on the physical plane did not yet have the I-soul. Man also went through conditions where he had a group soul. At the same time — which is called the Lemurian Age — that the soul descended into physical corporeality, the group soul transformed into the individual soul. In the distant future, man will again rise to the state of the group soul, only consciously, in a higher sense. The symbol for that higher group soul is the second picture. The unity in the distant future is represented by the outer forms of those group souls that humanity had in the past. These group souls, from which the human individual soul has emerged and to which it will return, are divided into four typical groups. These are four real astral groups. One is characterized by the group soul as it is still embodied today in rudiments of the soul of Taurus; the other as it develops in the soul of Leo; the third as in the soul of the bird; but the soul that elevated man, allowed him to enter into individuality, is called the human being. Man emerged from these four group souls and into them he will return. The group soul that is the most advanced, which is already individualized on the astral plane as a human soul, we see in the middle of the symbol. It is the Christ-soul, symbolized by the lamb. It complements the four other group souls.

Then you see here in the rainbow, which surrounds the whole in the seven colors, the creative world principle in a second form. It is the sevenfold creative principle that effectively underlay the inner, human path of evolution when man was still at that stage. And regarding the numbers I to XII, which can be read like the numbers on a clock on the colors of the rainbow, we must remember that the earth, moon and sun were once one body.

This unity is connected with conditions as shown here. This form of cosmic order was necessary for man to be a group soul. Our present time division is connected with the position of the world bodies. In that very distant past, when there was not yet an earth revolving around the sun, all time relationships must have been different. In those days there was no day and hour. The sun itself made its way, and there was a great cosmic clock face. This represented the places the sun passed through. The hour hand on our clocks passes the clock twice a day; so in that ancient cosmic calendar, the sun did not pass through the zodiac once, but twice, through a period of brightness and darkness. This double passage, this double passing through these stations, is called passing by the elder brothers of the cosmic order. They are the twenty-four elders of the Apocalypse. Hence a kind of world clock is arranged.

If we look at the distant future, you will see cosmic, future states expressed in the sixth picture, where man will have risen again in his outer form; we see that the earth and sun will be united and what is eliminated will be eliminated as a moon body. Remember that Goethe calls the highest thing the soul can strive for the eternal feminine. What overcomes the unusable substances in human nature is called feminine. When the earth has united with the sun, then man himself will be the sun-woman; man will have created the union. The unusable substance is represented as the moon, which is trampled underfoot. What must come out when the earth becomes the sun again is represented by the dragon. It will be overcome when the earth becomes the sun again.

The third image shows an open book, surrounded by bowls and angels blowing trumpets, surrounded by flowing light and colors.

The trumpeting angels express the harmony of the spheres. When one ascends from the astral plane to the devachan plane, one experiences the floating world of light and color of the astral plane being permeated by the harmony of the spheres. That which can be seen within the astral plane as floating light and color begins to resound, revealing itself as an expression of the essence of the mental plane. The Pythagorean school called this harmony the music of the spheres. Goethe also speaks of it when he says: “The sun sounds according to ancient ways...” and “The new day is already born sounding for spiritual ears!”

The bowls signify the so-called bowls of wrath, that is to say that the human being will have attained the spirit when he has overcome and transformed what is called wrath. All that is wrathful must be cast out; therefore the bowls of wrath are poured out.

The book is not intended to imply anything other than that man himself, in his development, if we know how to solve his secrets correctly, represents an image of the eternal evolution of the world. When he recognizes this, that man is an image of the evolution of the world, then he can read himself, he has become a book to himself. Then the moment will arrive of which it says in the Apocalypse that John must devour the book. This is explained in more detail in the next seal.

The two columns of the fourth picture represent the devouring red and blue blood tree. The cloud is the present-day air, which the larynx only controls. From this, the productive power of man, which creates into the solid, will arise in the future. Above the two blood columns, the initiated human being who has devoured the book will emerge. And man generates within himself the power that will transform the earth into the sun. This power is characterized in the face that is born out of the sun. When man has reached this stage, his vision is a vision into the astral world. This is indicated to you in the rainbow above the face of the sun. This rainbow indicates the power that man will have acquired when he himself becomes a cosmic creator being.

In the fifth picture we have a being that conquers the dragon. This is the future human being who will have completely subdued what is called the lower self. This is connected with cosmic conditions that arise when what is called Kama is trampled underfoot.

The state that will occur when this has happened is symbolized in the Holy Grail of the narrated image. The transparent cube below represents a transparent diamond cube made of pure carbon. When man has progressed to the point where he uses carbon itself to build his body - without the help of plants - he will create the cube. This cube of crystallized pure carbon is the best indication of the future state of man. Man will have progressed so far that he will not only recognize the three dimensions, but also the oncoming contra-dimensions: hence the three other dimensions meet the three in the mirror image. These counter-dimensions represent what man will one day achieve when he has overcome the physical in spirit. The serpents signify the upward development to the higher. This is indicated in the seal in violet-bluish coils as a luminous image. This luminous image of the serpent signifies the devoted nature of knowledge. Only this devoted nature can grasp the world spiral in the Caduceus, which will then be fiery, which winds itself out of pure knowledge. Then it transforms into the downward-pointing pure chalice. The chalice of the plant is today directed upwards, pure and chaste; in man it is the other way round. But the human chalice will again be chaste and will turn downwards - that is why the Grail is represented here as a chalice turned downwards. The pure man, the man who has become innocent, is represented by the dove. The rainbow indicates the sevenfold creative man.

Thus the entire evolution of humanity is indicated in the seven seals. Contemplation of such images is intended to evoke the feelings that we must gain and that themselves represent effective evolutionary moments.

The program book is inscribed with the signature of the Rosicrucian school: E.D.N. I.C.M. P.S.S.R. This means:

Ex deo nascimur
In Christo morimur
Per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus.

The seven seals express the secrets of initiation; in the seven pillars, they are expressed in planetary terms. These pillars support the heavens, that is to say, all evolution. The capitals have their own specific meaning in all their individual features. If you feel vividly how the upper part slopes towards the lower, feelings are triggered in you that give an account of the currents in the respective states of these world bodies. The motifs of the first column have simple inclinations and curvatures. Contemplation of them evokes a feeling of the currents that permeated the Earth when it was embodied in its first state, which is called the Saturn state. That is why this is the Saturn pillar.

When you feel the progression of the motifs when looking at the second column – the lower part is structured like the ovary of a plant, and from above it is structured in such a way that it can become a calyx – feelings are triggered in you that correspond to the currents that flowed through the earth when it was in the sun state. That is why we speak here of the sun column. And so it is with the consideration of the third, fourth and further pillars. When one passes from one to the other, different currents of feeling develop again and again.

The first half of the evolution of the earth has its special peculiarity from the influence of Mars. Now, in the second half, it is under the influence of the power that the occultist sees emanating from Mercury. The evolution of the earth is therefore divided into the two halves of Mars and Mercury. If we now omit the volcanic state as a kind of octave of the Saturn state, the following series of states in the evolution of the earth emerges: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus.

In the Mercury column, the Saturn motif is interwoven with the Mercury motif. The snake staff emerges organically from what has gone before. It develops further. And as we delve into the motifs of the other capitals, we sense the earth currents that arise from further development. In the last one, we have the goblet shape again.

The secret of the seven planetary states of our earth has been incorporated into the names of the seven days of the week. They are: Saturday, Samedi, Samstag; Sunday; Monday, Monday; Martian Day: Mardi or Ziu, Tuesday; Mercury Day: Mercredi (Wednesday is a profane name); Jupiter Day: Jeudi, Thor, Donar, Thursday; Venus Day: Vendredi, Freya, Friday. The names of the days of the week are deeply symbolic. In their succession, we see something by which the initiates wanted to say: Remember that you have been placed in the living evolution of time. This is how the highest teaches us to understand the very nearest, that which is in our immediate surroundings.

The idea of the evolution of humanity was to be hinted at in the pillars. It is expressed as it has always been expressed in occult symbolism. The sites of occultism were symbolically structured and designed. One should see what lives in the soul in form, in image, in color. What lives in the soul should shine out to us from the outside, then one has worked in the sense of world evolution. Above all, it is our task to think selflessly about this great evolution. It will be fulfilled when we allow the inner life to flow into the outer life completely.

Verse for Saturday. Every esoteric makes progress if he does his exercises with the proper perseverance and intensity. If he doesn't progress it's because he doesn't pay enough attention to what comes from the spiritual world. This is very intimate and subtle. One must immerse oneself entirely in the words that are given as exercises, everything else must not be there for the meditator, he must be as if removed from his physical body. He must only be aware of his I. At the end of meditation the content of the same must be extinguished, and only the waking I must be there with an empty content. These are the most productive moments, in which the spiritual world can flow into the meditator. Or else during the day one suddenly has the feeling that something is flitting by, so that one knows that something from the spiritual world was just there. Then a feeling of deep piety takes hold of one.

The content of what flows to a meditator when he empties himself of the after-effects of the meditation depends upon merit. It'll never be the same from one time to the next. This content depends on our morality, love of truth and on how we've lived and been since the last meditation. If we weren't entirely truthful or if we let anger and aggravation arise in us, then nothing from the spiritual world can stream into us. We get what we deserve. If we trace these things back attentively we'll always find the reason why we weren't blessed with the spirit in some lie, in a surging up of anger or the like.

If someone who knows nothing about theosophy says the Lord's prayer or some other one, he easily gets a warm feeling or one of warm piety, but this comes from his personal feelings. When an esoteric prays he will first have a cold feeling; he shouldn't bring anything personal into his prayer, he must only let the spiritual content of the same work. Inner, real warmth then comes from the spiritual world and not from his personal life.

If one occupies oneself with an object that one has chosen for concentration every day—the first subsidiary exercise—connects one thought after another with it, then if one lets 15 minutes pass without plunging back into daily activities, after months of serious exercising one will feel as if something was coming into the head or brain, as if the etheric body was coming back into the brain in waves. In the second subsidiary exercise, initiative action, in which one exerts one's will in some activity at particular times, after the exercise one will gradually feel as if one had been active in one's etheric body; one has the feeling: I felt myself in my etheric body. Then a feeling of deep reverence and piety moves into the meditator's soul.

In the third subsidiary exercise—harmony between joy and sorrow—we're supposed to find our way into all happenings and fit ourselves into them. Our etheric body will then gradually expand into heavenly distances. Then we won't feel that we're in our body and the whole world is around us, but we feel that our body is spread out into the whole periphery. We feel expanded and poured into spiritual worlds. One feels and knows that one is in the spiritual world.

In these three subsidiary exercises we experience the two first lines of our rosicrucian verse—how we were entirely embedded in divine-spiritual forces and came down from them, and how in the third exercise we pour ourselves into the spiritual world, into the Christ. For the Christ is in the earth's aura, in the earth's atmosphere now; we must let him reign in us or as it were next to us.

In the fourth exercise, positivity ... [gap in text] Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

Just as we walk over a meadow with blue and red flowers and we know that they're blue and red, so we'll get to the point where we experience the truth in our rosicrucian verse:

Ex Deo nascimur
In Christo morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

In the month of May, 1906, Rudolf Steiner came to Paris with a number of students to give a series of private lectures to a small circle of friends. I myself had never seen him and did not then even know of his existence, but I had entered into correspondence on the subject of one of my dramas (Les Enfants de Lucifer) with his friend Mademoiselle von Sivers, who later on became his wife and his most understanding colleague. It was she who brought her teacher to my house one happy morning.

I shall never forget the extraordinary impression made upon me by this man when he entered the room. As I looked at that thin, powerful face, at the black mysterious eyes flashing light as if from unfathomable depths, it was borne in upon me that for the first time in my life I was face to face with one of those supreme seers who have direct vision of the great Beyond. Intuitively and poetically, I had described such seers in The Great Initiates, but I had never hoped to meet one in this world. The impression was instantaneous, irresistible—of the unexpected as well as of the already known. Even before he opened his lips, an inner voice said to me: Here is a true master, one who will play an all-important part in your life.

Our subsequent relations were to prove that this first impression was not an illusion. The programme of the daily lectures, which was told me in advance by the speaker, aroused my keenest interest. The lectures were to cover the whole field of his philosophy although it was only possible to develop certain outstanding points. One would have said that the teacher's aim was to give a vista of the general plan from its own heights. His fervent, convincing eloquence, irradiated by invariable clarity of thought, struck me at once as possessing two outstanding and unusual qualities. First, its artistic power,—When Rudolf Steiner spoke of the phenomena and beings of the invisible world he seemed to be living in his own home. With striking details and in familiar terms he told of events in these unknown realms just as if he were speaking of the most ordinary things. He did not describe, he actually saw and made others see the objects, scenes and cosmic vistas in clear-cut reality. Listening to him, one could not doubt the power of his astral vision; it was as limpid as physical vision, only much more penetrating. Again, another characteristic, no less remarkable,—This philosopher-mystic, this thinker-seer related all experiences of soul to the immutable laws of physical Nature. These laws were used to explain and classify the super-physical phenomena which, to begin with, appear before the seer in overwhelming variety and almost bewildering abundance. Then, by a wonderful counterstroke, these subtle, fluidic phenomena, proceeding from cosmic Powers grouped in a mighty hierarchy, began to illumine the edifice of material Nature. The diverse parts of Nature were linked together, related to these cosmic Powers from the heights to the depths, from the depths to the heights, and a vista of the mighty architecture of the universe opened up from the inner world where the visible is ever coming to birth from the womb of the invisible.

I took no notes of the first lecture, but it made such a vivid impression upon me that when I reached home I felt impelled to write it down without forgetting a single link in the chain of these illuminating thoughts. I had absorbed the lecture so completely that I found no difficulty at all. By a process of involuntary and instantaneous transmutation, the German words, which had ingrained themselves in my memory, changed into French. The same thing, repeated after each of the eighteen lectures, gradually grew into a dossier which I keep as a rich and rare store of treasure. These lectures, never having been steno-graphed or revised by Rudolf Steiner, do not exist in the archives of his public lectures or in the collection of lectures duplicated for members of the Anthroposophical Society. They are, therefore, entirely unedited. A number of members of the French Group of the Society have expressed the desire to publish them in book form and Mademoiselle Rihouet, the editor of La Science Spirituelle, has kindly offered the pages of this magazine. I respond all the more readily to this desire because these priceless lectures mark a significant phase of Rudolf Steiner's thought—that of the spontaneous burst of his genius and its first crystallisation. And, furthermore, it gives me joy to pay this new tribute to the teacher to whom I owe one of the great revelations of my life.

1. The Origin of Esoteric Christianity

These lectures give a kind of summary of what Rudolf Steiner calls Anthroposophy. In this Foreword I do not pretend to give anything like a resume of this vast and all-embracing philosophy. Its principles are contained in a theogony, cosmogony and psychology complete in themselves. It lays down the basis of a moral philosophy, an art of education, a science of aesthetics. The teaching of this thinker-seer extends into all and every domain of life. His sweeping vision embraces the whole history of mankind and imbues modern science with spiritual conceptions without by one hair's breadth distorting it from its exactitude and pristine clarity. My only aim here is to draw my reader's attention to the most strikingly new chapters, for they lead us again to the very roots of this sublime thought.

At the time when he was delivering these lectures, Rudolf Steiner was still the General Secretary for Germany of the Theosophical Society, which has its Headquarters at Madras. The Theosophical Society, originally founded by H. P. Blavatsky, has as its present President, Mrs. Annie Besant. In spite of many gaps and ultimate digressions, this theoretical system of oriental thought which originated in India and derived its name Theosophy from Alexandrian tradition, served to recall to the uninitiated West, the two fundamental tenets of all esoteric tradition: (1) The plurality of the progressive lives of the human soul under the law of karma, and (2) The ascending evolution of man under the influence of spiritual Powers.

At the time when Rudolf Steiner entered the Theosophical Society—which he had chosen as his first field of action—he was already fully master of the doctrine he owed to his own Initiation. These lectures, given in the year 1906, are proof of this.

The essential difference between Indian Theosophy and Anthroposophy lies in the supreme rôle attributed by Anthroposophy to the Christ in human evolution and also in its connection with Rosicrucian tradition. This appears clearly in the first two lectures, entitled: The Birth of the Human Intellect and The Mission of Manicheism. More clearly than any other occultist, Rudolf Steiner has seen the profound change which has come about in the course of ages in man's constitution of body and soul and in his way of perceiving truth. In ancient, pre-Christian times, man was universally endowed with a faculty of atavistic clairvoyance. In the Atlantean period, he lived more in the ‘world beyond’ than in this world. Clairvoyance was his outstanding faculty and his chief mode of cognition, but his perception of higher worlds was confused and chaotic. This faculty weakened and gradually faded away in the course of subsequent evolution; reason and the mere observation of Nature came to the fore. The Yoga of the Indian Rishis—the source of Aryan mythology and religion—represents an effective endeavour to regain the lost power of clairvoyance and at the same time to regulate it according to cosmic laws. But shortly before the coming of Christ, humanity had reached the last stage of descent into matter and passed through a perilous crisis. The passions emanating from the animal stage, beyond which he had now passed, threatened to engulf man. Civilisation itself was in peril. The human Psyche—having freed herself from primitive darkness by dint of long struggle—threatened to be lost in the decadence of Greece and the orgies of Rome.

2. Jesus the Christ as the Axis of Human Evolution.
The Rosicrucian Initiation

This lecture deals with the dangers which necessitated the Incarnation of the “Word which was in the Beginning,” the Divine Logos Who became man. The mission of Jesus the Christ had long been foretold in the sanctuaries of India, Persia and Chaldea, proclaimed in the vision of the Risen Osiris and of the “Sun at Midnight” in the crypts of ancient Egypt. The human race had reached such a point of materialisation that salvation was only made possible by a manifestation of the Divine Spirit on the physical plane. And so the Light which up till then had not descended further than the Moon, this “Light of grace and truth” came down into the darkness of the lower earthly realms, to incarnate in the man Jesus of Nazareth and become the axis of human evolution.

A mighty revolution, a change of incalculable significance took place in the inner planes—one which was destined to transform the whole world. The result was a complete change in the mentality of man, the two poles of which were in a manner reversed. A separation took place between these two outstanding faculties: sensibility and intelligence, intuition and reason. Up to this time, intuitive seership had predominated and reason had played a secondary part; science had remained the docile hand-maiden of religion. Primordial wisdom had been a combination of the two. The conquest and mastery of the material world had now become the goal of humanity. Reason gained the upper hand and instinctive feeling was henceforward to live its life apart. On the one side there was the triumph of reason in Aristotelian thought; on the other, religious feeling reached its climax in contemplation of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Science and religion became two separate powers and then—shortly afterwards—rivals and mortal enemies. In religion, the Cross of Christ was sufficient for salvation. By contrast, science was not long in proclaiming: that alone has reality which has passed through the sieve of physical observation and of syllogism. Hence the dualism which for two thousand years has divided and rent in twain the consciousness of man. The advantage has been the development—to their extreme points—of the two poles of the soul, the two dominating faculties of intelligence. But in our day, when pure reason has hunted intuition from science and insight from education, our materialistic civilisation has reached such a condition of anarchy that its very existence is threatened.

From the outset, the aim of Christian Esotericism was to heal this dualism, to cultivate ideas capable of reconciling the two enemy-powers of religion and science, of intuition and reason, the combined knowledge and operation of which can alone arrive at truth and ensure the healthy development of mankind.

Esoteric tradition has at all times been characterised by two fundamental principles. First, that of the plurality of progressive existences of the soul and, secondly, a knowledge of the origin of evil and the means whereby man may become its victor. All great teachers of esoteric doctrine have enjoined their pupils to tread two paths of Initiation simultaneously in order the more surely to arrive at truth: the path of mysticism or ecstatic contemplation of the spiritual world, and the path of rationalism, or the synthetic contemplation of the visible universe in the light of archetypal ideas which proceed from the spiritual hierarchies but are attainable by human intelligence through intuition, even when direct seership is not there. I think that everyone will be deeply interested to read the notes of Rudolf Steiner's eighth lecture where he describes how the Rosicrucians strove to unite themselves with the Christ by meditation upon the first fourteen verses of the Gospel according to St. John. In successive visions the Rosicrucians lived once again through the seven stages of Calvary from the scourging and crowning with thorns, the bearing of the Cross to the mystic Death and ineffable Resurrection. Bathed in an ocean of love, they heard the resounding Logos, the “Word which was in the Beginning,” radiating the spiritual Light which pervades the whole universe and is the Creator of souls. The cosmic meaning attached to these stations of the Cross is deeply moving and provocative of thought.

3. The Interior of the Earth and the Problem of Evil

Instead of lingering upon the Rosicrucian Initiation which reveals the axis of Christianity and carries us into the realms of the world invisible, let me specially call readers' attention to the 16th lecture, the novelty of which is no less striking. Rudolf Steiner there gives us a striking example of his mode of contemplating visible Nature in order to penetrate to her essential being. It is as though matter became translucent and the hidden Spirit suddenly revealed.

The highly suggestive title of this lecture is Earthquakes, Volcanoes and the Will of Man. The special significance is that the main theme is related to the very roots of the nature of man.

The mystery of the interior of the Earth, the basis and stage of human evolution, is one of the numerous problems which materialistic science has never been able to solve. Unceasing research has been of no avail. Many scholars think of the interior of the Earth as an igneous mass (which would be capable of bursting the crust of the Earth); others imagine that it is a compact mass of mineral substance (which explains neither the volcano nor the earthquake). Now the Earth is a living being like the planets and suns, endowed with an interior organism indispensable to its functions and its rôle in the Cosmos. Rudolf Steiner sees the constitution of the Earth in the form of nine layers—or rather nine layers embedded one within the other. The eight interior layers under the crust of the Earth represent, as it were, the physiological organs of our planet from which its life emanates and upon which this life depends. The substance of these eight inner spheres does not resemble the mineral matter of which the outer crust and—in a sense—the skin of the Earth is formed. The elements composing these layers are half-liquid and half-gaseous. The Fire principle, the air-fire, mobile and pregnant with life, reservoir alike of impulses of will and the cause of volcanic eruptions, is only one of the spheres which are embedded one within the other. It is the fourth, counting from the centre, the fifth, counting from the outer mineral crust. The interior fire communicates with the crust along paths which are veritably ‘ventilating tracts’—hence the volcanic eruptions on the surface of the Earth.

If we cast a momentary glance at this interior constitution of the Earth, one fact immediately strikes us. It comprises the forces which are concentrated in the planet and worked at its upbuilding, through successive metamorphoses from the nebula of Saturn, through the Old Sun and Old Moon periods on to its present state. These same forces have worked at the structure of man and are more active than ever in the present age. (1) Egoism and Black Magic constitute the opaque centre of the Earth, for the reason that egoism, love of self for its own sake—of which black magic is the exaggeration and excess—is indispensable to the development of human individuality. The fatal products of egoism are the hatred and strife represented by the two next layers of (2) division, and (3) the prism, where individualities multiply and differentiate in order to battle with each other.

This ternary may be said to represent the kernel of the Earth as it existed in the nebula of the Saturn period. This basis is indispensable to the whole of the Earth's subsequent evolution. It is the ‘spring-board’ from which the individuality can rise to higher worlds, if egoism (the principle of evil) is conquered and transformed by the higher forces proceeding from the Sun and the Firmament—forces of which Divinity is the wellspring and true human freedom the fashioner. The period when the Earth was still united with the Moon is indicated in the Earth's interior by the existence of three other elementary spheres. (4) The Fire principle which lies at the root of impulses of will and is the cause of volcanic eruptions when a path is forged to the mineral crust of the Earth. (5) Above this lies the level of organic plant-life and again (6) there is the still higher level of the vortex of animal forces, where the ethereal embryos of the living beings destined to crawl, to walk and to fly, germinate and quicken in a laboratory of ceaseless activity.

In this second ternary of forces constituting the interior of the Earth, we have the remains of the period when the Earth was still united with the Moon. In those times, the Earth's surface was a kind of porous substance, the home of hybrid beings, half-vegetable, half-mollusc, with gigantic tentacles, while the germs of terrestrial flora and fauna floated in the semi-liquid, semi-vaporous atmosphere. Wonderful words in the book of Genesis refer to this period: “Darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters.”

The third ternary of the inner organs of the Earth represents its actual form. The last metamorphosis occurs at the time of the separation of the Moon from the Earth and is indicated by the addition of two new elements which are, as it were, the ‘humanised’ replica of the centre of the Earth: (7) Consciousness inversed, where everything changes into its opposite; (8) Negative life, or death. Every living being descending into this realm must instantly perish. It is the Styx of the Greeks, cursed by the Gods of life and of beauty. (9) Above the sphere of death stretches the solid mineral envelope of the Earth, the theatre of humanity.

It must be admitted that this extraordinary description of the interior constitution of our planet cannot be verified by any means of observation adopted by natural science. None but a seer possessed of equal power could contradict or confirm. On the other hand, it is surely impossible to deny that this scheme of the Earth's constitution opens up amazing vistas of man's whole evolution. The seership itself bears a unique power of persuasion and its truth may in a measure be demonstrated by effects which reveal themselves in man. The parallelism between the cosmic fire and human passions, their close relationship, mutual action and reaction, throw a flood of light on the origin of evil. Many historians have stated that the great crises in history (wars, revolutions, social upheavals) are nearly always accompanied and followed by earthly cataclysms (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions). The passions of men have a magnetic action on the interior fire of the Earth, and this fire, when released from its chains, feeds human passions. Thus fire—which is destined to generate life—begets evil by means of the human will.

And yet the Earth, having as its kernel the egoism that is indispensable to the development of individuality, is nevertheless the solid, immutable base on which the soul can find support in order then to soar to the spiritual worlds which shelter and fashion her by the power of the solar Logos. Evil becomes a leaven of evolution, finally, however, to be conquered by Good. The man who has won through to freedom holds the balance between destiny and Providence from the moment he can chose between good and evil. His yearning for the Divine begets enthusiasm. By his own efforts he can draw near to the sublime truth reigning in the universe. Thus Satan-Ahriman—the demon of negation and hatred—is laid low by the genius of infinite Love radiating in the Logos, the Christ. And Lucifer, the Spirit of intelligence and of beauty, released from his sojourn in the lower world of matter, is on the point of taking flight to his star. Yet Ahriman, his dire companion, who is held in check by the Christ, strives to break his chains in order that Lucifer's flight may be stayed.

Anthroposophy is the most potent means in our present epoch to restore the severed harmony between the worlds of matter and of spirit, between science and religion. It is also the agent whereby peace may be established in social affairs.

In very truth the hour is grave. Mankind has never faced so great a danger. The forces of evil are mobilised; not so those of good. That is proved by the unprecedented ravages of Bolshevism which is the. relentless application of destructive materialism. A mustering of all the spiritual forces at the disposal of humanity will be required to combat this scourge. But a wide and high ideal is necessary. Man would fain know whither his feet are wending in this world and in the world beyond. He needs a sublime goal in the one and the beginnings of actual realisation of the other. “Evil can only be conquered by a high ideal” says Rudolf Steiner. “A man without an ideal is weak and powerless. In the life of man ideals play the part of steam in an engine—they are the driving force.”

The knowledge gained by Rudolf Steiner in the course of his life and during his apostolate of a quarter of a century, is scattered through his writings and numerous lecture-courses, most of which have been reported. The peculiar interest attaching to the lectures of 1906 is that they reveal the genius of this thinker-seer at the beginning of his career and the zenith of his inspiration, at the very moment when his all-embracing thought was coming, fully armed, into its own. Those who read these notes may catch, here and there, an echo of the power of the master's living words. A striking example of this impressed itself upon me during a lecture he once gave on Planetary Evolution and the Spiritual Hierarchies: “The thoughts of the Gods are not as the thoughts of men. The thoughts of men are images the thoughts of the gods are living beings.”

Revelations like this flash out into the Infinite. They are an echo from far away of the Word creative invoked by St. John at the beginning of his Gospel. Their vibrations thrill through us like the Sound Primordial whence shines the light—the Sound whose harmonies bring worlds to birth.

EDOUARD SCHURÉ