The Rudolf Steiner Archive

What may be most comforting to us Germans in the hard-pressed situation in which we currently find ourselves is the awareness that our nation rests on foundations that can never be damaged by any external power. The German nation is one that is not dependent on physical means of power alone for its development. The "strong roots of our power" rest in the depths of the people's soul, which is not accessible to any opponent. And so we experience the joy that, while the external power and living conditions are decidedly unfavorable to us, German poetry is flourishing among us in a way that we have rarely experienced since classical times. The Germans of Austria have the good fortune to possess a poetic phenomenon whose poetry reaches the highest level of art and at the same time must be regarded as the most wonderful outflow of the German national spirit. The fact that we are dealing with a female poet is of no consequence. Those who do not know from the outset are simply like almost all critics: they consider M. E. delle Grazie - the name of our poetess - to be a pseudonym, and it does not even occur to them to think that the powerful Germanic figures of the epic "Hermann" - which is the most important achievement of the brilliant poetess - that this powerful language did not originate from a poet in her prime. We are dealing here with a powerful phenomenon. Delle Grazie is as original as only a spirit formed from the never-ending source of German essence can be, she is as powerful and deep in her characterization as only the German spirit with its loving immersion in the human heart and mind can be. She depicts the Roman depravity that confronts noble German morality with such bitterness as only the noble-minded German is capable of, who on his moral high ground knows no mercy for the unfair, for the bad, but only contempt. The poet has succeeded in creating characters in "Hermann" that are truly of the flesh and blood of our people. The whole poem is borne by the majesty of German sentiment, by the most beautiful idealism.

The sweet hope of all German sons
United in this heroic song;
I wrote it with the bold vigor of youth
You know the hot all-powerful urge,
My deepest love and my deepest love,
My own feeling rests in this song!

This is how the poet praises her work. She wants to send this deepest longing and feeling of hers to all German lands:

Go forth, O song, and glide boldly determined
Through all the tides that blue in the sea,
Welcome also those German shoots,
Who build their hut far away in the jungle.
Proclaim to them that in the homeland
The last chain breaks weak and powerless -
From the Alpine summit to the northern edge
Awaken the German courage, the German spirit!

It is the collapse of Roman rule through the youthful strength of the German people that the epic describes to us. Treachery and deceit fight against German nobility and German manly virtue. Struggle and victory are described with a poetic power that is unique to genius. The poet finds the right tone for every situation. No less for the scenes of battle than for the wonderful depictions of nature, which, when inserted in the right place, give the poetry its greatest advantage. It thus becomes a reflection of Germanic folk life, which also unfolded in an intimate alliance with nature. The crown of the poem, however, is the last song: Peace. Up to this point, Hermann has been presented to us as the hero with the highest martial virtues. Here, in the last canto, we get to know the other side of the German man. He immediately sheds all the roughness of the hero when selfless love pours into his heart. After the brilliant victory, Hermann's union with Thusnelda takes place.

The priest lifts his piously transfigured eyes
And now blesses the blissful couple...

"In autumn you fought with a bloody shield,
But today you are adorned with Freia's oak wreath!"

Surrounded by his warriors, the hero celebrates his marriage.

In battle he fought like a fierce warrior,
But now love transfigures his face
He gazes at the star-studded sky,
He raises the polished sword and speaks:
"May the Star of Concord never fade,
Its holy glimmer nourish our glow.
Freedom float over these lands
And direct our gaze heavenward,
Let the spirit of the ancestors tie all bonds
And sweeten our blurred ore of arms! Let love spread its golden wings,
Loyalty increase her gods' hoard
And victoriously through the wide fields ring
The German song, the free German word!"

The beautiful song concludes meaningfully with a dream of Hermann's: Germania, "the proud, shining Germania", appears to our hero and reveals the future to him. Here, the poet's brilliant imagination is revealed in the wonderful addition and interpretation she gives to the Balder saga. Our ancestors have created an uplifting divine figure in Balder. Balder is the god of love, of peace, who perished in the battle against evil. Germania announces to Hermann that this Balder will reappear:

"The god of peace will rise from death! He comes with his ether-bright shield,
When all the princes of heaven perish!"

She lets Balder, our dearest god, awaken again before his eyes "in the green legendary grove of the Orient".

Christus, then, is Balder, once overcome by evil, for whose return the German people longed because they already knew him, because they were prepared for him by their own legend of the gods. Is there a more beautiful way of expressing the idea that it was precisely the German people who were most receptive to pure, unadulterated Christianity, that this noblest of all cultural creations could never take root in the depraved world of the south because they were simply not receptive there? Christianity, transfigured by the Germanic essence, then appears to Hermann as the champion of a new culture that unites German love and the German spirit with the "beautiful form of the Greeks". The goddess then prophetically predicts to him:

"As long as the oaks lift their crowns,
The larks sing and the roses bloom
As long as you walk on light paths,
Surrounded by a golden ray of sky,
As long as the freedom of the Teutons lives,
As long as the German ideal triumphs!"

Delle Grazie is the singer of that love which expresses itself most purely in the selfless nature of the German. Her poetic mission is to show how pure human love is the source of all that is great, to show how all that is noble and good can ultimately be traced back to the victorious power of this love. What is so far apart in terms of subject matter, such as "Hermann" and the Old Testament story of "Saul", which she turned into a tragedy, is united by this fundamental trait of her poetry. Many objections have been raised against "Saul". But the most important thing has been little noticed. It is the tragic trait of a very special kind that delle Grazie knew how to put into the figure of Saul. In the midst of a people whose religion knows no freedom of spirit, Saul wants to unfurl the banner of love. He wants to oppose the dark Jehovah, the God of revenge and slavery, who does not love his people but only punishes them and is therefore not loved but only feared by them, with the God of nobler humanity. Saul senses Christianity, he senses the basic trait of it, which later found its symbol in the Redeemer, the "image of love-declared humanity". The hero must perish as a result. "Hermann" and "Saul" complement each other; they show how pure love unfolds in different times. That is what is significant about our poet, what is genuinely artistic, that it is problems that reach deep into the workings of the world that she seeks to solve in these, her two most important poems. The latter are followed by a small volume of "Poems". Of these, "The Nile", "Adam and Eve", "Thirst" and "Hashish" can be regarded as masterful. It is always a sign of a poet's original power when the imagination works in such a powerful way, as is the case with delle Grazie. The mere contemplation of a photograph of the ancient colossal statue "The Nile" in the Vatican allows the whole history of Egypt to pass before the poet's mind in the most marvelous poetic images. "Adam and Eve" is a magnificent myth that depicts the longing of the sexes for each other and the delight of the first meeting of man and woman, culminating in a thought of the most far-reaching significance. The voice of God resounds to the first human beings who find each other and see themselves in the midst of the most glorious creation:

I, I called this wonderful becoming,
I created the beautiful world, the vast sea.
I lifted the dark globe from the depths,
I gave the sun its golden glow,
Without me everything would lie lifeless and sleep,
Without me everything would be desolate and dark,
Everywhere are my blessed impulses,
Everywhere is the trace of my goodness.
I am the pure everlasting love,
I am the noble spirit of nature! But even if my works are beautiful and glorious,
You alone show all my power:
In your breast dwells all my strength,
In you I have kindled the holy spirit.

The view expressed in the poem "Thirst" is just as magnificent. It describes a journey through the desert. Merchants accompanied by slaves move across the vast sandy expanse. They are longing for an oasis. Not a drop of water has touched their tongues for a long time.

Full of sorrow and fear of death
The rich merchants look to the earth.

The whole terrible situation of the people is now described.

"O Allah, Allah, have mercy!"
O they cry out involuntarily, for already
They see in their minds their pale carcasses
Adorning the glowing ground of the desert.
...
"O joy, honor, happiness and wealth,
What are you in the face of death?" ...
"Oh how beautiful, oh how glorious
It is up here in the realm of golden light,
But you must go down
Into the cold, eerie darkness."

>

So the rich merchants. But there are beings in the course who do not fear death, who see it as salvation. They are the slaves. They are not attached to earthly life, because: "What is life for them without freedom?" They feel a different "thirst" than their masters, they thirst for freedom.

Welcome to them is pale death,
They do not fear it, oh no,
They rejoice and cheer him! Perhaps that over there in his kingdom
The beautiful freedom blooms for them too.

The last of the poems in the collection, "Hashish", truly contains all the qualities of the highest poetic power. It shows us how the poet receives poetic consecration at the throne of God himself. The whole thing is a dream that leads her through infinite space directly to the seat of the divine. Poetic talent is revealed above all when the poet succeeds in transforming real objects into images of extraordinary beauty. For example, when she addresses the moon, which she reaches on her journey:

We are already near you, friendly moon,
And wonderfully, you seem quite different to me now
Than otherwise seen from a lofty vantage point
And scientifically described in many a book! [...] you are just a small gondola,
Shimmering through infinite space,
And all rapturous, enamored poets
To the beautiful realm of divine dreams!

The reader will have seen from the above where delle Grazie's significance lies: in the grandeur of his vision, in his German idealism and in a rich imagination that moves primarily in the regions of the spiritual. We must now mention a fourth of the poet's works, "The Gypsy Woman", a novella. It does not occur to us to defend the deficiency of form and the improbability of the situations in this little work. The son of a landowner is enchanted by the beauty of a girl from this gang at a party where a band of gypsies is providing music and dancing. This girl, an orphan, is not a real gypsy, even according to her comrades. They don't really know how she got into the gang. A rare phenomenon in a gypsy society: a very noble girl, capable of the most beautiful feelings, who has been passionately in love with the landowner's scion ever since they met. After some time, they meet again. The relationship continues, the girl is seduced and then abandoned. The unfaithful man marries Etelka, the daughter of a magistrate. When the couple is blessed by the priest, the gypsy woman appears, mad to assert the rights of her heart. She is thrown into prison. An old gypsy, whose fatherly advice she usually listens to, but not when the seducer approaches, frees her. The madwoman grabs the old man's dagger, rushes into the unfaithful man's house and murders him. She and her liberator flee, pursued by the lord of the manor's people. The old man is killed by a stone thrown at him, the girl plunges the dagger into her own heart.

In spite of all the shortcomings of this little work, if you want to be unbiased, you will find the heartfelt tones with which the poet knows how to depict human relationships and the conflicts they entail, even when they take place within a despised, neglected class of people.

If we consider that the creator of all this is only at the beginning of her twenties, then no assumption we make about the glorious things she will yet give our people will be too bold. In any case, it is the duty of every German who has a heart and mind for the education of his people to follow the development of this spirit. A nation that produces such blossoms has nothing to fear. Not of the present, not of the future. When we are told from some quarters that the German people have played their part and that it is now the turn of younger peoples, we reply: we have nothing ageing about us as long as such youthful life is developing in our midst.

[ 1 ] As individual man has to pass through different stages after his birth, as he must ascend from infancy through childhood and so on to the age of the mature adult, so too must mankind as a whole go through a similar process. Humanity has developed to its present condition by passing through other stages. With the methods of the clairvoyant one can discern three principal stags of this development of mankind which were passed through before the formation of the earth took place and before this sphere became the scene of that development. Therefore at present we are concerned with the fourth stage in the great universal life of man. For now we shall relate the relevant facts here. The deeper explanation will appear in the course of the description, insofar as is possible in the words of ordinary language, that is, without having recourse to the form of expression of mystery science.

[ 2 ] Man existed before there was an earth. But one must not imagine—as has already been suggested—that perhaps he had previously lived on other planets and then at a certain time migrated to earth. Rather, the earth has developed together with man. Just as man has passed through three main stages of development, so has the earth, before becoming that which one now calls “earth.” For the time being, as has been indicated above, one must completely liberate oneself from the significance which contemporary science connects with the names “Saturn,” “Sun,” and “Moon,” if one wants to see the explanations of the scientist of the spirit in this area in their proper light. For the present one should connect with these names no other significance than that directly given to them in the following communications.

[ 3 ] Before the heavenly body on which the life of man takes place became “earth,” it had had three other forms which one designates as Saturn, Sun, and Moon. On can thus speak of four planets on which the four principal stages of the development of mankind take place Moon, before that Sun, and yet earlier, Saturn. One is justified, as will appear from the following communications, to assume three further principal stages which the earth, or better the heavenly body which developed into the present earth, still has to pass through. In mystery science these have been named Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan. Thus the heavenly body with which human destiny is connected has passed through three stages in the past is now in its fourth, and will in the future have to pass through three more until all the talents which man has within himself are developed, until he arrives at the peak of his perfection.

[ 4 ] One must realize that the development of man and of his heavenly body does not proceed as gradually as for instance the passage of an individual human being through infancy, adolescence and so forth, where one condition goes over into another more or less imperceptibly. Rather there are certain interruptions. The Saturn condition does not go over immediately into the Sun stage. Between Saturn development and Sun development, and similarly between the subsequent forms of the heavenly body inhabited by man, there are intermediate conditions which can be compared with the night between two days or with the sleeplike condition of a plant seed before it again develops into a full plant.

In imitation of oriental descriptions of this state of affairs, contemporary theosophy calls a stage of development in which life is externally furthered, Manvantara, the intermediate condition of rest, Pralaya. In accordance with the usage of European mystery science, one can use the word “open cycle” for the former condition, and on the other hand, “hidden or closed cycle” for the latter. But other designations are also in common use. Saturn, Sun, Moon, earth, and so forth, are “open cycles,” and the periods of rest between them are “closed” ones.

[ 5 ] It would be quite erroneous to think that in the periods of rest all life is extinct, although today this idea can be encountered in many theosophical circles. Just as little as man ceases to live during his sleep, so little does his life and that of his heavenly body become extinct during a “closed cycle” (Pralaya). It is only that the conditions of life in the periods of rest cannot be perceived with the senses which have been developed during the “open cycles,” just as during his sleep man does not perceive what is taking place around him. Why one uses the expression “cycle” for the stages of development will become sufficiently clear in the course of the following discussion. Only later can we speak about the enormous periods of time which are required for these “cycles.”

[ 6 ] One can find a thread through the course of the cycles by following for a moment the development of human consciousness through them. Everything else can suitably arise out of this consideration of consciousness.

The consciousness which man develops during his life-course on earth will be called—in accordance with European mystery science—the “clear consciousness of day.” The latter consists in the fact that through his present senses, man perceives the things and beings of the world and that he forms conceptions and ideas concerning these things and beings with the help of his understanding and of his reason. He then acts in the world of the senses according to these perceptions, conceptions, and ideas. Man formed this consciousness only in the fourth principal stage of his cosmic development; on Saturn, Sun, and Moon it did not yet exist. There he lived in other conditions of consciousness. As a result, one can describe the three previous stages of development as the unfolding of lower conditions of consciousness.

[ 7 ] The lowest condition of consciousness was passed through during the Saturn development; the Sun condition is higher, then follows the Moon consciousness and finally that of earth.

[ 8 ] These former consciousnesses are primarily distinguished from the earthly one by two characteristics: by the degree of clarity, and by the area over which the perception of man extends.

The Saturn consciousness has the lowest degree of clarity. It is entirely dull. It is difficult to give an exact idea of this dullness, since even the dullness of sleep is somewhat clearer than this consciousness. In abnormal, so-called deep states of trance, modern man can still fall back into this state of consciousness. The clairvoyant in the sense of mystery science can also form a correct conception of it. But by no means does he himself live in this state of consciousness. On the contrary, he ascends to a much higher one, which however in certain respects is similar to the original one. In the ordinary man at the contemporary terrestrial stage, this condition, through which he once passed, has been effaced by the “clear consciousness of day.” The “medium” who falls into a deep trance, however, is transported back into it, so that he perceives in the same way in which all men perceived during the “Saturn period.” Either during the trance or after awaking, such a medium can then tell of experiences which are similar to those of the Saturn stage. One must be careful to say that they are “similar,” not “identical,” for the events which took place on Saturn are once and for all past; only events which have a certain affinity with them still take place in the environment of man. These can only be perceived by a “Saturn consciousness.”

Like the medium, the clairvoyant in the above sense acquires such a Saturn consciousness, but in addition to it he keeps his “clear consciousness of day,” which man did not yet have on Saturn, and which the medium loses in the state of trance. Such a clairvoyant is not in the Saturn consciousness itself, but he can form a conception of it.

While this Saturn consciousness is by some degrees inferior to the one of today with respect to clarity, it is superior to the latter with respect to the extent of what it can perceive. In its dullness it can not only perceive everything which takes place on its own heavenly body down to the last detail, but it can also observe the objects and beings on other heavenly bodies which are connected with Saturn. It can also exercise a certain influence on these objects and beings. (It hardly need be said that this observation of other heavenly bodies is quite different from that which contemporary man can undertake by means of his scientific astronomy. This astronomical observation is based on the “clear consciousness of day” and therefore perceives other heavenly bodies from the outside. The Saturn consciousness, on the other hand, is immediate sensation, an experiencing of what takes place on other heavenly bodies. One does not speak altogether accurately, but still fairly so, if one says that an inhabitant of Saturn experienced objects and events of other heavenly bodies—and of his own—as a man of today experiences his heart and his heartbeat or something similar in his own body.)

This Saturn consciousness developed slowly. As the first principal stage in the development of mankind it passed through a series of subordinate stages, which in European mystery science are called “small cycles.” In theosophical literature it has become customary to call these “small cycles,” “rounds,” and their further sub-divisions—still smaller cycles—“globes.” These subordinate cycles will be dealt with in subsequent discussions. For the sake of greater clarity, we shall first follow here the principal stages of development. For the moment we shall speak only of man, although the development of subordinate and superior entities and objects proceeds concurrently with his own. That which concerns the development of other entities will then follow the discussion of man's progress.

[ 9 ] When the development of the Saturn consciousness was completed, there occurred one of the long rest periods (a Pralaya) mentioned above. After this there developed out of the heavenly body of man what in mystery science is called the “Sun.” On the Sun, the human beings again emerged from their sleep. The previously developed Saturn consciousness was present in them as a predisposition. First they again developed it from this germ. One can say that on the Sun man repeated the condition of Saturn before ascending to a higher one. However, it is not a simple repetition which is meant here, but one in another form. These transformations of forms will be discussed later when we deal with the smaller cycles. At that time the differences between the individual “repetitions” will also become apparent. Now we shall describe only the development of consciousness.

After the repetition of the Saturn condition, the “Sun consciousness” of man appears. This is somewhat clearer than the preceding consciousness, but on the other hand it has lost something with respect to broadness of vision. In the deep, dreamless sleep of his present life, man has a condition of consciousness similar to that which he once had on the Sun. However, he who is not a clairvoyant or a medium cannot perceive the objects and beings corresponding to the Sun consciousness. With the trance of a medium reduced to this condition, and with the higher consciousness of the true clairvoyant, the case here is similar to what has been said with respect to the Saturn consciousness.

The extent of the Sun consciousness is limited to the Sun and the heavenly bodies most closely connected with it. It is only these and their events which the inhabitant of the Sun can experience as—to use once again the simile employed above—man of today experiences his heartbeat. In this way the inhabitant of Saturn could also participate in the life of those heavenly bodies which did not belong to the immediate sphere of Saturn.

[ 10 ] When the Sun stage has passed through the appropriate subordinate cycles, it also enters a period of rest. From this the heavenly body of man awakes to its “Moon existence.” Before ascending higher, again man passes through the Saturn and Sun stage in two smaller cycles. Then he enters his Moon consciousness. One can more easily form an idea of the latter, for there is a certain similarity between this stage of consciousness and a sleep filled with dreams. It must be explicitly stated that here again one can only speak of a similarity, not of an identity. It is true that the Moon consciousness is composed of images such as appear in dreams, but these images correspond to the objects and events around man in a way similar to the ideas of the present “clear consciousness of day.” But everything in this correspondence is still dull, in fact, image-like. One can represent this state of affairs to oneself in approximately the following way. Assume that a Moon-being comes near an object, let us say near salt. (Of course, at that time there was no “salt” in its present form, but after all, in order to be understood, one must remain in the area of images and similes.) This Moon-being—the precursor of present-day man—does not perceive an object with spatial extension and a definite coloring and form outside itself; instead, the approach to this object causes a certain image—similar to a dream image—to arise as it were within this being. This image has a certain coloring which depends on the characteristics of the object. If the object is agreeable to the being and useful for its existence, the coloring is light in yellow nuances, or in green; if the object is disagreeable or is one which is harmful to the being, a blood-like, reddish color nuance appears. The clairvoyant also sees in this way today, only he is fully conscious during this seeing, while the Moon inhabitant had only a dreamlike, dim consciousness. The images appearing “within” these inhabitants had an exactly defined relationship to the environment. There was nothing arbitrary in them. It was possible to direct oneself by them; one acted under the impression of these images as today one acts under the impression of sensory perceptions.

The development of this dreamlike consciousness—the third principal stage—was the task of the “Moon cycle.” When the “Moon” had passed through the appropriate “small cycles,” a period of rest (Pralaya) again occurred. After this, the “Earth” emerged from the darkness.

If you ask people outside of their everyday consciousness: What is it that can be called the self? — the answer would be that you have to look for this self-awareness within the boundaries that the skin encloses. Our view can be proven by the fact that the seat of the soul is to be found in the head and heart. But in the sense of spiritual science, it is different, only this is not easy to recognize.

One comes closer to spiritual reality when one tries to make the supersensible facts clear. With the concepts and words that man uses without these researches, he does not come closer to the truth. One will get a good concept if one ties into a unified picture.

Let us think of a sailor navigating the seas. All external factors form the essentials, the determining factors; for the purpose of navigating the ship, it is important to know whether the sea is calm or agitated, whether islands are emerging in the sea, whether the sky is clouding over, and much more. The captain and the sailors take action based on all these external facts; all external facts are the essential ones for them. Now some might think that when the ship has entered the harbor, it is at rest and all work is over for a while. But that is not the case. Another kind of work begins. The ship no longer performs work, but work is done on the ship. What has suffered during the voyage is repaired. The hold is filled with a new cargo and so on. In this way, the voyage and the ship's layover in port can be compared to human life, to life during the day and to life during the night. There is only one major difference, and that is that people do not care about the night work. During the work in port, the ship must be made useful for the onward journey by workers and sailors. But everything that drives man to act through the senses during the day, ceases to work at night. Our senses, which have carried out the work in our body during the day, rest during the night. The work of the day rests like the ship in the harbor. And yet a work is going on in man that enables him to start a new day's work.

This brings us closer to the concept of what the actual spiritual part of a person is. It is not enclosed by the skin of the person, but extends beyond the physical person. The actual spiritual part extends its feelers into the person; it sends the essential, the spiritual part into the person.

Where is the actual I located in the human being? Outside of the human being, around the physical human being, one finds the spiritual human being, the supersensible I-human being. And if we look at the human aura, which is shaped like an egg, then the I-consciousness will be most effective in the shell, in the auric egg. This fact leads to the correct solution of the problem.

I have pointed out twelve points on the horizon. The occultist must know them. They exist there even if they are not recognized by everyone. These twelve points continuously send their forces into man; he is attacked by these twelve points in the various points of his aura. Only by surrounding himself with his ego is he able to make the cosmic forces one with himself. Man must feel that he belongs to the universe. Through this he enters into the faculty of perception, and through this it becomes possible for him to acquire the abilities to perceive that correspond to the points mentioned. He is embedded in these twelve points. The divine spiritual forces work through these points on man. If you can bear this in mind, you will understand the ways and aims of the spiritual man.

Man must be able to integrate this feeling into his life. Through spiritual science he will become acquainted with a sum of forces through which he can accomplish these transformations in himself. Let us think for a moment about everyday life. People rush through the world, and many things come their way that they could reflect on, that they could process in their minds, but they make no effort whatsoever to put their experiences into practice or even to reflect on them more deeply. They just want to experience and chase from one sensation to the next.

There are other people who go through life without paying the slightest attention to the external world. They brood and speculate about their own thoughts. They do not notice what is going on around them; they brood over and over again. Neither of these extremes is good for a person. But there is a middle way, and that is to interweave everything you experience with your own thoughts. This middle state is the most beneficial for the human being of the external world.

Suppose a young man is preparing for an exam. He has been working hard, the exam time is approaching and with it the exam anxiety. Again and again, the young person realizes that on the day of the exam, the questions could be about the things he is least sure about, the things he does not know for sure. This works in his thoughts. The exam went well, it is crucial for the whole of life. It is the gateway to his future life. Now it may happen that he is haunted by an 'I' space in the further course of his existence, and in this dream the exam anxiety of his youth emerges in him, everything that he did not believe he knew at the time. The soul is intimately connected with it, and the occult observer sees the fabric that is woven in the dream. What is woven into it did not contribute to the life that has passed. But the occultist knows that it can become a useful force in the next life.

It can also happen differently. From the age of forty-five, dreams cease. The one who observes himself finds that completely new character traits emerge. For example, it may be experienced that in advanced years he has far more courage than he ever possessed in his youth. The states of fear in his youth and the will to conquer them have done their quiet work in the inner man; after forty-five years these forces have been transformed into reverse forces. Something is always weaving and working within the human being, and what works there is the astral body. It works in the etheric body until the experience has spun itself into the etheric body and really become a quality. Under ordinary circumstances, it only appears as a quality in the next life, but there may also be quite abnormal cases, such as the one just mentioned.

This is how a person processes his external experiences, and it is the same with the extrasensory circumstances of life, which demand that we process them with the ego. How does the spiritual person work in relation to his external circumstances? The external circumstances approach us, but the fabric that transforms our abilities is spun from within. We weave into the person what comes from the eternal spiritual. We must go to the external, but the spiritual comes to us.

Let us assume that a person, for one reason or another, takes an interest in something, for example, that he wants to take a closer look at a tree. He must then approach the tree, he must go to the tree to get a result. But it is different with spiritual results. These come to us, we have to wait for them to come.

The essential thing about external experiences is that they are of a transitory nature. But those that come to us through the path of 'Theosophy are grounded in spirituality. We weave them into our inner being as something imperishable. We must go to the external, but the spiritual must approach us, and the more we make ourselves capable of receiving the spiritual within us, the more it comes to us from the spiritual worlds and becomes our property. Those people who live among us as poets and have created and produced something are always those who in times gone by have allowed the supersensible to flow into them. We must learn to reflect more. We must be able to think logically and reasonably and then keep our soul completely still. Then we will not have to wait in vain. The corresponding spiritual substance will flow into our soul, for which we ourselves have paved the way. We must learn to maintain the expectant mood. Not what we brood over is best. We should want to attain everything through our thought work, not through ourselves. Only through sharp thinking and subsequent waiting can we fertilize our spirit. It must flow to us when we have learned to observe the right processes, and these processes must work together with thinking, feeling and willing.

There are three aspects to our soul life: thinking, feeling and willing. A person sees a rose. Through his thought life, he recognizes it as such. He admires the shape and the color; this awakens certain feelings in him. He stretches out his hand to grasp the rose, thereby expressing an act of will. However, important results, which can be decisive for a person's entire life, depend on how he or she treats these qualities.

For example: A person meets another who instills a pronounced antipathy in him. He sees that he cannot free himself from the person who arouses antipathy in him, and the feeling that is caused him by the compulsion makes him angry. Thinking, feeling and willing are involved in this process.

In our daily lives, we can often observe how differently these processes unfold. The anger of one person quickly disappears; they may not dwell on such feelings for long, and the better feelings gain the upper hand in them. Another person, on the other hand, carries their anger around with them all day long; they cannot find the resilience to shake it off. The first person, who quickly fights his emotions, will remain mentally healthy and may reach a ripe old age. The other person, who flies into a rage over every trifle and carries this rage around with him for a long time, will age prematurely. The constant emotions will take their toll on his body.

A proverb says: “Don't take anger to bed with you.” This is where the affects begin to weave in the soul, and we weave the passions into the human being. What we experience from the spirit will have an effect on our soul, and it makes a significant difference whether our experiences remain only in theory or whether they pass over into feeling.

Let us assume that a person absorbs much that is spiritual, and that what is absorbed penetrates into the person. It will only bear fruit for the spiritual person when he embraces what he has absorbed with enthusiasm and love. Only then does the work also become a work of the inner man, only then does he extract the spiritual and make it part of his spiritual self. It is feeling that helps us to make the spiritually acquired our own.

Man lives in his aura, and when the theosophical truths are absorbed by the spiritual man, the aura is strongly agitated. The I is the motor of this movement. How does this process present itself to the clairvoyant eye? When love and enthusiasm for great spiritual thoughts take hold of man, everything in the aura comes to life, and the result of this higher thought life is that it has a purifying effect on the aura. All material desires and thoughts, which are expressed in the human aura, clump together into balls, and with increasing spiritual work these balls condense more and more, becoming smaller and smaller, until the purifying light of spiritual thinking has dissolved and driven them away.

When the clairvoyant eye observes a person watching a sunrise, similar phenomena can be observed. The devout joy that a person can feel at the natural spectacle causes a similar process to take place in the aura of the person watching. As long as such a person allows beauty to affect his inner being, the effect of this process is a dissolving one in the aura, and much that is bad is transformed into good. The ability to rejoice and to immerse oneself has a purifying effect on the soul, and in such moments the soul is capable of absorbing new spiritual things because the stream of higher forces has found an entrance.

But the opposite can also take place. If a person does not dwell on a great natural spectacle that has affected him in his thoughts, if none of the beauty remains within him and he turns to other things after a fleeting enjoyment, the following can occur: everything in the aura of such a person becomes concentrated. A spiritual-soul task that came his way has been carelessly set aside and is now working itself out in the dark. It may happen that lies find their way into his inner being. To develop the ability to let something resonate and to empathize is the work of a spiritual person.

If we all learned this, spiritual science would lead to paths and goals that would create widespread blessings. If only intellectual work were done, if quarrels and discord prevailed among the theosophists, little would be transformed from bad to good. The law of karma will show man how to work in the right way.

For those who can feel Theosophy with enthusiasm and know how to draw comfort from it, the higher spiritual sciences are beneficial, for they bring comfort and strength in all circumstances. No one leaves these sciences without consolation. The greater our aims, the more our striving will be imbued with ideals, and man carries them out into the world. We pursue spiritual science and interweave it with our inner being. It permeates us, and we can carry it out to others.

We must work towards these goals as much as we are able. We have no right to ignore the paths and goals of the spiritual human being. It is our duty to weave the soul into the physical world. The human being is the gateway, the only gateway of spirit into the physical-material world, into which heaven is to flow. We can loosen the lead of materialism by allowing spiritual truths to penetrate it. Only by working on the development of humanity does man contribute to life and not to death. To walk in the ways and to strive for the goals of the spiritual man means to pursue the task of making the supersensible soul-like.

We still have one question: What is the relationship between Earth and the other planets? Mars and Mercury can shed some light on this, but because erroneous ideas have been formed about them, it is a difficult subject. From the very beginning, the Masters of the Wisdom have not willingly answered questions.

Some words of a great master, which are found in the Secret Doctrine: “Do not give the great wisdom!” And so on. They express a clear warning. There are reasons why it is not allowed to talk about this until man is mature enough.

The relations of the earth to Mars and Mercury.

Before they inhabited this Earth, people lived on the moon. The moon that can be seen today is only a piece of it. Before that, they were on the sun, and before that on Saturn. Three planets in a row. The days of the week are named after them. Colorless: Saturday.

Now to Earth: a globe in metamorphosis, which it completes in seven times seven cycles.

Moon orange, then darker, then green - Earth - colored, then over to the next state darker again, so the successive states.

So after the moon – which had turned orange – had completed its 49 metamorphoses and man had developed as far as the goal set for him here on the third round, all life contracted into the germinal state in order to flourish again on earth. The earth had to go through the Saturn state in seven cycles, then the sun state, then the moon state, and is now becoming physical in its fourth round, which is where we are now in the most solid matter and have the color green, the previous phase was orange.

The moon was only astral at the beginning, then it became dense ether. The earth was first ether and then solid, then astral and so on.

We will only truly understand our Earth when we familiarize ourselves with what has happened on our Earth. The Earth goes through seven stages of development, which are the seven races.

I. The polar root race. Etheric substance. Then denser, not like our air, the
II. root race, the Hyperboreans. The
III. Race, the Lemurians, air-fire nebula, not yet dense. Up to the Lemurians, humans were bisexual, but from then on they became unisexual. IV. Race, the Atlanteans, who perished in the flood. V. The Aryan race, our present race.

Then the sixth and seventh races, whose names will be given later. From the seventh race, then, over to the next cycle. Here in this fourth round, the earth has come to its full development. In the Lemurian race, man has come to his full destiny. If man cannot reach another level, he descends from the moon, because he was in a high level of dream consciousness.

He came down from the moon because he was in a highly dream-conscious state.

The Lemurians are similar to the state of the moon people. The most mature fruit of the moon development was bisexual. When he had then gone through all the rounds of the earth to become a Lemurian (gap in the transcript).

The soul of the Lemurians was different from our present one. He also had only two senses. Hearing and touch. But it was not the sense of touch as we have it, to touch solid objects, but it was a feeling of warmth and cold, of air. Man was like a soundboard. The air was denser, the water thinner. A mass of fog was the air.

Man lived in the fire fog. Everything around him resounded, he heard as if clairaudient. He heard the air crackle like the rumble of a thunderstorm. He could then arrange his life and activities accordingly. Through the sense of touch he could feel his way to the food. There were not images that were like pictures, but like dream images, but regularly in colors, it was an inner seething and weaving. When he felt red, it was his life itself and was not directed towards external objects, but it had a magnetizing effect, for example: when he felt fear, it was ugly images. These had been brought by people from the moon. The human of the Lemurian race would not have been able to progress if the other impact had not occurred.

The facility for this further training was not available. But in addition to these average people, higher beings were already there. For example, there were beings who had already risen to such a high level on the sun; they no longer needed to go through the moon phases. These are the solar Pitris. On the sun, they had already attained this superhuman nature. This nature is also much further advanced and more perfect in its soul life. While the average human being only saw images in his surroundings, these Pitris saw true revelations in the images, a higher kind of images. This was the expression of a high spiritual entity. It was a different kind of knowledge than our present-day knowledge, it was like intuition. They did not study natural laws, but perceived nature. Such entities had to reveal themselves to people.

Before the Lemurians, man would have become a statue, a cinder – he now needed a new influence. He would not have been able to develop the life of thought. These guides were there, they had a lot of power, quite unlike the masters today. They could intervene in development – just as chemists use substances. They formed the astral-inserted human body, which was taken from somewhere else. These high guides were never connected to the earth, these solar beings could come together with other planets. The first three races - earth - were important, where that could be supplied; and that had to be studied on [other] celestial bodies. The leaders have studied it, they have brought it from Mars, which was just about to darken. Mars has different inhabitants than the earth. The earth is physical in nature, but Mars is astral, but frozen, and in this state it is in the same low sphere as our earth. Mars has two higher planets. This astral one is in the same sphere as the earth is now in the physical. Mars is astral, but the Martians have become physically tangible directly from the astral state. And this astral covering has been brought down from Mars and incorporated into the human being, thereby enabling the human being to develop further.

A second impact of the highest spirituality has become the earth through correspondence with Venus, since the ingredients are fetched, which man still needed. Through studies of the beings of Venus. These sons of Venus have come down to bring to earth what they - the sons of Venus - have studied on other planets.

A third impact was now coming. Man, who now had the spark of the spirit, had to be led further. First he had to go through fear and striving, through passion, through desires and wishes, but now he had to be led to a desireless spirituality. Mercury is in the stage of brightening, which shows a highly developed astral being, from where the manasic bodies were fetched.

The first race on our Earth had the development of Mars and Mercury. Actually, we owe our properties to the moon and the sun, but then to Mars and Mercury.

Saturn stage = Saturday
Moon stage = Monday
Mars impact = Tuesday
Mercury impact = Mercury day

So much for the present, but they point to the future. The Mercury stage is attained by our Earth in the next planet. The Earth is not designated by the days of the week because it is itself, it lies in between.

Today, man already has the beginning of the higher purest wisdom within him, on the next devachan; but will only become physical in the future.

If we observe Jupiter, we learn how people, how the beings of Jupiter become. There is a relationship with Jupiter. The beings are an example to us.

Jupiter = Zeus state. Minerva = Pallas Athene, who sprang from the head of Jupiter.

The beings are no longer connected to the Kama-Rupa, but are beings of the highest spirituality.

Then finally with Venus. This planet is so far away from us that the beings only have an indirect effect on us. These planets also have their own chains. With Venus, one speaks of Kronos - Uranus - Jupiter - Jeudi, Venus - Friday - Freya - Vendredi.

The days of the week are written down, the wise men have taken them down from the sky. We have learned a secret here, how the great leaders descended to inspire us.

That is why it is said: God Jupiter descended to marry human women.

Zeus and Dionysus. Mercury in Greek. Myth = Mercury, son of Zeus and Maya, a Hellenic nymph. But esoterically connected to Mercury.

Hellenic nymphs. Ares has descendants who have dragon teeth.

German myth Wotan = Mercury = Wednesday

Mercury connects with Erda, she is clairvoyant, she can see the future. Brunhilde was born of her - of Erda. Brunhilde = wish girl, passion.

The initiated sages therefore went to remind people of their current situation. Time had to be given a name to remind them. Thursday will now be a holiday for people because they are developing into a Jupiter being.

The Earth from Mercury and Mars.

The lower beings are abandoned and pushed back into animality to further the development of man, and with the next race the lower ones are eliminated again, so with the Lemurians the reptiles were rejected.

With the Atlanteans, the mammals were split off. Our savages today are degenerated beings.

Man has been pushed down, but the guilt will be redeemed once again. Karma has come about because man had to descend and become physical.

Such a solar being is embodied in Hermes; the hermaphroditic time. When we were on the sun, the sun was spatially another sun; so today's sun is in a different place. But the clairvoyant sees the sun in the place where it was then. The old place is still on the mental plan. The moon has also suffered a shift.

In the Middle Ages, the Ptolemaic system was still known. According to astronomical observations, the earth was at the center, and esoterically this is indeed the case.

Copernicus only showed the sky externally, physically.

The fifth race begins in the twelfth century.

Additional information from a typewritten transcription of Camilla Wandrey's notes:

The Solarpitris were superhuman beings, they had a fundamentally different disposition, especially in their spiritual life, than humans. These exalted beings took young humanity under their protection. They were able to experience revelations of higher spiritual powers and beings, they perceived the gods, they possessed a knowledge that lived into the gods through intuition, they perceived the living divine beings directly.

Man needed a new impetus to keep him from ossifying; he could not develop a spiritual and soul life of his own accord. These mighty Solarpitris had the vision that could truly connect them with other planets. They studied the other beings on the other planets in order to utilize the fruits of their studies for human beings. Thus they observed the development of beings on Mars. Mars now has the astral state, not the physical state, as its deepest. They studied the sheaths of the beings on Mars, and a kind of 'downward pulling' of the astral sheaths of the Martian beings took place. That was the impact. Through this impact from Mars, people were able to receive the passions, the desires, the sexual - KamaRupa.

The second impact, that which as spirituality, as pure, virginal spirituality, can also underlie the passionate, the covetous, the spiritual-covetous, became possible for these Solarpitris through the same study taking place in relation to Venus.

Then man received the third impact, which came a little later. Man now had the spark of the spirit on the one hand, and the passions on the other. He now had to be led further. He had to be given something so that he would not sink into the depths of the Kama-Rupa brought from Mars.

The more delicate Kama-Rupa, which serves the thought life and enables man to pacify his passions, was brought by the Solarpitris from Mercury. Thus mankind received spiritual impregnation through the Solarpitris from Mercury, Mars and Venus: the two Kama-Rupa and that which is to establish the balance between the two.

From Jupiter, the Solarpitris then brought what we now want to develop, the spiritual essence of man, which can attain wisdom, manas. Jupiter gave man the opportunity to attain wisdom, while from Venus flow the virgin heights of the spirit, which we can only sense, which are still far from our reach, even if we have the potential, the ability to accept this divine inheritance from the Solar Pitris within us.

The esoteric week, which we as true esotericists should relive again and again in our thoughts and feelings, is an earthly reflection of the effectiveness of the Solarpitris for humanity.

We have listed Saturn, Sun, Moon-day. Then comes Mars-day - Tuesday. Here Mars is thought of as identical with the first half of the earth's development. Then Mercury. Mercury or Wotanstag, Wednesday - Wednesday, Wotan is the same as Mercury. Then Donars-day. Donar is Jupiter. There should always be Jupiter Day, Thursday, the day of the future, a festival and a holy day for every esoteric and also for everyone who wants to become an esoteric. And finally, the day of Venus, of Freya. Venerdi in Italian, Vendredi in French, these words evoke the ancient knowledge of the future secret of humanity, which is commemorated by the day of Venus, Friday.

Today I would like to talk about Christian initiation and the interior of the Earth. It should be borne in mind that Christian initiation was undergone by all those who were to teach Christianity from an occult depth, for example, by the priests of the first Christian centuries. These initiations have been preserved for a long time, but they have gradually been somewhat modified, and only in certain narrow circles were these strict exercises still undergone. One should not think that the severity of these exercises can be expected of everyone, but those who submit to them will also attain a high level of knowledge by the Christian path. In this respect, Christ is, as it were, the original guru for all Christian disciples on this path. Angelus Silesius once said:

If Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem is born
And not in you, you will remain lost forever.

Something like this comes from inner experiences. Similarly, in the Gospel of John, where it says: “But Jesus went out of the temple.”

This is an astral experience and means that the astral body steps out of the physical body. In the Christian initiation, the demand for Christian humility is a substitute for the strict guru of the Orient, the submission not to a single human being, but to Christ Jesus.

The first step is the washing of the feet. One arrives at this step by having for months tried to live with the following ideas in mind: The plant cannot live without the mineral kingdom, which is beneath it. If it could speak, it would have to say: You mineral kingdom, you are admittedly lower than I, but I owe my higher existence to you. And when man looks around at life, he must admit to himself: If I have come far in the spiritual, then others must work for me. We must therefore bow down in humility and gratitude to those who stand below us. “Whoever wants to be first will be last in the kingdom of heaven,” is a word of the gospel. This practice eventually leads to the inner image of the washing of feet. Christ washes the feet of the apostles to offer them the tribute of his thanks. He who lives in these conceptions of humility will realize that the image of the washing of feet appears to him in the form of an astral dream. Thereby what is described in the Gospel of John becomes one's own experience.

Then one can proceed to the second step. The disciple must learn to bear all sufferings and obstacles in life uprightly and to remain calm even when everything rushes in on him. And again, in the dream, an image appears on the astral plane, that of the scourging. Not only does the disciple see the image, but he feels burning pain in his whole body, even in his nails and hair.

When this has been established, one proceeds to the third stage. Here the student must not only endure pain, but must be able to calmly endure mockery and ridicule. The crowning with thorns as a dream experience manifests itself as a peculiar, temporary headache.

It is very difficult to reach the fourth stage. The disciple must develop a feeling that his own body has exactly the same value for him as the things around him; he must learn to regard it as something alien, he must come to feel: Not I go there, but I carry my body there. The disciple then no longer lives in his body, but carries it like an object, like the wood of the cross. These exercises lead to the vision that the disciple sees himself crucified. And outwardly, this stage of initiation even manifests itself in the appearance of so-called stigmata. The disciple then receives, corresponding to the stigmata of the crucifixion, real stigmata at the respective places on his body, which may appear temporarily. These inner and outer experiences occur after appropriate contemplation.

The fifth step is mystical death. Now the disciple becomes truly clairvoyant on the astral plane. The other symptoms were at the beginning. The disciple experiences a moment when everything disappears, when he is faced with nothingness. This darkness is the opposite of the general darkness that fell over the whole country at the death of Christ. Then the darkness splits; this is the tearing of the curtain in the temple and Christ's descent into hell. This is also experienced at this level. Those who do not reach this point do not yet really know what evil is. The student of the fifth level descends into the depths of existence. This is the descent into hell.

In the sixth stage, the Entombment, he feels the entire earth as his body, and his own body as a part of it. He becomes one with the whole planet. The disciple is then as if laid into the whole earth, covered and buried in it, he himself now becomes one with the planetary spirit.

The seventh stage, the resurrection, cannot be described further, because no soul whose thinking is still bound to the brain can grasp all that it means in terms of grandeur and sublimity. When the secret disciple goes through these seven stages, Christianity comes to life in him. He experiences the Gospel of John as reality.

Finally, the formation of the earth's interior will be discussed. This exploration of the earth's interior is connected with the Christian stages of initiation. It is precisely through Christian initiation that one can gain a true understanding of the earth's inner states.

From the occult point of view, there is a connection between human life, layers of the earth, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions and so on. There are still tremendous changes to come in this direction. The view of science that the earth's interior is molten is not correct. The definite substance that you know from the outer view because you step on it, that is the outermost, physical-substantial layer of the earth. It is called the mineral earth. Natural science does not even reach the middle of this layer. Each experience of Christian initiation now leads to penetration into a certain layer of the earth's interior. The third degree of initiation, for example, allows penetration into the third layer, the seventh into the seventh layer, and so on.

What is in the second layer cannot be compared with any chemical substance in the uppermost layer; it is a completely different matter. The physical warmth increases only in the first layer. The substance of the second layer has properties that cause any living thing brought into contact with it to be killed immediately within that substance. Any plant would immediately become mineral in it; life would be driven out of it. This layer is also called the life-destroying layer.

The third layer is a substance that transforms the soul's perception into its opposite. It transforms joy into pain, and pain into pleasure. It reacts to the feelings of living beings, it has this property as matter and is called the layer of perception.

The fourth layer corresponds in some sense to the first region of Devachan, for there too physical things appear in their negative. In Devachan, instead of the physical thing, there is a kind of aura, a negative, a hollow light image in which nothing can be seen, and which emits a certain sound from within. The fourth layer of the earth's interior, on the other hand, is substantially what gives the earth's things form. There are, as it were, the inverted forms; it can be compared to a seal and its imprint. This fourth layer is therefore called the form layer.

The fifth layer is full of rampant life. Here life is not restricted to form.

The sixth layer, the water layer, is substantially impressionable and consists entirely of will and sensation. It responds to impulses of will, it cries out, as it were, when it is pressed. Because this inner life can be compared to fire, this layer is called the fire earth.

The seventh layer of the earth is then reached in the seventh stage of initiation. Just as the eye produces counter-effects within itself in response to certain influences, so it is also in the seventh layer. Its substance transforms all properties into their opposite by reversing them. This is why this layer is called “the earth reflector”.

The eighth layer, which also becomes perceptible at the seventh stage of initiation, does not only have physical properties, but also moral ones; it transforms all the moral qualities that people develop into their opposite. Everything that is connected on earth is separated and scattered there. All moral feelings, such as love and compassion, are transformed into their opposite there, into harshness, brutality, and so on. This layer is called the Shatterer.

The ninth layer is the Earth Brain. There, evil works magically. Black magic is connected with it. The white path turns black there.

It is much more difficult to explore the interior of the Earth than the astral and devachan planes. This exploration is truly one of the most difficult of all. What Sinnett says about the interior of the earth in his book “Esoteric Buddhism” is not correct. Instead of doing his own research as a clairvoyant, he used a medium. Only in the actual Rosicrucian school can one speak of the interior of the earth. And in the best times of Christianity, the interior of the earth was viewed similarly. The Nordic mysteries, the Trotten and Druid mysteries also spoke about it quite extensively. In a poetic way, Dante also speaks of the nine-part interior of the earth in his “Divine Comedy”. There you will find the eighth layer as the layer of Cain, because through Cain, evil and fragmentation came into the world.

In fact, occult facts are described in the great poems, such as the Odyssey, Parzival and so on. In the story of Poor Henry, for example, reference is made to the influence of the decaying astral substances of the decadent peoples of the early Middle Ages. The Secret Doctrine has always influenced great poets, both consciously and unconsciously. In the light of Theosophy, not only does the whole world become tremendously deep to us, but also the great poetry of humanity. There one can truly seek out and recognize the divine.

It was a characteristic of the Lemurian Age that the upper layers of the earth were only sporadically developed at that time, so to speak only as islands, so that much of the fiery layer penetrated to the outside. The fire layer is the foundation of the other layers. The will of the Lemurian people, which was still very strong at that time, was still able to magically influence this fire layer. The surging movements of the earth were still connected with the will of man. This is why the Lemurian continent was destroyed by the fire layer. People had sunk too low, especially in Late Lemuria. Fearful aberrations had spread. And so these destructive impulses of will affected the fire layer: Lemuria, like Sodom and Gomorrah, perished in a fire catastrophe, combined with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. The will has an effect on the fire layer. Thus there is a connection between the inner being of man and the inner being of the earth. The layer of Cain, the layer of the earth shattering, will be transformed through a continuous moral development of man. Whatever man does on earth gradually transforms the entire planet. And when white magic has progressed to a high degree, the core of the earth will change as well. The black magicians will be ejected onto a moon when our planet perishes.

When very definite evil volitions combine today, they affect the layer of fire, and it may be that the shock from the layer of fire is transmitted to the layer of water and through the other layers to the uppermost one. This causes earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, seaquakes and so forth. When humanity ensures that things improve morally on earth, things will slowly improve in relation to natural disasters. The progress of the planet earth is connected with the progress of humanity; what the earth's interior shows us is just one example of this. The relationship between the karma of the individual and the karma of the whole has been studied, and research has been conducted into how their future destiny might unfold. It has been found that such people [who die in an earthquake] usually appear in their next incarnation as particularly spiritual personalities, or at least bring with them a predisposition for spiritual life. They have experienced the vanity of material things forcefully and quickly; it was the last jolt they needed to turn to the spirit. Similarly, the fiery death of the martyrs results in particular idealism in the next incarnation. The connections between births and earthquakes are also interesting. In most cases, people born immediately after an earthquake occur, prove to be particularly materialistic people. The force by which man descends again from Devachan has something to do with the fire layer. Man sets the fire layer in motion in that his will, which leads him to embodiment, is particularly sensual at his birth. In the beginning of its development, the Earth was a being capable of transformation, and accordingly, it is humanity. Man has bound the Earth's fate to his own. You can imagine how, in view of this, the occultist's sense of responsibility grows in relation to the spiritual currents that are brought into humanity. The Theosophical movement is connected with a definite goal of the evolution of the Earth. It has to bring about the general fraternization of men. Its goal should therefore be to improve the Earth fragmenter, the eighth layer; it strives to save what can be saved from the center of the Earth. Here, constant dripping hollows out the stone. Even the smallest effect is not lost. The person who strives to transform his soul so that the power that comes from occultism becomes effective, is working on this work and will then also take everyday life quite differently. The true study of occultism consists in the fact that the spiritual student penetrates into ordinary, natural life. Occultism can bear fruit in all areas and have a beneficial effect. Every soul must and will eventually attain the truth. And so occultism relies on the response it will receive in the souls.

Performance of the Secession Stage, Berlin

Wilhelm von Scholz dedicated himself to a muse similar to Maeterlinck's. There was beauty in the images that mysteriously allowed the first performance of the Secession Stage to pass us by. A poet had his say, who wants to say a lot of meaningful things, but whose wealth of feeling is not yet sufficient for his intentions. But it is uplifting to hear so much and such earnest desire. There should be no dispute that the attempt to bring this saga to the stage was justified. Martin Zickel and Paul Martin, who founded and direct the Secession Stage, deserve thanks for this attempt. In the prologue to his "Besiegten", Wilhelm von Scholz beautifully expresses what has become a dramatic problem:

"For all days serve the evening,
The sinking evening,
The rising evening,
Which with deep shadowing wing beat
Takes away what grieves the earth,
That builds the starry frames
And calls the springs to murmur,
To whom the day ascends
'Like a shining temple staircase,
That leads to the murmuring marble dawn,
Leading over in a white train
The priest to touch the harp..."

The poet seeks to dramatize transience, which is deeply related to the eternal source of all being. Becoming, which hovers in fluctuating appearance, has become a problem for him. The main character of his dramatic tale is both a knight and a monk. He reaches deep into life, for he unleashes life's deepest power, love, wherever he goes. But with the blossoming of life, he also brings death. The plot is simple. The "Knight of the Star", who is "both a monk and a singer - and pale as death", lures "all women to their doom". "He loves them, and they become quiet and rich until they die from his gaze". "He kills them sometimes in a night, in an hour that they laugh sweetly through." This is also what happens in the process on which the little drama is based. If this is not fully comprehensible from the stage, it is not because of the thoroughly genuine, true basic idea. It is one of the elements of our spiritual life that appear countless times in every human being who is capable of introspection and who knows how to observe nature in its eternal urge for value; how it repeatedly spreads death over life and conjures life out of death, how it transforms the present into memory and allows greatness to endure in the monument alone. If the poet, in addition to his ability to perceive the simply great, also had the other ability to depict it in equally simple greatness, then there could be no complaint about the incomprehensibility of his creation. If this were the case, then we would have before us in vivid figures what resonates in us as an uplifting mood when the knight-turned-monk stands by the corpse of those he has killed and extinguishes the candles that symbolically represent the circle of becoming: forgotten childhood happiness, young love, mature love, the joyful fulfillment of duty, truth, beauty, faith. But then the poet would not have needed to have his dramatic poem introduced by the personified legend with the words:

"Do not seek the word that can solve everything,
What this hour of heavy twilight dream
Will bring you. A shy spell
Stir, when a day sprays in fragrance and foam
Often wafting your soul,
Until you are alone, you in empty space! No word tells you what you feel -
It becomes clouds until it fades away cloudy."

This is the true poet's power over the word, that he knows how to shape it, so that it does not turn into clouds and fade away cloudy and shapeless, but presents to us as a form, full of content and definite, what we feel. We can learn from the poet who promises that in his work "death and life ... ... join hands", that he does not point us up to the clouds and lull our imagination with their ever-changing indeterminacies; we want to see the greatest in full wakefulness, not in a dream. It remains an incontrovertible truth that it is the poet's task to fix in permanent forms what hovers in fluctuating appearances. And we cannot forgive the dramatist if he wants to treat us like Hamlet treats Polonius. Purely atmospheric drama must contain the kind of greatness that wafts over us from Maeterlinck's creations if we are to overlook the lack of design. For Maeterlinck, who sees so much in the everyday events that pass us by, the blurred, ambiguous atmospheric tones are much better suited than the definite, closed unambiguousness of the view. Wilhelm von Scholz, however, does not have the quiet weaving of eternal elemental forces in the smallest things in mind; rather, he is faced with an eternal mystery of the world in its abstract linearity; and for this he searches for expression, for embodiment. But he cannot find it. Maeterlinck seeks the eternal in the small processes in which it undoubtedly lives, because it is all-pervading, but where it has no formative effect. Scholz simply lags behind the creative imagination with his feeling.

Why the directors of the Secession stage brought us Frank Wedekind's "Kammersänger" is beyond me. The great Wagnerian tenor Girardo, who is idolized by immature girls and mature women, and the plot of the extremely lively drama with the background of a cynical view of life are excellently suited for an evening performance on one of our usual stages. Nothing stands in the way of such a performance. The theater audience would enjoy the caricatures, and the critics would praise it, as they have done so very well. You have quite rightly sensed that Wedekind can do what he wants; Scholz can't do what he wants. Well, there are other "drama poets" who can also do what they want: Blumenthal, Schönthan and so on. And we can name a few who couldn't always do what they wanted, if of course we don't want to associate Scholz with them somehow: Hebbel, Kleist and - Goethe and Schiller.

The same. Johannes alone in meditation.

Johannes:
‘This is the hour in which he dedicates
Himself to serve the ancient holy laws
Of sacred wisdom;—in a dream perchance
I may in spirit linger at his side.’
Thus near the temple spake in ancient times
The woman whom my spirit-vision sees;
By thoughts of her I feel my strength increased.
What is this picture's purpose? Why doth it
Hold my attention spellbound? Certainly
No sympathy.from out the picture's self
Accounts for this, for, should I see the scene
In earthly life, I should consider it
Of no importance. What saith it to me?

(As if from afar the voice of ‘the Other Philia.’)

The Other Philia:
The magical web
That forms thine own self.

Johannes:
And clairvoyant dreams
Make clear unto souls
The magical web
That forms their own self.

(While Johannes is speaking these lines ‘the Other Philia’ approaches him.)

Who art thou, magic spirit-counsellor?
True counsel didst thou bring unto my soul
But didst deceive me over thine own self.

The Other Philia:
Johannes, thine own being's double form
From thyself didst thou fashion. As a shade
Must I roam round thee for so long a time
As thou thyself shalt not set free the shade
Whom thine offence doth grant a life bewitched.

Johannes:
This is the third time that thou speakest thus;
I will obey thee. Point me out the way!

The Other Philia:
Johannes, whilst thou liv'st in spirit-light,
Seek what is treasured up within thy Self.
From its own light it will shed light on thee.
Thus canst thou learn by looking in thyself
How to wipe out thy fault in later lives.

Johannes:
How shall I, while I live in spirit-light,
Seek what is treasured up within my Self?

The Other Philia:
Give me that which thou thinkest that thou art;
Lose thou thyself in me a little while,
Yet so that thou dost not another seem.

Johannes:
How can I give myself to thee before
I have beheld thee as thou really art?

The Other Philia:
I am within thee, member of thy soul;
The force of love within thee is myself;
The heart's hope, as it stirs within thy breast,
The fruits of long-past lives upon this earth
Laid up for thee and hid within thyself,
Behold them now through me;—feel what I am,
And through my power in thee behold thyself.
Search out the pictured being, which thy sight,
Without thy sympathy, did form for thee.

(Exit.)

Johannes:
O spirit-counsellor, I can indeed
Feel thee in me, yet I see thee no more.
Where livest thou for me?

(As if from afar the call of the Other Philia.)

The Other Philia:
The magical web
That forms thine own self.

Johannes:
‘The magical web
That forms their own self.’
O magical web, that forms mine own self,
Show me the pictured being which my sight
Without my sympathy did form for me.

Whereto doth this word's power conduct me now?
A spirit-star on yonder shore of souls—
It shines; it draweth nigh—as spirit-form,
Grows brighter as it nears;—now forms appear;—
They act as beings act who are alive;—
A youthful mystic—and a sacred flame,
The stern call of the highest hierophant
To tell the vision seen within the flame.

That woman doth the youthful mystic seek,
Whom my sight saw without my sympathy.

(Maria appears as a thought form of Johannes.)

Maria:
Who thought of thee before the sacred flame?
Who felt thee near initiation's shrine?

Johannes, wouldst thou tear thy spirit-shade
From out the magic kingdoms of the soul;
Live then the aims that it will show to thee;
The path on which thou seek'st will guide thy steps,
But thou must first discover it aright.
The woman near the temple shows it thee
If she lives powerfully within thy thought.
Spellbound amongst shade-spirits doth she strive
To draw nigh to that other shade who now
Through thee loth evil service to grim shades.

(The Spirit of Johannes' Youth appears.)

The Spirit of Johannes' Youth:
I will be grateful to thee evermore
If thou in love wilt cultivate the powers
Laid up for me within the womb of time
By that young mystic in that bygone age
Whom once thy soul sought at the temple gate.
But thou must first this spirit truly see
At whose side I have now appeared to thee.

Maria:
Maria, as thou wouldst behold her, lives
In other worlds than those where truth abides.
My holy earnest vow loth ray out strength
Which shall preserve for thee what thou hast gained.
In these clear fields of light me shalt thou find
Where radiant beauty life-power doth create;
Seek me in cosmic fundaments, where souls
Fight to recover their divine estate
Through love, which in the whole beholds the self.

(While Maria is speaking the last lines, Lucifer appears.)

Lucifer:
So work, compelling powers;
Act therefore, powers of might,
Ye elemental sprites,
Feel now your master's power,
And smooth for me the way
That leads from realms of Earth
That so there may draw near
To Lucifer's domain
Whate'er my wish desires,
Whate'er obeys my will.

(Enter Benedictus.)

Benedictus:
Maria's holy earnest vow doth pour
Now through his soul salvation's healing ray.
He will admire thee, but he will not fall.

Lucifer:
I mean to fight.

Benedictus:
And, fighting serve the gods.

Curtain

[ 1 ] Today I will take the opportunity of giving some further thoughts in line with my article ‘At the Dawn of the Michael Age’.

The Michael Age has taken its rise in the evolution of mankind at a time that follows on the one hand the predominance of the intellectual ‘forming of thoughts,’ and on the other hand the turning of human perception and vision to the outer world of the senses, to the physical world.

[ 2 ] Thought-forming is in its nature not essentially an evolution in the direction of materialism. That which in bygone times came to the human being as something inspired into him, namely, the world of ideas, became, in the time that preceded the Michael epoch, the property of the human soul. The soul no longer receives the ideas ‘from above’ out of the spiritual content of the Cosmos: it draws them itself actively forth out of the human being's own spiritual nature. Man has thereby become ripe for reflection upon his own spiritual being. Hitherto he did not penetrate to these depths of his own nature. He saw in himself as it were a drop out of the sea of cosmic spirituality, a drop that has separated itself off for the time of this earthly life, only to unite itself again when the earthly life is over.

[ 3 ] The thought-forming that goes on in the human being marks an advance in human self-knowledge. Viewed from the supersensible, it appears thus. The spiritual Powers that we may designate with the Michael-name held rule over the ideas in the spiritual Cosmos. The human being experienced these ideas by partaking with his soul in the life of the Michael-world. This experience has now become his own, and a temporary separation of the human being from the Michael-world has therewith come about. With the inspired thoughts of earlier times man received at the same time the content of the spiritual world. Since this inspiration has ceased and man now forms his thoughts from his own activity, he is referred to the perception of the senses to find a content for these thoughts. Thus was man obliged to fill with material content the spirituality that he had won. He fell into the materialistic outlook in the very epoch of time that brought his own spiritual being a stage higher in development.

[ 4 ] This is easily liable to misunderstanding. We may observe only the ‘fall’ into materialism and lament over it. Whilst, however, the perception and vision of this age had to be limited to the external physical world, there was unfolding within the soul, as actual experience, a purified and self-subsisting spiritually of the human being. And now in the Michael Age this spirituality must no longer remain as unconscious experience, it must become conscious of its own proper nature. This signifies the entry of the Michael Being into the human soul. For a certain length of time man has filled his own spirit with the material side of Nature; he is to fill it again with cosmic content consisting of a spirituality that is his very own.

[ 5 ] Thought-forming was lost for a time in the Matter of the Cosmos; it must be found again in the cosmic Spirit. Into the cold, abstract world of thought can enter warmth, can enter a spirit-reality that is filled with being. That represents the dawn of the Michael Age.

[ 6 ] The consciousness of freedom could develop only in the depths of the human soul through this separation from the thought-being of the world. What came from the heights had to be found again in the depths. For this reason the development of the consciousness of freedom was connected first of all with a knowledge of Nature that was directed only to the external. While man was unconsciously developing his mind in the formation of clear ideas, his senses were directed outward solely to what is material, but this did not in any way disturb the tender seed that was beginning to germinate in the soul.

[ 7 ] But the experience of the Spiritual, and together with it the vision of the Spiritual, can re-enter the vision of the outward material world in a new way. The knowledge of Nature acquired during the age of materialism can be comprehended in the soul's inner life in a spiritual way. Michael, who has spoken ‘from above,’ can be heard ‘from within,’ where he will begin to dwell. Speaking more imaginatively this may be expressed as follows: The Sun-nature which for long periods man received only from the Cosmos, will begin to shine within his soul. He will learn to speak of an ‘inner Sun.’ This will not prevent him from knowing himself to be an earthly being during his life between birth and death; but he will recognise that this his earthly being is led by the Sun. He will learn to feel as a truth, that a being places him, in his inner nature, into a light which shines indeed upon earthly existence but which is not enkindled within it. In the dawn of the Michael Age it may still seem as if all this were very far remote from humanity; but ‘in the spirit’ it is near; it only needs to be ‘seen.’ A very great deal depends upon this fact, that the ideas of man do not merely remain ‘thinking,’ but in thought develop sight.

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society

[ 8 ] 85. It is in the waking day-consciousness that man experiences himself to begin with, during the present cosmic age. This experience conceals from him the fact that in this waking state the Third Hierarchy is present in his experience.

[ 9 ] 86. In the dream-consciousness man experiences, in a chaotic way, his own being unharmoniously united with the Spirit-being of the world. When the Imaginative Consciousness is realised as the other pole of the dream-consciousness, man becomes aware that the Second Hierarchy is present in his experience.

[ 10 ] 87. In dreamless sleep-consciousness man experiences, all unconsciously, his own being united with the Spirit-being of the World. When the Inspired Consciousness is realised as the other pole of the sleep-consciousness, man becomes aware that the First Hierarchy is present in his experience.

Every religion must deal with the question of the origin of evil. Where does evil, imperfection come from? This is a question that the teachers of all major religions have repeatedly dealt with and answered. It must be asked because one imagines that the divine origin must be the perfect one. If the world emerges from the divine, the question naturally arises: how can something good give rise to something evil? Why does the perfect allow something imperfect?

One must grasp the essence of evil in the right way and then pour out the necessity. A picture: piano workshops, in which there is a perfect piano maker who not only has the highest technical skill but also works with love in making the pianos. We will not find anything imperfect within the workshop. When we bring a piano to the concert hall and a virtuoso sits down at it, something perfect will come again. Each in his own place performs perfectly. But if, let us say, the piano-maker were too enthusiastic and hammered away while the virtuoso was playing, this activity, performed in the wrong place, would produce something imperfect. We shall find that this image can be applied everywhere if we go a little deeper.

Let us imagine the task on the moon as similar to, but different from, earthly development. The faculty of imagination was not present, nor were any of the mental faculties that develop in human beings. Dream consciousness was present, but its task was to build the animal organs of man. The animal body was formed and developed into semen. But they were predisposed on the moon and developed as they must be if they are not the bearers of a spinal cord and a brain. Therein lay the difference in the formation of the organs. A bone structure can be different if it does not need to taper to a spinal cord and skull capsule. In order for all this to be developed in seven rounds, each with seven globes, the dream consciousness had to be the regulator of all animal organs. If it was to fulfill its task completely, it had to take special care to carry out the formation that lay below the sphere of brain formation. Great wisdom was needed, but no bright consciousness, generic wisdom. This tremendous wisdom had to take great care with the plastic formation of each organ. Everything that had been achieved at that time had been achieved and also overcome. But how differently was the Pitris formed?

Let us imagine a retarded Pitri now transferred to the earthly career. He has the tendency to catch up on what was neglected at that time and would take great care to apply everything to the satisfaction of lower organs. Such Pitri natures are partly in the human organism, partly as seducers in the astral, they want to hold back the human organs. They have not found the right connection, they cannot slip into the earthly shell and buzz around people, seducing them, wanting to keep them in the lower service, which was higher service on the moon. This backward activity contradicts earthly activity; and evil has arisen from this perfection being placed in the wrong place.

The development proceeds in such a way that lessons must be learned, that one cannot be automatically pushed into the path; this can lead to peculiarity. Because world development proceeds in space and time, the displaced perfection gives rise to imperfection.

If we follow the great stream of the development of consciousness, it is clear and perfect; but now it must live out in space and time and is now intertwined in particularity, that is, different developmental currents push into each other and then stand next to each other at different levels of development; in this way, things interact that would be perfect in the right place, and yet, when they interact, they create an imperfection.

Therefore, no being in space and time can claim perfection, only the divine origin is perfect.

Christian esotericism calls this perfect origin of all beings the “Father”. “Call me not good, for no one is good except the Father.” Be perfect, as your Father is perfect, strive to seek your ideal in the Father, that is, in the spaceless and timeless.

But is it not contradictory to the concept of the Godhead to allow evil despite space and time? If we think that all other beings are there for our sake, that we have separated the realms from us, we will say: Actually, it only depends on the development of the human being, because they are there for our sake. We have to accept

Evil in the sense we know it only exists in earthly development. To what extent is it justified in the divine primordial law? Could the human world be without evil? The question arises as to how the guiding entity relates to the human being. It could give him the bound route for life, in which case the deity would be omnipotent but the creatures powerless. This is impossible if the deity wanted creatures that are its image. If the deity wanted to divest itself, it had to create mirror images, give the creatures the possibility to develop out of themselves. The freedom of their being / gap in the transcript] In the love of God lies the complete divestment of God.

First we have the guiding deity, then the mirror images and the life within them – sat; still in abundance, not yet divested; devotion – ananda – and merging with the creature – chit. This is the relationship of the divine essence to the creatures.

Without freedom, beings in God's image are not possible; but with freedom, the necessity arises that beings can also err.

In earthly development, beings are thus given one of the highest powers, that of love. A being that has a predetermined path could not do good out of itself, freely out of love. A free being does it out of love. Thus God created beings in self-sacrificing love and gave them the opportunity to return life in free love. That is why the cosmos of the earth, in contrast to all others, is called that of love. Acting out of love is its task.

A League of Nations has emerged from the world's war. At its constitutive meeting, it must reach conclusions without the participation of America, Germany and Russia. These conclusions should be decisive for the fate of the world.

Contrast with this how this fate has been shaped. America, Germany and Russia have the greatest part in this shaping. Russia and Germany are no longer what they were before the war. And one can imagine what would have become of the war if America had not intervened at the decisive moment.

The juxtaposition of these two facts throws the brightest light on the present world situation. For it shows the abyss between the possibilities of war and peace in the world.

Wilson's ideal was the League of Nations. It was on the basis of this ideal that he intervened decisively in the war. Because of this ideal, he was considered for years to be the prophet of a new era. He went to the peace negotiations in Europe with this ideal. He could not achieve what he strove for. He was disowned by his own people. He had to be, because his way of thinking proved to be hopeless. This way of thinking has become ineffective with its carrier.

Wilson's ideal was one that could be talked about as long as the war was waged by completely different interests than those embraced by this ideal; it is not one with which one can act for peace. And yet it was able to find the approval of many for years.

We should not obscure our clear view of such facts because they are uncomfortable. We should fully realize how we can become obsessed with an idea that is not rooted in reality. The forces that prevail in the souls of the people of different nations will decide the fate of the world. Wilson's idea was a dream about how these forces can operate in harmony. One should awaken from this dream. And one would see that its content is only a product of the mind, without any substance. Only then would one be able to see the full gravity of the present world situation.

But the realization of the seriousness of the situation is only the beginning of the recovery process. For he who sees it will see in Wilson's failure not the misfortune of a single man, but that of an entire school of thought. And one that has led to the misfortunes of the world.

Through his particular intelligence, Wilson has brought the way of thinking into particularly clear formulas, from which public life in the most recent times has been shaped. In his thinking, political and legal ideas were completely interspersed with economic guidelines. He knew nothing of how economics and politics must interfere with each other when a way of thinking encounters institutions in which the two are inseparably intertwined. In the same way, this man's way of thinking knew nothing of the relationship between the spiritual interests of humanity and those of the state. In his great work on the state, one can read: “Education in elementary school is necessary to maintain the conditions of political and social freedom that are required for free individual development, and secondly, this education is the most universal means of power and authority of the government.” This is the way of thinking in which political and legal conceptions fail to recognize the conditions for the independence of the human spirit. The sentence is so abstract and unrealistic that the reactionary, the liberal, and the communist can all support it with the same wording.

Wilson is typical of all those people in whose minds the three parts of the social organism play into each other in an unorganized way, and who in modern times have brought about all the institutions of the world, demonstrating in reality the impossibility of their interacting. These people will also have a certain objection when it comes to the necessity of shaping the spiritual, legal-political and economic elements according to their own living conditions. They say: in reality, the spiritual, the legal-political and the economic activities cannot be separated at all; therefore, it must be wrong to speak of an organization. But in this way, those who think like Wilson prove that they have an unrealistic way of thinking. The interaction of the three elements of the social organism will best take place when each can develop independently in its own special way. Unity will be most perfect when each individual can achieve this unity out of his own nature. It will be most imperfect when each individual is weakened by the imposition of the other's individuality.

It cannot be objected that Wilson was not a rigid advocate of the abstract unification of the spiritual, legal-political and economic links of the social organism. Certainly, his way of thinking tended, like that of many statesmen, towards compromise. And it can be said that he did, after all, also express the following: “A doctrine must be found that allows the individual wide scope for his own development...”, which “minimizes the contrast between the self-development of the individual and social development...” But just as it is true that Wilson had such thoughts when he looked at reality, it is also true that in his work as a statesman he was completely dominated by the unclear interweaving of intellectual life, economics, law and politics. And in his famous fourteen points, nothing but this came into its own.

Wilson is a type of the modern statesman. What others have done, he has only wanted to introduce into the life of the whole world in the most abstract, most theoretical way. Before the war, this way of thinking prevailed in the conduct of public affairs. The nations have emerged from the war in such a way that this way of thinking has shown itself to be powerless. Today, this fact needs to be recognized. Without this recognition, all “good will” will come to nothing. Wilson could work during the war; but his ideas were dashed to pieces in the work of peace. It is not enough that his thoughts no longer work through him; not only must others think in his place, but thought must come from a different spirit. He is more a victim of a current of the times than anything else. But humanity should not be the victim of this current for long. The only thing that will help against it is to see through its nature without reservation.